Jinx had always thought she was good at lies.
Not the dramatic kind—no fake tears, no trembling confession, no rehearsed speeches. That stuff was for people who wanted to be believed. Jinx lied the way a mech pilot fought: fast, shameless, and with enough confidence that nobody questioned the angle until it was too late.
A grin here. A joke there. A shoulder bump. A flirty comment that made everyone roll their eyes and stop paying attention to the thing she didn't want them to see.
It worked on pirates. It worked on clients. It worked on men who thought they could handle a woman like her until she outshot them and outsmarted them and made them feel small.
It usually worked on herself.
But the little analyzer's quiet beep in the medbay didn't care how charming she was.
CONFIRMED, Lyra had said, calm as a sniper.
And Jinx—who had faced down an autocannon muzzle and laughed—had almost stopped breathing like a stupid kid.
She kept her grin on the way back to the mech bay anyway.
That was the first part of the lie.
The corridor lights were dimmer than the bay lights, softer, warmer. The Union's hum wrapped around them like a blanket that didn't actually protect you from anything. Taila walked at her side like she was trying not to hover while still hovering anyway. Lyra walked on the other side, tablet tucked away now, but her mind clearly still running port lists, risk profiles, and the thousand invisible threads that kept Moonjaw alive.
Jinx felt their attention on her even when they weren't looking.
It was… weird.
Nice-weird.
She hated it.
"Stop staring at me," Jinx snapped without looking at them.
Taila's voice came careful. "We're not."
Lyra didn't bother lying. "We are."
Jinx huffed. "Great. Love that."
Taila tried to keep her voice light. "How do you feel?"
Jinx wanted to say fine. She wanted to say horny just to make Taila choke and blush. She wanted to say I've been shot twice and kissed more times than that, I'm invincible.
Instead she said, "Like I could throw up on your shoes and still win a duel."
Taila's cheeks warmed. "Please don't."
Lyra's tone was dry. "Don't, unless you have to."
Jinx rolled her eyes so hard it almost hurt. "You two are so romantic."
Taila muttered, "You started it."
That was true too.
Jinx had started most things in this crew. Chaos. Teasing. The uniform obsession. The "big bed" idea that Taila pretended to hate until she didn't.
And the sex.
Jinx's stomach flipped—half nausea, half memory.
Not the crude kind. Not the porn kind. The simple, honest kind that stuck to your bones: Dack's hands on her hips, the weight of him, the way his voice never got soft even when he was… close. Like he didn't know how. Like tenderness made him suspicious.
Jinx had liked that more than she'd ever admit out loud.
Because she'd never had anyone who wanted her without wanting to own her.
And now—
Now there was a tiny, invisible consequence sitting inside her like a grenade with no timer.
They reached the mech bay doors and the light hit them full in the face—harsh work-lights, dust floating in sheets, metal smelling like heat and oil and the sharp bite of ozone where PPC capacitors had discharged. The bay felt like a cathedral built for machines.
The Dire Wolf loomed in the center like an altar. The Highlander sat off to the side, still streaked with soot and impact scoring. The Griffin crouched nearby, its plating scuffed but intact, like Taila herself—still learning, still stubbornly refusing to break. Morrigan's Marauder stood half in shadow, as if it preferred darkness.
And overhead, chained and lifted like a trophy nobody had asked for, hung the captured Atlas.
The prisoner inside hadn't said her name. She hadn't needed to. Her presence had a weight to it. A quiet pressure that made the bay feel smaller.
Jinx hated her.
Not because she was scary.
Because she was smug.
Because she had wanted to take Dack and drag him away in chains.
Because she had looked at them like they were accessories to his death.
Jinx walked in first anyway, chin high, grin sharp—because if she was going to be scared, she'd rather die than show it.
Morrigan's eyes flicked toward her, assessing, then away.
Taila hovered half a step behind Dack's Dire Wolf, the way she always did now—close enough to be there, not so close it looked needy.
Lyra moved immediately into "ship brain," scanning readouts, glancing at Rook and Rafe's workbench, checking the clamp integrity on the Atlas restraints like she didn't trust metal not to betray them.
Quill stood off to one side, still too rigid, still carrying herself like a soldier waiting for punishment. She'd arrived on foot, not in her Zeus, and she looked wrong without a cockpit around her—exposed, pale under grime, eyes too sharp to be calm.
Jinx felt an old instinct flare—territorial, amused, predatory.
Hot, her brain supplied, unhelpfully.
Jinx hated her own brain sometimes.
Dack climbed down from the Dire Wolf's hatch a moment later, helmet tucked under one arm, black pilot suit clinging to him with sweat and heat. He looked tired in that particular way only a mechwarrior looked tired—eyes sharp, posture still dangerous, mouth set like the day had been annoying rather than life-threatening.
He scanned the bay.
His gaze flicked over Jinx.
For half a heartbeat Jinx wanted to flinch. Wanted to press a hand to her stomach again like it would make the truth less true.
She didn't.
She met his eyes and smiled like nothing had changed.
"Hey," she said brightly. "We kidnapped an Atlas. That's, like, a crime."
Dack's reply was immediate. "Everything we do is a crime."
Jinx's grin widened. "God, you're romantic."
Dack didn't bite on the tease. He almost never did. But his eyes lingered just long enough on her face that she felt it like a touch.
Not lust.
Assessment.
And something else underneath it—something he didn't know how to name.
Jinx had seen that look before.
On Ronan's old photos.
On soldiers who had already lost too much and decided they would not lose again.
Lyra started talking ports and risk profiles. Morrigan muttered about money. Taila listened, quiet, tracking Dack like he was gravity.
Jinx pretended she was normal.
That was the second part of the lie.
---
When Jinx was twelve, she punched a boy in the throat for calling her "too loud."
It wasn't even a good insult. It was lazy. But it had been said in front of everyone—kids and instructors and the mechanic's apprentices who liked to pretend they were grown just because their hands smelled like oil.
The boy had been taller, older, and convinced that being male made him the natural center of any room.
He'd laughed when she hit him.
Right up until he couldn't breathe.
Jinx remembered the sound he made—wet, choking, undignified. Not because she liked it.
Because she'd learned something important that day.
People who think they're entitled to you don't stop until you hurt them.
Her mother had been furious when she got called in. Not because Jinx had fought.
Because Jinx had fought without permission.
"You can't just hit people," her mother had snapped, hands still stained with grease from working on some half-dead engine that barely paid rent.
Jinx had stared back and said, "He was annoying."
Her mother had pinched the bridge of her nose like she was trying to keep a headache from splitting her skull. "You're going to get killed."
Jinx had shrugged. "Not if I shoot first."
Her mother had stared at her—long and tired—and said, quietly, "That's what your father said."
Jinx had never met her father. Never known his face. Just a name that tasted like old resentment and a story that ended with the words left and never came back.
She'd decided she didn't need him.
She'd decided she didn't need anyone.
Then she found a sim pod.
Then she found a mech.
And everything else became noise.
---
Back in the bay, Jinx drifted closer to Taila like it was casual. Like she wasn't doing it because Taila's presence suddenly felt like a tether.
Taila glanced at her, quick and quiet. You okay? in the shape of her eyes.
Jinx gave her a smirk. Stop mothering me.
Taila's cheeks warmed. She looked away. That was Taila. All armor in a cockpit, all shy heat outside of it.
Jinx liked that about her more than she'd ever admit.
Jinx also liked the way Taila had put a hand on her shoulder in the medbay and not pulled away when Jinx's world tilted. Like Taila understood what it meant to be ashamed of wanting something.
Jinx leaned in and murmured, "If you tell anyone, I'll still airlock you."
Taila whispered back, "You don't know how to work the airlock."
Jinx blinked. Then she grinned. "Rook and Rafe do. I'll bribe them."
From the bench, Rafe looked up. "We—"
Rook finished. "Heard."
Rafe: "Airlock."
Rook: "No."
Jinx scoffed. "Traitors."
Rook and Rafe returned to their work, finishing each other's movements the way they finished each other's sentences, as if the world made more sense when it came in pairs.
Jinx watched them for a second, an old envy stirring in her chest.
Not romantic envy.
Something deeper.
Belonging envy.
Because they'd always had each other.
Jinx had always been alone.
---
She'd tried dating once.
Not seriously. Not "relationship." Just… letting some boy in the barracks think he had a chance because he was cute and he'd smiled at her like she was a prize instead of a threat.
It lasted three days.
On the fourth day he asked her to stop talking about mechs.
"Just… talk about normal stuff," he'd said, laughing like it was a joke. "You're kind of intense."
Jinx had stared at him and realized, in one cold, sharp moment, that he didn't like her.
He liked the idea of a girl who looked like her, who would laugh at his jokes and act impressed by his opinions, and then shut up when the world got technical.
He didn't want someone who could outshoot him.
He didn't want someone who could correct him.
He didn't want someone who got wet reading harem novels and then turned around and wrote her own mech loadouts for fun.
So she'd broken his nose.
Not hard. Just enough to make it memorable.
Then she'd gone back to the sim pods and decided men weren't worth the effort unless they were exceptional.
And then Dack happened.
Average face. Lean body. Quiet voice.
A wolf inside a machine that made legends feel small.
Exceptional.
And unlike every man who'd ever tried to date her, Dack didn't flinch at competence. Didn't sulk when she outperformed someone. Didn't need to be the loudest thing in the room.
He just… existed. Steady. Unbending. Dangerous.
Jinx had fallen into that steadiness like she'd been starving and didn't know it.
Now her stomach twisted again, and she wasn't sure whether it was nausea or fear or something bright and terrifying that looked a lot like joy.
---
Dack moved through the bay, checking clamps, speaking in short bursts. He stopped beneath the hanging Atlas and looked up at the cockpit seam.
"You awake?" he asked.
A soft laugh drifted down. "I never sleep when I'm caged."
Jinx wanted to throw a wrench.
Taila's hand tightened around Dack's sleeve for half a second, then released like she'd caught herself. Dack didn't react outwardly, but Jinx saw the tiny shift in his posture—protective without meaning to be.
Lyra's voice stayed professional. "Nobody approaches the Atlas without Dack present."
Quill's eyes flicked up to the Atlas too, and something in her expression tightened—loyalty and guilt braided together.
Jinx watched Quill watch the Atlas and felt a strange spike of anger.
Not jealousy.
Not exactly.
More like… disgust at the idea of being that loyal to someone who would sell you out with a sanitize order.
Jinx had never trusted anyone enough to be betrayed like that.
Until Dack.
Until this crew.
And now she was hiding a truth that would change the way he looked at her.
Jinx swallowed.
Don't be dramatic, she told herself. It's just a baby. People have babies all the time.
Yes.
People who weren't being hunted.
People who didn't live in cockpits.
People who weren't mercenaries with a corporate procurement chain on their backs.
Jinx forced her grin back into place and walked toward Dack like she was going to tease him, because teasing was safer than shaking.
She stopped a step away.
"You know," she said brightly, "if you're going to collect women with assault mechs, you should at least start charging admission."
Dack's eyes flicked to her. "You talking about the Atlas or Quill?"
Jinx's grin widened. "Both."
Quill snapped, "I'm not—"
Jinx cut her off cheerfully. "You're not what? Hot? Loyal? Confused? Welcome to the ship."
Taila hissed, "Jinx."
Lyra said flatly, "Jinx."
Morrigan muttered, "You're going to get us shot."
Jinx blinked innocently. "By who? We're inside a sealed bay."
Dack's mouth twitched once. Not a smile. But close enough that it hit Jinx in the chest like a warm bullet.
He looked away first. "Focus."
Jinx watched him turn, and for a moment her throat tightened so hard she wanted to bite something just to feel like she had control.
Because she wanted to tell him.
She wanted to grab his face and say, Hey. Your life just got bigger. You did this. You and me. You're going to be a dad.
And she couldn't.
Not yet.
Because Jinx knew Dack.
He'd react like a man who'd been handed a new target. Like a man who'd decided his job was to keep it alive even if it meant bleeding out on the floor to do it.
He'd try to protect her so hard it would become a cage.
Jinx didn't want a cage.
She'd spent her whole life kicking at bars.
---
Later, when the bay's chaos thinned—when Lyra went back to the cockpit to plot their next dock, when Morrigan disappeared into the shadowed corridor that led to her cabin like a cat that only tolerated affection on her terms, when Taila drifted to the Griffin's ladder to check her own mech with nervous care—Jinx found herself alone for a minute beside the Highlander's massive foot.
She leaned a shoulder against the cool metal.
Her body felt strange. Not weak. Not fragile.
Just… different. Like something inside her had shifted its center of gravity.
She pressed two fingers lightly to her own wrist and felt her pulse.
Fast.
She let her other hand hover near her stomach, then stopped herself before she could do it out in the open again.
Control yourself, she thought.
She didn't notice Taila approaching until Taila was beside her, quiet as always, eyes soft.
Taila didn't speak at first. She just stood close.
That alone made Jinx's throat burn.
Jinx scoffed, too loud. "If you're about to say something sweet, don't."
Taila's voice was a whisper. "I won't."
Jinx waited.
Taila's gaze dropped, then lifted again. "Are you scared?"
Jinx laughed sharply. "No."
Taila didn't argue. She just looked at her.
Jinx's laugh died.
"…Yeah," she admitted, voice smaller than she liked. "A little."
Taila nodded, like that was normal. Like fear didn't make you weak. Like fear just made you human.
Jinx hated how much she needed that nod.
Taila's hand lifted slightly, paused—asking without words.
Jinx rolled her eyes and leaned her shoulder into Taila's shoulder, just enough contact to count. "Don't get used to it."
Taila's voice was warm. "Too late."
Jinx swallowed hard and looked away, blinking fast because she refused to cry in a mech bay like some tragic heroine.
She was Jinx. She didn't cry.
She caused crying.
---
Across the bay, the Dire Wolf's cockpit hatch sealed again.
Dack climbed back inside, because that's where he thought best. Because machines didn't ask him to be gentle. Because silence made sense in a cockpit.
Jinx watched him go and felt something sharp and tender twist together inside her.
She thought about Ronan, a man she'd never met but whose shadow still shaped Dack's spine.
She thought about the way Dack counted his days only inside that cockpit, like a ritual he didn't let anyone touch.
She thought about the way he'd looked at her earlier—assessment, yes, but also that quiet, unspoken thing: mine, not in an ownership way, but in a loyalty way.
Jinx had wanted that her whole life and never trusted it when she got it.
Now she had it.
Now she had more.
And she was going to hide it for a little while longer, not because she didn't trust him—because she trusted him too much.
Because she knew what he'd do with the truth.
Jinx turned toward the corridor leading back to medbay and Lyra's cockpit, then paused and looked up once at the hanging Atlas.
The prisoner inside was silent now.
Listening.
Jinx smiled without humor.
"You don't get to win," she murmured, too quiet for anyone but the steel to hear. "Not after this."
Then she walked away, shoulders squared, grin ready to put back on her face the moment anyone looked at her.
Because that was her armor.
And until the timing was right, her armor would have to be enough for two.