Chapter Text
The morning after the breakup, Caitlyn sat in her favorite cafe, drinking an iced oatmilk latte and wondering why she didn’t feel… anything.
Not sad, or even a little relieved, just… empty.
Her now-ex, Maddie, had been perfect in the way Caitlyn’s parents appreciated: well-spoken, polite, a junior partner in corporate litigation. They’d even talked about the future. Houses, vacations, marriage, the expected arc of a respectable life: but the conversations had never stirred anything in Caitlyn except a dutiful nod.
In the end, they’d both admitted it: they wanted different things. And whatever spark they were supposed to have? They didn’t.
She stared at a text message from her parents:
So sorry to hear about Maddie. Dinner Sunday to discuss? We love you, darling.
Caitlyn typed a reply, deleted it, typed another, deleted that too, then finally put her phone face down.
She didn’t want to discuss anything. She wanted a case that wasn’t about some boring, way overfunded AI startup trying to patent a “novel” fitness watch.
She wanted… purpose. Something that mattered.
Just as she let out an entirely too dramatic sigh into her latte, someone cleared their throat behind her.
“Save the existential crisis for after business hours,” Mel said smoothly, sliding into the chair across from her without waiting for permission. “Come on. You’re too young and too pretty to look this… disillusioned before 9 a.m.”
Caitlyn straightened on instinct. “Mel. I didn’t realize we had a meeting.” She flicked her eyes to her watch, just in case she’d somehow missed a calendar alert.
“We don’t,” Mel said cheerfully. “But Sevika told me about a potential client. Young Zaunite inventor. Brilliant. Completely unhinged. Very anti-authority. Very… avant-garde.”
Caitlyn blinked. “Avant-garde?”
“Oh, yes.” Mel sipped Caitlyn’s latte without asking. “And you’re going to take her case. You’ve been stuck doing investor-friendly patent filings for two years. You need something real. Something mission-driven.”
Caitlyn opened her mouth to argue. She couldn’t.
Mel leaned in, voice dropping into a persuasive register that had probably closed half the firm’s biggest clients.
“And Sevika says this girl, Jinx, is her name, lost people because of infrastructure failures in the Trench. Collapsed walkways, pressure bursts, structural rot. And she’s building something to stop it from happening again. Something with actual impact. She’s building something to save others.”
Caitlyn’s pulse did a strange little skip.
Saving lives. Actual impact.
Not another smartwatch clone. Something that could reshape public-interest tech from the ground up.
Mel watched the shift in her expression and smiled like she’d been waiting for it. “Come on,” she said, standing and gathering her bag. “Let’s get back to the office. You’ve got an eleven o’clock with your new client.”
Caitlyn hesitated for only a second before she followed.
The sensor chirped. A fussy little calibration one.
Jinx huffed out a breath and flicked her wrench. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Hold still.”
The device — a palm-sized kinetic stress sensor — sat in her gloved hand, glowing a faint electric blue as its mesh mapped the invisible skeleton of the tenement wall. Thin cracks. Pressure pockets. Areas that would buckle if someone sneezed too hard.
Zaun’s charming architecture.
She adjusted the microcoil, tightened a bolt no bigger than a crumb, and slapped the sensor back against the cracked support beam. The mesh bloomed outward, scanning, humming, thinking. The numbers steadied.
Her gaze drifted to the workbench: specifically, to the photo that inspired her and drove her half-mad on the bad days.
Isha.
Her grin in the picture was huge. Lopsided.
“Still working on it,” she murmured.
Because this wasn’t just a project: it was a promise. Never again.
A heavy step sounded behind her— Sevika’s gait.
“Thought I’d find you down here,” Sevika said, leaning an elbow on the doorway like she owned the building. Which, in several unofficial ways, she did.
“You’ve got a meeting in Piltover today.”
That made Jinx look up. Slowly, suspiciously.
“To… why?” Jinx asked, squinting like Sevika had just spoken in an extinct language. “Did someone wildly misunderstand what I do?”
“It’s not optional,” Sevika said, pushing off the doorway. “Mel pulled strings. Got you in front of a patent attorney.”
Jinx stared. Then laughed. Then laughed harder.
“Me? In a room with a lawyer?”
Sevika’s expression didn’t move.
“Jinx.”
“Fine, fine.” Jinx wiped her hands on her pants. “But why? I already made the thing. It works. That’s the point.”
Sevika stepped closer, planting a hand on the tabletop beside her. “You want it to save more than a few buildings in the Lanes?” Sevika asked. “You want it mass-produced? Funded? Installed in every block?”
Jinx scowled but didn’t argue.
“Then you need legal protection,” Sevika added. “Manufacturing partners. Patents. And someone to keep Piltover from stealing your idea and selling it for ten times the price.”
Jinx made a face. “Great. So I get to hang out with a fancy Piltover lawyer I could never afford in my wildest nightmares.”
“You can,” Sevika said dryly, “because Mel’s covering it. Pro bono.”
“...Like for free?”
Jinx hated the idea of going topside. Hated the silent judgment. The polite stares. The feeling of being a problem dressed like a person.
But…
If this tech was going anywhere, really going anywhere, she couldn’t exactly staple it everywhere herself.
She shot one more look at Isha’s photo.
“Fine,” she said finally. “I’ll go. I’ll pretend to be normal. Or… you know. My version.”
Sevika snorted. “Try not to scare her off in the first five minutes.”
“No promises,” Jinx said, flashing a wicked grin.
The lobby was all glass, marble, and smug self-importance... exactly the kind of place Jinx hated.
She stepped through the metal detector and, of course, it screamed bloody murder.
“Ma’am, do you have any metal items on you?”
Jinx blinked innocently, then reached into her pockets.
And her jacket. And her boots.
And possibly a place no one wanted to think too hard about.
By the time she was done, she’d dumped an entire pound of bolts, springs, stripped screws, half-assembled components, possibly hazardous scraps, and something that looked suspiciously like the skeleton of a pipe bomb into the bin.
The guard stared at the pile. Then at her.
“What exactly do you do?”
“Arts and crafts,” Jinx said sweetly.
A clerk escorted them upstairs.
They were a little (very) late.
When the conference room door swung open, Caitlyn straightened in her chair like a polite reflex.
Jinx clocked her instantly. What the fuck? Were all Piltover lawyers hot now? Was that a thing?
Absurdly pretty. Sharp, high cheekbones. Blouse tucked into tailored slacks like she’d stepped out of a legal magazine spread. Medium-length dark blue hair that spilled over her shoulders.
Jinx glanced down at herself: low-rise ripped pants, cropped tank, paint smeared across her palms, tattoos peeking everywhere, sideboob definitely happening.
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked over her once. Just once.
Lingering half a second too long on the bare strip of Jinx’s stomach and the swirl of ink across her ribs before snapping away.
And there was something there—quick, involuntary, absolutely not professional. She buried it immediately. A little throat-clear. A slight straightening of her papers.
“Ms. Jinx?” Caitlyn said, tone clipped. “Thank you for coming.”
“It wasn’t voluntary,” Jinx muttered.
Caitlyn chose to ignore that.
“Right. Well. I’m Caitlyn, patent attorney here at Kiramman & Medarda.” She folded her hands neatly. “This is an initial consultation. I’ll be reviewing the invention at a high level, confirming patent eligibility, and outlining what we’d need for a provisional filing.”
Jinx stared at her, unblinking.
Caitlyn forged ahead.
“Before we begin, I’ll need your signature on our mutual NDA.”
Jinx grabbed the document, skimmed exactly zero words of it, then pressed her paint-covered palm against the bottom of the page with a cheerful smack.
“Signed. Next.”
Caitlyn stared at the dripping blue handprint. A jolt went through her. Part fear and part… oh no, she’s kind of charming.
“…That’s… not a valid signature,” she managed.
“It’s my mark,” Jinx said, wiggling her stained fingers. “Very authentic.”
Caitlyn inhaled a long, patient breath through her nose. “I need an actual signature. Full legal name. And the date.”
Jinx groaned loudly, and Sevika nudged her shoulder.
“Fine.” Jinx snatched a pen and scribbled Powder in spiky handwriting.
Caitlyn nodded. “Thank you. Next, I’ll need your invention disclosure. Title. Inventors. The earliest date of conception. Any reduction to practice. And any public disclosures, online posts, videos, forum threads. Anything viewable by the public.”
“People die when pipes burst,” she said flatly. “I’m fixing that. That’s the disclosure.”
Caitlyn didn’t flinch. “That’s the purpose. I need the technical timeline. I’m trying to protect your invention. If it was publicly posted, foreign rights may already be lost. Dates matter.”
Sevika’s hand landed on Jinx’s shoulder again, gentler this time. “Just give her what she needs.”
Begrudgingly, Jinx pulled a crumpled notebook from her bag and slid it across the table without meeting Caitlyn’s eyes.
“Thank you,” Caitlyn said softly.
Jinx didn’t answer, but she didn’t storm out either.
Which, for her, was basically a declaration of trust.
The NDA was signed. Barely. But signed.
And Caitlyn, smoothing the wrinkled pages of Jinx’s notebook, felt that same inconvenient, electric tug she’d felt when the door first opened, and when Mel had put her on this project.