#adribat

“Welcome, I can help you.” The boy was staring right at him, like he could see into his soul if he stared hard enough, it almost made him want to turn around but he sat down at the table instead. 

There was a crystal ball in the center of the table, another mystical looking thing though he wasn’t sure if believed it did anything but light up. “Do you mean how can I help you?” 

“Nope.” The boy pulled out a deck of cards from seemingly nowhere, the cards were purple on top with a slightly lighter floral pattern. “How about a reading?”

He looked at the deck as the boy shuffled them, he wasn’t very experienced with tarot cards but had heard of them from one of his friends, he hoped he got good ones!

The deck was laid out in front of him on the table. “Pick a card, whichever three you're drawn to first.”

He looked at the cards, they were facing down now so he wouldn't be able to know which is which. He looked at them for a moment and tried to really focus on any of them but just went with the three that he considered at first. 

“Set them down, facing upwards.” 

He obeyed and put them down so they type of card was now displayed, the boy took a look over each card. “Hm.” He tapped a finger on the first card. “Strength, king of wands, and the empress.” The boy looked at him before continuing. “Strength is a sign you have courage and can face challenges, the king of wands reversed-”

“Is that bad?” The boy just gave him a look as if to say “let me finish.” So he did just that.

“This card is telling me you have unrealistic expectations, it’s understandable you’d be frustrated when you have unlikely goals. Now for your last card, the empress calls you to embrace beauty, nature, and nurturing. It’s a good sign, it can also refer to motherhood but I doubt you will be having that problem?” The boy gave him a slight smirk, he was being teased.

“No! I mean I'm not pregnant–most of what you just said sounds good..”

“Most of it is.”

He didn’t really know what he should do with his reading but at least he got to see this guy. “Well uhm, I know you said something about unrealistic expectations, would taking you on a date be one?”

The boy blushed and looked taken aback. “You don’t even know my name.” He fidgets with his hands before starting to gather up the cards.

“Tim, I know who you are.”

Tim was now eyeing him suspiciously as he shuffled his tarot cards. “So was this all a scheme to get me here?”

“No I didn’t think of that, my father’s assistant Nathalie is the one who set all this up, a lucky coincidence." Though Nathalie agreeing to let Rim Drake come over was likely purposeful, business stuff.

“Right..i’m working right now but we can talk after?”

At least he had a chance. “Okay!’ He got up from the table. “Thank you for the reading.” He smiled before leaving the tent. Now all he had to do was occupy himself till this thing was over, nothing else here was particularly interesting.

<b>Hours later</b<

Adrien was sitting at one of the tables near the windows, most of the guests had filtered out by now and it was just him and his blueberry boba. Nathalie was overseeing the cleanup in the kitchen.

He was slumped down in his seat and there was suddenly movement across from him Tim sat down at the other side of the table, he was changed back into a casual t-shirt and sweatpants, and wearing a backpack. Still had eyeliner smudged under his eyes however. “So that date?”

“I’ll go but I'm keeping an eye on you.”

He didn't except asking him out would be this easy and he was already taking an interest too, what was he worried about? “That’s fine, so uhm, when are you available?”

“I can go now.”

Right now? He probably looked like crap-not that he’d been doing anything much. He was just a little sweaty. “Oh–Cool!Yeah, food?”

“I could eat.”

“Me too! I mean, uhm, do you want to go in my car? I have a chauffeur.”

“Sure, I'd kill for a burger right now.”

“I know a place.” He stood up from the table and started to head to the door once he made sure Tim was following. His bodyguard was already waiting in the car, he got in the back with Tim. “Let’s go to the burger place.” His bodyguard just grunted in response before starting the car.

“So how long have you been into me?” Tim was so blunt.

Adrien side eyed him before looking out the window and blushing. “A while.”

“Cute.”  He continued to face the window and pretend like he was not turning into a tomato right now.

.

Multichapter fic of these two will be made one day when I get ideas and finish at least one other fic cause I don't want to overwork myself.

He glanced from his shirt back to the boy who’s green eyes were staring right at him, he did look real apologetic and regretful but he couldn;t help but become even more annoyed. It was just not his day today. 

“Uhm- are you okay? Did you get burned?” The boy looked him over, mainly focusing on his shirt which was soaked through on the left side. 

“I’m fine. No thanks to you.”

“I can buy you another coffee?" He was starting to like the stranger a little more.

Unfortunately before he could get his reimbursement there was an announcement about the gate he would board, no coffee then. “That sounds good but I need to board my plane.”

“Oh, yeah me too. Is your gate B25?”

“Yes?”

“Cool, that’s my gate too. We can walk together!” The boy smiled at him.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the boy, he caused him to make a mess of himself but he was also kind of cute. He just sighed and nodded, throwing away the now empty coffee cup. The boy followed behind him, a bit like a puppy in that way. 

“Hey, what’s your seat number? It would be cool if we were near each other.”

“7A.”

The boy gave him a shy smile when he realized he was being looked at. “Mine is 7B! We’re seatmates.”

“How nice.” He still wasn't sure how he felt about this boy, he was nice enough though he hoped he wouldn’t talk much during the trip. Keeping up with conversation is hard and requires too much energy sometimes. 

“Are you going to Paris too?”

“That’s where the plane is going.”

“Right, yeah, I live in Paris..I was just here for business.” The boy seemed less confident in the conversation.

They both arrived at the gate shortly and began to board the plane, he had the window seat and the boy was sitting right beside him. The proximity was annoying especially when the aisle seat remained empty, would it be rude to ask him to move?

“Hey, I never got your name?”

“Tim.” He looked out the window as they took off, it was evening time so it wasn’t too dark out yet and there were plenty of clouds. 

“My name’s Adrien, so, why are you heading to Paris?”

“Vaction.”

“You don’t sound sure.” This boy was nosy.

“Personal business.” Vigilante business that he told absolutely no one about.

Adrien just kept smiling at him. “I could show you around, I know lots of good places. Do you like ice cream?”

“I do.” He looked from the window towards him. He could spare some time before having to work after all.

“Great! We can get Andre’s Ice cream, you have to find him first though.”

“Find him?”

“He never stays in one place for long, it’s kind of fun to look for him.”

“Sounds fun, first we have a seven hour flight to get through.” He had to stay in the coffe stained shirt for seven hours, how fun. “I’m changing first before you take me anywhere.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take the ice cream as payment.” Adrien seemed happy with that arrangement.

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

Marinette leaned back in her chair, barely resisting the urge to manspread. After spending the previous three reincarnations as a man, it was a little hard to remember that women were supposed to be proper.

Though… maybe no one would care if she, in particular, was impolite.

She considered this heavily.

Until someone opened the door. She was quick to cross one leg over the other primly, her most serene smile in place. She didn’t sit up in her chair, though, she deserved to slouch a little, with how much work she was putting into keeping these dumbasses alive.

“We have a nonbeliever,” said her most devout cultist.

Marinette sighed. Always so dramatic. Why couldn’t her cultists ever be normal?

But sure. Fine. She supposed she shouldn’t allow distrust among her ranks. One doubter could lead to more, and she didn’t really want to deal with a riot…

“There are always skeptics. Is it one of our own, or an outsider who has come to visit?”

“An outsider,” he said, almost venomously.

Oh, then who cares?

“Make them leave, then,” she said, vaguely waving him off.

“He’s refusing to leave until he has an audience with you.”

Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhh…

“If he must,” she said, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Send him in.”

Her cultists stepped out to retrieve the stranger.

A man stepped through the doorway, ducking slightly to fit in the frame. He looked, largely, content, if a little bored.

“I hear you’re a miracle worker —.”

“Adrien?” she said, sitting up straighter.

He paused, his eyes zeroing in on her face. Because, really, there weren’t a lot of people who knew that particular pseudonym. And the ones who had been told it, once upon a time, were long dead by now.

“Marinette?” he breathed, some light returning to his eyes. Or, perhaps, the light was just reflecting off of the tears that had formed there. “Is that really you?”

Marinette didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she all-but threw herself at her old friend, tucking her face into his shoulder.

Adrien was quick to pull her face back out to where he could see it, drinking in every little detail.

“I can’t believe it,” Adrien said. “You’re… you’re back!”

Marinette giggled. “Been back for the past… oh… that was around nine reincarnations ago — excluding the times where they killed me early for being a ‘witch’ — which means… around 200 years?”

Adrien’s eyebrows knit. “You… still die?”

“Yeah. Painfully, most of the time. Get reincarnated every time, though, so,” she said, giving a small shrug. She had had enough time to get used to the idea.

Or, at least, she had thought she had gotten used to it, until Adrien said, “Must be because you didn’t get your immortality until after you had already died…”

She paused.

“What do you mean by that?”

He smiled in a way that seemed more embarrassed than sheepish. “Oh, I just… I wanted you back, so after I — maybe — failed to recreate what had happened to me, I just went around to ask for help from anyone who was rumored to have healing powers. Guess the last two hundred years were kinda wasted… but oh well! It’s not like I didn’t have the time —!”

“You’re the reason I’m like this?” Marinette asked.

All of the confusion, all of the who she had never gotten to say goodbye to, all of the painful deaths. And they were all because of him? He was her friend!

He was her friend — she wasn’t sure she could call him one anymore.

Adrien nodded, either not noticing her anger or not caring.

“You — BITCH! I told you no!”

Adrien’s eyebrows knit. “No, you said you ’didn’t know’.”

She grabbed him by the shirt and pressed a gun to his stomach.

“I. Said. No.”

Adrien tilted his head to the side. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t exactly take it back.”

She gritted her teeth.

Of course she knew he couldn’t take it back. She doubted he would have been around this long, if he knew of a way he could die. All it takes is one impulsive moment, after all.

That didn’t stop her from pulling a dagger from her cloak and pressing it against his neck.

He blinked down at her. Not quite surprised, and not upset or worried, either.

She tackled him to the ground.

He was more than happy to lay there and let her take out all her aggression, she swore she heard him say something about tiring herself out as if she was a mere toddler.

Of course, none of this helped her mood. 

But, at the end of the day trying to murder Adrien was no more effective than trying to punch a tree into submission. And at least a tree might shed a leaf or two, this was just…

Marinette slumped against his chest, loosening her grip around his neck, her breathing labored even though he should have been the one to struggle —.

Adrien ran his fingers through her hair lazily. “I missed you.”

“You don’t even know me anymore.”

And it was true. He knew the version of her that had only lived to be twenty-five. The one who hadn’t even known reincarnation was a thing, let alone that she would be doing it until the end of time itself.

He smiled. “And I can’t wait to relearn.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she said.

“You wouldn’t be the first person to say that to me.”

Know what?

Fuck it. If technology wasn’t developed enough to kill him yet, she would have to settle for psychic damage.

She brought the knife to her own neck and, before he could react, slit her own throat.

He would find her again, she knew. Like he had said — he had the time.

Until then, she would have to sate herself with the horrified look on his face as her vision faded out.

The next time he found her, she used a bow and arrow.

Adrien smiled. “I suppose this is a natural progression from daggers, but… I do wish you might be a little more creative next time.”

The time after that, she tried fire.

“This takes me back,” Adrien said, covering himself with his hands. “Remember running away from that fire with me? Good times, good times…”

“It was traumatic.”

Adrien hummed, pressing a hand to his chest. “Was it? I can’t help but be nostalgic. It’s the day you realized I —.”

Marinette shrieked and covered her eyes, and by the time she had uncovered them, he had, seemingly, fled in embarrassment.

She supposed she could call that a win. Of sorts.

Then it was acid.

“If this happens again, I might start to think you just want to see me without my clothes.”

Then she tried a gun, since they were getting more and more accurate these days.

“Oooh, they’re getting more accurate!” Adrien said, appreciatively. She ground her teeth together at the unexpected similarity. “Let’s see if you can hit me from further away!”

Nothing got under his skin. Literally. Even killing herself had minimal effects, these days. And he was finding her faster and faster…

She didn’t know what to do.

No matter how good the weapons she made were…

“There’s only so manyyyyy ways to kill people,” she whined around a shot glass.

“I know,” Adrien sighed. “Even espionage and manipulation get boring after a while.”

She felt her eyes slip shut. And then blinked them open again to find Adrien leaning over her, tucking her into bed.

“You shouldn’t know where I live,” she said. Squinting at him. Because the light hurt her eyes. Also, he was suspicious.

Adrien laughed, lazily brushing her bangs away from her face. “I’m going to set out a hangover cure and a rubbish bin, and then leave, don’t worry.”

Marinette watched him bustle about her minuscule apartment.

“Got any myrrh?” he called.

“Hard t’get here,” she murmured.

“That’s not what I asked,” he said.

She huffed and sat up just enough to free one of her arms. Within seconds, she had produced a handful of myrrh. She held it out toward him.

He looked at her for a solid minute, something she was too drunk to bother making sense of glimmering in his eyes, and then took the myrrh with a quiet ‘thank you’.

She nodded once, turned over in bed, and then fell asleep.

Marinette woke up the next morning, aware that the jig was up (and that everything fucking hurt).

Once she had downed the cure — it didn’t do nearly enough to justify her slip — she started plotting.

She hadn’t wanted to contribute to his literal God Complex by proving her powers were getting stronger, too, but she supposed there was a plus side to this:

At least she no longer had to worry about whether or not she could feasibly have access to things.

She went out that day and bought a book on poisons. She was a chef, in this life, and it took little more than an “I don’t want to kill a customer accidentally” to ease any suspicions.

The next time she saw him, she attempted to poison him.

Poison, at least, he reacted to.

Not in the way he should, mind you, he never even fell ill.

But the look on his face when he ingested poison made it obvious he wished he could.

And if that was all of the damage she could currently do to him, then she would have to settle for that, for now.

He ate anything she gave him, so long as she agreed to sit with him and talk.

He grimaced around his cup of poison. It was his cup, neatly labeled and everything. She didn’t want to accidentally poison herself, after all.

“I suppose this one doesn’t taste as bad as the last one. Is it cyanide?”

She hummed, crossing off the final entry in the ‘c’ category. She would move on to ‘d’ tomorrow.

For now, she pillowed her head in her arms and said, “It is.”

“A classic,” he said, with a wry smile. “You don’t do much political espionage without people trying to poison you a few… hundred times. At least the look on their faces when I survive it is funny.”

She nodded slowly. “How’s the advising going anyway?”

“I gave him an idea on how to deal with the famine,” said Adrien, shrugging.

“… really?”

“Yeah. As much as the devastation is fun ‘n all, if everyone dies then the fun stops. So. Potatoes.”

Marinette gasped. “You’re the reason for all of the fucking potatoes?! Oh, come on.”

“Would you prefer starvation?”

“I just want a little variety,” she complained. “Everyone who comes in, everyone buys potatoes! I might hate them more than I hate you — and they’re your fault!”

Adrien just laughed a little. “Can’t you make other things? With your powers and all?”

“Sure, but that’d blow my cover,” she said.

“A true dilemma. Want to run a cult next time? Then we can have all the good food we want,” he said.

She gave a vague grunt of affirmation.

And then narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t talk about ‘next time’. I’m going to kill you with one of these poisons!”

“If you say so.” He glanced at the time and sighed. “I suppose I should be getting back.”

She hummed. “Good luck.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, leaning to press a quick kiss to her cheek. “See you later, Mari. I really missed you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

He shrugged innocently and, after collecting his coat, left.

The murder attempts didn’t… stop, once she had run out of poisons. They slowed down considerably, though.

Because developing new, stronger poisons took time, of course.

And besides. She got distracted.

They were in the Soviet Union. Because Marinette had been born there this time. She supposed she should just be happy that she had been born there after the Cold War. Wartime propaganda always annoyed Adrien (he complained, at length, about their lack of subtlety), which, in turn, annoyed her.

Besides, it gave her plenty of opportunities to look into radiation. She had learned during her previous life that, apparently, radiation was steadily becoming more widely used in the world of cancer treatment.

She had hoped working at a nuclear facility would help. But now she was getting what everyone had begun to call ‘radiation sickness’, so… perhaps this was not the best route for her.

Or maybe she should be doing this in moderation.

Whatever. You live and you learn. (And then you live and you learn and you live and you learn...)

Adrien sidled up next to her.

Apparently, he had been assigned to the same reactor, today.

Ugh.

“You don’t have to follow me everywhere. We have phones, I can tell you when I‘ve thought of a new way to kill you, now,” she said.

Motorola had said their phones were totally portable, and you could walk around with one, but they were far too large to take outside.

Still. It was enough. Or, at least, it should have been.

“You’re the only person who doesn’t get boring.”

Marinette sent him a glare out of the corner of her eyes. “Fine. Want to jump in the reactor for me?”

He hummed lightly. His head tipped to the side, as if he were truly considering it.

“Maybe not today,” he said.

“Scared?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No. I already know I’m immune to this stuff. Or did you forget about all the atmospheric testing I checked out for you?”

“That’s not as concentrated as this,” she reminded him, lightly.

He hummed. “I guess you’re right.”

There was a beat.

“Mari, come on, even if you kill me — what would you do after that?” Adrien asked, his eyes gleaming as he leaned over her.

“Move on with my lives? Use the same method on myself? Really, the sky’s the limit.”

“Sure, but I’m the only person who truly understands you,” he said.

She scowled.

“I mean, humans can say they understand, but they don’t. They will never truly get it,” Adrien said, waving a hand vaguely. “And the other gods, like the Panetheon… well, they were born with their immortality, they don’t know what it’s like to have humanity and then lose it.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What about the people with the Lazarus Pit? They were ‘made’, too.”

Adrien actually laughed at that one.

“You want to join a cult? As a regular member? Come on, Mari, you’re a little too prideful for something like that.”

Says the man who calls himself a God.

“They’re no less monstrous than we are,” she said, shrugging with as much nonchalance as she could muster when her nails were digging into her uniform sleeves. At least she was a man, this time, so her nails were too short to do any real damage.

A few reincarnations prior, calling them monsters was an easy way to get under Adrien’s skin. The only way, really, for he was literally indestructible, and had lived so long that he had long-since grown past regular insecurities.

So, Marinette poked and prodded at his pride.

Unfortunately, Adrien had gotten used to that, too, and no longer even blinked.

He hummed, leaning over her just slightly. “You need to change your mindset.”

“You need to learn when to fuck off.”

Adrien snickered. “We’re at work. You’re stuck with me.”

He, of course, wasn’t just talking about their current shifts.

Marinette looked at him for a solid minute.

And then she pressed her hands together tightly.

Nuclear weaponry was the most destructive thing humans had made, at least so far.

It did nothing to Adrien Agreste.

Adrien picked his way across the crater she had carved out of the building, until he could take a seat by her.

Her ears rang incessantly. The high-pitched whining sound that she had already learned to associate with radiation. But it had never been this loud before.

She was stronger than the average human, but she would succumb to the radiation soon enough, she knew. Her head was pounding, and she felt so… tired.

She leaned her head against Adrien’s shoulder, glaring at the ground.

“I’m going to — kill you one day,” she hissed, her voice extra wheezy thanks to the steam. “I will.”

Adrien hummed softly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“An ending wouldn’t be so bad. Especially not if it’s with you.”

Marinette nodded, slightly, giving a quiet yawn.

And then she turned to look at Adrien more fully.

“Ready to — find me again?” she asked.

“You know, it’d be easier for you to find me.”

“Not until I turn — at least 15. And by then — I’m only 10 years — away from death — max. You’d be — spending more time — away from me — than — with — me,” Marinette said.

Of course, many governments had caught onto her existence by now, and the fact that she was reborn approximately every two and a half decades without fail meant they knew, approximately, when to look for her. She did not want to spend any reincarnations under any government’s thumb.

So… Adrien had his uses.

He hummed, leaning to press a kiss to her forehead.

“See you soon.”

+++++++

Duke wasn’t sure what to think about the message he got from one of his (many) brothers, warning him that he needed to protect Adrien of all people.

“Someone’s after you,” he said, aloud, because of course Adrien was with him right now. The guy was like a stray cat Duke had made the mistake of feeding once, and had apparently decided that it was going to follow him forever now.

Which was annoying, because not only was Duke not feeding him… he was being actively mean to him!

Oh no. What if he was a masochist? Did that mean Duke would have to be nice to him to get him to go away? Because he didn’t think he could do that.

Okay. Whatever. Moral dilemma aside, he was supposed to be getting him to run away from… something?

Creation, according to Jason.

Hm. Yeah. He could see how the two of them interacting might be problematic.

“I need to get you to a safe place,” Duke said.

Adrien raised an eyebrow. “Did the government find me? Here?”

Duke paused at the implication that the government was after Adrien. And then he shook his head. Because it was not the time. And also the answer was ‘no’.

“Nah. Apparently Creation is mad at you.”

“Ohhhhh, when is She not?” said Adrien, waving him off lazily. “It’s fine. I promised… ah, several lifetimes ago that I would never run from Her attempts to kill me.”

“… you know how that sounds, right? Like, you sound crazy.”

Adrien shrugged lazily. “It’s not like She’s ever going to manage. And if She does, I’d be dead, so I don’t think I’d mind, y‘know?”

Duke did not, in fact, know.

He sighed, pinching the space between his brows. “Okay. Sure. Whatever. It’s just your life that’s in danger, and you can’t die, so —.”

“Oooooh, now that I think of it, you may want to evacuate Gotham… and Bludhaven… honestly, just evacuate the entirety of New Jersey, to be safe,” Adrien said, snapping his fingers, as if he had only just now remembered that Creation was a threat that could level an entire state.

Wait. That sounded… weird… why the hell was Creation the one that would, supposedly, destroy the place?

“She can’t be that bad,” Duke said.

Adrien looked at him for a minute. Squinted at his face, as if in deep thought.

“… do you humans remember Chernobyl?”

Duke spluttered. “How could we forget Chernobyl?!”

“You forget a lot of atrocities,” said Adrien, waving a hand vaguely. “It’s kinda insulting. Like, I worked so hard on those…”

Duke opened his mouth to ask what he was talking about. And then he paused. “Wait, why are we talking about Chernobyl again?”

“Eh. Ever since She realized that She could blow shit up by smashing two atoms together, She hasn’t really stopped.”

Duke pressed his lips into a thin line. He… supposed creation was an inherently neutral act. Sure, humans created medicine to treat illnesses, but they also created weapons of mass destruction.

“I mean,” Adrien continued to lament. “I get Chernobyl, I was being a bit of a dick. But like. I think She does it for fun, sometimes. Last time She shot me into the air so I could ‘see what the atmospheric nuclear testing tasted like’. Really hurts a guy's feelings, you know.”

Nevermind. What the fuck. There was no ambiguity to that.

“Uhhh do you need help?” he asked, awkwardly. Because he may hate the guy, but this is…

“Nah. I’m pretty sure we were, like, made to clash with each other a bit. But, at the end of the day, She is my wife, and I love Her.”

Duke nodded along, hesitantly, wondering if he could even do anything about the potentially-abusive godly relationship —.

“Wait, you’re married to Creation —?!”

It was then that Duke heard the sirens.

Or, rather, the car alarm.

“ADRIEN AGRESTE,” Marinette screamed, jumping out of the fucking moving car and pointing a finger up at him. “You’re a bitch!”

The car screeched to a halt. At least Duke wasn’t alone in his utter horror.

Adrien waved down at her from the safety of the rooftop. “Hi, Marinette, how was school?”

He was not, in fact, safe on the rooftop. Marinette pulled a gun. Where do these gods keep getting guns?!

And Adrien made things worse by outright jumping off the rooftop to land in front of her, giving her an easy shot. Which she took. Several times.

“That bad, huh?” said Adrien, sounding more amused than anything.

Marinette’s eye twitched. As did her gun hand. Because of kickback. She had shot him again.

Out of the corners of his eyes, Duke could see Gothamites aggressively minding their own business. Looking down at their phone with the kind of grim determination that only comes when you Do Not Want To Be Involved in something. Sprinting to the other side of the street, cars be damned. Running to the next block for fear of being taken in as witnesses — or worse, becoming victims.

He saw the owner of the store they were in front of walk up to the window. They took in the situation. And then they said “nah”, firmly locked the doors, and flipped the sign above the door to ‘Closed’.

“You know, this isn’t exactly laying low,” Adrien said.

Marinette’s mouth dropped open. She proceeded to empty her entire clip. She clicked her tongue, once, in annoyance, and then tossed the gun aside.

Jason rushed out of the car to catch his gun. Which answered one question, and created many more in its stead.

Duke gave him an incredulous look. A you were in the car with her and you didn’t even try to stop her look.

Jason motioned to Marinette, who had upgraded(?) to viciously trying to scratch Adrien’s eyes out with her nails alone, as if to say what could I have even done.

Which was a fair point.

And then Jason pointed at the ground as if to say join me down here.

Duke would, really, rather not.

But then he saw the driver, slowly, step out of the car, peeking over the hood. Interested in the Drama of it all, but unwilling to actually be a part of it.

Is that fucking Scarecrow?!

He grappled to the ground and grabbed the man by the scruff of his shirt, earning a horrified screech.

“Don’t you dare talk about us ‘laying low’,” Marinette hissed. “YOU WERE WITH THE BATS?!”

Adrien opened his mouth. Closed it. Seemed to decide to invoke his Miranda Rights.

Duke yanked Scarecrow out into the open, earning a squeak of horror from the famed villain.

“Why were you with Scarecrow?” he asked, hoping that maybe things would settle down if both parties were accused of wrongdoing. “That’s not exactly laying low, either.”

Adrien’s mouth dropped open. Duke hoped he caught a fly.

“Snitch,” Marinette said. And then she sighed. “Listen, I saw him bleeding out in an alley and patched him up. Things kinda spiraled from there.”

Scarecrow gave her an incredulous look.

He muscled his way out of Duke’s grip to walk over and point at Marinette, his face bright red with anger.

“Wait wait wait. You do not get to blame this on me! Things did not spiral from there! You stalked me to my secret base!”

Oh. So both sides of the law were being tormented by a god. That was strangely comforting.

“I did not stalk you. Stalking implies way more effort than what I had to put in,” Marinette huffed. “I just made an algorithm to find the places that had the highest likelihood of being used as Rogue hideouts. It’s not hard or anything.”

“… you did? Can we have it?” Jason asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “Absolutely not. Make one of your own. And then give me it. I want to see what you make. Maybe I can use the data from yours to make mine even better…”

“Make ours better?” Jason tried.

“No!” she said, brightly.

”Hold on, so we were both helping out…” Adrien began, pinching the space between his brows.

“I feel like helping vigilantes is way worse than helping Rogues,” said Marinette.

“You’re both just… sociopaths,” Duke realized.

Gods were real, and they were not concerned with being kind.

Adrien huffed. “I mean, if you judge us by human standards, maybe, but I like to think She’s plenty empathetic.”

“I just want the best for humanity,” Marinette agreed.

“… you know the Rogues kill people, right?” Jason said.

Pot, meet kettle.

“Humans make the most advancements when they face adversity,” Marinette said. “Also, their weapons are cool as fuck.”

Scarecrow seemed to be having mixed feelings about something.

Adrien grinned and poked Marinette in the side. “I can’t believe you brought the Scarecrow into our apartment. We’re gonna get evicted.”

She pouted. “We’ll have to move soon anyway, since you had to go and get the government involved.”

She motioned to Duke. Who frowned.

“We’re… not government agents? We’re called vigilantes for a reason…?” said Duke.

Marinette gave him a skeptical look.

“I just thought you were, like, lying.”

Adrien nodded his agreement.

Duke wasn’t sure how to feel about this one.

He didn’t get long to think about it, though, because Adrien looped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him into his side, kicking and screaming.

(Jason and Scarecrow abandoned ship immediately for fear of getting dragged into this. The traitors… or traitor, at least, Duke hadn’t expected much from Scarecrow, to be honest.)

“Mari, I had to. I heard a rumor about a new immortal in town…” Adrien said.

Marinette’s gaze seemed to sharpen.

She looked at Duke, appraisingly. “Hm. Anything?”

“He can change how long people have left,” Adrien said, his eyes bright.

Marinette lit up. “Oh my god.”

Duke didn’t even get the time to fully appreciate the fact that a god had said ‘oh my god’, because both of them seemed to crowd in on him further, and he did not appreciate the ’people’ in his personal bubble.

“Uhhhh… what’re you talking about?” Duke said, keeping his voice calm and level and not squeaky.

“Oh! I can see how long people have left. The number is set when the person is born, and never changes afterward,” said Adrien, casually folding his sunglasses and tucking them into his breast pocket. “And, for some reason, you are the only person I’ve ever met whose presence has caused a number to change.”

Duke looked between the two of them. They were so intent, but he wasn’t sure what that intent was.

“Okay,” he said, deciding that he might as well take them at their word, since they had no reason to lie. “Why does that matter?”

Marinette smiled. Her hands latched around his arm.

“I want you to help me kill him.”

“… what.”

“He stopped me from dying, so I’m going to stop him from living,” she said in a tone that suggested she thought this was not only a normal thing to say, but an expected outcome.

Adrien nodded, apparently content with the fact that his wife wanted to murder him.

“… you’re okay with this?” Duke asked, incredulously.

Adrien shrugged innocently. “I think Mari needs more friends, that won’t, y’know, die.”

“There are so many more immortals you could ask,” Duke stressed. “Like. The entire Greek Pantheon, if you want them instead.”

Please want them instead…

“But Marinette wants someone who can kill me,” Adrien shrugged. “You’re our best shot.”

Duke was going to cry.

“Do you want to be murdered?!”

“Hardly, but I respect her hobbies,” Adrien said.

Duke groaned.

“Know what, Marinette? I’m down to try and kill him.”

Marinette beamed. “Sweet! I don’t have much time left on this round, but next time we can totally start researching!”

“… this round?” Duke repeated.

“Oh! I reincarnate every… 25.75 years. Or less, if I don’t wanna deal with all the — well, humans call it ‘cancer’ nowadays.”

“Have they found a cure for that yet?” Adrien asked.

Marinette made a vague ‘eh’ motion with her hands.

“That doesn’t really sound like godhood,” said Duke, weakly.

Marinette raised an eyebrow, and then glanced at Adrien. Her lips twitched into a grin.

“He thinks we’re gods. For the record, I think we’re monsters.”

What the fuck had he gotten himself into?

+++++++

Up next: Conclusion

Next

Now, people don’t typically understand that when one Rogue finds a new asset, every Rogue finds a new asset. They weren’t… friends, by any means. Hell, most of them absolutely despised each other as human beings. However, they were, in a strange sense, coworkers, which meant that they had to play nice for the sake of their ‘jobs’.

And, of course, it helped, sometimes, to have other Rogues in your debt. Maybe it meant that, the next time you were in Arkham, someone would come and unlock your cell, too. Maybe it meant that someone would distract the bats for you. Maybe it meant that you would be told to get out of dodge a day before someone tried to nuke the city (again).

Hence why Nygma had so casually shown up at his ‘secret’ base and demanded that Jonathan treat his injuries.

And hence why Jonathan was pimping out Marinette’s healing abilities.

… to everyone except for Joker. Joker killed people for the high crime of annoying him. And she was very annoying. After all of the effort Jonathan had gone to to get Marinette on his payroll, he wasn’t going to let her die so soon.

Mostly because she had explicitly told him that she was capable of dying. And that she didn’t really want to test the limits of her healing abilities.

Not even because it ‘hurt’ or anything, she just didn’t want to deal with her weird husband-bff-situationship-person’s griping.

When Jonathan had pointed out that she wouldn’t hear Adrien’s griping if she was dead, she complained that he would find a way.

Jonathan did not understand their dynamic.

All he knew was that he didn’t like it. Because it made his unethical experiments way harder.

But not impossible! He got to watch Marinette scream the first time she met Rat King, and that had made all the pain and suffering he had endured at her hands worth it.

She had immediately punched Rat King in the already bruised-and-bloody face. This was not ideal for the whole ‘diplomatic relations between coworkers’ thing. But Jonathan figured that the Funny Factor outweighed the minor inconvenience that was rats chewing through his phone chargers every night.

Besides the rodents’ never ending grudge, it was all in the past now!

Today, they strode into a warehouse that belonged to Red Hood.

“That officially brings our Warehouse vs Not Warehouse ratio to 17:3,” Marinette said. “I win. Again.”

“… best out of 37?”

“Fine,” she said, flashing a grin that screamed of unearned confidence.

Unearned, because Jonathan was totally going to go on a hot streak after this!

(Please, his ego couldn’t handle it if he ended up being basic when it came to his base choices.)

They opened the door and looked around the dark, dingy place. Old machinery creaked and groaned. Menacingly.

“If this is a setup and you’re friends with the bats again, I’m gassing the place!” he called.

“Even though your little healer is here?” Red Hood called, his voice audibly tight with pain even through the voice modulator.

“Especially because she’s here.”

(Jonathan pinpointed where he had heard Red Hood’s voice, and they both started in that general direction.)

Marinette gave him a pout that would have seemed real if it didn’t immediately give way to a far different expression:

“You’d gas me?” she asked, almost excited at the prospect. “Ooooh, I wonder what I’d see…”

“You don’t know what you’re scared of?” Jonathan asked, his eyebrows knitting.

He supposed that that tracked. She certainly didn’t fear death. And, if she didn’t fear death, then what else was there for her to fear?

Hm. Maybe he should use his fear gas on her.

But it seemed kinda lame now that it was consensual… ugh…

They found Red Hood in a chair, hugging his leg. He had, from the looks of it, earned himself a minor bullet wound.

“Pussy,” Jonathan said.

“Nice to see you, too,” Red Hood scoffed. “I think it might have grazed an artery.”

He wasn’t nearly loopy enough for Jonathan to believe that.

“You wanted to meet my healer,” said Jonathan. “If you steal her to the bats’ side, I swear, fear gas is the least of your worries.”

(Jonathan wouldn’t even have to do anything to retaliate. Because Marinette would surely make them all miserable by merely existing in their presence.)

Red Hood shook his head. “They’ve got someone already…”

His eyes must have slid past Jonathan, to Marinette, because he gave her a tiny nod.

“Hi, I’m Marinette, I’ll be your doctor for today,” she said, politely.

Why was she never this polite with Jonathan?

“Nice to officially meet you, Miss Marinette,” Red Hood said, pleasant despite the slight ominous note to his words.

Marinette and Jonathan shared glances, confused.

“Officially?” Jonathan asked.

(Marinette took a seat by Red Hood and got to work. She tied a quick tourniquet around the man’s upper thigh to slow blood flow while she inspected the wound.)

“Yeah, she’s pretty famous among the bats,” Red Hood said, wincing slightly as she took a set of tweezers to his wound. “I mean, she has Adrien as her roommate.”

Jonathan felt like he was missing something important. Because he had met Adrien. He couldn’t see the guy being all that important to anyone. Hell, he was confused as to why someone like Marinette could put up with someone who seemed so… well, to put it nicely, the guy was a fucking idiot.

(You don’t want to hear what he would say if he wasn’t being nice.)

“Adrien?” Marinette repeated, unconcerned. “I’m surprised you know who he is. I mean, he’s a great EMT, from what I’ve heard, but he’s not really… special or anything.”

There was a beat.

“Adrien isn’t special,” Red Hood repeated, almost incredulously.

Jonathan wondered if Red Hood had a thing for Adrien. That would be… problematic, considering he was married.

“You don’t know about his little clinic, do you?”

Marinette paused.

Uh oh. Did Adrien start some sort of private practice without telling his wife? That was… well, divorce-worthy, to say the least.

Maybe Red Hood had a chance after all!

She pulled out the bullet and untied the tourniquet.

Red Hood went pale, and perhaps it wasn’t just because of the sudden increase in blood loss.

His hands flew downward to stem the blood flow himself by applying pressure, but it didn’t seem to be helping much.

Huh. The bullet really had hit an artery.

Hm.

Jonathan stood by what he said. Red Hood was still a pussy.

Marinette’s opinion of Red Hood didn't seem that much better, considering she was happy to let him bleed out.

“He’s set up a clinic for you bats, huh,” she said, her tone surprisingly level considering she was actively killing a man.

“Marin — Marinette, can we talk about this after you heal me?” Red Hood asked.

“You have approximately three minutes before you lose consciousness entirely, and I will let you die if you don’t tell me anything of use. I suggest you start talking. What is Adrien up to?”

“You — you’re a healer, you have a moral code,” said Jonathan, hoping he could convey please don’t fuck this up for me the bats are gonna kill me if you murder him with his voice alone. “You won’t let him die.”

She pulled down her surgical mask to show him that her lips were set in a thin line.

Holy shit. She was completely serious.

She looked at Red Hood.

“What’s it gonna be?”

Red Hood took this in. Or perhaps he was just processing the white freckles that dotted her cheeks, the eyeliner that seemed to glow no matter how little light there was in a room for it to reflect off of. It was certainly a lot to process. And it was even more difficult to process when you are actively dying of blood loss.

He looked at Jonathan. “… you found Creation. Marinette is Creation. Oh, fuck. Oh, we’re so dumb.”

Jonathan’s eyebrows knit together. Creation? Was that a code name of some sort? He couldn’t think of any superheroes, vigilantes, or villains who went by that name.

“Creation?” Marinette said, slowly. “Where’d you hear about that?”

“From Destruction.”

Her expression went flat. “You’ve talked to Destruction, huh?”

He nodded, slowly.

Marinette gave a quiet hum of understanding.

And then she slapped a hand over Red Hood’s wound, ignoring the yelp of pain he gave in favor of healing him. Within mere moments, it was as if the bullet had never even been in the same room as him.

“Thanks for your help. You’re coming with me to confront Adrien,” she said, not even giving the man a second to get his bearings.

She dragged Red Hood out by the arm.

Only to poke her head back in a few seconds later and say:

“Jonathan, can you drive?”

Jonathan made a so-so motion with his hand. “I’m more of a getaway driver than a safe, law-abiding one…”

“Perfect.”

And, as she grabbed him by the arm and yanked him out, Jonathan only had one thought:

The one time he didn’t lie… this was, really, on him.

(And then, because that came dangerously close to questioning him and his decisions, he quickly amended this thought to It‘s all Red Hood’s fucking fault.)

She stomped toward the nearest car. It was old and rusty and — she damn near tore the door off.

An alarm started blaring.

This may be the first time in history that a car alarm went off for an actual, justified reason.

Jonathan hated living in historic times.

She dusted some of the rust from her hands and turned to look at them.

“Get in,” she said.

They got in the car.

Before Jonathan could even begin to consider trying to drive off without her, she clambered into the backseat and slammed the door shut behind her.

“Do you need me to hot wire this thing —?” Red Hood asked.

The console started glowing an ungodly shade of red.

The engine gave a low whine.

The old car began to tremble, inching forward, because apparently the last driver hadn’t put the thing into park. They had just waited for the car to give out and walked on foot from there.

Jonathan’s hands flew to the wheel as they began to pick up speed.

“Drive me to my apartment, please,” she said, leaning back in her seat. “I trust you remember where it is.”

The alarm was still screaming. Jonathan felt like doing the same.

He was no longer sure what was sitting in the seat behind him.

Red Hood cleared his throat, awkwardly. “You should use your seatbelt.”

“You’re right, it’d suck if I died before I could march over there and beat the shit out of him,” she said.

There was a quiet click as the seatbelt was engaged.

Jonathan sent him an incredulous look. A why would you tell her that now we have no way to ‘accidentally’ kill her look.

Red Hood wasn't looking at him. He was too busy typing out a message to someone with a sun as their Contact Name.

The message read: Protect Adrien.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. Because, really, Marinette may be angry, but she was just a person.

She had torn a car door off its hinges, sure, but the car had been old, so maybe that had been more of an it thing than a her thing. Because, really, a human couldn’t be that powerful. Even a Meta shouldn’t be able to —.

Sirens blared behind them. Jonathan wouldn’t have even heard the sirens over the car alarm if he hadn’t noticed red and blue lights in his peripheral vision.

Marinette turned around in her seat. Raised an eyebrow at the cop cars on their tails.

And then the ground beneath their feet rumbled and began to rise, forming a wall between them and the cops.

From the sounds of it, some of the cops did not manage to stop in time to evade the new concrete wall in the middle of the road.

Marinette gave a low hum, her eyes gleaming a brilliant shade of white.

She didn’t even look tired.

… okay, nevermind on the whole ‘Marinette is just a person’ thing. God help whoever ‘Destruction’ is.

+++++++

Up next: Ooooooooh someone's in troubleee

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