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The idea of getting old with someone was foreign to Jinx. Mostly due to the fact that, somewhere along the line, she had prepared herself to die young. It was always a possibility, back when she was still Silco’s guard dog and she got the occasional fight wounds. The other possible scenario was getting shot either by enforcers or a rival gang; either way, danger nipped at her toes wherever she went, so it was no doubt that she didn't think she'd get to have grey hairs.
Then Ekko turned her life upside down.
She's bouncing Livia on her hip, while Winona sleeps away in Ekko’s arms. It's well past sundown, but time doesn't move the same when you have twins.
The night is quiet. Outside, the insects sing their songs and the outside chatter dies down when everyone starts to file out and back into their houses. Jinx is standing around, trying to find Livia’s teddy bear so she can put her to sleep.
Sometimes she pauses and contemplates on the domesticity of it; the days where her days revolved around gunpowder and drugs are long gone, but she still flinches when doors are slammed and hurried footsteps echo behind her. She tells herself it will get better with time. Often, she turns around and looks at Ekko to drive the point home.
Safe. We're safe. And he's finally yours, she thinks, though that statement always rings hollow for some reason.
Once she finally finds the teddy bear, Livia clings onto the toy and starts drooling all over it. Ekko chuckles from the sofa, careful as to not wake up Winona.
“Sometimes I think she might love that thing more than us,” he muses quietly, fondness etched into every word. Jinx snickers, tiredly smiling at him.
“More than you, maybe. I'm still the milk lady for a couple more months,” she says, maneuvering Livia so that she's cradling her against her chest.
The teddy bear is, seemingly, the last thing Livia needed to go to sleep peacefully; her eyes start to flutter shut, making little sounds that tell them she’s trying to fight sleep. Jinx rubs her palm up and down her back.
She sits down next to him, tired and ready to sleep. They share a brief look and it occurs to her that they’ve aged so much in such a short time.
Jinx does not get jealous. Rather, she gets suspicious.
Really, there’s no reason why she should be jealous. She has the kids, the house, and the man; Ekko loves her with his whole being, as she loves him in return. He hasn’t given her any reason to believe he might be unfaithful.
The problem—if there is one—are the other women at the base. Jinx has never been under the impression that women don’t look at Ekko. It would be weird if they didn’t, but it’s more annoying when they do look at him, with their lust-filled eyes.
Unfortunately for her and her schemes, nobody has actually tried to take Ekko from her, so she bites back the bubbling anger and focuses on the various tasks entrusted to her.
It’s a given that Jinx is hardly suited for any of the non-combatant roles, such as kitchen duty, cleaning and teaching the younger kids. Nevertheless, when they’re running low on helping hands, she swings by to help where she can, as a way of saying sorry for terrorizing your loved ones for the past years.
The other women working by her side don’t regard her with a lot of words. Conversations come and go, but she’s hardly part of them. She’s pretty sure they end as soon as she approaches the hearing range. It doesn’t matter. She’s never been too much of a social butterfly, anyway.
It serves her to be a wallflower, in fact; she’s dropping off a box of freshly caught fish at the kitchens, kneeling next to the below ground freezer, when she hears a distant chatter.
Jinx wouldn’t have taken an interest in said chatter if she hadn’t listened to Ekko's name being spoken.
She stills, fingers frozen mid-air as she’s about to close the ground freezer. An airy voice is saying something along the lines of what a pity he knocked up some girl, what a good husband he would’ve been. I don’t think they’re going to last, y’know, maybe they will split once the kids are older. He does seem to be the type to stay together for the kids.
A part of her wants to spring out and cuss the pair of women to an inch of their life, until their faces are pale with horror and they’re kneeling down in front of her asking for forgiveness. But that would be Wrong. It would be Wrong and Vi would be disappointed in her, because she was doing an excellent job at Not Cussing out People and Managing Her Emotions.
It doesn’t feel as satisfactory to slam closed the freezer door, making them jump out of their skins before they whirl around to meet Jinx’s gaze. If anything, it’s at least amusing to hear their stammering while she quietly leaves the kitchen.
There’s a lot of swearing under her breath, lots of hollow promises about blowing their guts clean off if they so much as come close to Ekko.
When she stops by their home, Ekko is back from his mission, chatting idly with Vi in the kitchen while she holds both twins in her arms. Livia and Winona aren’t the only ones that perk up at the sound of her voice; Ekko turns to look at her, with a smile that could sweep anyone off their feet at first glance.
The word husband rattles in the back of her mind as she gives him a kiss.
Some days, when there aren’t important things to be done, Ekko likes to linger outside the workshop while Jinx is there with the twins.
These days she doesn’t actually invent anything. She supervises, fixes small things, and does vague blueprints for stuff that could be useful around here. In the past few days, she’s figured out a way to carry both twins with her while she does her stuff at the workshop. She’s crafted a sort of a stroller to put them in; she’s attached one of the baskets they use for transporting food over what remains of a four-wheeled trolley, with a handle for practicality. Winona and Livia squirm inside the basket, laying on top of what seems to be a pile of blankets and the cushions from their sofa.
He can see from where he’s standing the swirl of blue hair, wading through the workstations, explaining everything to their sleepy children as if they understand what she’s saying. At least, Livia looks at her with her eyes wide open, like she wants to absorb every bit of knowledge her mama is bestowing upon her, while Winona looks closer to falling asleep than being interested in learning how to weld.
“This is where mama fixes your daddy’s f– er, mess ups. Last week, his hoverboard ran out of battery and nearly plummeted him to… A very scary situation. But don’t worry! He’s fine, really. He’s like a cockroach, your dad,” she jokes, dismissing the comment with a wave of her hand. The twins seem greatly amused by her story-telling, squirming at the sound of her voice. “Anyways, next up we have this super cool weapon that your dad definitely should not know I’m showing you—”
He rolls his eyes when it becomes apparent that she’s taking the piss out of him. His suspicions are confirmed when she casts a brief glance over her shoulder, and their eyes meet for a split second.
A grin splits his face in half. Dork.
To be out and about, strolling the lanes together, is not a common occurrence. In fact, Ekko doesn’t think this has happened since they were kids.
Jinx is pressed against his side, with her hair covered by a hood. She’s holding a list of all the supplies they need, a miscellaneous checklist that comprises tools, food, furniture and anything that might be of interest to a baby.
“Are you sure we need that much steel?” Ekko questions, peeking at the list.
“Well, yes, if you want the southwest entrance to be cleared of dangers.”
“I thought the southwest entrance had collapsed?”
“No, baby, that’s the south east entrance. Same difference.”
“Ah.” Ekko takes note of her furrowed brow, the laser-like focus with which she drags him around, looking for what they need.
Over the course of the weeks, Jinx had settled quite nicely into the dynamics at the Firelights. She learned to pull her weight, even when it wasn’t necessary. Jinx insisted that she had to make amends for—well, everything, and although Ekko didn’t agree with her framing it as some sort of penance, he thought it was, at least, a good thing that she was spending time out of the house and with people.
She wades through the streets, poking her head in and out of stores, quickly surveying them to see if its worth their time. So far, they’re purchased two things: a pair of baby rattles (okay, maybe three things) and a new wrench for the workshop. Nothing yet on the steel front.
Jinx inspects the rattles, trying to decide if they’re worthy of their daughters. The things aren’t even matching colors; one is pink with yellow stars while the other one is purple with blue hearts.
“Do you think they can distinguish colors already?” She asks him, peeling her gaze off the toys. Ekko shrugs.
“I’m not sure. Are you worried they might prefer the other’s color?” Jinx nods gravely, more serious than ever. Ekko barely bites back a smile.
“Yes! I mean, what if I give the pink one to Winona and Livia decides pink is her favourite color? They’re already grabbing things, Ekko. What if those grabby paws end up discovering the marvels of tugging on your sister’s hair?”
“It’d be chaotic.”
“Mhm.”
“And we don’t need more chaos.”
“The projectile vomiting is enough, yep.”
Ekko and Jinx stare at each other, faces merely inches away. Amusement is twinkling in her eyes, a sort of complicity dancing in them. The corners of his mouth tug upwards in a smile.
Her breath is hitting him square in the face, and Ekko has half a mind to kiss her in front of everyone in the street, but abstains himself out of habit. Then he remembers he’s her boyfriend, no less, and actually gives her a soft peck that catches her by surprise.
Jinx giggles against the kiss, melting into it, and kisses him back, all softness and amusement.
A part of him thinks he could spend the rest of his life like this—running errands and discussing the pros and cons of buying different colored rattles for their children. Spend a lifetime with Jinx, perched on his side, talking about what to have for dinner instead of planning out exactly how to kill each other.
Yeah, he reckons he’d like that a lot.
To be fair, it’s been a long time since he’s seen Jinx naked for other than strictly medical purposes.
Her laughter echoes across the room, an amused chirp that Ekko’s sure he’s never heard before. It strikes him with odd clarity just how rare it is to hear her laugh sincerely. Her whole body shakes, doubling over with laughter over him, strands of hair tickling his face.
“Sorry, just—” she says through hiccups. “You look like you’ve never seen a woman naked, bug boy.” She tosses him a teasing look that she quickly swallows when he shifts under her, pressing his clothed bulge against her core.
“It’s been a while, yeah,” he easily admits, while his hands brush idly against the skin on her hips, hooking his finger around the band of her panties. “These have certainly grown since the last time I saw you naked,” he points out, lifting a hand to cup her breast. It’s swollen with milk, stray droplets leaking from her nipples.
Jinx’s cheeks turn rosy, and if she weren’t aroused—judging by the pebbled nipple—she would’ve swatted his hand away. They haven’t had sex since… Well, since they conceived the twins, pretty much. With all the mess that had happened afterwards, the slow regaining of trust, and the small matter of taking care of twin girls, sex was the last thing on their minds: the first one would be a full night of sleep, to begin with.
Tonight, though, the twins are safely tucked away in Vi’s place, which is just a few steps away from their home at the Firelight’s base. Vi had insisted on taking them, saying they were looking like walking corpses, and that they might benefit from a night to themselves. Ekko and Jinx had exchanged a look before accepting, wondering if they were thinking what the other was thinking.
Evidently, they did.
Ekko’s back is flat against the mattress while Jinx straddles him, wearing nothing but her grey, worn out panties—not exactly sexy, but she’s never needed the help of clothes to be edible for Ekko—; just moments before, when she took off his shirt, he had raked his eyes over her now fuller frame and realized, with a sort of desperate hunger, how pregnancy had changed her body into something unrecognizable since the last time they spent together.
Carrying twins made her body change in all usual ways—the fuller breasts, widened hips, the scars on her belly that had yet to disappear, etcetera; it just never occurred to him that he might want her even more after seeing the proof of the pregnancy in her body.
She was more beautiful than ever.
Jinx had this—air around her. Before, she had been a shadow of the little girl he once knew, pale as death and with walls the size of Piltover’s council tower to keep people out. Misery practically drenched off of her pores. Now, everything is different. She is different.
Though they were still finding their footing around this whole becoming parents thing, and there were as many bad days as there were good ones, she definitely doesn’t look as drained and skittish as before. He looks at her and she doesn’t cower again from his gaze, hiding her feelings behind layers of carefully crafted indifference.
And another thing that’s very clear, now that he’s seeing her naked, is that the pregnancy had triggered a sort of second puberty in Jinx. He’s definitely not complaining about it, just an observation made as he flicks his tongue over her pebbled nipple.
Her hips grind down against his erection, a soft whimper falling from her lips, and Ekko sighs, content.
“I missed you like this,” he says, too earnest for his own good. Jinx bends down to press a kiss on the edge of his lips, and he takes advantage of it to lightly slap her butt.
“Bet you did,” she teases, biting his lower lip before pressing her chest flush against his. “How did you manage to sleep on the same bed with me all this time, huh?”
Her blue eyes flicker up at him, gleaming with mischief and curiosity. Ekko doesn’t have the ability to lie when she looks at him like that.
“Lots of sneaking off in the night to jerk off,” he admits, not caring when her saccharine laugh echoes again at his expense.
“Such a gentleman, aren’t you?” She licks her lips, a hungry look overtaking her features. “Don’t be one tonight.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.
Despite her weight gain, Ekko has always been a strong man; flipping them over and inverting their roles is a rather easy task. She giggles, crying out something about unfairness, which makes his smile grow bigger as he pins her down on the mattress.
He takes his sweet time with her, not rushing at all. It’s not even that he’s teasing; Ekko just decides, as his tongue licks out long stripes over Jinx’s cunt, that he wants to relish in the moment and not hurry—it’s not like either of them will suddenly have to leave in a haste, tossing their clothes on all crookedly to hurry home before they’re caught together.
Jinx squirms under him, bracketing her thighs against his ears and arching her back off the mattress while Ekko eats her out. His tongue is exploring the many shapes it can trace over her clit and taking notes of each reaction, intent on driving her wild. His own erection can wait for the time being.
Her hands find his wrists where they’re holding her legs still. His gaze flickers up at her, looking at her through half-lidded eyes. She’s trying to say something, but keeps getting interrupted by Ekko’s tongue tracing a new shape against her sensitive nub.
A wet, gasping I love you is ripped out of Jinx after a moment, just as her legs tremble uncontrollably and Ekko’s chin is drenched in a white, sticky fluid. His chest swells with pride at the sight before him, and he kisses an I love you along the skin of her inner thigh.
When he comes up to kiss her, still drenched with her juices, she huffs out a laugh.
“Something the matter?” He asks, cocking a brow. A stray droplet of the white, vaginal fluid lands on her cheek and she giggles again.
“No, sorry, just—getting some flashbacks, y’know?” Jinx looks at him, amusement twinkling in her eyes, and runs a finger along the edge of his jaw. “ Just try to not knock me up again, if you can.”
Ekko throws his head back, a loud laugh echoing in the room. His heart flutters in his ribcage, suddenly flustered at her words. “Promise to try.”
And he does. It’s just that—well, once the tip of his cock is teasing at her entrance, and she clenches around nothing, it’s hard to keep his composure. Especially when he slowly thrusts into her, and the velvety heat he’s been dreaming of welcomes him back.
Really, it’s a marvel of restraint that he only pushes one leg up instead of the two, as he sets up a hungry pace that makes the sexiest moans fall from Jinx’s lips. It’s a miracle that his hips thrust with just enough strength to make the bed creak instead of full on slamming against the wall, and, obviously, it’s nothing short of a heroic act when he bends over to kiss Jinx, listening to her desperate pleas for release as he rubs at her sensitive nub, telling her to, “Come for me, baby. I’m so close, too, wanna feel you squeezing the life out of me again.”
Sure, it might be a little irresponsible to come inside her, keeping her still while he empties himself, but he’s pretty sure the women at the base have contraceptive herbs they can lend her, if anything.
Jinx latches onto him the second he lays down next to her, throwing a leg over his hip “for added closeness” in her words.
They stay like that for a long while. Only their sounds of their ragged breaths and the occasional bug can be heard in the room. Ekko’s never felt so at peace.
He decides, with sobering clarity, that there’s nothing—no one—he’d rather do for the rest of his life. Just him and Jinx, with their limbs tangled together, not knowing where one ends and the other starts, for the rest of their life.
It’s a stupid thing to realize, after two kids and a house together. He supposes that, since they’ve done everything backwards, entertaining the idea of a near future where he calls Jinx his wife instead of simply girlfriend is not that crazy.
“Have you ever thought about marriage?” Ekko asks one night, while they’re tangled together in bed. Jinx’s back is pressed against his chest, hands laced over the covers.
The question shouldn’t make her heart hammer in her ears, but it does.
Jinx can’t say that she thought about it at length, or that she dreamed of a house and a husband since she was a kid, like many piltie girls who get to care about that sort of stuff. But lately, as she’s settled into this new life, she can’t say she’s not day-dreamed about a world where she refers to Ekko as my husband.
My husband took the twins out for a walk, my husband is out on a mission, my husband, my husband, my husband.
It rolls off her tongue like honey, and she doesn’t know how much longer she can’t pretend she doesn’t want to say it out loud, with people around to hear her say it.
After a long second, she cranes her neck to shoot him a curious look. “Maybe,” she reluctantly admits. “But—aren’t we a little young for that?” Which is a bullshit answer, but she doesn’t know yet if her answer is the one Ekko wants.
He fixes her with an unimpressed look.
“Jinx, we have twin daughters,” Ekko says, cocking a brow.
As if to make a point, one of the twins makes a cooing sound.
Jinx huffs, but refuses to acknowledge that he does have a strong point.
“Well, I mean, yeah, but zaunites don’t get married,” she argues, and it’s not entirely false. The only way to be legally married is to pay a substantial fee at a civil register in Piltover; most, if not all, of the married couples in Zaun are not, exactly, married.
“I’m not asking you about that,” he says, softly squeezing her hip. “I’m asking if you, Jinx, have ever thought about having a husband—the zaunite way, the legal way, any way.” His voice is but a whisper, but it hits her right in the chest.
With the tenderness he speaks with, there’s no way that Jinx’s fears—the usual suspects, the nightmares where Ekko leaves her stranded and she’s all alone again—become true if she admits it.
But she’s not known for giving in easily.
“You’re so insistent tonight, gosh.” Jinx shakes his hand off, shuffling in bed until she’s properly staring at him. She bites her lower lip, body trembling as she tries to punch out the words. “What if I have? Have you thought about marriage?”
“Yes,” he breathes out, like it’s something easy to confess. “I’ve been thinking—it’s silly, really, but we’ve never really talked about it—but I’ve been thinking I would like to spend the rest of my life with you. I mean, we kind of already have to bear with each other, you know, for the twins. But…” His hand comes up to softly caress her cheek. Jinx is holding her breath, heart going a mile per hour, pinned in place by the intensity of his gaze. “I’d like to make it official official, to get to call you my wife and to be your husband.”
“Ekko,” she says, voice wobbly. “You’re not proposing to me while we’re in bed in our pajamas.”
His laughter echoes in the room, sweet and earnest and baffled and a myriad of adjectives more at once. He apologizes with a kiss, and Jinx thinks that they might just have turned twenty and twenty-one, and some might say they have a whole life ahead of them, and when have children ever been a guarantee that they’ll stay together, anyway? But the only thing she’s ever been certain of is that there’s no safer place on earth than between Ekko’s arms, so maybe she can forgive him for dropping this bomb just about as they’re going to sleep and kiss him like she wants to spend the rest of her life with him.
A zaunite wedding is, generally, a frugal affair.
They break the news to their loved ones a day after Ekko’s impromptu proposal during bedtime, and in just two weeks they get their affairs in order to celebrate a small ceremony and party.
Marriage ceremonies aren’t grand or glittery like in Piltover; there’s not an officiant, or papers to sign to make the thing legal and thus protected by law should something happen to one of them. Instead, they arrange their guests—which consists of almost everyone at the base, honestly—in a circle, with Jinx and Ekko in the middle.
Their clothes are nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps the only remarkable thing is that Jinx let her hair down for the occasion. They’re sitting in front of each other, with twin anxious looks on their faces.
Normally, when people get married, they gather their closest friends and family and declare each other as spouses, then they wait for word to spread around the city.
“I, Ekko, recognize Jinx as my official spouse in front of all these people. Should I be unfaithful to her, break a promise, or let our children down, may I receive a zaunite punishment befitting of my betrayal,” he recites, with his hands trembling in his lap.
Jinx’s eyes are shining, a smile splitting her face in half. She’s just in her normal clothes, but to Ekko, she looks more beautiful than ever. She looks like his wife.
There’s a round of cheers and applause, congratulatory words being yelled from the back of the base. But he can only hear and focus on Jinx, as she declares him her husband in front of everyone.
“I, Jinx, recognize Ekko as my official spouse in front of all these people. Should I be unfaithful to him, break a promise, or let our children down, may I receive a zaunite punishment befitting of my betrayal,” she says, with her chest puffed out and grand hand gestures.
The crowd also erupts in cheer for her, and as soon as she finishes speaking, Ekko leaps out of his seat. In one stride, he’s standing over Jinx, holding her face in his hands, and kissing her, kissing her, kissing her until their lungs burn.
Jinx laughs, sweet and saccharine and in love and it’s everything he’s ever wanted.
She glues herself to Ekko’s side during the small party they put together with the help of their friends, whispering sweet nothings into his ear as they dance and eat together.
There’s snacks being passed around, cups full of alcohol sloshing around, music playing in the background from an old music box, like the one Vander had at the bar, that Jinx restored after frantically looking for one all over the undercity.
The twins are being passed around, slipping from arm to arm and being looked after by the rest of the Firelights. Aya was adamant that they ought to enjoy the night without being drooled or vomited on, and they only agreed when Vi promised, and then double promised, to keep a close eye on the kids.
Nonetheless, neither Jinx nor Ekko can keep themselves from following the twins with their gazes, standing at a prudent distance.
“Kinda crazy that you can already see their personalities shine through,” Ekko comments, while Jinx’s cheek is squished against his chest.
“Livia definitely takes after his daddy,” Jinx says, watching as the baby holds out her arms to be held by someone else. Winona, on the other hand, has been clinging onto her auntie Vi for the past hour, refusing to be carried by anyone else.
Ekko chuckles, holding himself back from springing into action when Winona’s brief cry reaches their ears. Aya is trying to take her from Vi; the baby pauses, gives Aya a long look, and reluctantly allows the firelight to carry her.
They exchange a look as they watch Vi and Aya stumble over their words, awkwardly shuffling closer under the pretense of cooing at Winona.
“Should we do something about them?” Jinx wonders, thinking back to her many conversations with her sister, about letting herself be young and vulnerable—but that line of thought is abruptly cut when Ekko spins her around in his arms, making her yelp.
“We just got married, Jinx,” he says, as if that answers anything (it kind of does). Ekko puts her down, nuzzling his nose against her neck. “The only thing I wanna do is you, but we gotta be here for another hour, so…”
“We could leave, you know,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck, bringing him closer. Her skin still prickles with anxiety, thinking someone will object to their union any moment now, but she pushes that thought down.
Ekko smiles against her cheek, planting a kiss there.
“Later, we haven’t danced together yet,” he says, peeling himself off of her and guiding her to a spot with less people around.
“I think we’ve danced enough for a lifetime,” she says, not really referring to this kind of dance. Ekko gives her a look, something wistful, sad and regretful, but it vanishes as soon as it crosses his eyes.
“C’mon, we don’t know the steps to this one yet,” he replies, pulling her closer and doing a poor job at dancing to the music, but Jinx is laughing, head thrown back with the corners of her eyes crinkling, pressed flush against him, mouth close to his, and for a fleeting moment she sees a glimpse into their future, with white heads and age lines, laughing together while the children bicker in the background.
The great thing about having twin girls who just turned five—that age when kids are parrots and Must Know the why to everything—when you’re an inventor, is that you’re never running out of things to explain.
“... And right here is where mama is working on a new ventilation system to help clear out Zaun’s air from the sticky, smelly stuff that makes Livvie’s cough worsen,” she dutifully explains, lifting each twin in turns so that they can see the gigantic vent she’s working on. Their little gasps can be heard all across the room, immediately asking more questions.
Jinx smiles, walking around the vent and explaining everything to the best of her capacity. Her short hair bounces with every step she takes, and Ekko makes a mental note to offer her a hair tie before it gets tangled in something.
He watches the scene from a distance. The twins had vehemently insisted that morning that they wanted to visit mama’s lab. Not that they’ve never been before, but it had been a while since they came by, and that was just too much of a crime. Jinx had smiled, propping up one twin in each arm as well as she could—they were getting so big, it would be impossible to hold them like this soon—, and declared that they, along with their daddy, for added safety, would be coming with her to work that day.
The cramped up laboratory is Sevika’s doing; after lengthy back-and-forths with Caitlyn in representation of the council, they finally agreed to lend them equipment to build the lab where The Last Drop once stood. That was three years ago, and only last year did she manage to convince Jinx to join her carefully curated team of experts.
It had taken a lot of tracking down and convincing for her to leave her duties at the base and settle into this new job at, possibly, the best equipped lab and workshop the undercity had ever seen. Sevika and Jinx hadn’t spoken in years at that point, the trust between them irrevocably fractured, but this wasn’t about a personal dispute between them—it was about Zaun’s growth and a steady path towards independence.
Jinx had made it clear that she’d blow everyone’s tits clean off should Sevika or her associates harm her family in any way. Sevika knew her threat was a promise.
The lab is unlike anything either has ever seen. Sure, it’s inevitably built from the scraps and crumbs Piltover has left behind, with some out-dated equipment to rub salt on the wound, but when has that deterred zaunites? Scraps and crumbs are more than enough to survive and thrive.
It had taken Jinx a mere month to figure out, alongside Ekko, a way to upcycle some of the oldest machines into something functional for their purposes.
“You know, you should consider working here, too,” Sevika had said once, when she swung by the lab to check productivity.
“I have my priorities elsewhere,” Ekko had replied, stiff.
Although Sevika had proved to be the leader the undercity needed, old resentments still marred his view of her. Besides, the Firelights may not have a lab like this, but they weren’t to be underestimated when it came to inventions.
(Ekko has a dream—something as far away as it is near, depending on the day—in which he manages to put together a small team at the base, specialized in inventing at a larger scale. They’d help directly with Zaun’s needs through their machines and the like. Maybe one day.)
There’s people coming and going, wearing lab coats that are in different states; some are burnt at the edges, splattered with colorful paint, with upside down midnight scribbles all over them, and in Jinx’s case, with a few holes chewed by the street rat—otherwise known as Bug the dog—her daughters insisted on keeping.
The twins are listening with rapt attention, trying to run their sticky fingers all over their mama’s work tools, but Jinx swiftly knocks their hands off before they hurt themselves.
“Mama, my drawing!” Winona bellows out when she notices the sheet of paper carefully pinned on Jinx’s board.
“Hm? Oh, yes, darling. Your drawing was so pretty, mama put it right here so everyone could see,” she says, picking her up so she can look at it better. Her attention quickly returns to Livia, before that jutted lip can give way to a full on wail. “And Livvie, look, mama put your beautiful sculpture right on her desk! Doesn’t she look pretty there?” Jinx places a steering hand on the back of her daughter, pointing at her cramped desk, and smiles fondly when Livia starts bouncing up and down with joy.
The “sculpture” Jinx is pointing at is an artistic rendition of mama (as Livia put it); she made it out of old wires and paint they had laying around. In all honesty, it’s rather good. She got the general human shape down, which is impressive for a five year old.
Ekko approaches his girls with slow steps, taking in the picture. It seems like yesterday when Jinx was bringing them along to the tiny Firelights’ workshop, in a stroller she made out of scrap parts, telling them about all the things she was working on like they could understand her.
Five years have gone by in the blink of an eye, and he’d do it all over again if the outcome is this; Winona and Livia screeching daddy! at the top of their lungs while Jinx looks at him, nothing but love in her eyes, and kisses him in front of everyone.
Forever with her is just starting.