Miraculous AU Collection

Miraculous AU’s

Miraculously Normal AU- Marinette doesn’t have the ladybug miraculous, but that doesn’t mean she’s powerless.

Kwami Swap AU (Part 1) (Part 2)- Marinette gave the ladybug earrings to Alya, and Master Fu was like “oh no” and started handing out the miraculous like candy and now everything’s different.

Lady Moth AU- Emilie Agreste has the butterfly miraculous instead of Gabriel, and is (obviously) a better wielder.

Different School AU (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)- Adrien is sent to private school, so everything’s different. There’s a whole new dynamic to the friend groups.

Guardian AU- Ladybug told Chat Noir that Marinette was the guardian of the miraculous because she panicked. Only problem is, she can’t be two places at once.

Run Away AU- Nooroo and Duusu run away from Gabriel and Nathalie and go to Marinette. This leads to the eventual take down of Gabriel Agreste, and therefore also Hawkmoth and Mayura.

Forgotten AU- Marinette and Adrien know each other’s identities outside of the mask. When they’re Ladybug and Chat Noir? Different story.

Mariaile AU- Marinette gets the butterfly miraculous and ends up using it for the wrong reasons before realizing what she did was wrong.

Number AU- A number is on your wrist for the number of people you’ve ever saved in your lifetime.

Corruption AU- Marinette has the butterfly miraculous, but it corrupts the user depending on the wording of the transformation. Basically, antagonist Marinette.

Changed Motives AU- Marinette is akumatized, but she works with Hawkmoth to deal improve his relationship with Adrien, and he helps her with the Lila situation.

Fail-Safe AU- The Miraculous are dangerous to wield. So of course they have a fail-safe to keep any information about them or their wielders a secret.

Bonus Powers AU- The ladybug miraculous had special power-ups for each user.

Count Down AU- The people of Paris have clocks on their wrists that count down to the second they die. Too bad they seem to die every other day in akuma attacks. Some people, however, are a little different.

Make them Angry AU- Hawkmoth akumatizes Ladybug and Chat Noir. Only he really didn’t think that through, and they come for him.

Young Influences AU- The Dupain-Cheng’s come across the ladybug miraculous when Marinette is a baby and gets her ears pierced. Mari grows up with Tikki’s influence.

Lost AU- Gabriel Agreste loses the butterfly miraculous. Plagg finds it and Nooroo and takes them to Adrien. Cue Breakdown #1.

So Serious AU- Marinette Dupain-Cheng takes nothing from nobody. And because of this, she’s a more confident person. (Follow-up)

Go Crazy AU- What if Ladybug was a little more.... chaotic? Basically the opposite of the So Serious AU

Invisible Partners AU- The kwami only appear after the user is transformed. Now without the support of the kwami in their civilian lives, our heroes need to find another outlet.

Podcast AU- Chat Noir creates a podcast that reveals how much of a dork Ladybug is.

Monarque AU- Adrien has the butterfly miraculous. Also Gabriel runs around Paris in a leather cat suit and all of Paris is certain he is an escapee from an asylum.

Life Swap AU (Follow Up)- Marinette and Kagami swap and Nino and Adrien swap. Different lives, similar personalities.

Famous AU- Ladybug luck works in weird ways. Sometimes that luck helps in school. Sometimes in battles. Sometimes in winning contests and becoming famous.

Turned Around AU- What if Hawkmoth successfully turned Paris against Ladybug and Chat Noir the first day he appeared?

Chaotic Kwami Swap AU- What if Chaotic Chat Mari and Wild Ladybug Adrien were more influenced by their kwami?

Life Drain AU- The strain of the Miraculous drains not only the user's energy, but also their life force.

You can also use a hashtag with the name of the AU to find them. (Ex: #miraculously normal au will pull up the Miraculously Normal AU, so on and so forth)

Maribat

Robin Luck Snippet- A thread about Marinette being Robin, and Dick and Jason think she’s either sucking up all the luck in Gotham, or she’s building up all the bad luck and one day it’s going to explode.

Resilience in the Face of Adversity- Inspired by @jinx-jade ‘s idea

An Angel Shot with Lime (Complete)- Marinette is kidnapped by The Order and taken to the Temple, where she is held for 8 years. She finally escapes, and finds herself in Gotham.

The reason so many Miraculous users are young is because they have so much life and energy in them. Master Fu knew this, and still chose to give out the Miraculous to kids. 

Now, the exception is the Guardian. The Guardian’s life force is drawn out. Maybe before they were Guardian they had five years left. Those five years of energy are spread across the rest of their Guardianship. Hence the reason Master Fu can be so old and yet not wield a Miraculous. 

So every time they use the Miraculous, their life force is drained a little. Marinette and Adrien have been fighting Hawkmoth for three years. 

Now, the fun part about this is that Master Fu did not tell the two children he gave the Miraculous to. They are unaware of the dangers of having the Miraculous long term. 

Until Marinette becomes Guardian. And then all this information is dumped into her head without warning (giving her a massive headache). It takes maybe a month to sort all the information out. And then- 

Oh. 

Time to panic. 

So turns out Master Fu left something really important out. 

Like the fact that for every year they use the miraculous more and more of their life is drained away. 

1 year? Maybe a few months are drained. 2 years? Like 3 years or something. But 3 years? That’s five years drained. 

What the hell. 

So LB goes straight to Chat Noir and starts to rant to him. 

But then something lightbulbs in her head. 

Ladybug: How long do you think Hawkmoth has had his Miraculous? 

Chat Noir: Three years? Wouldn’t he have used it earlier if he’d had it longer? 

Ladybug: Not if he didn’t have a reason for it. He wants the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous for a reason. What if he had something bad happen that made him turn to the dark side? 

Chat Noir: Like a death in the family? 

Ladybug: Exactly! So what if he’s had the Miraculous for longer? I doubt he knows about the whole life drain thing-

Chat: -are we gonna talk about that?-

Ladybug, ignoring him:  So who knows how much time he has left before his energy starts to rapidly deplete! 

Chat: Should we be wishing death on him? 

Ladybug, still ignoring: If he’s had the miraculous for four years, that’s eight years off his life. Or five years! Then that’s twelve years off! 

Chat: I feel like this is unhealthy. 

Mari has so many ideas. Chat is concerned. 

Mari’s strategy is to wait out Hawkmoth. Like, just let him tire himself out. 

Chat thinks that’s a terrible idea. 

Chat: You realize our lives are being drained too? (Or at least mine is.) We can wait him out, but he’s not going to stop making akumas. Paris will literally fall to ruins if we don’t use our Miraculous. 

Okay, so Plan A is scraped. Mari’s other idea is to tell Hawkmoth about the life drain thing. 

Chat: I doubt he will care. He realizes that if he doesn’t win he’ll be put in jail for life. He’s a literal terrorist. 

Hmm okay. Plan C then. 

… 

She has no Plan C. All her previous ideas dealt with tiring Hawkie out and waiting him out. 

Chat: how about we try and find him

Ladybug: …oh yeah 

Ok so less of a Plan C and more like “the original reason we were given a Miraculous” but still. It’s Plan 0. 

Plan 0 has 3 steps: 

Find Hawkmoth 

Ambush Hawkmoth 

Win

Plus or minus a few dozen contingencies and back-up plans, and they’re pretty much good to go. 

I’m gonna be honest. I’m so removed from canon that I literally cannot remember half of these character’s personalities. I’m going off of the energy the AU’s give me. This one gives “Mari/LB hasn’t become feral just yet, but she’s getting there due to stress. Adrien/Chat is a Tired Boy(TM) who is worried about Mari/Ladybug and just wants to find Hawkmoth so he can go back to life. Or at least some semblance of it.” 

So they start to meet up at odd hours of the day and go over possible civilian identities for Hawkie. They spend hours and hours pouring over all possible timelines for the victims falling into despair and their eventual akumatization. They would meet more often if SOMEONE WOULD STOP DISTRACTING THEM WITH AKUMAS but alas. It might also help if they could meet anywhere at any time besides meeting in the sewers at prearranged times. 

So I guess it’s time for an identity reveal yayyyyy! It doesn’t happen in some big way though. Literally one day Chat and LB are so tired they head immediately into the sewers after an akuma and their timers run out but instead of running to hide, they just let it happen. Of course, there’s probably a lot of surprise and disbelief, but they’re mainly relieved they already know each other and are good friends (yes, friends. Romance is a post-Hawkmoth thing and they’re too tired to worry about romance unlike what’s happening in canon right now. *In a John Mulaney voice* I do not care for these new love-squares and you may quote me on that). Plus they already work well together, and this will just add to that. 

(And now Mari goes from tired and slightly insane Ladybug to fully committed to the slightly-feral look and paranoid-about-literally-everything lifestyle) 

(Let Adrien Catch a Break 2023 because he ain’t getting one in this AU) 

Now we have two teen heroes with a Plan and so much paranoia and sugar in one room. Marinette’s parents keep feeding them sweets and these two keep bouncing ideas off of each other at the same rate that they’re bouncing off the walls at. It’s utter chaos and the kwami are not helping. Some of the ideas are: 

Hawkmoth is the mayor. This explains why he makes so many bad decisions. He may listen to Chloe a lot, but it helps to maintain his reasoning behind doing so many things that end up akumatizing someone. He also lives at a place where many famous (and ill-tempered) people visit. Basically everyone has been to the hotel and city hall or whatever it’s called. 

Hawkmoth has an inside man who can be where he can’t and knows his identity. Marinette has a few ideas who this could be (*cough cough* Lila *cough*) but nobody with solid proof. Adrien agrees that someone seems to be helping, but he thinks too highly of people to be able to throw out accusations. 

Hawkmoth is literally just a normal guy who neither one of them have ever met. 

Adrien: But if Hawkmoth has the time and money to get that many butterflies, he must be in some position of power. 

Marinette: Meh, only slightly true. He could just have a really well paying job. Even you can’t know everyone in Paris, though. 

Adrien: So are we counting out everyone we already know? 

Marinette: Hell no. Everyone is a suspect until proven innocent. Well, maybe except our parents. It’s not like any of them have the time or money to be a magical terrorist on the side haha

Adrien: Right… 

ITS GABRIEL????? 

Adrien: wat. 

Mari: I know he’s your father, and you love him, but you have to admit it makes a lot of sense. 

Adrien: My father can’t even eat meals with me. When does he have the time to akumatize people? 

Mari: … 

Adrien: Nevermind I see what you’re saying. But he also doesn’t really have motive. Yes, my mom went missing a few years ago but he still has me. And I’m pretty sure him and Nathalie are hooking up?? 

Mari: But if he doesn’t know about the Wish’s balancing act, he might still go for it to get your mom back. Have you ever seen your dad get angry before? 

Adrien: Kind of, but he’s never hinted at being- 

Mari: Does he randomly monologue or shout at nothing? 

Adrien: Oh my gosh my father is Hawkmoth. 

And that’s how Adrien becomes convinced. 

Adrien: Now the Nathalie thing makes sense! She’s been helping him hide his secret! But Nathalie doesn’t walk around the school I don’t think, so I’m not sure how he’s gotten so many people there. 

Mari: I think Lila is working for Gabriel. 

Adrien: Well duh, he hired her as a model- 

Mari: No I mean as a spy. 

Adrien: A spy? 

Mari: You and I are the only two people at that stupid school to not be akumatized. He probably wouldn’t do that to you, since you’re his son, but he would do it to me. And who is the only person at Dupont who has attacked me in any manor? 

Adrien: Chloe.

Mari: ...You make a good point, but no. Someone with more than two braincells.

Adrien: Lila. 

Mari: Ding ding ding! We have our man, motive, and accomplice. 

Adrien: It’s Mustard in the kitchen with a magical jewel. 

Mari: Has your father ever been in a kitchen before? 

Adrien: Probably not. I was making a reference towards a board game- 

We’re getting off track. 

So Step 1 is now complete. They just need to lure him out of the Agreste Mansion or find his secret lair. One might be more complicated than the other, so it’s time for Plagg to do some snooping. Since Plagg is a tiny mischievous gremlin, this shouldn’t be too hard (it does indeed only take him five minutes to fly through the floor and find this creepy cryostasis chamber with Emilie Agreste inside, but he also gets distracted on the way back since he ends up in the fridge with all the cheese. He never said to not be an agent of chaos). 

Mari: Did you find anything? 

Adrien: please say no please say no please say no- 

Plagg: Yep! 

Adrien: Goddamnit 

Then it just takes them a few days to reverse engineer the crap out of Gabriel’s system and use the kwami as their little henchmen to get down there. The only problem? They get into the basement and immediately forget all sense of rationality. 

Chat: Oh my gosh, mom!

Ladybug: I think we should set everything down here on fire. 

Chat, grabbing his baton: Mom, don’t worry I’ll break you out of there! 

Basically, what happens when two teens get to their breaking point and have no common sense between the two of them. This is what Gabriel Agreste walks into when he comes down his tiny and very dramatic elevator. He takes one step out and freezes. Ladybug freezes where she was about to Lucky Charm up some matches. Chat Noir freezes where he was crouched on the glass lid of his dead??? unconscious??? mom’s chamber, with his baton wedged into the seams. All three pause and stare at each other in awkward silence. 

Then Ladybug sneezes and sets them all off. Gabriel calls up his transformation and starts to evil monologue. 

Hawkie: You’ve walked right into my trap that I perfectly planned! You’re going to give your miraculous to me before I destroy both of you! 

Ladybug, blinking: You had no idea we would be here, though. 

Hawkmoth, sputtering: Of course I did! I set this all up so that you would eventually arrive where I am strongest and you are weakest! You have never been to this location before, so obviously I have the upper hand! 

Ladybug and Chat, giving each other looks: Sure, yeah. 

I’m not going to bore you with the fight scene, but it basically goes as follows: 

Hawkmoth uses his cane-sword thing against an angry Chat with his baton. Ladybug calls out encouragements to Chat while tripping Hawkmoth up with her yo-yo. Hawkmoth says something about them not understanding the wishes of an adult since they’re children, which makes Ladybug snap at him with the whole “you might as well be on your deathbed with how old you already are plus the life-drain!” 

Hawkmoth pauses at this for long enough that LB wraps him up in her yo-yo and Chat holds his baton under Hawkie’s chin. This leads to a round of Who Can Explain To This Clearly Beyond Help Man That What He Wants Cannot Happen And He’s Also In The Process Of Dying? 

Also unlike in canon, these two aren’t stupid and immediately take the butterfly pin off of Gabriel. I get that they’re teenagers, but come on Thomas, they’re not that stupid. Pretty sure the show could have been ended a dozen times over if Mari and Adrien used some street-smarts. 

So a now unmasked Gabriel is spewing profanities and not PG-13 threats at kids who are practically 13 themselves (physically, at least. Mentally they’re basically 50). They’re all like “you’re going to die” and he’s like “my precious Emilie will bring me back!” And they’re like “that’s not how it works, are you stupid??” 

(Alexa, play Microwave Popcorn by Bo Burnham.) 

The whole thing takes half an hour between LB and Chat trying to explain plus Gabriel spewing out nonsense and trying to evil monologue. In the end, it only takes one thing for Gabriel to stop. 

LB: … 

Chat: … 

LB: Did you have to hit him that hard? 

Oh, and then they do the whole “call the police” and “where’s that Adrien boy?” And some mild panic from Chat “hey I gotta run bye” and then a flushed Adrien comes out of nowhere and is like “Father was a supervillain? I couldn’t tell based on the totally strange lifestyle he lives” and the police are like “we thought you’d be more freaked out than this” to which Adrien replies with “heh we never really know our fathers do we haha.” 

Flash forward a few days to where an actually coherent Marinette and slightly more carefree Adrien are hanging at her house because No Akumas = More Sleep and they also need to talk about that whole “our life spans are shortened due to the magical jewelry we are STILL WEARING but we’re also sentimentally and emotionally attached to the magical beings they come with so we hesitated on having this talk.” 

Marinette: We could just… not wear them anymore and keep the kwami out. 

Adrien: true. 

Marinette: But what if Paris needs us again? 

Adrien: Then we can bring them back out. Or the police can deal with it since, ya know, it’s their jobs?? 

Marinette: Good point. Should we tell anybody we’re stopping? 

Adrien: Nah. Let them wonder. 

(Of course, it’s not that simple, but they figure out the details overtime. They have to tell the part-time heroes about their potentially shortened lives (but only by a few weeks at most). They also go to where other Miraculous holders are and warn them against possible side-effects like theirs has. And, of course, they do some research before Adrien gives Marinette the ring and she contemplates putting away the earrings. While it’s dangerous to have them out in the world, she is the Guardian. So her lifespan is on pause until guardianship is transferred, and then she has the unfortunate side-effect of losing her memory from there all the way back to age 14 or whatever. Fun. 

Sounds like a Future Marinette Problem.) 

_____

Marinette rolled her head back and forth, making her neck crack. She winced at the stiff feeling in her limbs from sitting still for so long. Opening her eyes, she saw Bruce, Damian, and Jason sitting in various states of undress a little ahead of her. Master Jiang stood from his kneeled position behind her and turned around. She groaned as she stood, shaking out her legs to get the blood flowing. 

“You did good today. The first day may be the hardest, but I promise it’ll only get easier from here,” Master Jiang told her. 

She nodded to him gratefully. “Thank you, Master Jiang, for helping me. I know you probably weren’t expecting to ever do this.” 

The man just gave her a tired look. “When dealing with the kwami, nothing is ever unexpected.” 

She shrugged. “Fair enough.” She looked over at the bat boys to see Bruce standing from where he was sitting a few moments ago while lecturing Jason on getting redressed. While waiting, the younger two had clearly gotten bored and took naps. While Damian slept in his entire uniform, Jason had decided to take off his helmet, jacket, and all upper protective layers; making him shirtless. “I should probably get them back to Gotham.” 

Master Jiang chuckled. “Of course.” 

“See you two weeks,” she told him. After he said it back, she headed over to her crazy bats. “I hate to say I told you so, but I definitely told you so.” 

“Tt.” Damian crossed his arms and looked away. “We had to make sure you were safe.” 

Marinette raised an eyebrow and looked around. “We are in the middle of an abandoned and partially destroyed temple. Only the good monks live her anymore. And if you remember, we fought with them. They aren’t going to attack me.” 

Jason yawned, pulling on his jacket. “We know now. Seems like you’ve got this. The next few weeks you can go alone.” 

Genuine surprise showed on Marinette’s face as she let out a disbelieving laugh. “A few weeks? Oh no, Jay. Think years. At least two, minimum. I’ll have to create so much to counteract all the stupid destruction here.” 

Silence followed her statement, followed by an awkward cough from Bruce. “You will be given another tracking device and a health monitoring watch when you make your biweekly trips here, but otherwise you are free to come alone.” 

The young woman snorted. “Thanks, B. What a long way to say you were very bored in the past three hours and do not wish to do that for the next two years. Very straightforward of you.” Jason laughed at the constipated look Bruce took on. 

Not wanting the poor man to be subject to anymore emotions (god forbid), Marinette called Kaalki to transform her and made a portal back to the batcave. Immediately, the bats started changing out of their uniforms. Apparently thick dark kevlar doesn’t do good in direct heat and sunlight for hours on end. Who would have known? 

(Marinette. Marinette knew. She told them not to. They didn’t listen.) 

Marinette just sighed in exasperation and left the cave to go up to the manor. She had a bed that was calling her name. 

…

A few weeks later, Marinette cracked her knuckled before logging onto her commission website. Her Etsy had gotten more popular after a certain famous rockstar credited her on social media, and thus she had to create a website to keep up with all the people asking for her designs. Fortunately, she had some help with her business. 

“Hey Nette, where do you want the silk?” 

“Mars, you want a coffee? I’m making a run.” 

“Marinette I need you to get these buffoons out of here, I cannot concentrate.” 

“Yo Mari! How much ribbon do you want me to buy? There’s a sale!” 

Marinette gave the men in front of her an incredulous look. Despite Tim being co-CEO of Wayne Industries, Dick working as a police officer, and whatever Jason and Damian did during the day, the boys all managed to gang up on her every now and then. 

“Okay first off, Jason put the silk on that table over there.” She motioned to a table across the room. “Tim, of course I want coffee. Two shots of espresso please. Dick, between the five of us I think we have enough money to buy ribbon without a sale.” She sighed at the look he gave her. “But order ten yards, I have a bunch of new commissions that need it.” 

Damian cleared his throat and tapped his foot, glaring at her. Marinette rolled her eyes. “And per Damian’s request, could you all kindly be quiet or leave? Damian is apparently trying to concentrate on-“ she leaned over the desk to read the title of whatever book the man was reading- “the art of Capoeira dancing.” 

At her look, Damian huffed. “It is a type of fighting style.” 

“Dancing though?” Jason smirked, causing Damian to glare at him. 

“It is interesting to learn about. If you would like, I can demonstrate it on you, Todd.” 

“I’d like to see you-“ 

“Boys!” Marinette interrupted. “If you’re going to have a spat, take it out of the room. I’m trying to work.” 

 Jason left the room and Damian sat back down, pouting as Dick tried to muffle his laughter. He was failing, though, which caused Damian to focus his glare on him. Tim seemed too tired to concentrate on what was going on, and left the room- presumedly to get coffee. 

With the absence of Jason and Tim, the room once again became quiet. Marinette turned back to her work, relieved. She had just clicked on a commission request when Dick spoke up. 

“How is the healing going?” 

Damian let out a light growl. “Grayson-“ 

“Birdy, it’s okay,” Marinette told Damian as she turned off her computer, convinced she was getting no more work done for the next hour. She turned to Dick. “It’s slow,” she admitted, “but good. Two summers from now most of the dark energy should be gone. Or at least what was created during the Wave.” 

Dick raised an eyebrow. “And the energy that wasn’t?” 

Marinette cleared her throat and put her hands on the desk. “The Wave created new destruction and darkness. The world wasn’t prepared for it, and the balance was tipped to one side. Even if I counter or dispel the dark energy, it is still going to exist for balance. My job as Guardian, however, can help me to manage the dark energy that stays.” 

“Meaning?” 

The young woman smiled at her two Waynes. “I can distribute some of Gotham’s darkness to other places.” 

The room plunged into shocked silence. Damian and Dick stared at her. 

“You can do that?” Dick asked. 

Marinette smiled. “I can. Gotham is a very dark place. I never really gave it much thought, but after the Wave I was practically choking in it. It was already thick, but the Wave made it unbearably so.” 

Damian narrowed his eyes. “And what happens if you give the dark energy to another place? Wont they become just as bad as Gotham?” 

She shook her head. “Gotham’s crime rate is high, but it’s not entirely because of chance. People with negative motives tend to flock here. They may not even know why, but the truth of the matter is that they are drawn to a city of darkness. Some people, though, they get bad luck, like Harley Quinn. If I spread out the dark energy, it just thins out. It has less of an impact if it goes to a city with high creation, like West Point, Georgia. They have the biggest factory in America, which causes them to have high levels of creation. New York City, too has high creation levels because of the amount of artists. If I send some of the dark energy there, it just makes them have more rainy days, or one more person misses the bus. It’s an inconvenience, sure, but it’s better to send the dark energy to a place like that instead of somewhere with an equal amount of good and bad energy, or a place tipping more on the side of destruction. If I sent the dark energy to Detroit, for example, their already high crime rate would go up.” 

“I suppose that makes sense,” Dick conceded. “So rather than keeping all the darkness holed up in Gotham, you just give a little of it to high creation cities to help neutralize both.” 

Damian rolled his eyes and sighed. “As interesting as this conversation is, Grayson, Dupain-Cheng, I have work to do.” He gave Dick a flat stare. “If you actually read Marinette’s reports you would know how her healing is going and therefore this entire conversation would have been avoided.” 

“But Little D! If I hadn’t asked, we wouldn’t have known about the energy distribution!” 

Marinette cleared her throat. “I mean, it would have come up eventually in the reports.” 

Dick pointed to her. “Yeah, but we heard about it first.” 

“Point,” Marinette conceded. She looked over at Damian when he growled. He obviously was ten seconds from stabbing one of them if they didn’t stop talking. 

Dick and Mari gave each other an amused look before going back to their own work. Marinette turned on her computer, but before she could input her password, Jason sprinted into the room. 

“Yo! Busy bees! It’s time to-“ he yelped and ducked as a knife was thrown at his head. “What the hell, Demon, I thought we were past this!” 

As Damian chased Jason out of the room, Marinette sighed and shut off her computer. It seems chaos is always going to dominate order in the Wayne household. She looked to Dick. “Want to go see what Jason risked his life to come tell us?” 

Smirking, Dick nodded. “I’ll bet its something stupid.” 

“Oh undoubtedly.” 

…

Marinette stared in horrified silence as the others argued around her. She felt someone put their hand on her shoulder and call her name, but she couldn’t look away. It was too horrible. 

“What the hell is that?” She choked out. 

Noise around her stopped and stared at her in amusement. Jason proudly pointed to the TV, where a picture of Tim’s old Red Robin costume was projected. “It’s powerpoint night! Mine is rating all of the past bat costumes.” 

“Little Wing, it’s the middle of the afternoon.” 

The man waved his hand dismissively at Dick. “Details. Are you ready to be horrified? Most of these are yours, Dickie.” 

Dick looked affronted. “Hey, I’ll have you know I only chose what was in style.” 

Marinette sputtered as the finally took her eyes off the powerpoint to stare at Dick. “You wouldn’t know style if it hit you in the face.” 

Everyone ooo’d at the burn. Dick stuck his tongue out at her. 

Jason smiled manically and rubbed his hands together like a movie villain. “Who is ready to be horrified?” 

He cackled as groans filled the air. 

… 

Two hours later, Marinette’s voice was hoarse from yelling out her insults. She stared at the last slide as if it personally insulted her. “I can understand wanting to protect Dick’s identity, but really?” She looked over at said man. “Bruce willingly wore a rainbow bat suit? In public? Where people could see him?” 

Dick smiled fondly. “Yup. He was protecting me.” 

Marinette looked back at Jason. “I can’t believe you gave all of those the scores you did. I think you rated them way too high.” She pointed to Tim, who startled at the sudden action. “You gave his ugly cowl a freaking five!” 

Jason nodded, both of them ignoring Tim’s indignant “hey!”

“I knew you’d think that, which is why I did it.” He gave her a jokingly serious look. “If I rated them accurately, who would I have yelling at them to argue a lower score? It would be no fun if you agreed.” 

Voices rang out disagreeing with what he said, all in favor of their own costumes. 

Marinette just narrowed her eyes at him. “Ah yes of course, Jay. That’s why you gave your own outfit a nine when it’s clearly a two.” 

Jason gave her a betrayed look. “A two? How dare you!” 

“You call yourself Red Hood and yet I don’t see any hood! Where’s the hood, Jay!? I want to know!” 

As the argument became more passionate, the others started to give their own input. Soon, the room dove into chaos. 

A loud “ahem” made the very loud room suddenly plunge into silence. Everyone looked to the entry way to see Alfred standing there looking unamused. “I was unaware this house had suddenly become a zoo. If you lot are going to act like wild animals, you can take it outside.” 

A chorus of “sorry Alfred” was mumbled. Nodding once, the butler’s expression turned softer. “As much as I love hearing you all together, it’s a wonder Master Bruce and I have not gone completely deaf from your loud antics.” 

“Hey wait, speaking of. Where’s the old man?” Jason asked, twirling a pen in his hand. Where he got it from was anybody’s guess. “He should have been here to get roasted for his past costumes.” 

Steph shrugged. “He said a while ago he was getting something. Something along the lines of adoption papers for an adult.” 

Marinette grew weary as every single eye in the room slowly turned to her. Grins became vicious. 

“I-“ She swallowed. “I am an adult. He knows he can’t adopt me, right?” 

“Oh honey.” Jason pat her on the head condescendingly. “Anybody can do just about anything with the right amount of money.” 

Mari groaned and put her head in her hands. Jason just snorted at her misfortune and continued to pat her head. The others started talking in jest about her new last name and whether she would add to the hyphen or if Bruce would try to adopt Sabine too and they would both change their last names to Wayne. 

Alfred observed his charges with a fond smile. “While we wait for Master Bruce to return, I believe this deserves a special treat.” 

Marinette watched as the room silenced immediately and everyone tensed slightly. Her confusion grew as they grew tenser the longer the silence ran. 

“I will prepare some celebratory waffles,” Alfred said with a flourish and walked out of the room, presumably heading to the kitchen. 

There was a single beat, and then suddenly everyone was on their feet, running out of the room. All jokes and smiles gone. Everyone was in survival mode. Jason and Tim grabbed Marinette’s arm and dragged her along with them. 

“What’s going on?” 

“No time to explain,” Babs said, being wheeled at lightning speed by Cass. “We need to get out of here before we have to eat the waffles.” 

“What!? But I though Steph liked waffles!” 

Steph, ahead of them, turned her head slightly as they continued running towards the garage. “I do! Just not those waffles.” 

“Which is why,” Jason continued, “We are going to iHop before Alf realizes we’re gone.” 

Tim opened the door on one of the inconspicuous minivans for them. “Knowing him, he knew the second we ran out the door.” 

Everyone dove in the car. Dick stepped on the gas before the doors were even closed. Barbara’s wheelchair was on it’s side, not even folded up. Damian and Cass were sharing a seatbelt in their haste to put one on. Tim was sitting on Steph’s lap with his feet stretched across Mari and Jason’s laps. 

Marinette looked around at her family. “Should I feel bad that we left Bruce behind?” 

There was a chorus of “no”’s that rang out. 

Mari nodded in understanding. “Right. He was trying to adopt me. It’s his problem now.” 

Jason laughed and punched her shoulder lightly from where he was sitting next to her. “That’s the spirit! Stick it to the old man.” 

Laughter and good-natured ribbing filled the van. For just a split second, Marinette had a thought about how she got roped into this crazy life with all it’s crazy people. And then Tim pulled her into an argument with Damian on the decision to wear socks and sandals, and yeah. 

She loved her crazy family. Questionable fashion choices and all. 

…

…

…

…

…

Bonus: 

Marinette stared at Bruce in bafflement. “You can’t be serious.” 

The man didn’t even blink. He slid the paper towards her on his desk. “I think you should consider it.” 

“Did the others put you up to this?” She asked half in despair and half in hysterity. “I’m not sure whether they paid you to do this or if this was a serious and conscious decision.” She blinked. “Actually never mind. You fight crime in a bat costume. I should just assume every choice you make is questionable.” 

Bruce didn’t respond other than the twitch of his lips. She knew he was getting a kick out of this, the bastard. 

Marinette glared at him and then the words before her. She couldn’t believe he even had the audacity to put it on paper. 

Adoptee New Name: Marinette Dupain-Cheng-Wayne-Grayson-Gordon-Cain-Todd-Drake-Brown 

In another part of the manor, the batfam cackled as a loud screech of frustration rang out. They knew what they did. And they held absolutely no remorse. 

<<Previous

AASwL First | AWoD First

_____

I was originally planning on this being a one-shot........ 

I utterly failed at my single goal. 

On the bright side, I finished my first multi-chaptered fic! I am very proud of myself for actually making it to the end and not quitting (rip to my old 2014 wattpad stories that I never finished and will forever remain incomplete). 

Thank you to everyone who followed me along on my journey to BS my way through each chapter as if I remembered what happened in the previous one. I hope to never anything like this again in the future, but who knows. I sure don’t :) 

Also, in the beginning of this story I was like “I’m just gonna make them all think of Mari as a friend” and then somewhere in there I gave up on that and went “nope. Full on family member. Ride or die” and I think that’s beautiful. I shall leave you all with one last note that was supposed to be the end note of the first chapter: it might not be accidental child acquisition, but it certainly was accidental young adult acquisition. 

<3 <3 <3

Final Tag List (aka the ones who remained)

After Marinette passed out, the family brought her down to the medbay to take care of her wounds as much as they could. Alfred tutted at the state of the poor girl who, to them, had been fine a few minutes prior. 

“What can you tell me?” Bruce questioned the Kwami who came out of the miraculous when Mari detransformed. 

The tiny snake flew to the middle of the room so everyone could see him. “My name is Sass. I am the snake kwami of Intuition. I allow my wielder to travel back in time to five minutes prior usually.” 

“Usually,” Tim repeats. “I’m guessing you’re from a little farther in the future seeing how it’s already been five minutes and everyone here is fine.” 

“Correct,” Sass agreed. “I am from twenty-four hours in the future.” 

Bruce checked his watch to mark the time and then looked back up. “So how are you allowed to move so far back?” 

The kwami bowed his head at the question. “Usually a wielder would have to use a power up to get even a few extra minutes. However, our Guardian is not only more attuned to all the Miraculi, but also has magic. This allowed her to go back farther to a place of her choosing. Within reason. She only had enough magic to go back exactly twenty-four hours.” 

Bruce nodded once in understanding despite not understanding much. His children and their affinities for dangerous things, he swears. “So what can you tell us about what’s going to happen tomorrow?” 

Sass looked to Marinette. “I think that’s a question best answered by the Guardian.” 

…

An hour after Marinette passed out, the Waynes woke her up as promised. She woke up in the medbay, with her cuts cleaned and bandaged while there was a large ice pack taped to her upper left arm, where the biggest bruise was. She was still exhausted from the terrible day she lived through, but she couldn’t afford to sleep any longer. Everyone was in the room, waiting until she was ready to start answering questions. She let them stew for a few more moments while she drank a glass of water, but didn’t waste time with small talk since she had to tell them something urgently. She motioned to them, signifying that she was ready for the questions. 

“When does it happen?” Is the first thing Bruce asked. “The snake kwami told us that the snake miraculous has the power of time travel and that you came back exactly twenty-four hours after whatever happens,” he told her when she gave him a confused look. “We need to know when this started.” 

“Ah,” Mari nodded. “Tomorrow there will be an attack,” she stated. Everyone tensed up. “The League went back on their promise. They will storm the manor. The entire building will be surrounded.” Her eyes started to fog up as she got lost in the memory. “Jason left earlier this morning. Tomorrow morning. Dick, Tim and Bruce were at Wayne Enterprises. Cass and Steph went out. I’m not sure where Alfred or Babs were. Damian was in the Batcave. I was my room. The assassins must have disabled our security because there was no warning or alarms. They were suddenly everywhere. I was fighting seven of them while also trying to layer spells on the Miracle Box but it all got too much. I had no idea if anybody else was being hurt. I panicked and grabbed the box, and then I teleported to the Batcave but that wasn’t safe either. Damian was fighting against at least ten assassins on his own. He told me to go.” She looked down. “I didn’t want to but I knew we probably couldn’t win. So I grabbed the snake miraculous and transformed. When I used the power, second chance, I must have used magic too because this is hours before the attack rather than a few minutes. Or maybe I just used up more of my own energy. Maybe that’s why I’m so tired,” she mumbled the last bit under her breath. 

The room was filled with a heavy silence. Everyone seemed shocked by the story, but not once did anyone not believe it. Bruce’s face never lost it’s focused demeanor. The man leaned forward and set a hand on Marinette’s arm, careful of the bruising. “What can we do to help?” 

Marinette looked around at the people surrounding her. For once, she didn’t want to be in charge. The sudden attack had been one she wasn’t mentally prepared for. Growing up in Paris allowed her to have good response times, but the attack could have potentially taken her family from her. She had no idea if anything happened to the others, and it scared her. She didn’t have a lot of energy, and if she had had any less power, the snake miraculous might not have helped. Unlike Paris, the assassins were real people without any magical powers one could take away. They were just bad people doing bad things. 

Seeing her lost expression, Bruce took charge. “It’s okay if you don’t have an answer. I’ll take the lead. Tim, Barbara, do you have anything from your research?” 

Marinette sagged backwards in relief. Tim grabbed his laptop from where it was sitting on a nearby counter and started to root around for information on it. “I located a few League members in New Jersey, but they have yet to enter Gotham. This prevented them from triggering any of my alarms or alerting any of my contacts. I’ve contacted some of them, but none of them have heard anything from Ra’s, so this must be all Talia. Seems like she’s been going behind his back to do all of this.” 

Bruce and Dick shared a look when Tim mentioned his contacts, but didn’t say anything about it. 

“I couldn’t find any League in Gotham, but I’ve had alerts in New York go off in the past hour,” Barbara said, adjusting her glasses. “Seems like they’re surrounding Gotham for an attack.” 

Bruce looked at Jason and Damian. “Have you heard anything from Talia?” 

Jason shook his head as Damian responded, “Mother has not contacted me in the last few months. I believe she is under the impression that I have been keeping the Box of Miracles a secret out of malicious intent towards her.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Months?” Bruce asked. 

“While the attack tomorrow will most likely be in response towards our destruction of the Lazarus Pits, I believe she would have attacked without it. She probably heard about our new friend from the Order of the Miraculous and wanted to kidnap her for information.” 

Marinette paled at that revelation. Upon hearing that, Dick joined Mari where she sat on the medbay bed. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, letting her sink into his side. On her other side, Cass joined them and wrapped both arms around her waist so she was cocooned. Mari sniffed, “I’m very sorry for pulling you all into this. I didn’t want anything like this to happen.” 

Dick squeezed her shoulder gently. “You have nothing to apologize for. We can handle a few assassins. We’ve probably faced worse.” 

Mari shook her head. “It’s not a few. I’m pretty sure they sent half of The League.” 

“Half?” Steph questioned. “For one person?” 

Marinette smiled bitterly. “They know what I have. They know how I fight because of our trip to Switzerland. They know that I am prepared to do anything to protect the Miracle Box. I think they know not to underestimate people. Especially magical people with access to magical jewelry and tiny gods.” 

“Makes sense.” Jason nodded. “We may be paranoid, but the League is too. Anything they think is a possibility is accounted for. Nothing is too farfetched when magic is involved.” 

Damian gave a curt nod. “Even without magic, they know who our family is and know we’re prepared for anything. They’d probably send the entire League even knowing the house was almost empty.” 

Marinette watched as the others gave their reports and opinions. Nine years ago, that was her leading her friends. Now she’s one of the followers. It’s a new experience, though not unwelcome. It was almost refreshing, not being in charge. 

Finally, everyone finished talking. Bruce nodded. “Alright. I have a plan. Here’s what we’re going to do.” 

… 

For the first time in their lives, all the Bats went to bed at a reasonable, normal hour (though they might have had to drug Tim since he kept trying to work on his laptop). 

Then, at 5am, the sound of wake-up alarms filled the Manor. There was a lot of groaning (Steph, Dick, and Mari mostly), whining (also Dick), and a whole lot of grumbling (Tim, Babs, and Jason), but everyone got up and met in the cave. Bruce went over the plan again so everyone understood the assignment before everyone jumped into motion. The Bats all put on their uniforms while Alfred and Barbra set up a few weapons and traps. Marinette grabbed the Miracle Box and hid it in one of the Bat-Approved safes. Before she closed it, she grabbed the Peacock and the Snake miraculous. 

As discussed, Alfred was waiting for her by the batcomputer. Marinette took a deep breath before reciting her speech. 

“Alfred Pennyworth. This is the Miraculous of the peacock which grants you the power of emotion. You’ll use it for the greater good. Once this mission is over, you’ll return the Miraculous to me. Can I trust you?” 

The butler nodded gravely and accepted the broach she held out. “Of course.” 

Marinette gave herself no time to delay the first step in her secret plan. She walked over to Cass where she was sitting on the mats, stretching. Seeing her approach, Cass stood. Mari stoped right in front of her. “Cassandra Cain.” At this Cass straightened, sensing the seriousness. “This is the Miraculous of the snake which grants you the power of intuition. You’ll use it for the greater good. Once this mission is over, you’ll return the Miraculous to me. Can I trust you?” 

Cass studied Marinette’s face for a few seconds, trying to find any hesitation or distrust. Not finding any, she smiled and took the bracelet. “With your life.” 

Marinette nodded to her, the two coming to an agreement that no matter what, everyone survives the fight. Mari turned to go put on her outfit, leaving Sass to explain the power of Second Chance and the possible toll on the mind. 

As Marinette got dressed, her mind kept rushing back to the original timeline. The feeling of not knowing where the rest of her family was. Knowing they probably weren’t safe. Watching Damian be overrun by assassins and then being forced to leave him behind. Knowing that she abandoned that timeline, and her family was probably broken in her absence— whether because one person died or all of them. The rabbit miraculous might erase timelines, but the snake started the user’s timeline over. There was a possibility that the timeline she abandoned kept going, and her family didn’t survive. 

It hurt. 

But there was also hope for today. The plan they came up with will work. It had to. The entire batclan was made up of the smartest people in the world. Each with their own specialties. Alfred the all-knowing, Bruce the leader, Dick the acrobat, Barbara the tech wizard, Cass the ninja, Jason the brawler, Tim the detective, Steph the crafty, Marinette the magic expert, and Damian the ex-assassin. They all had knowledge in almost every field, but they all were best known for one specific quality. 

Or at least most of the time. Depends who you ask. 

The point is, no matter how many times Cass has to use the snake miraculous, they will come out victorious. The only other option is death, and Marinette really doesn’t want to think about that for too long or she’d seriously lose her cool. 

Joining the others near the computer, they collected their comms, got into teams, and double checked all their equipment. And then- 

“Why did you do this to us?” Tim glared at Bruce. Everyone stood in their costumes- sans masks- staring at the man who forced them to wake up before the sun was even a foot above the horizon. “The attack won’t even start until noonish. Was seven hours really necessary?” 

Stephanie pretended to wail. “I can’t believe I lost precious sleep for no reason. Oh the agony. I could be sleeping right now.” 

Babs sighed, but agreed with the others. “They have a point, Bruce. It’s fine to get up early, but now we’re going to be over-paranoid for the next few hours waiting.” 

Bruce had the gall to not look guilty, staring blankly back at Babs. “Usually I go over the plan a few more times.” 

Groans echoed on the cave. “Please don’t,” Steph begged, “we went over it like half an hour ago. And last night. I think I can remember everything.” 

“Plus we all know the plan probably won’t go smoothly either.” Jason pointed to Marinette. “Mari obviously has another plan with Cass, and I guarantee Tim and Barbie have multiple contingencies themselves.” Tim and Babs just looked at each other and shrugged. It’s not like Jason was wrong. 

Bruce was starting to look a little uncomfortable. “I was thinking that we should just wake up early to give ourselves some time to prepare ourselves.” 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred cut in. “There is an appropriate amount of time to prepare, and then there is an overwhelming amount of time to overthink things. I think in this case you overthought the schedule for today.” 

Bruce looked lost, but nodded since he knew Alfred was usually right about these sorts of things. The others seemed exasperated. 

“Well,” Steph said, reaching into her back pocket. “Good think I planned for Bruce over-planning.” 

The sight of the pack of go-fish elicited many groans and cheers of various enthusiasm. 

… 

Finally the clock hit eleven am. The Bats had gone several round of go-fish. Some of the rounds ended civilly. Some of them ended with a sword to the throat or bruised shins from steal-toed boot kicks. Fortunately for Dick’s legs and Tim’s throat, Bruce decided to put a stop to the games. 

“Everyone get into positions. The time Mari traveled back was about an hour for now, so that gives us an unknown amount of time until the fight started.” Bruce pulled his cowl up, everyone else following suit. 

Marinette put on her mask and then called up her ladybug transformation. Alfred and Cass did the same. Everyone looked at Cass in confusion, but nobody asked, knowing that Mari had a plan in mind in case things went sideways. 

Agent A, now dressed in a deep indigo suit, grabbed many feathers from his fan and directed them to the many items in the batcave. The more notable items included the cursed Discowing suit, the batmobile, and a whole dinosaur. 

(The fashion designer in Mari wanted to stab the discowing suit. By the shivering of some of the others, she wasn’t the only one.) 

With a few centurions made, Agent A ordered them to cover all the entrancess in the cave. They would be the second line of defense behind the traps. After they were positioned, Agent A turned around and grabbed his shotgun. Batman stared at it in mild distaste while Red Hood grinned underneath his helmet. He started bouncing on his feet slightly. “You know A means business when he brings out the shotgun.” Spoiler cheered and gave him an enthusiastic high-five. 

The teams split up to cover all the entrances in the cave behind the sentimonster guards. 

The newly transformed Thia looked at her partners as they got into position by the elevator to the manor. Nightwing and Spoiler nodded to her as they double checked the traps. Nobody spoke for a while, tense as they waited. Nightwing apparently was bored and decided to try and alleviate some nerves. “Hey S, I bet you ten bucks I’ll take down more assassins than you.” 

Spoiler scoffed as others on the comms groaned or sighed. “You wish.” 

Thia gave them tired looks. “You are both very wealthy and are given allowances by a billionaire.” 

Nightwing shook his head. “Oh Thia. It’s about the satisfaction of winning.” 

He ignored Spoiler’s exclamation of “ten bucks can buy me so much glitter.” Thia shuttered at the thought of glitter in Steph’s hands. 

Batman’s loud sigh echoed over the comms in a way that all his children knew was reserved only for them. “I should have stopped at one,” he muttered. In a louder voice, he ordered “no more chatter. Marinette said that the attack would have started about half an hour before she went back. We should be prepared until the fighting starts.” 

Nightwing winked at Thia (it was obvious even though she couldn’t see his eyes), but followed Batman’s ordered and stayed silent. The cave was filled with tension, but they didn’t have to wait very long. Silent alarms went off on the bat computer, alerting the Bats that the manor had been broken into. Not even twenty seconds later, the first wave of assassins flew into the cave. 

The first two assassins were hit with bolas and fell to the ground, tied up. The next one was bit by a dinosaur and thrown around the room until they fell unconscious by the vertigo. A few assassins made it through the first two defenses, but were swiftly knocked out by Batman and Robin. 

It was obvious when the assassins realized that Thia was not in the manor as they started flooding into the cave. The comm was overcome with the noise of fighting, but the loudest thing was the instructions given by Black Bat. 

“Robin! Duck!” 

“Thia, move left!” 

“Hood, six o’clock!” 

Thia smiled grimly as she kicked another ninja in the head. She knew Cass would be a good candidate for the snake. Despite knowing that all the orders meant that Cass had witnessed them being hurt or killed, she knew that the girl would be the only one not to give into anger and give out directions with a cool head. 

The fighting seemed to go on forever. Thia flashed back to the previous timeline when she said half the league came to take her and the miracle box. She was mistaken. No, that was only a fraction of the league. 

This. This was half the league. 

Nightwing and Spoiler seemed to have a rhythm going on. They’d fight one assassin for a few seconds and then yell out “switch!” And switch targets with each other. Thia wondered how they were keeping track of how many assassins they defeat when each one was technically a group effort. 

At one point in the fight, Red Hood yelled out, “hey N! Your old persona just died!” which resulted in Nightwing wailing in mock-pain as a few people (Thia, Red Robin, and Spoiler mostly) cheered at the death of Discowing. The break in seriousness ended quickly as everyone fought the next wave of assassins. 

Black Bat was still yelling out instructions when her transformation ended. Oracle and Agent A defended her back as she recharged Sass. She had already recharged twice before, but those were before the hoard got this bad. As much as she loved Oracle and Agent A, they were better at long distance than close-range combat. Thia knew she had to go help them while Cass’s back was vulnerable. She yelled to Nightwing and Spoiler that she was leaving them, to which they replied by wishing her luck getting through the flood assassins. 

Her journey was going alright at first. One punch to the temple here, a flick of her yo-yo there. A few assassins got in some lucky shots, of course. They were some of the world’s best, after all. Thia had quite a few cuts on her, and a light stab wound on her left calf. But overall, nothing was fatal and she felt pretty good all things considered. 

So of course, that’s when things escalated. Just as she was about to reach Black Bat and her team, a yell echoed out from the other side of the cave. “Talia is here! She’s heading towards the computer!” 

Thia was too distracted to pay attention to who said it. She threw her yo-yo around one ninja’s waist and used his momentum against him to throw him at the other assassins nearby. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of light, signifying that Black Bat had recharged her miraculous successfully. On one hand, this was good since Black Bat could now focus again on fighting and calling out instructions. On the other hand, that meant Thia just waded through a sea of assassins alone for no reason. 

Wonderful. 

Instead of staying where she was, though, Thia continued to get closer to her allies so someone could watch her back more accurately. Or at least that would have been the plan if fate actually decided it liked her. 

Between one second and the next, Talia appeared in front of her. With a single hand motion, all the assassins came to a halt. The Bats also stopped fighting, knowing that Talia was dramatic just like her father, and like her father, she believed herself untouchable. If she wanted them to stop fighting, she’d make them stop fighting. They were lucky she wasn’t using anyone as a hostage. Something about it rubbed Thia the wrong way. She was cocky. Overconfident. There was something here she could exploit. 

“Well well,” Talia said, walking up to Thia slowly. “I believe you have something for me, pest.” 

Thia tilted her head. “The only thing you’ll get from me is bruises and maybe a concussion.” 

The assassin smirked. “Cute. Though it’s funny you think you have a chance against me.”

Clutching her yo-yo in one hand, Thia gave her a sickly sweet smile. “I could say the same to you.” Calling up her last line of defense, Thia threw her arm up to summon her lucky charm. The item had just formed when a throwing star hit it, sending it too far for Thia to use it. She didn’t even see it before it was hit away. Looking back at her opponent in disbelief, she blinked incredulously. “Was that necessary?” 

“All’s fair in love and war,” Talia quoted condescendingly. 

Thia narrowed her eyes. She knew fighting Talia was a losing battle. There was no way she could win without help or magic. Luckily, she didn’t need to win. If there’s anything Tim has taught her in the last year, it’s that you don’t need to win every fight. “What do you want, Talia?” 

Talia laughed as if that question was hilarious. “I think you know what I want, little insect. And I think you’re going to give it to me. Whether you like it or not.”  

“You forget,” Thia said, clutching her yo-yo. “I’m not just an insect anymore.” She threw it at Talia’s blade, yanking it towards her, and sending the woman off balance slightly. Talia snarled and lunged at her, aiming to cut Thia’s hand to make her drop the yo-yo. Thia didn’t let it get that far, though, and kicked the hand, leaving the woman to force herself to go with the motion and spin with a roundhouse kick. Thia ducked under it and wrapped her yo-yo around Talia’s foot to swipe it away. Unfortunately, the woman’s other foot came down on the string, not letting it unstable her. Thia used her other hand to grab Talia’s ankle and throw her onto her back anyway. Instead of staying down, the older woman rolled back into a fighting pose. Thia mirrored her and recalled her yo-yo. 

“I’m a bat.” 

Echoes of cheers and “yeah you tell her” ran through the comms as the others listened in on the conversation. Talia snarled and started to monologue, oblivious to Thia tuning her out. In her ear, Black Bat started to strategize. “In about two minutes Talia will motion to an assassin to stab you in the back. You need to either fight her before that happens, or someone else needs to get there first.” Thia nodded subtly, hoping Talia wouldn’t notice and force the ninja to attack sooner than planned. With a new plan in mind, she tuned back into the ranting assassin in front of her. 

“-and that is why you are going to surrender now. Set down your pathetic weapon and give the miraculous to me.” 

“Miraculi,” Thia corrected. “And of course I’m not going to do that. You think I’d willingly give them up after fighting for this long?” 

Talia gripped her katana. “I don’t think you’ll have a choice.” It was subtle, but still there. After she spoke, a small flicker of the eyes told Thia that someone was creeping up behind her. To her credit, if Black Bat hadn’t warned her, she probably wouldn’t have noticed. 

Talia’s blood-dripping smile sent shivers down her spine. This was the woman who raised her son to be a killer. This is the woman who turned Jason against his family. The woman who would kill her own beloved for a chance to have even one sliver of power. This made her dangerous. 

But not infallible. 

Before Talia could utter another word, a red and black-spotted knife appeared at Talia’s throat. “I believe it is time you leave, Mother.” 

Thia glanced behind her to see Red Robin with a bo staff under an assassin’s chin and Red Hood holding a gun to his head. She gave them a nod in thanks and turned back to Talia. “How about we make a deal. Your life and dignity for you leaving us the hell alone.” 

Robin pressed the lucky charm harder against Talia’s throat as the woman made a small movement. “Don’t even try it. Drop your weapon.” 

His mother was stubborn, and hesitated for a long time. While Robin was raised in the League to be an assassin, everyone knew he didn’t kill anymore. And even if he did, he probably wouldn’t have killed his own mother. Probably. 

Unfortunately, Talia knew this too. She made a slight hand motion like she was going to continue attacking when the cocking of a gun echoed in the otherwise silent room. 

The usual suspect would have been Red Hood, but he was busy threatening another assassin. No. This gun was held by Agent A himself. 

Aka the only Bat who everyone underestimates. 

“Miss Talia. While we both know this family no longer has anyone willing to end a life, I hold no such regards. If you make a move to hurt any of them, I will not hesitate in stopping you.” 

For all that she was confident in the others keeping her alive, Talia did not know enough about one Alfred Pennyworth to determine if he was bluffing or not. Judging by the look in his eye, he wasn’t. If there’s one thing that Talia won’t stand for, it’s dying by such a weak tool. 

Glaring, the woman dropped her sword. She made eye contact with Thia. “This isn’t over. I will get the jewels one day. Your days are numbered.” 

Giving Talia a bland look, Thia replied, “So are yours, I imagine. Might want to keep an eye on those green swimming pools of yours. Never know when they’re suddenly going to explode for no reason.” The second she said it, Thia knew she was in for a lecture on threatening dangerous people. Oh well. Not like she wasn’t going to get lectured anyway for leaving her team earlier. Might as well make it worth it. It’s always funny to see the vein on Bruce’s forehead pop out. 

Talia snarled and snapped her fingers. Immediately, all the assassins started to leave the cave. Red Hood and Red Robin released their assassin and watched it disappear into the shadows of the room. Robin quickly removed the lucky charm from Talia’s throat and pushed her forward. She glared one last time at Thia. “Watch your back, pest.” And with all her dignity torn by her own son and an old man, she left the cave. There was a beat where nobody moved, and then all at once everyone was rushing to the batcomputer. Security footage of the manor was pulled up, along with Wayne Enterprises and one of Jason’s safehouses. Unsurprisingly, assassins could be seen retreating from all the locations. 

Only once the last assassin disappeared off the security cameras did the bats all relax. And then they immediately tensed again and looked around the cave. 

“So, uhhh.” Red Hood kicked the nearest unconscious assassin. “What are we doing about all of them?” 

Batman gave a low grumble under his breath and grabbed the nearest ninja. “For now we will put them all in a holding cell. We can take them somewhere else later.” 

Red Robin looked at him uncertainly. “There’s way too many for us to clean up right now and fit in our holding cells. There’s also no prison that can realistically hold every single one of them.” 

Batman started dragging the Assassins to the holding cells. Slowly, the others started to help. “They don’t need to stay together. We can take them to separate locations. Some to Arkham. Some to Blackgate. Maybe other prisons the Justice League has.” 

“Really, Old Man?” Hood asked. “I don’t think Blackgate or Arkham is equipt enough to handle League assassins.” 

“Probably not,” Batman agreed. “But as long as Talia keeps our agreement, it doesn’t matter if they escape.” 

Spoiler raised an eyebrow. “Well someone is obviously losing their paranoid attitude. Is that resignation I hear?” Batman growled, but didn’t respond to the taunt. 

After a solid hour of shoving all the assassins into the small holding cells, the team finally breathed sighs of relief. Of course, Agent A and Batman continued to check all security measures, and Babs started to update the coding in the cell’s panels, but the others? They just collapsed. All of them. Right on the floor where they stood. 

Steph took off her mask. “I’m going to sleep for the next two years,” she informed them. 

There were grumbles of agreement as the others attempted to melt into the floor. Masks were removed, gloves were thrown off, shoes flung into each other’s faces. They were all exhausted. Even Damian didn’t really react to Steph’s sweaty sock landing on his stomach. He was too tired to do anything beyond a quiet curse of revenge. 

They all continued to wallow in self-pity and exhaustion until Bruce came over and started questioning them about their health. He made sure nobody was actively bleeding out and took note of the worst injuries. He kicked Tim lightly in the shins. “Bare minimum, you need to sanitize all your wounds. You shouldn’t allow them to become infected.” 

Tim threw an arm over his eyes. “I know, B. But I think if I stand up right now I will literally pass out. So if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to stay right here.” 

Alfred came over with a tray, Duusuu sitting on his shoulders. He handed the tray to Bruce. “At least take your pills and let Bruce sanitize the cut on your forehead. We wouldn’t want you to catch a fever.” 

Tim grumbled, but grabbed the pills to swallow dry and allowed Bruce to clean his wound. One by one, Alfred came around to sanitize and wrap all their injuries. Absolutely none of them attempting to help. 

At the sight of her stab wound, Alfred tutted and left to grab his suturing supplies. He didn’t say a word, but Mari winced at his expression more than the feeling of the needle going in and out of her skin (even with the numbing injection Alfred gave). The wound only required five stitches, but it was the mental exhaustion that left Marinette nearly passing out right there. 

Jason’s arm lazily reached out and poked her on the head from where he lay next to her. “Hey Nette. Random question. When do you know when to use the term ‘miraculous’ and when to use ‘miraculi’?” 

“Yeah I was wondering that too. You change it a lot.” Tim’s tired voice piped up. 

“Well that’s easy, I-“ she paused. “Wait.” 

“Oh now she gets our confusion,” Steph’s voice laughs. 

Mari blinks. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just an in-the-moment kind of thing. I change it up when it feels right. I corrected Talia because I thought it’d make her mad and it might be funny.” 

Jason snorted. “Oh yeah. You’re definitely one of us. Pissing off our enemies is tradition.” 

Dick hummed. “The jewels of the Miracle Box. Pronouns Miraculous/Miraculi.” He giggled at his own joke. 

Babs sighed. “Dick, that’s not even funny.” 

“Vote to cast Dick off the island,” Steph offered. 

Cass lifted one of her arms in the air before she let it drop bonelessly to the ground. “Too giggly.” She nodded to herself. “Bye Dick.” 

Her nonchalance sent Mari into a puddle of laughter. This caused the others to burst into cackling that drowned out the sound of Dick’s sputtering. Even Damian let out a hysterical laugh. 

Once the giggling died down, Marinette asked a question that had been bugging her for the past few minutes. “Hey Steph, who won your bet?” 

Ignoring her sore muscles and aching bones, Steph launched upright, making the people around her flinch at the suddenness. “Oh my god you’re right. Hey Dick! How much assassin butt did you kick?” 

Dick coughed into his fist. “I may have lost count after the forty-third ninja. I got too tired to keep counting.” 

Steph visibly drooped. “Aww man.” She brightened again a second later, giving everyone whiplash. “That’s okay, though. I also stopped counting.” She gave an evil grin. “But I stopped counting at fifty-two. So I win!” She threw her hands in the air, but then immediately winced and flopped back onto her back. 

“No fair!” Dick whined. “It’s impossible to know if you actually won! I refuse to pay you when there’s no confirmed number.” 

Despite her tiredness, Steph apparently had enough spite in her to throw herself at Dick’s weak form. The two squabbled lightly, wrestling around. At one point they fell into Damian, who just shoved them away harshly. “Careful, imbeciles. Some of us are trying to sleep.” 

This made Dick pause, allowing Steph to drive an elbow into his stomach. Ignoring this, Dick smiled at his youngest brother. “Aww Dami. Great idea! Group cuddle time!” 

Damian’s eyes shot open. “Wait, no Grayson that is not what I meant- oof!” The wind was knocked out of him as Dick threw his whole weight onto the poor boy, dragging Steph with him. The others scooted away from Dick’s arms as they reached out for other victims to drag in. 

“No thanks, Dickie. I want to keep all my organs today. Unlike Timmers.” Jason smirked at Tim. The younger man gave Jason an evil side eye, but didn’t retaliate. 

On the other hand, Damian swore and tried reaching for his katana, but it was just out of reach. “Release me at once, Richard!” He continued to swear at Dick, the others laughing at the youngest boy’s misfortune. 

Marinette giggled at the small cuddle pile. Despite her initial experience of the fight, things had turned out okay in the end. She was glad that the snake miraculous took her so far back. Who knows what she would have done if she had only an hour or two. 

She was also lucky to have planned with the best of the best. Talia would probably never stop fighting for the miraculous, but at least she knew the Bats were capable of warding her off. And who knows. Maybe one day they’ll flip her to their side. 

Knowing Talia the chances of that were slim to none. But still. They’re not zero, and until she knows for sure that they are, she’ll have her optimism. 

Someone in this family has to look on the bright side. 

<<Previous Next >>

AASwL First | AWoD First 

_____

Everyone say bye Dick. 

Tag List: 

Damian was paranoid about his mother attacking, but finally started to relax once Bruce comforted him by pointing out that they had faced Talia before and won. Now that she knew what they were capable of, hopefully she would think twice before attacking. 

The day after it happened, Dick corralled everyone into the den and forced them to watch a movie marathon. Many many pictures were taken after Damian fell asleep while leaning on Jason. Alfred watched the family with contentment and relief that they were all in one piece (for the most part). 

On the seventh day, Alfred was dusting the family room when loud knocking echoed throughout the house. He made his way to the front door and opened it to reveal-

“Miss Cassandra! Miss Barbara! You’re back early!” 

“Hi, Alfred,” Barbara smiled as she wheeled into the manor, Cass walking behind her. “We heard about what went down a few days ago. Steph was practically bouncing off the walls to come back, so we just decided to take an earlier flight.” 

Steph flew into the manor, trying to carry three very purple suitcases all at once. “Was not! This is slander!” 

Cass giggled and whispered to Alfred, “bouncing.” 

Steph squawked behind her. Barbara just laughed at the blonde as Alfred’s right eyebrow slowly went up. 

“So where is everyone?” Steph asked. 

Alfred gave a soft smile and motioned to the bedrooms. “Follow me.” 

…

“Oh hell, that’s adorable.” 

Alfred sighed at Stephanie’s language, but didn’t deny her. In Dick’s room there was a puppy-pile of Bats. Dick was in the middle, while Marinette and Tim were on either side of him, using his chest as a pillow. Damian was laying flat on his back beside Marinette, but his entire right side was flush against her back. His right hand was being held in Dick’s left. Jason had spread out across everyone’s feet, his own hanging off the bed. All five of them were fast asleep. 

After taking many blackmail pictures, the girls and Alfred left the room silently. Cass gave Alfred a worried look and motioned to the door. 

Alfred nodded sadly. “Master Dick had a nightmare and was doing rounds when he woke up Miss Marinette. She woke up everyone else and made them spend the rest of the night in Master Dick’s room.” 

Steph raised an eyebrow. “And Damian and Jason just let this happen?” 

The corner of Alfred’s mouth twitched up. “I believe heavy persuasion was necessary for Master Jason. Master Damian was dragged by Master Timothy.” 

“And he didn’t get stabbed?” Steph asked incredulously. Sure, she knew Damian hadn’t made an attempt on Tim’s life in a few years, but he was still known to lash out when awoken suddenly and rudely. 

“Master Damian has improved greatly these past few months. I believe Master Dick and Miss Marinette had a heavy hand in this, though it could simply be Master Damian maturing.” 

“Hmm. New girl’s got mad skills. Makes sense,” Steph nodded to herself. 

“Four to four,” Cass said to the other girls. 

Barbara smirked as Steph grinned. “Cass you’re right! Maybe we can finally gang up on the boys during a prank war!” 

Alfred sighed, though the girls could still see his fond expression. “If you would be so kind as to give me a heads up, it would be much appreciated. Though please do avoid the kitchen and dining room.” 

“Yes Alfred” was chorused in the hallway as the group walked to the den. 

…

When being introduced to the Wayne girls (only one was legally a Wayne, but everyone knew Bruce had mentally adopted the other two), Marinette was in awe. She had heard stories about all three, but it’s completely different meeting them in person. 

Barbara introduced herself with a calculating look that turned into an approving smile. Marinette returned it, feeling a little intimidated and very much like her whole life story had just been read through her eyes by the redhead. 

Stephanie— “call me Steph”— had greeted her with a hug and declared them sisters. The hug was unlike any of the soft and overprotective ones she’d earned in the past year, being more like an excited friend who is happy to see her. Marinette returned the hug with the same enthusiasm. 

After being released from Steph’s hug, she was pulled over to the last member of the trio. The girl met her eyes and smiled. Cass seemed more withdrawn than the others, but introduced herself and then gave her a tiny hug before skipping over to Tim and trapping him in a hug too. At her slight confusion, Steph chuckled and leaned over to whisper, “Cass gives Tim Tam hugs because he was touch-starved when they first met and still reacts to hugs like he’s never experienced them before.” 

“Ah.” She looked from Steph and to the mess that was Cass trying to fuse with Tim. “If you’ll excuse me, Steph, I have a touch-starved boy to hug.” 

Steph laughed, the sound causing Tim to look in their direction. Seeing the look in Mari’s eyes, he started to squirm to escape Cass’s grip. “Wait, wait Mari no. Don’t do this to me. Mars, wait please.” But it was too late. Despite his attempts to escape and persuade the girls otherwise, he soon found himself squished between the two tiny girls. His groaning only got louder as Dick saw the group hug and joined in. 

Needless to say, Tim was trapped there for a while. 

…

“What do we do now?” 

Everyone looked at Dick, who had just entered the den where everyone was lounging around. Tim, Damian, Cass, and Marinette were locked in a violent game of Uno, where Damian was winning due to shear luck of drawing five draw four cards in the span of one turn. Marinette was obviously losing, holding twenty-five cards in her hand. Jason was watching in amusement out of the corner of his eye, an open book in his lap. Steph was attempting to paint Tim’s nails while he was playing, but kept smudging them on the cards, leaving purple nail polish everywhere. Babs and Bruce had their laptops open and were activley working on them. Alfred was knitting on a comfortable chair in the corner watching the chaos unfold. 

“What do you mean?” Marinette tilted her head in confusion, cringing as Damian slammed down a “skip your turn” card. 

Dick walked over to observe their game as he talked. “Well, we defeated the bad guy. So do we celebrate? Or just pretend like it never happened?” 

Tim, Damian, and Mari paused their game and shared a look. All at once, they looked up at Dick and chorused, “pretend.” Without explaining why, they turned back to the game. 

Dick flinched at the creepiness of the whole thing. He looked at Jason and Bruce. “Why does this family insist on having bad coping mechanisms.” 

Jason just snorted and turned away from his older brother. Dick sighed as he was ignored by his entire family. One day he would get them to have healthy habits. Obviously this was not that day. He grabbed the book Jason was reading and sat on the couch, plopping his feet in Jason’s lap at the same time that Tim slammed down a draw four card on top of the one Cass already placed down, causing Damian to draw eight. 

“Hey! Give that back!” 

“Uno!” 

“How dare you Timothy!” 

“My nail polish!” 

“Beat that Dami!” 

“Don’t call me that!” 

“Give me back my book!” 

“Stop tickling my feet!” 

Bruce breathed heavily out as his children’s voices took over the room. Marinette and Cass were giggling as they watched Tim and Damian banter while Jason was tickling Dick’s feet on the couch. Steph was mourning the loss of her purple nail polish that had fallen onto her lap, her once white pants sporting a purple stain. 

...

Everyone managed to calm down after an hour, now sitting around listening to Bruce try and defend himself against Alfred. 

“You make it sound like I flirted with everything that moved!” 

“Master Bruce, you flirted with Lex Luther. I was half inclined to send you to the medley and have you tested for mind control.” 

His children laughed as Bruce protested. 

“Bruce you rascal!” Jason cackled. 

“Brucie Wayne strikes again!” Dick howled. 

Tim was slapping Cass’s arm in silent laughter as he doubled over. Even Babs was laughing. 

Steph pointed to Bruce in mock horror. “I can’t believe you’d stoop so low, B!” 

The sound of laughter filled the room as Bruce’s protests died. He smiled at his family as he silently admitted to himself that a story at his expense was alright as long as it produced sounds like this. 

Dick turned to look at Mari, who was still giggling. She finally managed to calm herself down and opened her mouth to say something when a light blue flash covered her. 

Everyone jumped up, immediately on guard. In Marinette’s place was a woman in a teal snake-themed costume. She was breathing heavily, her body curling in on itself, and a bright red wound was sluggishly dripping down her face. Her hair was obviously supposed to be in a neat braid, but instead it was messy and hairs were plastered all over her face. 

“...Marinette?” Dick asked tentatively. 

The woman looked up from her hunched over position. Another light blue flash appeared over her, revealing a very bruised and battered Marinette. Without the magical suit on, it was obvious she had been injured before transforming. She had on a black tank-top that showed off the large bruises and small cuts on her arms. Without the magic to protect her, her head wound started bleeding at a more rapid rate. 

“I guess I went too far back,” she laughed weakly. She looked over at Jason, who was sitting nearest to her. “Not to alarm anyone, but I think I’m going to pass out for a bit. Wake me in an hour. There’s a lot we need to talk about.” 

Before anybody could respond, Marinette was already slumping over, almost falling out of her chair. Jason caught her before she could reach the floor. 

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AAWwL First | AWoD First

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Sorry for hurting the baby :)

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A figure dressed as a white rabbit stepped through a portal, carrying an umbrella and a notepad in each hand. Once the portal closed, the person released their transformation, revealing one Adrien Agreste.

Marinette’s shoulders slumped. “We failed, didn’t we?” She asked him.

Adrien winced, walking over to her. “Not exactly.” Before she could ask him to elaborate, she was swept up in a hug. Just as fast as it started, Adrien pulled away and faced the others. “Alright. I have some things to review and others to change. But first—“ he turned to Mari— “I need you to get the butterfly miraculous.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Nooroo? What for?”

“Just—“ he hesitated. “Trust me, we’ll need it.”

“For the plan? I don’t know, Adrien.”

“Marinette. Do you trust me?” He asked.

“Of course I trust you. I just can’t use another miraculous,” Marinette argued. “It’s dangerous. What if the League got the idea to steal it? Or actually did steal it? We can’t have another Hawkmoth situation. We can’t have people go through that again. I can’t have Nooroo doing that again, I-“

“Marinette.” Adrien set his hands on her shoulders, stopping her from her spiral. “The League will recognize the Ladybug Miraculous.”

“They-“ she blinked- “they will what?”

Adrien nodded. “The League is aware of the Miraculi. The second they see the yo-yo they know. You can’t let that one fact stop you from saving yourself.”

Marinette seemed more confused. “Saving myself? What happens?”

“It’s what happened,” he corrected. “I’m here to stop it from happening again. And I’m not going to tell you because then you’ll just spiral into another panic and you’ll get distracted, and distracted Marinette could make a mistake.” Here, he glanced meaningfully at the Waynes. “So here’s what we’re gonna do: we are going to talk with Nooroo, talk with the others, and come up with a new plan that doesn’t end in disaster. Okay?”

They Waynes and Marinette exchanged looks, but eventually all seemed to come to an agreement. “Fine,” Marinette told him and got to work.

First she told Bruce to call Alfred via the batmobile and tell him to go to her room. Then the she gave him instructions for opening the Miracle Box and which miraculous to use and which one to grab. Five minutes later, Alfred Pennyworth wearing the horse miraculous stepped through a portal into the warehouse.

“Okay, how does he look so distinguished when he’s dressed as a horse?” Jason muttered to Dick. The older brother just shrugged.

Alfred walked over to Marinette and held out his hand, which had the butterfly broach in it. “Here you are, Priestess Marinette.”

Marinette grimaced at the title. “Oh Alfred, not you too.” She glared at Jason when he had the audacity to snort at her. Grabbing the miraculous, she turned back to Adrien. “What now?”

Adrien sighed as if he would rather not say what he’s about to say. “Now it’s story time,” he replied as he pulled out a notebook.

Everyone in the warehouse listened wearily as Adrien started to tell them how the mission went the first time. Everything seemed fine, and they had even succeeded, but then they were told of all the assassins coming into play. Adrien slowly told them about the fighting, clueing Mari that he was keeping some things out. He concluded the fight by saying that some of them were heavily injured and they left the fight early. When he finished, Bruce looked at him disbelievingly. “Why did you come back?”

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck. “Admittedly, I am leaving some things out. But it’s nothing important to the mission. I’m here so I can stop it.”

“Can you tell us? Or did someone ask you not to?” Dick asked.

Adrien’s eyes flickered to Jason so fast she almost thought she imagined it. Based on Jason’s expression, he noticed too. “I can, but I shouldn’t.”

“Could I see that?” Bruce asked, pointing to Adrien’s notebook.

Adrien grimaced. “Unfortunately no. Spoilers.”

The bats all gave him confused looks. “But-“ Tim blinked slowly. “You just told us what’s going to happen.”

Marinette studied his face. Obviously what they just heard was bad, but he was holding something back. The implications of his hesitance were damning. Whatever else happened must have been worse than just the assassins all attacking them. Her stomach twisted while her brain connected some of the dots. Setting a hand on his shoulder, she turned to the others. “The rabbit miraculous works in weird ways. If Adrien says he can’t tell us something, it’s probably best if we don’t know. If he tells us too much, we could doom ourselves to overthink and fail our mission.”

Nobody looked happy about this, but they all grudgingly agreed to drop it. Adrien gave her a grateful look as Jason stared at them.

“So the plan,” Tim started. “We should start with Mari being cold and tired. Obviously that was one of the reasons for her being injured. If we keep her from being tired she’ll have more energy to fight.”

Marinette shook her head. “We can’t use a miraculous to destroy the Pits. It won’t have the same effect. It has to be with magic, and since I’m the Guardian of the Miraculous, I have the specific magic type to affect the balance of the world. Using a miraculous would just get rid of the pits. With magic, the pool’s magic would be destroyed as well.”

Nodding, Tim looked to Adrien. “What do you suggest then? To tip the scales?”

Grimacing, Adrien motioned to Jason. “Jason said that you would have to kill Talia Al Ghul.”

“What does Mother have to do with this?” Damian demanded, crossing his arms.

“Killing Talia wouldn’t stop the assassins. They would just go off of their last order, which will probably be attacking us,” Bruce reasoned. “And we don’t kill. Jason knows this.”

“Which is why we should do it,” Jason argued back. “You know that I don’t kill anymore. Other me would only suggest it if it was the only way to win.”

Bruce crossed his arms. “We can make an agreement with Talia then.”

Jason scoffed as Damian pursed his lips. “I doubt Mother would agree to anything we offered. She’s too proud. Death would be the only way to cement our continued survival.”

“Is there a way to use the butterfly miraculous and force her to let us go?” Marinette interjected. Everyone paused and turned to her. She faced Adrien. “You had us grab the butterfly miraculous. The only reason we might need it is to convince Talia to let us go. But we know that she might resist the butterfly, so we would have to transform her minions so she has no allies.”

Adrien smiled. “Exactly.”

“Wait-“ Tim paused. “That’s actually really smart. If Talia has literally no way out, she’ll have to let us leave. And if we threaten her to do it again she may leave us alone.”

“Or not,” Damian added.

“Or not,” Tim admitted. “But if we don’t threaten her, she’ll definitely come after us. We should at least try. There’s no harm in it.”

Bruce sighed with the exasperation of a very tired father. “There is no harm in trying,” he repeated. “I think we should have a backup plan. In case she tries to attack us when we release the assassins.”

Tim scratched his chin in thought. “The real backup is probably the rabbit miraculous again. The actual backup plan, though, can just be to teleport out as soon as we can.” Alfred can help if needed.”

“Or we can kill Talia,” Jason muttered. Dick elbowed him in the side. “Hey! Watch it, Dickface!”

“Boys,” Bruce sighed.

Marinette ignored them. “So that’s what we agree to?” She raised an eyebrow and looked around the room. Everyone nodded (some more hesitantly than others) and turned to Nooroo as Mari addressed him. “Hey Nooroo,” she said gently. “How do you feel about this plan?”

Nooroo looked about the room hesitantly, as if looking for any angry faces. “May I be honest with you, Priestess?”

Keeping her face as open as she could, Marinette nodded. “No one will harm you for speaking your mind. Not here.”

The butterfly kwami didn’t smile, but his head perked up a little. “Honestly, I’m not prepared to be used in a negative manor. If you wish to use my miraculous, I’d prefer if someone with pure, confident intentions uses it. Any bit of malicious intent could make akumas rather than champions.”

Humming, Marinette looked around. “I’ll be too tired after using my magic, so I’m out. Jason and Damian are out for obvious reasons. Bruce too. I would say Dick, but I think Tim actually fits the role better.”

Tim blinked in surprise. “Why me?”

Mari smiled. “You are pretty calm under pressure and have the skills to multitask. Commanding more than one akuma at a time can be overwhelming. Your day job requires confidence and ruthlessness, but also kindness. Plus you don’t have a single mean bone in your body.”

Tim grimaced. “You give me too much credit.”

Dick ruffled Tim’s hair. “Or not enough. She’s right, Timmy. You’d be perfect for the butterfly.”

Damian scoffed. “He’ll probably look ridiculous.”

Snorting, Marinette exchanged glances with Nooroo while the boys bickered. The kwami seemed reluctant to being used again, but grateful she had chosen someone she knew wouldn’t maliciously use him. Turning serious, Marinette held out the butterfly Miraculous in one hand to Tim. “Timothy Drake. This is the Miraculous of the butterfly with grants you the power of transmission. You’ll use it for the greater good. Once this mission is over, you’ll return the Miraculous to me. Can I trust you?”

Tim stared at her, obviously not expecting the speech. Numbly nodding, he reached out and took the Miraculous. “Of course.” He pinned the broach on the side of his uniform, next to the Red Robin insignia. “Should I wait until we get there?” He asked both Marinette and Nooroo.

The two in question glanced at each other. “Since you’re an adult, you can hold the transformation longer. However, it will be draining,” Marinette responded.

“How draining?” Tim looked down at the broach as if it was a live bomb.

Marinette was quick to reassure him. “Not enough to really weaken you. If anything, you’ll probably just need a really long nap after this.”

Tim relaxed. “Oh, so same as usual.”

Dick had wandered over sometime in the conversation and immediately inserted himself. “Oh no. I know that look.” He poked Tim in the chest. “You are not drowning yourself in coffee. I will restrain you if I need to. No wait. I’ll get Jason to restrain you.”

Tim looked affronted. “You can’t get Jason to restrain me! He’d enjoy it! He’d probably tie me up too tight and leave me there for days!”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “There is no need to restrain anyone. We’re going to have a mandatory group nap tomorrow. No excuses. The second we get back, I’ll drag Tim to the living room myself.”

Appeased, Dick nodded. “Deal.”

Tim looked resigned. “I don’t have any say in this, do I?”

“Nope!” Dick and Mari chirped together.

“Figures,” Tim mumbled. “So should I just transform now? Or any other side effects I should know about first?”

Mari hummed. “No, there shouldn’t be any side effects. You’re only going to be using the butterfly for a little bit. If you used it for longer, it would probably give you the magical side effects, but you should be fine for now.”

Tim grimaced. “That’s really not as reassuring as you think it is.” Nonetheless, he nodded along as Nooroo explained how the Miraculous worked. After committing everything to memory, Tim called up the transformation. Immediately after transforming, he flinched away from the group slightly.

Jason booed. “It’s not even blackmail material. You suck, Replacement.”

Marinette glared at Jason before turning back to Tim. “You look good. How do you feel?”

Tim had wide eyes as he stared around the room. Despite knowing what the Miraculous’s powers were, it was still very overwhelming feeling everyone’s emotions. Jason’s alone was a churning mess of anger and confidence and madness and love and contempt and misery and-

“Tim?” A hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. “Are you okay?” The man looked up to see blue eyes and was hit with a rush of concern and pride and anxiety-

“Yeah,” he croaked out. Nobody looked impressed or convinced. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Yeah,” he repeated, stronger this time. “I wasn’t expecting to feel everyone’s emotions that strongly, is all.”

“Do you want to wait until you get used to the emotions? I could teach you how to filter them.” Marinette looked concerned.

“No. No I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting it. I’m fine now.” He took some deep breaths.

A feeling of worry and protectiveness flared up. “Tt. If our emotions are making you feel overwhelmed, then you won’t be able to convincingly scare Mother.”

Tim looked up at Damian. His face softened at the emotions he felt from his younger brother. “I’ll be alright, Damian.”

Damian crossed his arms and looked away. “I don’t care about your wellbeing, Timothy. I just don’t want you to endanger the mission.” Nobody believed him.

Tim closed his eyes and started to sort through all the emotions. He pulled all the negative ones to him and then pushed them away. Then he grabbed the positive ones and muted them. The neutral ones he put on the back burner so they wouldn’t distract him. Once the overwhelming mound of emotions was dealt with, Tim opened his eyes and looked down to observe his new costume.

Where his Red Robin uniform once was had been replaced with a dark purple and black version. The style was the same, with silver trim and a hood that magically stayed up. His bo staff was longer too and had a small silver sphere on the end. He grabbed the staff and experimentally twirled it. “I’m ready,” he told Marinette.

Marinette nodded and looked to Bruce. The older man cleared his throat, attracting all eyes to him. “Tim will use the Miraculous to stop the League members from attacking us, but nothing further.” He seemed a bit put off by the possession magic. “After Talia agrees to not attack us, we leave. Understood?”

The word was echoed back by most of the bats. Jason seemed hesitant to leave without physically fighting Talia, but begrudgingly gave his acceptance. The mismatched group of people seemed to divide up to talk. The monks headed to the side of the room— possibly to go over their part of the plan again or organize the escape routes. Only Master Jiang stayed over to observe the people he would be fighting alongside.

Adrien turned to Marinette. “Do you think you should call for a lucky charm? Just in case?”

Marinette pursed her lips. “Reversing the damage will also bring back the Pits. If worse comes to worse, you need to go back in time and fix it.”

Adrien looked weary. “Are you sure? What if it doesn’t work again? What if I get stuck in an endless loop of failed missions? What if—“

“Chaton.” Marinette put a finger on his mouth to stop his overthinking. “Do you trust me?”

Adrien blinked. “Of course.”

“Then trust me when I say it’s going to be okay.” She removed her hand from his face to put it on his shoulder. “Plus, you can always give the miraculous to someone else if it gets to be too much. Like my mom. Or Alfred.” Alfred nodded in acceptance.

“Alright,” Adrien said.

“Good!” Dick clapped his hands together. “Glad we got that all sorted out!”

Damian gave a pinched look to Dick and then looked at Adrien with a glare. “Do you have anything else to share with the class?”

The man rubbed the back of his neck. “I told you everything I could.”

Damian scowled at him. “If you are holding back something important and I find out about it, I will kill you.”

“You know-” Adrien pointed at him- “You’re a lot nicer in this timeline.”

“The baby bat? Nice? Good one, Blondie,” Jason scoffed.

Damian growled at Jason. “I’d sell you for a new knife.”

Adrien shrugged. “I didn’t say he was friendly. I just said he was nicer. In the last timeline he looked five seconds away from stabbing me at all times. He almost did once, but Monsieur Wayne held him back.”

“Seems pretty on par with Little D. He’s usually stab-oriented,” Dick confessed.

“I-“ Adrien pointed at Damian. “I’m so concerned by that fact.”

Marinette rolled her eyes and pat Damian on the shoulder condescendingly as the man growled again, this time at Adrien. “There there, Petit Oiseau. Don’t turn the cat and bird stereotype around.”

“The what-“

Ignoring Dick’s confusion, Mari turned to Bruce. “Should we postpone the plan? Or do you think everyone’s prepared to do it now?”

Bruce glanced at his children in thought. “We should go through with the new plan tonight. Despite not knowing it quite as well, it’s best to do this as soon as possible. The League could change things tomorrow. If we keep with this specific night, we know what we’re heading into.”

“Supposedly,” Damian muttered bitterly.

Sighing, Marinette looked to the monks, who were muttering amongst each other. Master Jiang was studying the Waynes while stroking his beard, obviously thinking through many weak points and holes in their plans. She was aware there were a few big ones, but as long as the pits are destroyed and everyone survived, she’d be okay with a few injuries. While she would prefer no injuries, she knew that wasn’t feasible where they were going.

Master Jiang must have felt her gaze because his eyes met hers and they stared into her soul. He nodded once to her in a sign of trust. As much as she knew she would never fully forgive him for allowing her to stay locked up in the Temple for eight years, she knew that for the next twenty-four hours she had to trust him with her life. The League of Assassins and The Order had never seen eye to eye. Despite not believing in The Order’s old beliefs, the good monks still despised the League.

Adrien bumped her shoulder with his, breaking her out of her thoughts. He motioned to the side of the warehouse and Marinette nodded, both of them walking away from the others. Adrien leaned back on the wall, eyes looking around at the group of people scattered throughout the room.

“What convinced them to reveal their identities to the monks?” Adrien questioned.

“I’m actually not sure,” Marinette admitted. “For some reason, Bruce was really accepting of meeting them here and after Dick’s mask fell off, he just accepted it when everyone took theirs off too. He only took his off once Jason pointed out that his identity is very obvious when theirs is in the open. Why? Jealous?”

“No, that’s not it.” Adrien tilted his head. “In the other timeline I’m pretty sure the monks didn’t know.”

Marinette tensed at that. “You’re kidding.” Her wide eyes stared into his. “We changed things already?”

“I mean, I’m not entirely sure. When they explained things to me, it seemed like the monks were kind of clueless.”

Marinette hummed. “Interesting.” The two fell into silence after that, both thinking up different possible conclusions to this discovery.

Suddenly Marinette pursed her lips, glancing at the Waynes, who were talking amongst themselves. She stepped closer to Adrien and whispered. “I know I must have died. It’s the only outcome I can think of that would make you come here and use the Rabbit Miraculous.”

Adrien gave her a sympathetic look and replied in an even quieter voice, “you weren’t the only one that died that day.”

It was like her lungs suddenly stopped working. Her dying was one thing. She was used to that happening in Paris. But someone she loved dying because of non-Hawkmoth related reasons? It hurt more than she was used to.

“Who?” She weakly asked.

Adrien grimaced. “I don’t think that’s going to help you, to know.”

“Who?” She asked again, this time stronger.

Adrien sighed, knowing it was a losing battle. “It was Dick. He was distracted by you being hurt. If it helps, he died quickly.”

Marinette shook her head and leaned forwards, her forehead meeting Adrien’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her. “The others?”

“Tim took it the hardest. From what I gathered, you died in his arms. The others were not good either. They seemed more snappish than usual.”

Marinette flinched. She knew her death would affect the others, but her death and Dick’s? Death was not kind to the Waynes.

Squeezing her once, Adrien pulled back to look her in the eyes. “Hey. We’re going to fix it. Now you know, so you know what to look out for. None of that is going to happen this time. You’re the smartest person I know, Bug.”

Marinette sniffed. “I just can’t lose them. And I don’t want to hurt them.”

“You’re not going to. Just make sure you stick to the new plan. Everything’s gonna be alright. And hey, if anything goes wrong, I’ll come back here and fix things again. I won’t stop until everyone is safe and your mission succeeds,” he promised.

She gave him a grateful look. “Just try not to go back if it hurts you. I can always track down Alix if worse comes to worse.”

“Nah,” he grinned. “I’ve got this. You know I’ll do anything to save you, Milady.”

She narrowed her eyes playfully. “Oh I’m aware of your self-sacrificing tendencies. I just hope you know when to stop and think about yourself.”

Adrien’s smile turned soft. “And I hope you extend the same hope to yourself. Please be safe out there.”

“I can’t promise that. Not where we’re going,” she confessed. “But I can promise to be careful. I’ll stick to Dick and Tim like leeches. They’ll practically have to cut me off with how glued to them I’ll be.”

Adrien laughed at her joke. He pat her shoulder twice before lightly shoving her in the direction of her Waynes. “Good luck, Mari. Don’t annoy the others too much.”

“How could I?” She yelled over her shoulder as she walked away from him. “We all know who the favorite is!”

…

Everyone gathered in the middle of the room. Alfred and Adrien stood off to the side. Bruce motioned for his kids to put on their masks. Mari put on her first mask before calling up her Epthianura transformation. She looked at Batman and nodded her head in confirmation that she was ready.

Master Jiang nodded once and looked over to his men. “Everyone ready?” The others nodded. All of them lifted their hands towards the side of the room, creating two large portals. The first portal seemed to lead directly to the front of the base. The second portal was a little smaller, and led directly into the room with Lazarus Pits.

“Red Hood, Robin. With me,” Batman said, heading towards the first portal. Robin dutifully followed, and after saluting to the others, Red Hood trailed after them.

Thia looked at her two companions. “Alright. Showtime, boys.” She sent one last look at Adrien over her shoulder before stepping through the portal.

A major feeling of deja vu swept through Thia. Despite never being in the same room as the Lazarus Pits, she had the feeling this exact scenario had happened before.

Probably because it had.

“Anybody else feel familiarity with this? The deja vu is kinda creeping me out,” Red (Purple?) Robin said.

“Our past timeline selves must have done the same things we have so far in this room.” Brushing off the unease she felt, Thia stepped towards the pits. “Hopefully we’ve changed enough things so far that this timeline we have a better outcome.”

The others nodded.

“Alright.” Nightwing clapped. “Ready to destroy the creepy thing?”

Sighing, Thia nodded and moved closer to the Pit. “I can’t wait for this day to be over already,” she muttered as she prepared herself for the upcoming challenge. Mustering all her courage and strength, she started to say the ancient words that would destroy the Pit. Her eyes glowed blue as she held up her hands. The Lazarus Pit started to bubble and the rocks surrounding it began to shake. This continued for a few minutes before everything escalated.

As it did in the first timeline, the floor shook, the walls rattled, every torch blew out. Nightwing and Red Robin stared as a huge cracking noise echoed through the room, followed by the Lazarus Pit breaking apart. All the water in it drained through the floor, no longer magic-fueled. The room seemed to lose it’s creepy aura, now just turning into a dark, boring room with a random pile of rocks in the middle.

Thia staggered, fully prepared for the backlash, but still weak. Her eyes stopped glowing, and her legs wobbled a little, but Nightwing and Red Robin rushed over to keep her upright. She took a few deep breaths to wait out the head-rush, patting the shoulders of the two men next to her. They released her, but didn’t go far.

“It cannot possibly be that easy,” Nightwing said.

Thia shrugged. “It probably isn’t. Especially knowing this isn’t our first try.”

“I hope we aren’t cursing ourselves to forever be in a time loop,” Red Robin groaned.

“Honestly, our luck probably can’t get any worse. The others are leading a distraction, but what we just did most definitely woke the rest of the ninjas up. They definitely know where we are and what we just did,” Thia told them.

Nightwing sighed. “We should go help now. The more the merrier, right?” He gave them a tired look that they both returned. Reluctantly, they nodded. “Then what are we waiting for?”

The three of them ran out of the room, heading towards the fight they knew was definitely happening. Sure enough, they soon came across the others who were fighting with the League.

“Hood! What’s the situation?” Thia asked as she swung her yo-yo at an assassin’s sword, disarming him. The assassin didn’t like that, obviously, and ran at her with his backup knives. She kicked him in the stomach as he swung at her head. She wrapped him up in her yo-yo and threw him in Nightwing’s direction, who knocked him unconscious with his escrima sticks.

The sound of gunshots echoed around the room, the sign of Red Hood taking down some assassins. “After you guys destroyed the pits, our little distraction fight turned into a huge swarm of assassins attacking us, like we thought. The monks have taken care of most of them, but even they can’t take on this many people at once. They’re a little disoriented.”

“Yeah,” Thia agreed, engaging a new assassin. “When I blew up the pit, another wave of energy flew over me. It wasn’t as bad as the last one, but it disrupted magic again. The monks were closer to this wave than the last one, so their magic was probably also affected.”

There was a grunt over the comms. “How are you holding up? Is everyone ready to make our way to Talia?” Batman’s voice asked.

Thia punched an assassin in the chest before answering. “I’m really cold and tired, but I’ll be able to make it to the end of the mission. Let’s just try and wrap this up fast, yeah? The Pits are gone, so I’m ready to face Talia when you are.”

The small grunt displayed how much Batman did not want to face Talia, but nonetheless, he started fighting his way towards one of the doorways. “Everyone get to the far archway. Then we’ll head to the throne room.” A number of affirmations floated through the comms.

Backflipping away from a sword, Thia hurriedly tried to fight off multiple enemies at once. It seemed no matter how many she was taking down, more replaced them. Making her way to even the middle of the room seemed impossible. She looked around to try and find a quick solution. Unfortunately for her, the room they were in had rock walls and didn’t have anything for her to work with. She debated using her lucky charm, but wasn’t sure how useful it was going to be with a hoard of assassins. Plus, a detransformation was the last thing she needed. If she detransformed, the cold would eventually get to her, and she wouldn’t be able to jump as high or hit as hard. “Guys, I need a little help getting to the arch!” She shouted.

“I’ve got you!” Nightwing replied.

A few seconds later, Red Robin appeared in her peripheral vision. “I’m here too.”

The three of them worked their way through the room, weaving around all the unconscious assassins on the ground. In the corner of her mind, Thia thought it was lucky none of the bodies were from their side. A little too lucky.

It seemed that Thia only looked away for a split second to check on her teammates when she heard someone trying to sneak up on her. She spun quickly and parried the assassins sword, about to throw her yo-yo at his feet when a voice behind her shouted out.

“Thia behind you!” Red Robin called.

Instead of throwing her yo-yo, Thia jumped to the left, feeling a scrape against her arm where her stomach used to be. Where she had almost been impaled.

Suddenly, the deja vu ended.

Aware of what had almost happened, Thia yelled out her thanks and continued fighting. The small scratch on her arm wasn’t even enough to leave a scar. She would probably just have to slap a bandaid on it and she’d be fine.

(She almost hadn’t been. She’d almost died. She did die. The other timeline’s her died. That could have been her.)

Fighting became more of a dance after a few minutes passed. It was clear the assassins all trained using the same style, and not many of them had new tricks. Thia used to fight akumas, though, who had different fighting styles and powers. She had this in the bag. Especially working with her team.

The League had no idea what hit them. Before the hour was even up, the bats and co. had made their way to the throne room.

Talia did not look surprised to see them (though they had been attacking the base for a while, so this wasn’t shocking). She stared at them with a slightly raised eyebrow. Her mouth twitched when she looked at Red Robin, eyeing the Butterfly Miraculous. “Beloved,” she greeted Batman, nodding to him. She then turned to Robin. “My son.”

“Mother,” Robin scowled.

“I assume you wish to leave?” Talia asked. “You wouldn’t assume me so naive as to let you go without a price.”

Batman stepped forward to take Talia’s focus off his children. “There will be no price. You will let us leave and we will not destroy anything else.”

Talia raised an eyebrow. “Is that a threat, beloved? Have you finally given into the easier side of things?” She nodded to Red Robin. “I see you already gave in to magic. What’s next? Murder?”

Nobody missed the slight flinch Red Hood gave, but it was quickly forgotten when Batman growled. “We will be leaving, and you will not be following us.”

Talia’s eyes held a glint of anger. “You cannot believe I will let the Lazarus Pit’s go unavenged. You destroyed the greatest asset I had.”

“To be fair, you were not using it in a helpful manor,” Nightwing broke in.

Batman glared at Nightwing, making the younger man quiet down. “Talia, you will not attack us again.”

Talia’s smile became dangerous. “You cannot stop me. Not when I outnumber you.” She motioned to the assassins standing on the edges of the room. “Kill them.”

As quickly as the assassins started moving towards the group, white butterflies intercepted them, merging into their swords or daggers. White mask outlines shown on their faces at the same time as one appeared on Red Robin. “Stand down,” the vigilante commanded. Obeying the order, the assassins all stepped back to guard the room.

Talia’s eye twitched, but she did not outwardly show her surprise. “Well. The great Batman taking away people’s free will. Who would have guessed.”

“They are not under our control. We are just stopping them from attacking and killing us,” Batman countered. “Red Robin’s only command was to stand down. They interpreted that as not attacking.” Indeed as the man said, the assassins had only received the order to kill, and thus did not attack again. They were free to do as they pleased.

Talia hummed. “So you want me to let you go?” She pursed her lips as Batman nodded. “Very well. Give me my men back and I will not order them to attack.”

“Or kill us, or come after us again,” Thia added.

Talia growled. “Fine. You have my word.”

“Which doesn’t mean much,” Red Hood mumbled under his breath.

Regardless, Red Robin released the butterflies, and the assassins were free to attack them again. Luckily, Talia did not order them to do so.

Batman motioned for the monks to open a portal, and ushered his kids through. Only after they all left did he turn his back on Talia and walk through himself— the monks behind him. The portal shut with a slight pop, and everyone seemed to breathe out a sigh of relief.

The second the portal closed, Thia sat down on the floor, dropping her transformation and taking off her mask. Red Robin joined her on the floor, doing the same and handing her the butterfly miraculous.

“Is that always so draining?” He asked.

Marinette shook her head. “Not usually. Butterflies do not do well in the cold. The Wave probably also weakened you once you put on the miraculous. You also don’t have a tolerance for miraculous magic yet. There’s plenty of factors.”

“Ah.”

A hand settling on her shoulder made Mari look up. Bruce smiled down at her before moving to Tim and doing the same. Tim blushed after receiving the proud-dad-stare.

“Mari!” Adrien came bounding over to her like an excited puppy. He fell into her, wrapping his hands around her neck. “You did it!”

Marinette reached up and squeezed him back. “Thanks to you,” she told him.

Adrien pulled back, slightly bashful. “Nah, that was all you. I just changed your plan slightly.”

Marinette gave him a look that clearly said “you saved my life and Dick’s, you did more than that,” but it wasn’t voiced aloud. Instead, she whacked him on the head and said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bruce decided to extend his gratitude to the blond as well. “Thank you, Adrien. I’m not sure what was changed, but I’m grateful to have all my children in one piece.”

Damian crossed his arms from where he was standing behind Bruce. “Tt. I suppose you did an adequate job.”

Adrien stood up and smiled at Bruce. “Of course. If you ever need my help in the future, you know how to reach me.” He turned to Damian. “You too, little gremlin.”

Jason snorted over the sound of Damian’s indignant sputtering that they were the same age. He grabbed Adrien’s arm and dragged him away to talk about something out of earshot. Marinette looked around in relief that everyone was okay. Miraculously (perhaps literally), they came back with the same amount of people they left with. Even the monks only had minor injuries. Damian seemed to have a black eye, Dick had a minor scrape on his upper calf, and she herself only had one scratch on her arm where she had almost been impaled (where she actually had been impaled-)

“You know-“ Tim’s voice broke through her thoughts. “The girls are set to come back in about a month. You finally won’t be outnumbered.”

Marinette snorted, brushing off the earlier sudden dive her thoughts had taken. She had a feeling they would continue to do that for a while. “Your personalities are all so loud that you could have ten sisters and I’d still feel outnumbered.”

Tim tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Fair enough. Though Steph is loud enough to count as three people.”

The girl hummed. “At least Cass and Barbara will be there to knock some sense into you boys. And maybe I can bribe Stephanie with waffles to sway her to my side.”

“Waffles will definitely get you some bonus points,” Tim conceded. “Especially if you do it as a surprise.”

“Noted.”

The two fell back into silence, exhausted from the mission. Eventually, Marinette shifted so her head leaned on Tim’s shoulder. She closed her eyes as something leaned against her head— presumably Tim’s. The two dozed there for a while, listening to the conversations around them.

Marinette’s thoughts were muddled. Even without using magic, she was still cold and exhausted. Distantly, she felt Tikki and Nooroo curl up on her shoulder, probably sleeping off the magical exhaustion. She felt bad that she had no cookies or snacks to rejuvenate them, but even if she did she wouldn’t have the strength to pull them out. She fell deeper into unconsciousness, no longer dozing but also not completely asleep. Sounds and feeling weren’t registering completely.

The next time her thoughts became somewhat coherent, she was in somebody’s arms. There was a swaying motion like she was being carried. She was finally placed upright on something and tipped to lean against a warm body. Something was pressed against her forehead as a voice said, “you did good, Mari.”

…

Waking up in her bed without any memories of getting there was… strange. Even weirder was that she wasn’t the only one in it. To her left, Jason and Dick were sprawled out. Dick was hugging Jason’s arm like he had tried to run away a few times and Dick wanted to stop him (which honestly wouldn’t be that farfetched). On her right, Tim was laying on his stomach with his left arm hanging off the bed. Damian wasn’t on the bed, but his presence was noted in a chair in the corner of the room. He was reading with Alfred the cat in his lap.

“Damian?” She whispered, sitting up. Jason shifted a bit next to her, but didn’t wake up.

Damian looked up. Seeing her awake, he shut his book to give her his full attention. “Good evening, Euyun Zurqa.”

“Evening? How did I end up here? What time is it?”

Damian raised an eyebrow and looked outside where the sun had begun to set. “You and Timothy fell asleep before we even left the warehouse. We brought you back here, and you’ve been asleep since. It’s currently six in the evening. We got back around two in the morning.”

Marinette blinked. “I’ve been asleep for fifteen hours?” She looked at the others. “Isn’t it worrying the others have been asleep this long too?”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Timothy woke up around noon in his own room. Only after eating some food did he come into your room and fall asleep again. The other two monkeys came in here a little while ago to ‘hang out’ and fell asleep.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you?”

The man blushed. “I simply wanted a quiet place to read and Father was hovering.”

Marinette gave him a scrutinizing look, but didn’t tease him for his obvious worry. Instead she lay back down and thought about the past twenty-four hours. More like forty-eight, though she couldn’t remember the original timeline. As much as she felt guilty about it, she was glad her memories of the previous timeline were erased. It helped her keep her head and not lose it to the “what-if’s”.

She wondered what happened to Adrien. She felt bad that she hadn’t said anything to him after getting back. She had just been so tired and kwami had she needed that nap. And speaking of kwami…

“Priestess! You’re awake!”

Well the peace and quiet had been nice while it lasted.

Marinette opened her eyes to see many pairs of eyes staring at her. She sighed. “Hello, Barkk. Xuppu. Other trouble-makers. I trust you haven’t gotten into too much trouble while I’ve been asleep.”

Barkk’s eyes widened. “Of course not, Priestess! We’ve been on our best behavior.”

“Most of us, at least,” Mullo muttered, throwing a suspicious look towards Trixx in the corner who had wondered over to Damian. Alfred the cat picked up his head to observe the tiny creature, but did not seem surprised to see it.

“Fantastic,” Marinette grumbled, throwing an arm over her eyes. Now that the kwami were out of the box she was never going to be able to go back to sleep. “Wait.” She sat up. “Why and how are you out of the Miracle Box?”

Pollen flew up to her. “Young Timothy let us out when the timeline reset, My Queen.”

Blinking, Marinette shook her head to clear her thoughts. “What?” She quickly held up a hand as Pollen opened her mouth to respond. “Actually, don’t tell me. I’m too tired to make sense of whatever magical thing has happened this time.” She flopped back down, not even trying to be gentle about it. In response, Tim groaned and Jason reached out to push her face.

“Shhh, I’m sleeping here.”

She batted away his hand and returned the favor. “Not anymore. If I have to be cursed with consciousness, so do you. Up you get.”

Jason let out a muffled curse. “You’re not the boss of me.” His eyes stayed stubbornly closed. He tried to turn away from her, but Dick was still latched onto his arm. He cursed again and tried to remove his octopus of a brother. “Dickwing, let go,” he complained. Dick (obviously awake), just snored in response.

Mari snorted. “Good luck with that, Jay.” She turned to Tim. “Hey Timmy. How’s the head.” She received another groan in response. “You have to face the real world at some point. Alfred will call us down for dinner soon.”

Tim just shuffled a bit until his entire head was hidden by a pillow. Dick fake-snored louder.

“You’re all insufferable,” Marinette informed them. She pretended she wasn’t smiling as she said it. If Damian noticed, he didn’t say anything.

…

Somehow, she managed to get all the Wayne’s out of bed and into the dining room. To her relief, Adrien was there chatting with Alfred. She smiled and went over to sit next to him. No matter how many times she thought about it, she would keep counting herself lucky he found her that night on the rooftops. She loved her new family, but seeing Adrien again brought back a longing for her old friends.

Over dinner, she talked with him about reconnecting with Alya and Nino. She asked about some of her other friends, but after finishing school, many of the others went their separate ways. They keep in touch through social media and a group message, but haven’t hung out in a long time. It made Marinette glad they had support through each other. Apparently even Chloe was included in the group chat. After Marinette disappeared, the woman had started up a self-defense club that grew and grew and grew until Chloe was the owner of one of the largest self-defense schools in France. It made Marinette proud of her Bee, and obviously Pollen agreed. The kwami kept flying around the table in happiness.

Conversation shifted to Adrien and the miraculous after a while. Adrien kept denying wanting to keep one, but everyone could see the way he kept staring at Plagg. The destruction god had made a home on a now empty plate that used to be full of all kinds of cheeses. Needless to say, the plate had been cleared in under five minutes by not only Plagg, but also Mullo.

Adrien claimed that he would not take a miraculous for himself, but he could help to scout for other wielders. And keep an eye out for Alix until she emerged from whatever archeological dig she was on. Marinette stared at him for a while to see if he was sure before nodding and moving on. If he wanted to have a normal(isn) life, she wouldn’t force him to carry a miraculous.

As everyone finished dinner, Marinette made plans to meet up with Adrien again before he went to Paris to start looking for their friends.

“I promise, Milady. I will not do anything dumb or reckless out of your sight. I’ve made it this far.”

Marinette narrowed her eyes. “Honestly, it’s a miracle. Tikki must have blessed you or something.”

Adrien snorted. “I’m not going to spontaneously combust the second I leave. I’m an adult now, not an oblivious teenager.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t respond. Instead she drew him into a hug that almost bruised her ribs.

Adrien pulled back. “I’ll see you in a few days, Mari.” He raised a hand to the Waynes, who stood behind Mari in the foyer. “It was nice to meet you all!”

A chorus of goodbyes rang out.

Before Adrien left, he made eye contact with Dick. The older man smiled and nodded to the other in thanks, which Adrien returned.

As soon as the blonde was out the door, Marinette was walking towards the others. She grabbed Tim and pulled him to Dick, latching onto both of them in a hug.

“Not that I don’t love hugs, but where’d this come from, Mari?” Dick asked, wrapping his arms around both her and Tim.

Marinette shook her head, trying to pull the two closer to her. “I’m just really grateful to have you guys in my life.”

Tim and Dick exchanged slightly worried expressions over her head. “We’re grateful for you too, Mars,” Tim said, rubbing the girl’s back.

<<Previous Next>>

AASwL First | AWoD First

______

This chapter was rewritten soooo many times.

Tag List:

@jinx-jade @moonlightstar64 @the-one-woman-army @ramos123 @ash-amg @glastwime859 @alysrose-starchild @myazael @nemo-na @stainedglassm @mickylikesstuff @demonicbusiness @deathwishy @loysydark @toodaloo-kangaroo @dontbenddontbreak @our-preciousss @greatcatblaze @justafanwarrior @trippingovermyfeet @fan-written @ladybug-182 @animegirlweeb @redbullgivescaswings @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @fertileleaf @amaya-james @ira-sairain @mochegato @pl-panda @swiftie-miraculer13 @eliza-bich @jeminiikrystal @mysupporthyperfixations @a4-machete @itsmeevie01 @user00000003 @frieddonutsweets @slytherin-batbitch @blueslushgueen @maskedpainter @vgirl-10123 @corporeal-terrestrial @theymakeupfairies @crystalangelluna @adrestar @justarandomtumblerblog @mizzy-pop @indecisive-mess-named-me @only-trust-fictional-characters (other tags are on separate post)

But yes! The world needs more chaotic Mari and wild Adrien. I kinda touched on that during the Kwami Swap AU I already wrote, but let’s do a new one from scratch because why not.

Alright. Master Fu is handing out the Miraculous like candy because he’s old, and old people rarely use their braincells. First, he trips in front of a school and has a young girl help him stand up. Next, he goes to cross the road before it’s clear and a young man pushes him out of the way before he’s hit by a truck (read: no braincells).

What I’m basically saying, is that roles are reversed. Different situations lead to different solutions. Therefore, Adrien gets the Ladybug miraculous while Marinette gets the Cat.

So in canon, Plagg is a bag influence on Adrien. But Adrien is weighed down by all these expectations and rules, and has them ingrained in his mind. This means that he doesn’t do many rebellious things because he is used to obeying his father.

Now Marinette has Tikki in canon, who encourages kindness and creativity. Marinette is largely left to her own devices when not in school since her parents run the bakery alone, and therefore has a lot of time on her hands to design and create fake scenarios in her mind.

But in this AU, Marinette has Plagg and Adrien has Tikki.

Starting with Adrien: Let’s assume Tikki is expecting someone creative and kind. She gets Adrien, who is kind, but doesn’t even know what he wants to do with his life. The kid has this huge room filled with things to do, and yet doesn’t use much of it because it’s not things he finds enjoyment in anymore (if you do the same things for a long time, you eventually get sick of them). When Tikki enters this kid’s life, her first instinct is to teach him how to find enjoyment in creating things. Unfortunately, Gabriel has no tolerance for things that wont benefit himself, so Adrien is banned from doing all the thinks Tikki keeps suggesting.

Where does this lead? To Adrien rebelling.

Of course, if you keep a kid locked up for a significant portion of his life, he’s going to feel constrained and want to break free. Apparently Tikki was the push Adrien needed. So Adrien starts to sneak out of the house more and more and does things that he knows his father wont approve of, but honestly? What’s Gabe gonna do about it? Ground him? As if.

Gabriel tries to install locks on Adrien’s door from the outside? Adrien sneaks out through the window. Gabriel tries to give him more activities to give him less free time? Adrien skips Chinese lessons to go to an art club. Gabriel bans him from seeing his friends? Screw you Gabe, he’s going to sneak them into the house anyway.

Eventually it gets to the point that Gabriel is so fed up with Adrien he starts to yell at him. Adrien just calmly watches and informs his father afterwards about CPS’s rules about child neglect (“When was the last time you had a meal with me? What about the last time you had a conversation with me about something non-work related? Or when was the last time you asked me how my day was? Huh?”). Gabriel is too prideful to change his ways, but at least he backs down for the most part.

Adrien goes to school the next day grinning from ear-to-ear wearing the most awful outfit in the entire world (lime green crocs with those jibbit things that he made himself and is super proud of, a purple shirt with a pun, and red sweatpants that have paint splattered all over them. When Marinette saw him she almost cried). There’s pictures of him plastered all over social media for like a month, but nobody criticizes him in a serious manor because it’s the happiest he’s ever looked.

(Gabriel almost had an aneurism, but refrained himself since he didn’t want to go to jail for child abuse. He can’t be Hawkmoth in jail, after all)

Marinette is a normal girl with a normal life. Or at least she would be, if a certain flying black cat hadn’t entered her life. She was used to creating designs and designing clothes and baking and drawing and tending to her plants and suddenly this tiny creature is invading her space and telling her incessantly to buy it cheese and destroying all her neatly balled-up yarn and ugh-

Plagg is out of control.

Marinette finally had to bribe him with camembert to allow her to speak. Then, and only then, was she able to come to an agreement with him. For every three hours that she created, she would spend one hour doing something fun for Plagg.

As we all know, Marinette loves to help people. All Plagg had to do was say something about being trapped in the Miracle Box for a century and she was on board. She was going to do anything this kwami wanted as long as it wasn’t illegal or rude to anyone.

If you can’t tell where this is going, our resident cheese gremlin has managed to turn our kind, innocent Marinette to the dark side (or at least as dark as if can get for Marinette).

First example, Marinette designs for 3 hours. Then Plagg makes her go out and buy a ton of Camembert from the store. Seems pretty tame, right? Well after 3 more hours of designing, he had her try skateboarding for the first time. The time after that it was parkour. Then riding a motorcycle. Then learning how to hack.

(“Plagg, are you trying to turn me into a criminal?” “No, these are just very important things you should know just in case.” “In case what???”)

It got to the point where Plagg went “I think you should go kidnap that Adrien kid and force him to go to the movies with you. It’s for a good cause.” And of course, Mari is all for that because Adrien and her are friends and he’s been cooped up in his house all weekend. Unfortunately for Adrien, he won’t know this is happening until Mari is climbing through his bedroom window (“why didn’t you just text me?” “It honestly didn’t even cross my mind”).

Ok so some background: Marinette and Adrien met when Chloe puts gum on her seat and Mari thinks Adrien did it. Mari is mad at Adrien until later that day he explains that he was trying to help, and offers her his umbrella. Marinette might still fall in love with Adrien, but it’s more in a like-like way than an obsessive love kind-of way.

(Whenever it get’s too close to stalking or obsession, Plagg makes sure to stop it right then and there. He’s seen his kittens let the darkness consume them, and hell if he’s going to let Mari fall down that rabbit hole.)

Before any relationship takes place (whether it does or not), the important part is that Mari and Adrien are friends. Good friends, even. Close enough that Marinette climbing into Adrien’s window at four am isn’t even that alarming. If anything it’s impressive.

Honestly though, I’m just inching towards this inevitable scenario:

Someone: “Quick! Max I need help hacking into this horrible organization’s website to delete some of their plans!”

Max: “I could do it, but it’s dangerous. We could get into serious trouble for this if we’re caught. The probability of that is 96.43%.”

Marinette, cracking her knuckles: “Don’t worry guys, I’ve got this.”

Also Marinette: Hacks into the organization in like five minutes, and then proceeds to tell the person how to break into the organization’s building and delete any physical copies of the plan. In graphic detail. Including how to open the safe, what the guard rotation is, and which cameras to avoid.

Alya: “What the heck, girl. Have you done this before?”

Marinette: “No, but I can probably get it done before tomorrow.”

Class: Dead silence.

Damian was temperamental and refused to stay in the same room as anyone for long periods of time. He reverted back to calling everyone by their last names and insulting them whenever they tried to talk to him. He always had multiple weapons on him at all times, and wasn’t afraid to threaten people with them. His attitude caused everyone to stay away from him.

Tim never slept, and when he did, it was only because his body gave out on him and he passed out. His newly received Guardian-ship was having a negative affect on his body. He would work on cold cases whenever he could, but when he got too tired to think properly, he would stare at the Miracle Box for hours on end. The box sat on his bed, where it magically appeared on that fateful day, along with the tiredness and unbalanced feeling of the first Wave plus the smaller second one. The ladybug earrings sat on his dresser— he couldn’t find the courage to put them on. Not yet. Tikki lay on his shoulder most of the time. Sometimes when Tim passed out, she would go into Marinette’s room and curl up on her pillow. It was a very sad sight to see. After stumbling across the room once, Bruce had shut the door. Nobody but Tikki had gone in since.

The day after it happened, Bruce informed Sabine of Marinette’s death. The woman had been very distraught, not even listening to anything Bruce said after the first two sentences. Bruce meant to contact Marinette’s blonde friend, but he didn’t have his contact and he was too upset to search for him through social media. After doing what he needed to, Bruce had thrown himself into his work. Almost tiring himself like Tim was. He wasn’t angry like Jason, or vengeful like Damian, or even somber like Tim. No, Bruce was just sad. He worked because it was the only thing he could do. If he lay in bed all day, he would feel like he’s disappointing Dick and Marinette. He needed to be productive.

Alfred watched the family with despair, watching all of the positive changes Marinette caused to go down the drain. There were no more family dinners. The boys would only eat if Alfred brought food to them. Even then, it sometimes went ignored.

The family mourned and raged for an entire week. Marinette’s funeral was to be in Rhode Island in two weeks, and Alfred wasn’t sure if the entire family would even go. Dick’s was the week after that, but it was only through Alfred’s planning that it even had a date.

On the seventh day, Alfred was dusting the family room when frantic knocking echoed throughout the house. He made his way to the front door and quickly opened it to reveal-

“Master Agreste. Can I help you?”

Adrien Agreste stood there, pale and clutching something in his right fist. “I just heard the news from Sabine. Is it true?”

Alfred’s composed stature wobbled as he was reminded of the incident. “I am terribly sorry you had to find out like this. The news about Master Richard and Miss Marinette is unfortunately true.”

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, bowing his head for a second. Just as quickly as it lowered, he raised it again. “Would it be alright if I came in? I have a few questions I need to ask. I need to speak to everyone who was there.”

At this, Alfred seemed to startle— not expecting such a forward statement from someone he had just told terrible news to. “I am not sure that is the best idea. Everyone is still in mourning. It has only been a week. However, if you wish to ask at a later date-“

“No.” Adrien firmly cut in. “I’m sorry, but it should be as soon as possible. Marinette wanted me to do this.”

Alfred stared at the desperate man in front of him. The Waynes were still grieving, as this man should be. And yet here he was. Sad, yes, but also determined to go through with his friend’s wish. “What is it Miss Marinette asked you to do?”

Adrien weakly smiled, holding out what he was clutching in his fist.

“You know Mari. She always had a plan.”

...

<3 days before the Incident>

“It’s about time, kid.”

“Oh my gosh, Plagg!” Adrien’s face broke out in a grin as the black cat kwami floated up to his face and lightly patted it.

“Sup, kid? Miss me?”

“So much,” Adrien confirmed, his eyes tearing up. “I missed you so much.”

“Good. You should have,” Plagg said before clearing his throat. “I, of course, only missed you because of the lack of camembert in the Miracle Box. I mean, you’d think that such a magical place would have cheese, but no! What a tragedy!”

Adrien gave a wet laugh. “Sure. It must have been horrible. Nobody there to be your personal cheese provider.”

Plagg shrugged. “Meh. Though you had a few small good things about you, I guess.”

“Oh you guess?” Adrien wiped his eyes. “See if I ever get you camembert again. From now on it’s cheddar only.”

“No!” Plagg yelped, flying forward and hugging Adrien’s cheek. “I missed you too, kid! I promise you had more than a few good qualities!”

Adrien laughed, reaching up to pat Plagg’s head. “I know, you little gremlin.”

Marinette watched fondly as the two embraced as much as they could. She internally mourned the fact that kwami couldn’t be picked up by technology because this would make a great picture.

After he had had enough physical touch, Plagg batted at his hand a few times until the man released him. Adrien held out his hand. Plagg landed on it and gave him a smirk. “You didn’t think you could just give me away, did you?”

Adrien’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked at Marinette. He seemed to have questions, but was unsure about asking them. Luckily for him, Marinette was well versed in Adrien-speak.

“I’m not giving you the black cat miraculous.”

Adrien looked a little upset, but understanding. He started running a finger over Plagg’s head, causing the kwami to purr.

“But-”

Adrien’s head shot up.

“-I am going to give you this.” Marinette held out the snake miraculous from where she had grabbed it in her purse. Plagg flew to Adrien’s knee and sat there, watching his old wielder’s reaction in amusement.

Adrien’s eyes widened and he shook his head, pushing the miraculous in her hand back. “Mari that is a very bad idea.”

Marinette held the her hand back out. “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t. Not with that. Remember Aspik?”

Mari tilted her head. “I mean, you were twelve. Now you’re older and wiser. And this is just for my sanity. You don’t even have to ever use it if everything goes to plan.”

“Mari, I know you trust me, but the powers that miraculous has gives me bad memories. I had to see so much every time I reversed time.” He shuddered. “I saw so much. The cure stopped me from remembering some of it, but not all of it. I can’t have that happen again.”

Marinette studied his expression. His face looked sad, but his eyes were dark. She could see the memories flashing through his mind just as they do to her sometimes. She couldn’t let him go through that again. “Okay.” She nodded and put the snake miraculous back in her bag.

“Okay?’ Adrien looked up at her, shocked.

“Okay,” she repeated. “But let me offer something else.” She went in her purse and pulled out the other miraculous she had grabbed that morning.

Seeing it, Adrien seemed confused. “The rabbit miraculous? Shouldn’t Alix have that?”

Marinette smiled and held it out as she did the snake. “Maybe one day. The fun part about this miraculous is that it doesn’t really matter when the wielder has it. Alix is a good fit for the rabbit, but she doesn’t need to have it for long. Maybe once all this is over I’ll find her and give it to her. She can go back and fix some things that are set in the timeline, and then I’ll take it back. Right now, though, I need someone I trust to have it.”

Adrien looked at the miraculous nervously. He hesitantly picked it up and studied it. “Why do you want me to have a time miraculous so bad?”

“Call it a gut feeling,” she told him. “This upcoming trip to Switzerland is going to be hard. I believe we can do it, but I feel like something’s going to go wrong first. In case something happens, I need someone unrelated to this to be able to go back in time and warn us of the dangers. I could ask Alix to do it, but then I’d need to find her and explain what’s going on. And there’s the fact that I haven’t seen her in nine years. She could be completely different now.”

Adrien tilted his head. “Something tells me not much has changed.”

Marinette chuckled. “You’re probably right about that.” Her expression softened. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. If something bad happens to me, seek out the Waynes.”

Adrien’s eyebrows furrowed. “They Waynes? Why?”

Mari sighed. “They said I could tell you, so I’m telling you in case anything happens to me.” She paused. “I need you to know that I trust you, and because they trust me, they’re letting me tell you.”

“Okay,” Adrien said, confused.

The girl looked around the park before lowering her voice and telling him, “They Waynes are who I’ve been staying with for the past year.”

Adrien looked even more confused, if possible. “But you said that-“ his eyes widened- “no way.”

Marinette nodded. “Way.”

“Bruce Wayne is The Batman?” He hissed.

Marinette snorted at his reaction. “Yeah. Good ol’ Bats and his flock picked me up from the hospital and basically adopted me after I fainted in front of their youngest.”

“You what-“

“But that’s a story for another time,” she interrupted him.

“Right,” Adrien disbelievingly said. “This is too much information to be getting in one day.” He shook his head, as if to dislodge the confusion. “Why are you telling me this again?”

“Because you need to find them if something goes wrong.”

“Yeah, but why? Wouldn’t they already know what’s wrong? Since, you know, they’ll have been there too?”

Marinette nodded. “Yes, they’ll have been there. So they’ll know what can’t happen again.”

“Oh.” Realization bloomed across the man’s face. “And then I can go back and fix things.”

“You don’t have to do it yourself, though. You can also go back to the day we planned everything and change our plan,” Marinette told him. “You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to.”

Shaking his head, Adrien gave her a look. “Mari, whether I do that or not, I will be helping them save you. While I may not physically fight, I will be there to monitor them in the burrow.” He paused. “Wait. Can’t I just do that now?”

“You could,” Marinette admitted. “But you could also see something you’re not supposed to and change the future. I’m giving you this as a backup only. Not as a definite thing. The rabbit miraculous is supposed to be used in times of emergency. If it was used every time a bad thing happened, people would never learn. If it was used to stop every future event, something worse might happen. The universe demands balance. If someone died in one timeline, they’d survive the next. If you stop them from dying the first time, more people would die. Or worse. That’s the whole reason why we’re doing this.”

“I see.” Adrien deflated. “So I can’t stop this ‘gut feeling’ you have? Even though you think something’s going to go wrong?”

“No.” She gave him a sad look. “Sorry, Chaton. I know this doesn’t make much sense. I promise that you can do this, though. I believe in you.” She gave him a soft smile that he returned.

“Thanks, Milady.” He grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it, making her giggle. “I believe in you, too.”

…

<7 days after the Incident>

“And that’s why I’m here,” Adrien finished recounting. He looked around the living room where Bruce and Tim were sitting, both of them tense. Alfred stood in the corner, already having heard this story once an hour prior. The older man was studying his charges, worried about their mental states. Tikki sat quietly on Tim’s shoulder, smiling softly at Adrien. She nodded to him, allowing him to take the lead on the questioning. Jason and Damian weren’t there- Jason was somewhere in Gotham, and Damian had locked himself in his room, not opening the door when Alfred knocked.

Bruce seemed to tense up even more. “What if going back doesn’t work? How do we know this won’t create a different branch timeline and this one won’t just continue going?”

Adrien shook his head. “That’s not how the rabbit miraculous works. Trust me, I’ve seen it in action. Once the timeline is rewritten, the previous one is erased. This moment in time will only exist in my memory. You won’t remember it.”

“Then how do we know we haven’t already tried to change things? How do you know we haven’t already had this discussion before?” Tim asked, pointing at himself and Bruce.

“Because I’d still remember,” Adrien told him. “The rabbit miraculous works by jumping into something called a ‘burrow.’ The borrow then shows you snippets of the timeline. You can jump into one of these and affect the timeline somehow, but when you reenter the burrow, all the events after that one will have changed. The miraculous wielder will still remember what the original timeline looked like though.”

“So this is the first time? You haven’t seen this before?” Bruce confirmed.

“I’ve never even transformed before,” Adrien confessed. “I’m here so you can tell me everything you know about what went wrong that day. Then I can go back and tell your younger selves and they can fix it.”

Tim narrowed his eyes. “Couldn’t you just take one of us with you? What if you forgot an important detail?”

“I won’t, but I can write everything down if it will make you feel better.” Adrien shrugged.

Bruce and Tim looked at each other. “I would prefer you writing it down if one of us doesn’t go with you, yes,” Bruce said. “But why can’t we come with you?”

“You could come too,” Adrien told them, “but coming with me would complicate things. First off, there would be two of you in one timeline, which could create a paradox. For example, if I took Tim back with me, past Tim would already be there. Then when I tried to take you back to this point, it would already be rewritten. That means that this conversation technically never happened. So the Tim from that timeline would still be there. But seeing as I have one Tim in the burrow, he would have no place to go. No timeline would be able to take him.”

Tim nodded as he thought. “But you wouldn’t be affected by the timeline changing? Technically if we fix everything, you have no reason to go back in time with the rabbit miraculous, and therefore you would still continue in the timeline too.”

Adrien winced. “Umm, just tell Mari to cast her cure afterwards and I’ll merge into my current self.” He held up a hand when Tim opened his mouth. “Don’t question it. Fluff tried to explain this to me earlier and I got so confused.”

“Okay,” Tim huffed. “This makes no sense, but I’ll allow it if it saves them.”

Bruce leaned forwards. “So what do you need to know?”

“Everything you can tell me about that day. I need to know every angle and everything that went wrong.” Adrien looked at Alfred. “I need Jason and Damian here too. I need all of you to tell me everything, no matter how small.” At this, Alfred nodded and left the room to call Jason and collect Damian from his room. Adrien grabbed a pen and notebook from his back pocket.

“So-“ he clicked his pen- “who wants to go first?”

<<Previous Next>>

AASwL First | AWoD First

______

And BOOM goes logic as I throw it into a volcano. And POP goes canon as I chuck it off a cliff :)

Tag List:

“Dick,” Marinette cut in. The man paused and looked at her in confusion. “I promise that today will be alright, okay? We have backup plan after backup plan. If anything goes wrong, just fall back on one of them. Trust me-“ she walked over to him and grabbed his hands- “Everything will be alright.”

Dick searched her face for any worry. Not finding any, he sighed. “I know everything will be alright.” He smiled. “You’re our master planner. With your brain combined with ours, there’s no way the League will see us coming.”

“Oui!” A loud voice cut in. “They’ll certainly hear us coming if you guys don’t calm down! Hush, children. Calm your nerves.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Hello to you too, Jason. Wonderful for you to finally join us.”

“Hey,” Jason said defensively. “Not my fault Alfred was being a mother-hen. I just got away from him. Also, if I hear any more cliché garbage tonight I will set myself on fire.” Marinette put her head in her hands at his dramatic statement. Tim pat her back in exasperated-sibling solidarity.

“As enticing as that is, we must be going.” Everyone jumped as Damian suddenly appeared.

“Geez, Little Bird! Do we need to put a bell on you?” Dick put a hand on his chest.

Damian huffed. “You are incorrigible,” he stated, turning on his heel to stalk out of the room. Everyone stared after him.

“So dramatic.” Jason snorted.

“Jay,” Marinette scolded. “Let’s go before Damian decides we aren’t needed and kills us in our sleep tonight.”

“Honestly, I’d rather eat a raw onion than deal with this family,” Tim mutters under his breath as they walk towards the batcave. Jason must have heard him, because he muttered something about Tim being a hypocrite to himself. The four of them arrived, finding Bruce and Damian already inside of the batcar.

“Such a boyscout. Can’t take him anywhere.” Jason scoffed.

“I swear, Jay. One more sassy comment out of you and I’ll put raisins in my cookies next time.”

Jason gasped and grabbed Dick’s arm, shaking it. “Dickie! Did you hear what Mari said! I knew she’s the evil one!”

Damian rolled down the passenger window and scowled at all of them. “Put your masks on and get in the car already, you idiots!”

Grumbling, the boys put on their masks and got in the car. Marinette sighed and followed, in her backup suit with Tikki on her shoulder. The car definitely shouldn’t fit all of them, but Tim and Mari were small enough to make four people fit on three seats. The ride was spent in silence. Every time someone tried to talk, Damian would shush them, and every shush would get louder and louder.

After what felt like ages, they arrived at a warehouse. Even though they didn’t plan on leaving Switzerland in a hurry, the bats were nothing if not prepared.

Arriving at the warehouse was a sobering reminder of the next twenty-four hours. Inside, all the monks were wearing more battle-style clothing and talking in quiet voices. As they entered, they mostly split up. Bruce walked over to Jiang and greeted him. Damian seemed to be auditioning for the role of “angsty teenager number one” by glaring at the floor as he stomped to Bruce’s side. The fourteen monks helping them were all in a group talking with each other on the side of the room opposite from Damian (which is probably the safest choice they’ve ever made).

Bruce finished his pleasantries and cleared his throat, attracting the attention of everyone. The room went silent, everyone going closer to the middle of the room. “We’ve discussed the plan a few times, and I believe it is sound. Editing or adding to it anymore will just serve to confuse us. It is time to enact the plan.” He looked to Marinette. “Are you ready to do this? Is Tikki ready?”

Marinette looked at her kwami, who was sitting on her right shoulder. She looked back at Bruce after Tikki gave her a smile. “We’re ready. I’ve reviewed the spell a few times as well with Master Jiang, just in case. Also, Dick has a few extra cookies in case I run out.” Dick nodded in agreement, patting a utility belt he added to his outfit. Mari grimaced internally at the fashion disaster Dick turned out to be, but let him have it due to it’s handiness.

Bruce talked for a few more minutes to prepare everyone before he nodded his head to Master Jiang. “Nighttime in Switzerland is upon us. If we leave now, we will have a few hours before most of the assassins are awake.”

Master Jiang nodded once and looked over to his men. “Everyone ready?” The others nodded. All of them lifted their hands towards the side of the room, creating two large portals. The first portal seemed to lead directly to the front of the base. The second portal was a little smaller, and led directly into the room with Lazarus Pits.

“Red Hood, Robin. With me,” Batman said, heading towards the first portal. Robin dutifully followed, and after saluting to the others, Red Hood trailed after them.

Thia looked at her two companions. “Alright. Showtime, boys.”

…

Being in front of the Lazarus Pit was both eerie and nerve-racking. The entire room seemed to ooze chaos.

Nightwing, Red Robin, and Thia stood still, just absorbing the feeling and the sight in front of them.

“You know,” Thia started. “For such a significant magical pool, it’s kind of disappointing.”

Red Robin raised an eyebrow. “What were you expecting? It to be filled with bones and echoes of screams?”

“Maybe not screams,” Thia said. “But at least the bones. It’s kind of underwhelming.”

Nightwing snorted. “At least we won’t have to ever see it again after this.”

“True.”

“Alright.” He clapped. “Ready to destroy the creepy thing?”

Sighing, Thia nodded and moved closer to the Pit. “I can’t wait for this day to be over already,” she muttered as she prepared herself for the upcoming challenge. Mustering all her courage and strength, she started to say the ancient words that would destroy the Pit. Her eyes glowed blue as she held up her hands. The Lazarus Pit started to bubble and the rocks surrounding it began to shake. This continued for a few minutes before everything escalated.

To say something happened would be an understatement. The floor shook, the walls rattled, every torch blew out. Nightwing and Red Robin stared as a huge cracking noise echoed through the room, followed by the Lazarus Pit breaking apart. All the water in it drained through the floor, no longer magic-fueled. The room seemed to lose it’s creepy aura, now just turning into a dark, boring room with a random pile of rocks in the middle.

Thia staggered, not expecting the magical backlash that came after performing the spell. Her eyes stopped glowing, and her legs wobbled a little, but Nightwing and Red Robin rushed over to keep her upright. She took a few deep breaths before the world felt less like jelly and more like taffy, patting the shoulders of the two men next to her. They released her, but didn’t go far.

“It cannot possibly be that easy,” Nightwing said.

Thia shrugged. “I guess it is.”

“You guys are totally jinxing it. Please stop talking,” Red Robin begged.

“Honestly, our luck probably can’t get any worse. The others are leading a distraction, but what we just did most definitely woke the rest of the ninjas up. They probably know where we are and what we just did,” Thia told them.

Nightwing groaned. “We should go help, then. The more the merrier, right?” He gave them a tired look that they both returned. Reluctantly, they nodded. “Then what are we waiting for?”

The three of them ran out of the room, heading towards the fight they knew was probably happening. Sure enough, they soon came across the others who were fighting with the League.

“Hood! What’s the situation?” Thia asked as she swung her yo-yo at an assassin’s sword, disarming him. The assassin didn’t like that, obviously, and ran at her with his backup knives. She kicked him in the stomach as he swung at her head. She wrapped him up in her yo-yo and threw him in Nightwing’s direction, who knocked him unconscious with his escrima sticks.

The sound of gunshots echoed around the room, the sign of Red Hood taking down some assassins. “After you guys destroyed the pits, our little distraction fight turned into a huge swarm of assassins attacking us. The monks have taken care of most of them, but even they can’t take on this many people at once. For some reason they seem a little disoriented.”

“Yeah,” Thia agreed, engaging a new assassin. “When I blew up the pit, another wave of energy flew over me. It wasn’t as bad as the last one, but it disrupted magic again. The monks were closer to this wave than the last one, so their magic was probably also affected.”

There was a grunt over the comms. “How are you holding up? Do we need to get you out of here?” Batman’s voice asked.

Thia punched an assassin in the chest before answering. “I’m really cold and tired, but I’ll be good for another hour or so. Let’s just try and wrap this up fast, yeah? We did what we needed to do, so I’m ready to leave whenever you are.”

“Alright.” A slight pause as Batman delt with another assassin before she got an answer. In the background, she could also hear Robin yelling as he fought his own enemies. “Everyone try and meet in the middle of the room. Then the monks can teleport us out.” A number of affirmations floated through the comms.

Backflipping away from a sword, Thia hurriedly tried to fight off multiple enemies at once. It seemed no matter how many she was taking down, more replaced them. Making her way to the middle of the room seemed impossible. She looked around to try and find a quick solution. Unfortunately for her, the room they were in had rock walls and didn’t have anything for her to work with. She debated using her lucky charm, but wasn’t sure how useful it was going to be with a hoard of assassins. Plus, a detransformation was the last thing she needed. If she detransformed, the cold would eventually get to her, and she wouldn’t be able to jump as high or hit as hard. “Guys, I need a little help getting to the middle!” She shouted.

“I’ve got you!” Nightwing replied.

A few seconds later, Red Robin appeared in her peripheral vision. “I’m here too.”

The three of them worked their way through the room, weaving around all the unconscious assassins on the ground. In the corner of her mind, Thia thought it was lucky none of the bodies were from their side. A little too lucky.

It seemed that Thia only looked away for a split second to check on her teammates when she heard someone trying to sneak up on her. She spun quickly and parried the assassins sword, about to throw her yo-yo at his feet when a sharp shooting pain erupted in her stomach. She sharply inhaled, but the action only made the pain intensify. She looked down to see a katana sticking through her stomach. Just as quickly as it entered, it was pulled out.

Without the katana keeping her upright, Thia fell to her knees. She head yelling, but everything sounded like it was underwater. She pulled her hand away from her stomach— when had she put it there?— only to reveal blood soaking it. A tiny “oh” escaped her lips before she fell sideways, sprawling on the ground.

She felt tired all of a sudden, but she was unable to sleep because at some point, her transformation ended and a worried Tikki was batting at her face. She groaned and tried to move her head away, but her body felt heavy.

A small part of her was screaming to get up and fight because the others were still battling assassins and she didn’t want them to get injured when trying to protect her. This part was drowned out when Red Robin appeared in her vision. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear what was being said. He picked her up, but luckily (and alarmingly) she could barely even feel the pain anymore. She let herself float between consciousness and unconsciousness as she was carried away.

…

The fight had been going well at first. Despite being hindered by the “no killing” rule, they were all doing a good job incapacitating and knocking out the assassins. Tikki seemed to be smiling down on them. They had finished their mission, and were just trying to do some clean up now (if clean up entitled fighting many blood-thirsty assassins). And then Thia was stabbed.

As Thia fell to the floor, her transformation ended. The light of her transformation drew everyone’s eyes in her direction. Nightwing shouted at the scene and turned towards her, leaving his back open- a fatal mistake. Before anyone could warn him, an assassin took advantage and stabbed him in the chest. The result was instantaneous. Nightwing seemed to choke, making eye contact with Robin from across the room. Then his eyes dulled and he fell forward.

“NO!” Red Hood shouted, shooting the assassin. Robin yelled his own profanity and stabbed the nearest assassin to him. The others made noises of disbelief, grief, and anger, and started to fight recklessly. Robin and Red Hood especially tossed all rules about killing out the window. Despite their anger and newfound aggressiveness, they still barely made a dent on the amount of assassins the League had.

Red Robin fought his way to Thia and felt for her pulse. “She’s still alive! Bruce, we have to get her to the medbay!”

Not even correcting Red Robin’s use of his real name, Batman nodded. “Retreat! Jiang, get us out of here!”

Master Jiang nodded— still fighting another assassin— and created a portal to transport the batfam to the empty warehouse in Gotham. Red Hood ran over to pick up Nightwing’s body, while Red Robin did the same for Thia and Tikki. Robin and Batman ran behind them, making sure none of the assassins followed them through the portal.

Once they ran through, they quickly headed towards their vehicles. Batman got in the drivers seat of the batmobile while Red Robin practically threw himself and Thia into the backseat. Red Hood slammed the door behind them— not bothering to get in— and told Batman to drive.

Red Robin took off his mask to see the wound better. From the amount of blood rushing out, he knew it wasn’t good. She still had a pulse, though, which was the only thing keeping him together. He pushed down on the wound to stem the flow. The pressure jolted Thia into a moment of lucidity, and she gasped, back trying to arch off the seat. Tim only gently shushed her and kept pressing, muttering encouragements under his breath. Tikki curled up under Thia’s chin as she cried. The kwami was too weak still to do anything to help.

Thia fumbled to rip off her mask and make eye contact with Tim. “Tim. Tim I need you to do something.” Her breathing sounded strained, likely from an injured lung or the katana damaging her airway.

Tim nodded. “Whatever you need, okay Mars? Just stay awake for me.” He scanned her body for more injuries as he continued to press down.

Marinette put a hand on Tim’s arm. “I need you to-“ a wet cough cut her off. “I need you-“ Blood was making its way out of her mouth every time she coughed. Her breathing was getting worse and worse. She wheezed as Tim replaced his hands with his cape and continued to push down on her stomach. “I need you to watch over the Miracle Box and Tikki for me.”

Shaking his head, Tim replied, “Why would I need to watch over it when you’re going to be fine? You’re gonna be fine, Mars. You’re gonna be-“

“Tim,” she weakly called, making the boy look at her with tears in his eyes. “Tim, it’s gonna be okay. I need-” a wet gasp- “I need you to promise.” Tim shook his head, biting his lip and looking away. Marinette took her hand off of him and rested it on Tikki. “Tim,” she demanded, making the man look at her. “Help her.”

Batman took a particularly fast turn, causing the three in the back to slide to the right of the car. Marinette gasped at the action, causing Tim to flinch. “Sorry. Sorry. I can’t stop. Sorry.”

“Promise,” Marinette demanded once more, ignoring his apologies.

Tim grit his teeth at the acceptance in her expression. Glancing down at Tikki made him soften enough to grudgingly agree. “If you are unable to, fine. I will guard the box and wear the earrings. But only until you’re better.” Marinette gave him a look. “I promise.”

Seemingly relieved by his answer, Mari relaxed slightly. “Thank you, Timmy.” She barely finished the last syllable before her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell completely limp.

“No no no no. Come on, Mars. You said it was going to be okay.” He pushed down harder, ignoring the blood soaking his hands and the car. Bruce was driving like a maniac, taking turns so fast it’s a miracle nobody was run over.

Finally, they sped into the batcave. Tim threw open the doors before the car even stopped, pulling Marinette and Tikki out with him. Alfred was quick to help them onto a table. He quickly moved to take off her shirt and hook her up to a blood transfusion, but the second he saw the wound, he froze. The butler frantically moved to find a pulse and look for breathing.

“What are you waiting for?!” Tim shouted. “She’s dying!”

Alfreds face crumbled. He turned to look at Bruce, who looked horrified. “Master Timothy,” he started softly. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

Tim’s eyes widened. He shook his head in disbelief. “No. No. She said- she said-“ he backed up, looking down at his red coated hands. His back bumped into something. He felt arms wrap around him, and started to thrash to get out of them. “No! No you have to help her! I can’t- I can’t lose her too!”

Bruce refused to let Tim out of his embrace, and tried to comfort his son. Tears fell down his face as he mourned the girl he had practically adopted as family.

The sound of another car racing into the cave announced the arrival of the other bats. Jason and Damian exited the stolen car, silently observing the mess they just walked into. Tim was openly crying now, still being hugged by Bruce as he tried to get back to Mari.

Damian’s eyes were red, obviously mourning his older brother’s death. Jason’s already sad face turned angry. He slammed the car door and punched it. The cave echoed with Tim’s pleading and Jason’s cursing.

Alfred observed the chaos with a crestfallen expression. He gingerly took off Marinette’s earrings and scooped up a mourning Tikki before covering her with a cloth. He walked over to Tim and grabbed his hands. Tim shook his head as the earrings were gingerly placed in them alongside Tikki. Alfred gave the man a solemn look before walking over to the second car, opening it to grab Dick.

Seeing Dick’s body made Bruce lose his composure. The older man’s body shook, no longer able to stand on his feet, he fell to his knees, bringing Tim down with him.

Eventually, Damian and Jason made their way over to Bruce and Tim. Even though they were never the type to hug or have healthy coping mechanisms, the four of them found themselves huddling together- trying to find some comfort in their grief.

They held each other as a white sheet turned red, and a black mask fell to the ground.

<<Previous Next>>

AASwL First | AWoD First

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Ok ok I know what you’re going to say. I swear, though, when I started this story this was NOT the direction I was going in. Now we’re here, though. Sooooo I’m sorry? The story isn’t over I swear. Also yes, Alfred joined the family hug too.

Also, to those of you who were paying too much attention, yes I know there are many many flaws to their plan. I did this on purpose. Just pretend like they aren’t that obvious, okay?

Summary of Chapter: The batfam + monks arrive in Switzerland. Dick, Mari, and Tim are teleported into the room with the Lazarus pits while Bruce, Damian, and Jason lead a front attack as a distraction. Mari destroys the pits, but it’s loud, and all of the assassins are alerted of their presence. Mari is weakened from the cold, and doing magic, so she’s not in perfect shape to fight. Because of this, she is fatally injured. Dick is distracted by this and is killed. The batfam are distraught and retreat. Tim is given the ladybug earrings and guardianship over the Miracle Box.

Tag List:

Not literally killing her, but her nerves were skyrocketing. A million scenarios of what could possibly go wrong was running through her head. She was confident they would succeed in blowing up the Lazarus Pits, but what could happen after that was up to fate. Of course, she wasn’t alone in her mission, and the batfam was known to have backup plans for their backup plans, but absolutely nothing could change the fact that Marinette could be a bit of a worst-case-scenario kind of person.

At least she had a failsafe, just in case.

“Are you going to bring me, Guardian?”

Marinette reached an open hand out to the flying Kwami as she paused her packing. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Nooroo. I would never intentionally lose you, but the risk of you being stolen is too high. The League of Assassins is literally a bunch of killing ninjas. They would be able to steal your broach off of me without even giving me time to fight back.”

“You could always transform with me, and then use my powers to have someone else destroy the Lazarus Pits in your stead,” the Kwami said hopefully.

Marinette shook her head. “I don’t want to endanger anyone. The League could learn what your powers are and come after me one day to get you and use you for evil again. I can’t let that happen.”

Nooroo flinched at the thought, lowering his head. “You couldn’t even let me help from here? What if you gave me to the nice old man? He would stay here and then-“

“No, Nooroo,” Mari cut in. “The miraculous would not work such a far distance. Alfred could wield you, but then when the champion goes through the portal, all connection would be lost. The champion would not remember its goal and would essentially become more of a burden than a help.”

“I see.” The Kwami smiled weakly. “I wish you luck on your journey then.”

Marinette’s face softened. “Thank you. I would bring you if it was anyone but the League of Assassins, but I can’t risk it. I’m not even using Kaalki, and her powers would be incredibly useful in this situation.” She made a face. “Well, before the Monks arrived, at least.”

A knock on her door startled the calm atmosphere. Nooroo flew up to sit on her shoulder, and Tikki woke up from the slight nap she was taking on Mari’s other shoulder.

“Come in!” Marinette faced the door as Dick entered.

“Hey Mari!”

“Hey.”

“You busy?”

“No?” She tilted her head. “Do you need something?”

Dick walked over and sat on the bed next to her. “More like I want you to join my side.”

“Your side?”

Dick nodded. “Of the paintball tournament.”

Marinette’s eyebrows furrowed. “What paintball tournament?”

“The one I’m about to start,” Dick answered. “I bought some guns and ammo yesterday because I thought it would be a good way to shake off any nerves before tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s a good idea.”

“Right! So come on. Let’s go utterly destroy the house by covering it in paint.”

Marinette paused. “On second thought that isn’t a good idea.”

Dick pouted. “Okay fine. Not ‘utterly destroying,’ but at least covering the others in paint. Come on, it’ll be therapeutic.”

Marinette hummed, pretending to mull it over. “I suppose that sounds fun.”

Dick grinned and stood, pulling her up with him. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “Come on, Mari. Let’s go kick some butt.”

…

She was taken to Dick’s room first to change into the headgear and vests he bought. Marinette grabbed a paint gun as Dick picked up the rest and threw them in a duffle bag, slinging it over his shoulder.

“Are you going to gather the others first?” She asked as they started walking.

“Nope.” Dick smirked. “I’m going to hide these in the batcave. If the others can run from us fast enough to get these, they’re welcome to them.”

Marinette paused in contemplation before shrugging. “Alright then. Are there any rules?”

Dick hummed. “Don’t get paint in the kitchen or Bruce’s office. Any other room is fair game. You lose if you get hit on all four limbs, or three times in the head. Two in the front, one in the back. Or if Alfred and/or Bruce catches you.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to tell Bruce or Alfred?”

“Nah.” The older man shrugged. “They wouldn’t approve. But we’re adults. We can do what we want.”

“We are about to cover the house in paint, aren’t we?” Marinette mourns. “We’re going to be the ones to clean it up, you know.”

Dick waved a hand dismissively. “Not if we blame Jason for it.” 

“Dick!”

“What?” He smiled innocently. “Clearly I’m the favorite child legally, and Bruce believes you can do no wrong. Who is he gonna believe?”

Marinette sighed, not responding (he wasn’t completely wrong). The two finally made their way into the batcave and set down the duffle bag on the floor. Then Dick made his way over to where their suits were and grabbed two comms, tossing one to Mari as she wrote down the rules on a piece of paper for the others. She gave him an exasperated look, but nonetheless put it in her ear. Obviously this was going to be more than just a friendly game if they needed comms.

After a quick check of all their supplies, the two headed out to cause terror throughout the house.

…

The first victim they came across was unfortunately Damian. Being Damian’s two favorite “siblings,” they barely hesitated before shooting him. Dick’s shot landed on his right shoulder while Marinette’s landed on his left calf.

Spinning around quickly, Damian snarled. Dick shot his brother a quick grin before running off, Mari on his heels. “Grayson! Dupain-Cheng! You better watch your backs!”

Turning a corner, Dick quietly motioned for Mari to duck into the closest door. She did so, seeing him go into the room across the hallway out of the corner of her eye. They waited in silence as Damian ran past the rooms, his footfalls fading away. Over the comms, Dick told her to find Tim and give him a warning shot.

“Why a warning? Should we have given Damian one?”

She heard Dick snort. “Damian ate the rest of my cereal yesterday. Consider this revenge.”

Marinette snuck her way through the house, looking in Tim’s most frequent hiding spots. “And I’m assuming you’re not going to give Jason a warning either?”

“Of course not,” Dick replied. “I can’t go too easy on him, now can I?”

“I suppose not.”

After sneaking around for a few more minutes, she finally found Tim in the kitchen. Since the kitchen was off limits (Alfred would kill them otherwise), she lowered her gun and walked up to him. She tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s time to stop working, Timmy. Kitchen is off limits. The guns are in the basement.”

Tim turned towards her, opening his mouth to question her, but she was already out the door before he could say anything. “Mari what-“

“No delaying the inevitable!” Mari called over her shoulder. “We’re playing paintball. You’re on a team with Damian and Jason unless you want to be a one-man team.”

“What if I want to be on your team?” He called back.

Marinette paused. She contemplated the request. She tapped her comm. “Hey Dick.”

“No names on the field, M. Call me Daywing,” the voice on the other side said.

Mari opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to comprehend the nonsense Dick just sprouted. She shook her head after a few seconds, thinking it was better not to ask. “Right. ‘Daywing.’ Tim wants to join our team.”

Dick hummed. “I suppose we can form a temporary alliance. But once we beat Jason and Damian, it’s us against him.”

Marinette nodded- despite Dick not being able to see it- and looked back at Tim after turning off the comm. “Dick says we can form an alliance to beat Jason and Damian. But then it’s us against you.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “You’re siding with him over me? Wow, Mars. Feeling the love.”

“I would usually side with you,” Mari told him. “But if Dick and I win, I can probably get him to give us coffee privileges back.” If she was going to play with Dick, she had to get something out of it. She was still pretending to be mad about him eating all her cupcakes the other day, and wanted revenge. But restoring her (and Tim’s) rights to the coffee machine seemed like a good enough benefit to be on Dick’s side. The older man had cut them off that morning, saying they needed to take a nap. In spite, both Mari and Tim stayed awake the entire day, which left them exhausted. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Dick might be forcing them to tire themselves out so that they would get some sleep.

Tim blinked. “Mari have I ever told you how smart you are?”

“Not nearly enough,” she laughed.

“Well you are so smart.”

She gave a mock bow. “Why thank you.” And without waiting for him to say anything else, she turned on her heels and walked away. She had some Waynes to cover in paint.

…

It was ten minutes later before she encountered anybody. Obviously Damian and Jason figured out where the supplies were and had started sneaking around. The best part of playing with the batfam is that they all have their best skills and talents in different fields, but they are all at least average in everything.

This is why she wasn’t surprised when a big blue blob of paint hit her right arm as she was walking through an empty hallway.

Immediately, she dove into a nearby room, shutting the door behind her. Tapping the comm, she reported to Dick and Tim. “Jason is in the vents. Look out for any overhead ones in exposed areas. I think he may be stuck to staying the second floor.”

Dick’s voice crackled over the comm. “Understood.”

“I just saw Damian in the living room. Wanna help me surround him near the dining room?” Tim asked.

Marinette peeked out the door while answering. “I can’t. I’m going to try and lure Jason out of the vents.”

“I’m on my way,” Dick responded.

Not seeing anything different, Mari slowly exited the room. She looked both ways before running to another room; this one closer to the overhead vent. She closed the door behind her, hearing the sound of paint hitting it at high velocity. She exhaled and looked around the room. There was a small vent in the corner, but it wasn’t big enough to even fit her head through. Then her eye caught on something and she got an idea. Quickly tapping her comm, she moved away from the door to keep her words out of Jason’s earshot. “Hey Dick?”

“Daywing,” Dick corrected.

“Daywing,” she sighed. “Can I use the windows to change rooms? Or do I have to stay inside?”

There was a slight pause on Dick’s end. “Usually I would say no, but for the sake of winning, I say go for it. Just make sure to always be touching the building somehow. That way you can still say your feet never left the manor.”

“Thanks,” she said, tapping her comm back off. She grabbed a blanket that was hanging over a chair and twisted it, making it into a makeshift rope. Then she tied it around a nearby support beam and opened the window. She lowered herself down just enough so that she could swing/walk to the window next-door. Hooking her left leg onto the sill, she pushed on the window to see if it was locked. Luckily for her, it swung open. Quietly climbing into the room, she looked around for the location of the door. She made a rough estimate that this door was just behind the overhead vent Jason was in. Hopefully she would be able to sneak down the hallway and into the vent herself.

Tikki seemed to rub off on her, fortunately, and she managed to do just that. Jason must have only had sight of the area he was facing, since the vent’s grill was angled. She tiptoed down the hallway and stopped next to a big vent on the side of the wall. She quietly removed the vent cover and crawled in, using her size to her advantage.

It took some time, since the vent was metal, but Marinette managed to sneak up behind Jason. She observed his current place in the vents, and deduced that if she hit him, he wouldn’t be able to turn around or adjust the gun in her direction without leaving the vents first. Or at least before she was able to crawl to safety.

She could see that Jason already had paint on the back of his left calf, so she aimed for his right thigh and pulled the trigger. The second her bright yellow paint hit him, Jason’s head swiveled around to face her. Unfortunately for him, his shoulders were too broad for him to turn around fully. To his credit, he was quick to open the vent cover and dive out. Marinette reacted as fast as he did, and shimmied to the vent opening, aiming down. Jason was a bit too quick, however, and he was already down the hallway before she could hit him again.

She knew that he was halfway down, though, so she wasn’t that torn up about it. Shrugging, she jumped out of the vents and started walking in the direction Jason went in.

…

An hour had passed before Marinette finally decided to join her team and start to isolate Jason and Damian. In the last hour, Mari had been hit once in the back of the head. Dick and Tim each had one splatter of paint on them. Damian had at least three (the two from the beginning, plus the ambush one), and Jason still had two.

Marinette met her teammates in the library, handing them more ammo that she grabbed from the batcave (that alone had taken her half an hour since Damian had also been down there). The three talked strategy for a while, debating whether Jason and Damian would work together or separately. After concluding that they would probably work together, they came up with a plan.

“So M is going to watch and observe from a high place and feed us information while Blue Robin and I hide on the ground,” Dick said.

Tim raised an eyebrow judgmentally. “Blue Robin?”

Marinette just shook her head at him in exasperation. “Don’t question it.”

“Easy for you to say,” he whined. “You got the easy codename!”

“Blue Robin! Focus!” Dick said, ignoring the raspberry Marinette blew at Tim. “M will tell us who is closer to who, and when the perfect time to strike is.”

“And where are we staking out for this lovely takedown?” Marinette asked.

Dick grinned. “The living room, of course.”

His teammates looked at him strangely. “Why did you say that as if it was some grand plan?” Tim questioned.

“Because it’s brilliant,” Dick responded.

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Yeah ok. Come on, let’s go then.” She grabbed Tim’s sleeve and pulled him out of the room, Dick following behind them. They carefully made their way to the living room, keeping watchful eyes and ears out for the others. Marinette directed them around any large vents, aware that Jason could ambush them again. When they came to the living room, Dick directed them to their locations. Tim hid behind the couch, with a partial view of the doorway. Dick helped Marinette climb up onto a china cabinet (after making sure it was sturdy enough to hold her weight) where she could relay to Tim and Dick what was going on in the entire room. Then Dick placed himself behind a large table.

Marinette was able to play three whole rotations of her favorite song in her head before she saw a shadow in the entryway. “Someone is coming in. Tim, you have the best shot,” she quietly relayed.

“Got it.” She heard back.

The shadow stayed still for a few seconds before a figure appeared. Jason entered the room, paintball gun at the ready. Unfortunately for him, the opposing team was more ready. Tim’s bright green paint spattered against his right arm, causing him to quickly move out of the room once again. She heard Jason talking and assumed he was telling Damian about the ambush.

“Jason is telling Damian about us. Be prepared for tiny hell demon.”

Tim’s small laugh was the only answer she got before Jason was springing back into the room. All three of them started shooting in his direction, only hesitating when he dove behind a table with a vase. Marinette figured they would rather lose the game than break Alfred’s vase. Apparently this is what Jason was counting on, since he didn’t move after hiding.

“Seems we’re at an impasse,” Dick yelled out from his spot behind the table.

“Not quite.” Right as the last syllable left Jason’s mouth, Damian burst into the room, guns blazing.

Marinette ducked down as much as she could, shooting in Damian’s direction and hoping for the best. She only stopped when cursing broke out in the room. She lifted her head and saw Damian’s only remaining arm now sporting a fashionable yellow dot. Damian glared in Jason’s direction and then looked up at Marinette. “Todd is obviously useless at this game. I would wish you luck, but you don’t need any to beat him.” And with those last words, he stomped out of the room.

Marinette snorted at the dramatics, adjusting her paintball gun to where Jason was still hiding. From her angle, she could hit either of his feet, but nothing else. “I can’t get to Jason. Tim, lure him out by moving to the other side of the room. He won’t be able to shoot at you without moving.”

“Got it,” Tim confirmed.

Almost in slow motion, Tim bolted from behind the couch to where Dick was, causing Jason to shift to the right slightly. Marinette angled her paintball gun a little, and shot three times in rapid succession.

Jason froze, looking up at Marinette in surprise. His hand reached up to touch his forehead, where three pink dots were proudly resting.

Dick and Tim cheered, walking out into the open now that both opponents had been taken care of. Dick came over to the china cabinet and helped Mari down. “Nice going, M!”

“Thanks!” She said, accepting the side-hug he offered.

Jason sighed, coming over to them. “Well played, Nette. Well played.”

“Thanks, Jay. You’re tough competition.”

“Sure, kid.” Jason snorted. “You seemed to really struggle taking me down.”

Marinette shrugged. “I didn’t say you were impossible to beat. Just tough.”

Her words seemed to amuse Jason, who just pat her on the head and smirked. “You sure didn’t go easy on me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Says who?”

Tim cut in before Jason could retort. “Guys, this conversation is great and all, but we are still playing a game.” His words seemed to jolt everyone back into action. Jason wished them luck before heading off to find Damian, while the other three faced each other.

Dick turned towards Tim grimly. “It was nice playing with you, Timothy. But here is where we part ways. You have ten seconds to run before I start shooting.”

Tim looks at Mari. “Now he loses the codename?”

Marinette shrugged. “It’s not very useful when you’re not our teammate anymore.”

“Five seconds,” Dick informed him.

Tim and Marinette exchanged a quick glance. Dick missed the wink Marinette sent Tim as he raised his paintball gun. Tim had just turned the corner when Dick’s internal timer went off.

“And now, we hunt.”

“Creepy way of saying it,” Marinette stated. “But yeah. Game on.”

…

Somehow they ended up in Tim’s room. They had figured that Tim would appear there at some point, since he would think it’s the very first place they would look. It seemed too easy.

Marinette climbed on the large wardrobe and sat on top, angling the paintball gun towards the door. Dick hid behind the door itself to hit Tim from behind. They didn’t have to wait long before the door slammed open, hitting Dick heavily. Immediately Marinette started shooting, hitting Tim in both arms. Dick took a few seconds to respond to Tim’s entrance after being hit by the door so forcefully, but nonetheless raised his gun and hit Tim once on the right leg— the last limb to not have paint.

Tim didn’t have anytime to respond, being hit before he could aim correctly at anyone. He looked down at himself and sighed. “That is going to be so hard to get out. I liked that shirt too.”

Mari hopped down from the dresser. “Sorry, Timmy. I guess we were too fast for you.”

Tim shrugged. “Yeah. I’m very tired.”

Dick gave a victorious look. “I guess you probably want to take a nap right now, huh.”

“Nah,” Tim said, ignoring the disappointed look Dick had. He turned to Marinette. “What now?”

“Let’s go find the others,” Marinette suggested.

The trio walked to the living room, figuring Damian and Jason would have stayed there to wait the rest of the game out. Sure enough, the two were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, clearly in some sort of verbal spar.

Jason looked over when they entered. “And there’s the traitors of the hour. Tell me, Nette. How’s it feel to betray your favorite Wayne?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a favorite. And I didn’t betray anyone. It’s paintball. Not war.”

“Says you,” Jason scoffs, standing. He walked over to her and roughed up her hair, smearing blue paint all over it. She squeaked and shoved him away.

Damian walked over to them and raised an eyebrow. “Based off of Drake’s colorful attire, I assume you won?” He asked Marinette and Dick.

Mari nodded. “We ambushed Tim in his bedroom.” Damian nodded his approval.

“Alright.” Dick clapped loudly. “Winners get one thing. What do you want Mari?” He asked.

Marinette put a hand on her chin, acting like she was pondering her one thing. “I got it,” she said, snapping her fingers. “I want my coffee privileges back. And Tim’s.”

Dick’s smile grew strained. “Yeah, no. Sorry, Mari. No can do.”

“But Dick,” the girl said, giving him puppy dog eyes. “You said I could have something. I just want some coffee.”

Dick winced, avoiding eye contact. “But you need sleep for tomorrow.”

“And I’ll still sleep. But I would like a cup of coffee so that I don’t pass out in an hour and then wake up at three in the morning.”

Dick hesitated. “But coffee might keep you up tonight and then you’ll be tired in the morning.”

Marinette gave him a look. “And that’s what coffee’s for.”

Dick looked at everyone in the room for help, but the others just gave him smug looks. He sighed. “Fine. But Tim isn’t allowed to drink straight from the pot.”

“Yes!” Mari cheered, high diving Tim. “Thanks Dick!” Both of them chorused, running out of the room.

Dick stared after them in dismay. “Why do I have the feeling I’ve been played?” He asked Jason.

Jason snorted and pat Dick’s shoulder roughly. “Because you have been.”

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AASwL First | AWoD First

______

I thought this would be a funny way for the fam to loosen up. Not featured is Bruce and Alfred’s reactions. They were,,, not happy (Spoiler alert: they did in fact blame Jason and he spent three hours cleaning the house later that day). Also I took some creative liberties when describing Wayne Manor since I have no idea what it looks like other than descriptions from other fics. Please excuse the inaccuracies, they may be small, but so is my level of caring :)

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Looking back on her crush on Adrien, she felt a little silly and embarrassed. She got a little carried away in her addiction with the model. Adrien was obviously oblivious to her crush, but everyone in the class (and probably anyone who witnessed them together) had seen her crazy obsession. At the time, it seemed rational and her friends certainly never had a problem feeding into the crazy ideas. Now she was just glad to be his friend.

Of course, if thirteen Marinette could see her now, she’d be disappointed. Twenty-two year old Marinette just wanted a friend. With all that had happened and all that was still going to happen, she really didn’t need a relationship to add into the mix.

The best part about all of this is that Adrien was her old partner. She hadn’t really thought it through two days ago, but she talked it over with Tikki and Plagg (who was laughing the entire conversation) about Adrien being Chat Noir. Plagg kept insisting it was a “love square.” Tikki was more supportive. She kept talking about them working so well as a team and how they trusted each other entirely.

Thinking back on it, Tikki probably said that as an encouragement to tell Adrien everything. And speaking of-

“So,” Adrien cleared his throat. “‘The wave.’”

-she was at a park with Adrien to tell him everything.

She had promised to tell him about it, and the Bats trust her judgement, but she didn’t want to put a ton of pressure on him. By telling him this, he might want to get involved, and she didn’t want to push that life onto him again. Not after what happened last time.

So here she was. Sitting on a park bench next to her old partner while Gotham city moved around them. From where she was sitting she could see a young boy walking with his mother while she was pushing a stroller. An old woman was walking briskly as if she was in her twenties. A man in a business suit was strolling across the park while on the phone. All these people, just going about their day. They had no idea how the balance of the world was tipping out of balance and their entire livelihoods were at stake.

Marinette smiled grimly and hesitantly nodded. “The Wave,” she agreed.

Adrien tilted his head, as if that helped him think. “What is it?”

She sighed. “Well that’s a long explanation. The short answer? It’s a literal wave of destruction and chaos that is throwing the world out of balance. If left without interference, it will cause bad things to start happening.”

Adrien blinked at her response, staring. “That is honestly not what I expected, but I can’t say I’m too surprised. We seem to have the worst luck, huh Milady.”

Marinette snorted. “Despite being the wielder of the ladybug miraculous, luck seems to stay far away from me. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop since leaving The Order.”

“Wait.” He held up a hand. “You mentioned something about them the other day too. You said you were kidnapped by people who wanted the Miraculi. It was The Order? I thought they were supposed to help protect the Miracle Box!”

She gave a bitter laugh. “They are. But they threw all that away when they found out the current guardian is a teenager, untrained, and a girl.”

“So they really…”

“They did.” She nodded. “They kept me hostage in the Temple for eight years.”

“Oh my god.”

“It was really bad,” she agreed. “But we were talking about The Wave.”

Hesitantly, Adrien nodded. “We were.” He gave her a look. “But eventually we’re going to talk about this.”

The young Guardian cringed. “If we have to, fine. I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.”

“Yeah yeah.” Adrien rolled his eyes. “You and your self-care.”

She didn’t dignify him with a response. Instead, she stuck her tongue out like the mature adult she is. Together they chucked softly at their childish interaction. She knew one day she would tell him everything, but unpacking that can of worms only three days before invading the League of Assassins felt exhausting. She knew he trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t keep anything important from him. For now, though, she could tell him about The Wave. It was more manageable. “Do you have any questions?”

“Is there any way to stop it?” He asked immediately.

Marinette hummed in thought, observing a woman walking though the park barefoot, holding stilettos in one hand. “If you’re asking if you can do anything about it, the answer is no. Other than being moral support, I’m afraid there isn’t much that isn’t covered by the others and myself. We have plan to start fixing the world, but it’s not a total solution. It won’t solve the entire problem, but it will tip the odds more in our favor.”

Adrien raised an eyebrow. “Did you just make a Hunger Games reference?”

“A what?” She tilted her head.

“You never read the Hunger Games, did you? Or the movies?”

She shook her head. “They’re on my list of things to catch up on, provided by one of my-“ she cleared her throat- “er, provided by the people I stayed with for the first few months here.”

“You mean the vigilantes?’

Strengthening her resolve to tell him, Marinette straightened. “Yeah. They took me in and kept me safe. They’re family. I may legally live with my mother in Rhode Island, but Gotham will be the place I return to. Both in the daytime and during patrols at night.”

“Gotcha.” He nodded. “I’d love to meet them. Just to, ya know, make sure they’re good enough for you.”

She shook her head fondly. “It’s me who’s not good enough for them.”

“Something tells me that’s an incorrect statement.”

Shrugging, Mari tilted her head back, looking at the sky. “Incorrect or not, they’re lovely people. You can meet them if you wish, but don’t interrogate them too much. They’ll probably start to mess with you if you ask too many questions. You could be told anything from the truth to whether or not I became a goat farmer for their underground goat trading cult. Pretty much anything is on the table with them.”

“Interesting,” Adrien mused. The man’s mouth twitched upwards at her words, but had fallen after silence grew. It was a comfortable silence, but both wanted answers for questions they knew the other wouldn’t want to answer. Time healed most wounds, but not all of them. So the solution? Avoid the problem and talk about something else.

“Hey Mari,” he said as she was opening her mouth to speak. She closed her mouth and hummed in response. “What caused it?”

“The Wave?”

“Yeah.”

Marinette made a face. “I think you can guess.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Was it the little cheese gremlin? I know he said he’s responsible for the dinosaurs, but I felt like he had a little more restraint than that.”

“Plagg has little to no impulse control,” Mari informed him. “Without Tikki he would have none.” Adrien just nodded along, as if he agreed with her statement. Then she remembered something. She nudged him. “Speaking of the chaos creature, I think someone really wants to see you.”

Adrien’s eyes widened. “Plagg?” He breathed out.

As if he had been waiting for his cue, a loud yawn came from Mari’s purse. Adrien’s eyes followed as slowly a little black cat phased through the purse and hovered in front of his face.

“It’s about time, kid.”

…

After Plagg and Adrien’s reunion, the three talked for a little bit longer. Unfortunately for Adrien, Plagg became bored of their conversation and curled up in his hair. The man complained about the kwami ruining his hair, but Plagg just started purring and kneading Adrien’s head.

“Plagg stop! You’re not even a real cat! It feels like a ton of tiny needles are poking my head,” Adrien complained.

Marinette snickered as Plagg retaliated and the two fell into familiar banter. Eventually they moved on after Plagg mentioned good ol’ Gabriel Agreste.

Mari reached out and turned Adrien’s cheek towards her, meeting his eyes. “What happened, Chaton? After you dropped the ring off on my balcony. All Plagg would tell me is that you were safe.”

Adrien hesitated, but started to explain when Plagg started purring. “I think I should start from the beginning. Er- the reasoning. My Father was Hawkmoth-“ Marinette nodded along, confused where he was going with this. “He was Hawkmoth because he wanted the ladybug and cat Miraculous.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. They both knew that fact, but it seemed like he was trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say, so she let him stall.

“And with the two he was going to make a wish.” Here he paused. When it seemed like he was lost in thought, Marinette leaned towards him and bumped his shoulder with her own in encouragement. This seemed to break him from his memories, and he looked at her sadly. “He wanted to wish my Maman alive.”

Marinette felt her eyes dampen at his confession. She gave no warning before wrapping the man in a hug. Adrien immediately melted into it, squeezing her tightly. They both knew the consequences of making a wish, but to know that he almost had the chance to have his mother back was probably devastating. Marinette rubbed Adrien’s back. “I’m sorry, Adrien.”

Reluctantly, Adrien let go of her and leaned back on the bench. “Don’t be sorry. I knew what he wanted and still chose to take his miraculous. I only gave mine up because I couldn’t let him find out and get his hands on it.” He paused slightly. “I also couldn’t chance myself trying to steal your miraculous to make the wish myself. I know the consequences. I just didn’t want to break, and I didn’t think I was strong enough to resist-“

“Adrien!” She cut him off. “You were very strong. I have no doubts that you would never have stolen my miraculous. I trust you.”

“I trust you too.” He smiled. “And thank you. I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with a lot of things, but it hasn’t gotten easier to talk about. Especially without you.”

His smile was contagious, and she gave a small back. If she was in his shoes with her Father, she would probably feel the same way. While she does have the ladybug and cat miraculous, the thought never even occurred to her that she could bring her Father back with them. However, if she found out that her Mother had terrorized Paris for three years to get them, she might feel a little differently. Emotions were probably running high that day, and she was sure that Adrien didn’t know what to do. Since that day, however, nine years have passed. He probably had time to deal with the facts and move on. Then his last sentence registered in her brain.

“Speaking of ‘without me.’ How’d you know to give me the Miraculous?” Her brows furrowed. “I could never figure that out. You didn’t know I was Ladybug, or the Guardian.” In the eight years she spent practically alone, this question popped up frequently. They never revealed their identities, so how did he know to drop off the cat miraculous on her specific roof? Was it Plagg that led him there? Did Plagg himself take it? Did he just guess and hope for the best?

“Ah.” He scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I kind of just assumed you would give them to Ladybug?” He saw the look of bewilderment on her face and hurriedly went to explain. “Wait wait before you get mad!” He waved his arms in front of her. “I trusted you. Because you were my friend, and you were Multimouse. Plus I thought you had some way to get in touch with Ladybug since you got Alya that interview once and Ladybug always said her patrol route was that direction. Plagg also vouched for you.”

“The kid was also desperate,” Plagg said nonchalantly from Adrien’s head, ignoring the indignant “hey” the boy gave. “Constantly ruining my cheese with his tears and worry. The aura was throwing off the smelliness.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow, ignoring Plagg for the moment. “So you trusted thirteen year-old me with a very powerful magic ring based off of your small flying cheese-addicted cat?”

Adrien cringed. “The flying cheese cat was very insistent, to be fair. And because you were the person I trusted the most with it. I knew you wouldn’t keep it since you don’t have a selfish bone in your body.”

“Oh,” Marinette said. She blinked hard. “Not even Nino?”

“Nino’s not very good with secrets.” Adrien rolled his eyes. “And I didn’t know if he would contact Ladybug without going through the Ladyblog.”

“And I am good with secrets?” Mari gave him a disbelieving look.

The man shrugged. “I mean, you never let on that you were Ladybug.”

Marinette scrunched her nose, but assented to the fact. She thought back on her pre-teen years with fondness, but also embarrassment. She said some pretty wild things so that she could leave and transform. It’s a wonder her friends never found out she was Ladybug. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

They fell back into their comfortable silence, but this one didn’t last long because Marinette had a question that had been bugging her for a while. “Chaton. What happened to you?”

Adrien looked down at himself in confusion. “Huh? What do you mean? Do I look that different?”

Her eyes widened and panic-Marinette made an appearance for the first time since she was little. “No no no no no! I didn’t mean it like that! I phrased that wrong, I swear! Let me reword it-“

“Marinette!” Adrien laughed. “It’s fine. What did you mean to say?”

“Ugh. I sound like younger me,” she complained. “Always rambling and stuttering all over the place.”

“It’s honestly refreshing,” Adrien teased. “The rambling was dearly missed.”

“You’re the worst,” she informed him. “But back to my question. What happened after your Father and, umm, Nathalie went away?”

“Oh.” Adrien’s face immediately lost it’s humor. He resumed the sad expression he had earlier when talking about his mother and the wish. Marinette immediately regretted asking the question when they had been in such high spirits seconds before, but the question was burning a hole in her brain and she had to say it before she exploded. “We found my Maman.”

Marinette’s face turned blank. Her expression was equal to that of a loading symbol. “What?”

“Yeah,” he cringed. “In my Father’s secret basement, we found my Mother’s body. He had preserved it in a weird glass coffin or something.”

“That’s-“ she paused- “something.”

Adrien bitterly laughed. “It sure was. It was horrible. I mourned her already, but seeing her body made it hurt all over again. I grieved her for a while. You were already missing when this happened, but the rest of the class came to her funeral and helped me through it.”

The young Guardian rubbed his back soothingly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

Adrien shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault. I never blamed you. I was sad you weren’t there, but I understood. I didn’t know why you were gone, but I knew it probably wasn’t willing. Besides, everything turned out fine in the end. I ended up being taken in by Nino’s family, believe it or not.”

Thankful for the lighter topic, Marinette latched onto the conversation starter. “No way! That’s great!”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “The Lahiffe’s were pretty great. They were very understanding. It was basically like one big sleepover until I turned sixteen. Then I became emancipated. I was lucky enough to be hired by your parents at the bakery for a while, too. I had my Father’s entire company and fortune, but I wanted to work for my own money. I didn’t want to become that ‘one rich kid who inherited his family’s entire fortune and never worked a day in his life.’ I also kind of completely redid my Father’s company. I weeded out the biased and greedy people and replaced them with more open-minded people. Juleka is actually on the Board. Everyone works very hard to help me fix the reputation that my Father left for me.”

“I see.” She nodded. “Nobody ever gave you a hard time because of the Hawkmoth thing? I know we never told Paris our identities, but it might have helped you image if you were in any danger.”

He shrugged. “Of course some people thought I was working for or with my Father, and were mean to me, but Gorilla protected me. He was the only adult I trusted for a while. Even now he still works for me as a bodyguard.”

“A bodyguard?” She looked around confused. “I don’t see him. Did you not bring him to Gotham?”

“Well I might have ditched him in the hotel,” he admitted. “I have to keep him on his toes, you know?” At her exasperated expression, he sighed. “And he is able to track my phone.”

Marinette snorted. Apparently wisdom does not, if fact, come with age. “You ditched your bodyguard in the most dangerous place in the world.”

“Meh.” Adrien shrugged carelessly. “I could take on Scarecrow.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you could, Chaton.” Before he could keep tempting fate and jinx himself further, she asked another question. “How’d you find me anyway?”

He smiled like the cat who caught the canary (but in this case, the cat who caught the bat). “I guess I’m just really lucky. Seems like Tikki likes me more, huh Milady?”

“You are going to wake up one day with pink hair, you hear me? One more sarcastic remark out of you and I’m brining out the dye,” she jokingly threatened.

He laughed. “Jokes on you, I’d look amazing with pink hair.”

She sighed. “Just answer the question, Adrien.”

“I really was lucky. I was reading some news article talking about the Gotham vigilantes, and it mentioned someone called ‘Epthianura.’ The article never said what weapon she used, but they did mention it was odd and creative. Furthurmore, I felt like there was a double meaning behind the name, so I looked it up, and sure enough, the bird is also called the ‘Crimson Chat.’” He leaned towards her and wiggled his eyebrows. “Anything you’re trying to say, Mari?”

She scoffed and pushed him away. “Don’t get a big head. This was my plan all along. I needed enough clues for you to see beyond the magic and come find me.”

“Just me?” He tilted his head.

Mari waved her hand in the air. “You, Alya, my Mom, anyone but The Order. In the eight years I was there, I learned that they don’t have many street smarts, and their detective skills are questionable at best. Anyway. Not the point.”

“Ah.” He nodded in understanding. “That was all my reasoning. I kind of just took a gamble, and it seems to have paid off. Not only did I find My Lady, but I found Marinette as well. It was a win-win situation.”

“Definitely a win,” she said as her phone dinged. “Thank you for finding me.”

“Well I can’t take all the credit. You’re the one who set up the clues. I just put them together.”

She smiled at him before checking her phone. There was a notification that she got a text from Dick. Opening the text, she read it and quickly replied. After sending the text, she looked back up at Adrien. “That was one of my hosts. They want me back for dinner. You could come if you want to?” She offered.

Adrien smiled and pat her shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, and next time I’ll take you up on it, but I probably should head back to my hotel. Gorilla will have my head if I stay out longer than I already have. He’s already going to give me that disappointed look because I ran away. I can’t stand the disappointed look.”

“Good luck with that," She smirked before looking up at Plagg who was still on Adrien’s head. “Say goodbye, Plagg. We gotta go.”

Plagg silently flew over to in front of Adrien’s face and just stared at him. Marinette watched in bafflement as the two stared at each other. “Next time, you better bring me some camembert,” Plagg informed him, breaking their staring contest.

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Of course. I’d never bring something as preposterous as brie.”

Plagg shrugged his tiny shoulders. “Brie is delicious, but camembert is better.”

Marinette watched their conversation with mild amusement. “As fascinating as this is, we have to go. I’ll see you soon, Adrien. I promise to talk more in a few days.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “We’ll talk after all the excitement dies down. Text me whenever you want to meet up.”

“Will do.” She gave him a hug. “Stay safe, Alley Cat.”

While she knew the next few days were going to be stressful, she was looking forward to their next get-together. During their chat she had many of her questions answered, even though she didn’t answer many in return. Eventually she would tell him everything, but today she settled for some things. It was probably best to space the information out. No need to stress him out with the details of her eight years in hell, or the fear she would never talk to her old friends again. She had plans to tell him everything. And now she had plans to meet up with him again. Today, however, she had planned to tell him about some very important things.

Plus, it’s always good to have a backup plan. Something told her it would be necessary for her upcoming mission.

<<Previous Next>>

AASwL First | AWoD First

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Me in January, writing the first chapter of this fic: This will be a story story I quickly write out for you guys :D

Me now, 10 months and 50k+ words later, on the second installment of the multi-chaptered fic, bonking my younger self on the head: Liar!

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