#abwdatfor

 The manor house's basement is a maze and she's oh so vulnerably lost. She can't afford to stay here—stay still—for long. Holding her breath for a moment, she waits. The seconds pass like the dripping of blood from the deep gash curled across her collarbone and throat. Luckily though, the other new injuries she awoke with—littering her arms, legs, chest, and throat, looking dreadfully like signs of torture—are freshly scabbed over and haven't seemed to have reopened.

 A small mercy.

 Perhaps a little too violently for the stealth she desperately needs, she slams her shoulders back against the stone wall inside the room and lets herself slide to the floor, legs giving way beneath her. The impact will probably bruise nastily, knowing her luck.

 She hasn't got time to clean the wound on her neck, meaning she'll still be easy to track via the scent of her blood but really, it's too late now all things considered, and there's no water or alcohol she could even use to do so in the first place anyway. Scrabbling for a scrap of cloth, she tears the bottom of her tunic and wraps it with practised deftness around her neck to cover the gash in a temporary bandage—better than nothing.

 In, two, three, four. Her shoulders shake as she struggles for every slow breath, desperately willing her heartbeat to steady from its frenetic rhythm.

 Out, two, three, four.

 Footsteps approach.

 Marinette freezes, pulse skyrocketing and breath hitching in terror. No, no, no! He's coming, he's coming, he's coming!

 Who, she doesn't quite know but what she does know, is that instinctual fear for her survival clouding her mind.

 Closer, and closer, floorboards groaning and moaning in warning. Only accentuated by the scraping prowl of hardened leather soles against the wood.

 Bloody fingers scramble at the crossbow resting on her belt, silver bolt at the ready.

 The footsteps reach the threshold of the doorframe, nails squealing in the floorboard beneath the boots. Hinges on the door wailing as whoever lurks behind, slowly begins prising it open like a coffin.

 Quick as a flash, Marinette yanks the crossbow from its belt hook and up at the now-open door. Without hesitating to aim, fires. There's a clunk of the mechanism activating and a twang as it shoots.

 Thunk, as it misses.

 “Shit! Fuck!” An almost familiar voice yelps, sounding strained with a growl between their teeth.

 She ignores the cursing and its accompanying sense of déjà vu, already reloading by habit and bringing the crossbow up to aim at the one tracking her.

 “Hey, hey, it's just me!” The person—a man with an unnervingly agnising streak of white in his black hair—stumbles back, raising his hands in surrender, near unnaturally bright green eyes apprehensively wide. He's grinning at her anxiously, making it more of an uneasy half grimace than any sort of smile really. “You recognise me, right? C'mon, Mari!”

 She doesn't. Her fingers tremble against the trigger, keeping the crossbow raised to shoot his heart at the slightest threat. Why does he know my name… Is he the one chasing me? The one I need to run from?

 “Marinette?” He pleads, fingers curling in slightly as his eyebrows furrow, a look of deep distress slowly etching its way across his features before the realisation crushes his hope and a wretched sort of dolorous dawns in his eyes. “No! No, please, come on!” He takes a step back. “I can't…”

 “Can't what?” She retorts carefully, not erring in her aim as she continues to hold the crossbow up and ready.

 He swallows a breath of air sharply at that, “you… fuck—you really don't recognise me, huh?”

 Licking her lip nervously, she squints at him. “Should I?”

 The man opens his mouth to speak then shuts it, biting his tongue and holding the unspoken words between his teeth.

 But Marinette catches a glint of something unmistakably amiss.

 And they can both hear the distant ringing of the death knell outside, marking the hours they have left to flee this place—to escape with their lives.

 They're running out of time.

 He sighs, closing his eyes for a brief moment before staring at her intently. “What do you remember?”

 “I'm a monster hunter.” She responds, eyeing him warily, finger twitching on the crossbow trigger.

 His face twists at her answer, “Yeah… yeah… but anything else?”

 “What's it to you?” Marinette answers unhelpfully, tone almost whingey in petulance.

  The man barks out an acerbic laugh of disbelief and shakes his head slightly but offers no answer.

 Tilting her head to one side, she nods stiffly towards him, switching the topic. “What's your name then? Since you already know mine?” She can't help the slight questioning lilt at the end of her words. The curiosity burns like the wound around her neck.

 “Jason.” He mutters lowly. “But, uhh,” the corner of his lips starts to curl into a frown before scrunching into a full grimace. “You used to call me Jay, among some other nicknames. We were close, you and I.” He breathes in slowly as if the words pain him to speak. “I'm your older brother.”

 A chill runs down her spine and it takes all her willpower not to shoot as she raises an eyebrow at him instead. “Uh-huh? Is that so?”

 Jason doesn't respond immediately but the grief-stricken stare he gives is answer enough. He takes a tentative step forwards again, reaching one hand towards her, the other still raised in a show of harmlessness.

 Watching askance at his movements, she holds herself perfectly still. Not daring to even breathe. Until the very last second, when he gets but a fraction too close.

 Violently, she flinches back. Heart racing, hands shaking.

 The crossbow fires.

  Thwonk, the bolt slams into Jason's torso, shadowed by a hiss of burning flesh.

 “Fuck!” He bites out, a snarl on his lips, accidentally revealing two inhumanly long fangs where his canines should have been. “I'm offended, Nettie.” He coughs, “your aim's gotten worse.”

 ‘You really wanna bet?’ is the snappy response upon her lips that dies like a bolt through the heart, as she stares, eyes wide in horror at the sight that answers her unspoken challenge.

 For, slowly a patch of dark crimson upon his sternum begins to stain and spread through the pale shirt.

 Marinette freezes again, unable to wrench her eyes from that bolt sticking out of his chest, skin smouldering on contact with the silver—she shouldn't be so surprised, so shocked by her own reaction, not when she can't recall ever being so distraught over hurting a monster before, in her blurry memories. So why is seeing Jason hurt different? He can't be telling the truth, can he?

 Still trembling, she reloads the crossbow yet again, between hesitant flickering glances up at him. “If you're really my brother then how come you're a vampire?” She demands, baring her own dull teeth back at him before adding on quickly, “because I'm still completely human. So either you're trying to take advantage of my memory, intact or not, or you should be dead.”

 “I ain't arguing with that.” Shaking his head, he scoffs. “Look, you won't be human for fucking long if we don't get out of here, okay.” He scowls, sending a dark look back down the shadowed hallway he came from, before offering a hand out to her once more. “I know a way out, I can explain shit afterwards. And we will find a way to undo whatever the fuck he did to you, alright.” Sighing, he swallows another heavy gulp of air, furrows his brows and grits his teeth. “And I'm sorry but I promise you, I've never used any of my vampire powers to hurt you, Marinette, never, I swear.”

 She scrunches up her nose and twists her lips at his words, shifting between a soft frown and a grimace. Fingers twitching on crossbow trigger, Marinette leans towards him just a smidgen as she voluntarily chooses to lower some of her guard—as a test obviously, definitely not because her instincts, despite all her training to the contrary, seem to be screaming that he, a deadly monster is trustworthy.

 Making a small noise of gentle distress at the back of her mouth, she drops the crossbow's aim to the floorboards. Softly, voice wavering like the candle flames lighting the room, she queries, “if that really is the case, then what other secrets did you keep from me?”

 Jason cocks his head to one side and hums, gazing over her shoulder unseeing for a split second. “Not a lot to be honest, apart from my… undeath at first but suffice to say I was in no state to even tell you. And the one who turned me, wasn't exactly planning on me being found, let alone in one piece.” With a small grave smile, he rubs his neck, clearing his throat as he does so. “I won't let you be hurt, or turned, like I was, alright. As I've told you countless times before, I'll protect you always, even if it kills me again.”

 It takes a moment for either of them to notice the deafening silence of the basement. Not a creak, nor groan to be heard from the wooden doors and floorboards.

 “Oh fuck. We're outta time.” He keeps his hand offered to her. “Please,” Jason begs, desperation shining in his eyes, “trust me, just until we escape at least.”

 Nodding gingerly, Marinette doesn't hesitate to clasp his hand. “I trust you,” she murmurs a little too softly—too truthfully—not quite half-believing herself, tightening her grip and adding with slightly muted vitriol, “but just until then! I'm only trusting you so I can escape. Nothing more, nothing less.”

 Jason bursts into a blinding grin, hauling her up to her feet easily by the hand.

 The action is so strangely familiar to her eyes. It hurts.

 Scrunching her nose up and grimacing, she grits her teeth and then bites her lips as she glances aside, muttering under her breath, “am I even safe with you, trusting you?” Clearing her throat quickly, she chews on the next words as she picks them ever so carefully. “You said,” she asserts, louder and clearer, intending for this to be heard and not her former words. “that you knew a way out, right?” Her voice pitching on the last word.

 Just barely catching the heart-sinking defeat flickering through his eyes as his smile wanes to a thin fragile frown. Jason shrugs his shoulders, tensing mordantly, then tugs gently on her hand in silent communication.

 When she hesitates, his frown deepens.

 He clears his own throat, pointedly looking away from her now. “C'mon, follow me. It shouldn't take long but we can't risk getting caught.”

 The second they cross into the hallway, a long low creak of a boot on a squeaky floorboard emanates from the darkness beyond their candlelit threshold.

 She exchanges a glance with Jason like second nature, the familiarity of the action aches like her scabbed over wounds.

 Nodding, he cocks his head to one side, raising his eyebrows briefly and throwing his gaze down the hallway in a half-roll, indicating the opposite direction from the creak. With the flick of his other hand, he makes a few quick gestures and begins speed-sneaking—steps silent as a bat—away from the encroaching threat, pulling her after him.

 Marinette lets him guide her as she focuses on keeping her own footsteps as quiet as his—and surprisingly achieving it despite her humanity. Daring not to dwell on the thought, she keeps her ear out for any further sounds in their surroundings.

 Near bolting down the corridor lined with blood and closed wooden doors that are also reinforced with more iron nails and bars, warped and gnarled like unburied coffins in a graveyard. The deeper they run, the more disconcerting it becomes. Light scuffs and scratches on the doors, walls, and floor bleed into gaping gouges clawed a merciless rusting crimson.

 The creaking floorboards remain a constant slow death knell behind them.

 A turn of the corner. Then down another long corridor with doors less tightly bolted—yet the fatal stains and jagged slashes only worsen. That which is kept down here struggled and fought. Where Marinette has run from, those signs are faint.

 It's a sickening sort of nausea to know by the context of this sight, that either she had been prevented by unknown means from fighting back like those before her, or… she had gone willingly down there. She doesn't know which implication is worse. She doesn't want to know the truth either. Because either way, it will hurt.

 The crossbow weighs heavy on her hands and the silver bolts burn painlessly.

 As they dart around another corner, a dangling bait of hope glimmers before them. Polished spiral stone stairs.

 The creaking fades.

 Only for laughter to creep in after.

 “Fuck!” Jason grunts, whipping around to glare behind them from where it comes from but not missing a step as he pulls her up the steep climb. “It's never a good sign when Crane laughs like that. We're nearly out though, just trust me a little longer, Nettie.”

 Nodding, Marinette stares up at him unguarded and, for a split second, she feels the phantom tugging of a distant memory that dissipates upon her grasp.

 The spiral staircase ascends into pitch darkness for far longer than she will ever dare be comfortable with alone.

 But… she's not alone. Is she?

 No, Jason's hand is cold but firm, wrapped around her own. So familiar yet so unfamiliar it hurts. But what in this place doesn't?

 The candlelight at the end of the spiral is more comforting than she's willing to admit at this moment—she's a monster hunter, and every monster hunter knows that the light can be just as much a sign of danger as the darkness but that doesn't stop that primal relief at light returning.

 Still, they're not out yet, they can't afford to get complacent and act like it's safe before they really are.

 Jason leads her down another two left turns—the walls, floors, doors noticeably undamaged up here—then a right as the hallway lined with richly woven tapestries and fanciful portraits of the Agreste's ancestors, splits into three, and then through an inconspicuous plain wooden door. Through it, is another long hallway decorated with all the finery of aristocracy, with a large window partially ajar at the end—large enough for two people to escape through.

 Thunder rumbles outside, and stormy clouds are visible in the sky through the window, even at this distance away.

 Glancing back at her, Jason bursts into another blinding infectious grin and starts bounding down the hallway like an overexcited puppy—or a werewolf—tugging her along with him.

 Marinette should still be wary of him, and yet, she can't help but start to smile along with him at his antics. They're so close to freedom, surely they can afford to get excited about it now, they're practically out already.

 Sooner than she expects, the large open window that leads to the outside is just within reach. Only a few more metres, only a few more steps.

 And then... Then she'll be free.

 But—

 —Her body—

 —It seems—

 —Has other plans.

 Collapsing to her knees. Her hand slipping from his grip, with only a shallow inhale of breath and the thump of her body against the wooden floorboards to indicate what is wrong.

 Jason hasn't noticed. Not yet. He's so close and yet so far with each passing second.

 Her fingers twitch against the grain. Sluggish and leaden as though there are chains dragging against her every movement.

 A rising numbness unfurls from Marinette's chest like poison, inciting her heart and mind to writhe—clouding them with a permuting toxin. Her heartbeat spikes with a violent staccato and the world shutters around her as darkness creeps into the corners of all that she can see. Slowly she loses her sense of touch, the floorboards beneath her fingers and knees no longer registering to her mind, no longer able to feel the movement of her lips parting or her chest heaving in breath. But she can still see, it, the phantoms of their movement at the edges of her tunnelled vision. Her breathing hitches as she realises, that with one sense gone, grounding herself will be so much harder now.

 And then… her breathing stops. Her heartbeat pounds in her head, the rushing of blood and the throbbing drowning out any other sound. Her vision starts to grey, colours bleeding like her hopes for freedom.

Can't breathe, can't breathe, can't— Marinette's mind screams.

 It is as if she's a puppet with her strings cut, unable to move or react, trapped in her crumpled body—helpless. She can barely hear, all she can do is watch with monochrome sight.

  “Fuck!” Jason yells as soon as it twigs for him that she's no longer beside him, pivoting on his heel to bolt back for her, a dawning dread in his eyes. “Nettie!” 

 She's just barely at the right angle to see his reaction, and the strangest thing occurs, Marinette doesn't so much hear Jason's words, as she knows he spoke them. Which means even though she can't hear anything in her mind above the beating of her pulse, she can still hear and understand outside sounds even though it doesn't feel like she can.

 It's weird. Disorientating. To lose another sense. And it's only in that knowledge of an absence, does Marinette notice another sense gone, and another. She can't smell or taste the mustiness in the air, or the acrid scent of freshly clotting blood clinging to her thanks to her wounds. She can't taste the dryness of dehydration or the otherwise unnoticeable taste of her own mouth anymore.

 It's all gone. Only the shreds of sight and hearing are left and those are nearly gone too.

 “C'mon, c'mon, I got you,” Jason mutters, desperation squeezing the words in a vice grip. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

 “I'm fine,” Marinette's body responds automatically—against her will. If she had control, her heart would've plummeted at the chains wrapping around her mind, caging her within as the body continues to repeat the words. “I'm fine.”

 Rattling like a rabid beast, she claws at the boundaries of her mind. ‘No! No, no, no, please! Let me go! I'm not fine! Stop! Don't listen, please!’

 But he can't hear her pleas.

 “Do you remember what's been done to you?” He questions, crouching down beside her and scouring every visible part of her up and down for anything concerning—pausing only for a moment to blow the white strands of hair out of his face that has fallen in the way. “Any other injuries, barring the obvious one on your collarbone and neck, if you've been drugged with any chemicals, and if you have what they are, or something?”

 Oh, how desperately Marinette wants to cry at him that she doesn't know. Her body doesn't respond against her will again, another small mercy.

 Though she cannot feel it, she watches his hands ghosting down her arms as he frantically looks her over and over again, eyes wide, brows furrowed, mouth half agape in horror and concern as he speaks.  “—And Leslie can help you once we get out, she can check you over to make sure you're okay and patch up any injuries, of the body or mind.”

 She's missed something he said. It's worsening.

 And all she can feel within her mind, are the phantoms of restraints tearing at her skin and needles piercing her flesh.

 “Would you just stop treating me like something you're trying to fix!” Her body snarls, though otherwise still not moving.

 How much longer…?

 Her thoughts trail to a stop as Jason gently takes her hands in his and shakes them softly. “I'm not trying to fix you, Mari. You're hurt and that means you need help—but it doesn't mean I think you need fixing.”

 “It's going to be alright, Nettie. I know you also hate how pitying this can sound like but B, A, and Leslie all have means of helping however you've been hurt by Crane. And we're nearly out of his laboratory, please just bear with me, with this treatment just a little bit longer.” He pauses to let the words sink before adding tenderly, “I'm going to pick you up and carry you out now, I've got you, okay.” Slowly, he reaches around her to scoop her up and haul her over his shoulders as carefully as possible to prevent aggravating any of her injuries. It's not the comfiest way to carry someone but it will at least let him safely carry her as far as needed.

 ‘Who's what?’ Marinette wants to ask as he moves her. ‘We're in the Agreste manor house, not a laboratory?’

 Jason still doesn't hear her, he adjusts his grip and starts speed walking towards the window. “No matter what, Mari, I'm not leaving without you.”

 “Is that so?” A voice that sends shivers down her spine calls out, his words cut through the throbbing heartbeat in her mind with surgical precision, “well I'm afraid I can't let you whisk away my favourite little experiment just yet, vampire.”

  Steps closing in. Slowly, patiently… tauntingly.

 “Back the fuck up.” Jason growls—sliding into a bloodthirsty hiss at the end. “Batman may have a rule against killing you rogues, but I sure as fuck don't. You ain't getting your hands on her again.”

 What little of the hallway Marinette can still see through her fading vision begins to distort, the trappings of a foreboding but opulent manor house bleeding away to a grim plainness now littered with gouges and dragged claw marks, not unlike the basement had held.

 Jonathan Crane laughs lowly—callously, “Did you know, that littlest bird of yours hits surprisingly hard for the weakest member of your team, when under the influence of enough fear? It's truly fascinating.”

 Unable to hold back a snarl, Jason's face twists as his control of his vampiric powers slip for just a moment. Acutely aware of Marinette on his shoulders still, he pulls a vial from his belt and lobs it violently at Crane's feet, immediately bursting into a sprint towards the window whilst swinging Marinette from his shoulders and into his arms.

 There's a hollow unbreathing second as the glass shatters upon the wooden floorboards before a shrieking roar that rivals the thunder begins to tear the building apart. A writhing mass of viscous starving flames burst from the point of shattering, sticky globs of oil splattering across the hallways, creating a sea of liquid fire.

 Marinette can just barely watch it from her position in Jason's arms, her sight burning like the laboratory's hallway.

 Angling his body to protect her, Jason leaps at the window. A cascade of glass showers around them. Glinting and glimmering in the reflection of the drowning inferno behind them. And for a second it almost looks as though they are falling with wings of smoke, glass, and fire outstretched from their backs.

 And then the world tilts violently. The earth comes rushing up to meet them. Jason hits it first, a sickening crack of branches shivering apart beneath him. But he keeps her cradled in his arms, shielding her from the worst of the impact.

 The laboratory above them crackles and screeches as it is swallowed to the bone by the insatiable fire.

 Slowly, Jason breathes deeply, making a sort of chuffing laugh between every other breath. “Fuck. We made it. We're out!”

 If she still had control of her body, Marinette would nod and be breathless in laughter too.

 Grinning blindingly at her once more, he hauls himself off the conveniently planted shrubbery—Most likely Poison Ivy's doing—that has broken their fall. Then turns and offers a hand to her.

 Marinette stares at him blankly.

 “C'mon,” he coaxes, still smiling at her like the sun. “Just a bit further, the others will have noticed the beacon by now. We'll take you back home, to safety. And Leslie and A can help you with your injuries. You'll be okay.”

 She can't even open her mouth to answer. Pitching forwards, her body crumples again. Like an unloved discarded doll.

 There's a look of flooding panic in his eyes, his mouth moving frantically with unheard words, as her eyes roll back and everything goes dark.

 Distantly, within the inky darkness, Marinette wonders why she never thought to ask why he came to save her from that place, or who those other people were.

 But… It's a little too late now.

 The pain of her injuries fade away along with her final bleeding thoughts—the darkness smothering it all as she's cradled ever so gently to the unwavering lull of her heartbeat—steadying itself from the staccato of before.

———

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