#part 02

Here it is! To be perfectly honest with all of you, this part has been written first. There will be a part 03, somewhen in the future. I just need to write it. And there are some tentatives plot bunnies for a part 04. So we’ll see how it works out.

You can visit my AO3 if you want. I’ll post Of Love and Sunlight there soon. 

Part 01

Hope you all like it!

Tittles are adapted from Sunlight by Hozier, because I love this song and I didn’t have any idea how to name this series.

I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors, English is not my first language. I hope it’s still intelligible.

Taglist:

@alysrose-starchild @vixen-uchiha @dont-panic-to-much @ramos123 @stackofrandomstuff @thecaptainthunder @redbullgivescaswings @megaafangirl @thebooki3h @zorua-adorable  @user00000003 @eliza-bich @transcendent-heroes @a4-machete @nyx-in-line @stainedglassm @maskedpainter @schrodingers25 @iamabrownfox @corporeal-terrestrial

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Hold me, carry me slowly

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Marinette opens her front door tiredly. It’s far too early for anyone to be bothering her yet. She’s only awake because the twins are going to start fussing soon, and despite her short night, she prefers waking up with her alarm than with her babies’ cries. It tends to make her panic if they’re the ones waking her up, because her mind immediately wonders what’s wrong instead of remembering that it’s feeding time.

She’s not expecting to see Jon and Damian on her front step. She hurriedly steps out and closes the door behind her to bare them entry, leaving only a sliver open so she’ll hear her babies if anything happened.

“What are you doing here?” She hisses, glaring.

“We wanted to talk to you, Marinette,” Damian replies, words mild, expression politely blank, while Jon looks both hopeful and sheepish.

Marinette’s blood boils.

“I have nothing to say to either of you!” She snaps back. “You made it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with me! Well, I don’t want anything to do with you!”

It’s only because she knows him so well that she sees Jon’s flinch at her words, but despite that he takes a step forward, careful not to touch her. Marinette takes a step back and curses the fact that the door is in the way.

“Marinette, we’re sorry. We’re really, really sorry for everything and we would like to talk. Please.”

And Marinette has always been weak to Jon’s earnest tone and puppy dog eyes. She wants to let them in and listens to what sort of flimsy excuses they came up with, because she missed them. She missed them so much, but they broke her heart and she’s not ready to let them break her babies’ hearts too.

Just as she’s about to open her mouth and tell them to get lost, there’s a sharp wail coming from the bedroom and at their suddenly alert expressions, she knows they heard it too. She closes her eyes just as a second wail starts and she knows there’s no getting rid of them now.

“Are you…” Jon starts, eyes fixed intently on the door. “Marinette, are you babysitting?”

She only sighs in answer and opens the door to get back inside. She doesn’t close it in their face as much as she wants to, because she knows they’re about to follow.

The girls are both fussing in their crib and Marinette scoops Scarlet up for a nappy change. She takes the time to put Asha’s pacifier back into her mouth before moving to the changing table.

“There, there. No need to cry. It’s just a soil nappy. We know how to take care of those.” She coos gently. “There, you go. All clean. I’m going to change Asha now and then we’ll have a nice breakfast, okay?”

She puts Scarlett back in the crib despite her complains and repeats the whole process with Asha.

She can feel the boys’ eyes on her, and it makes her want to lash out.

“Are they ours?” Damian demands.

“They’re mine,” she snaps, not looking at him. “There’re no fathers list on the birth certificates. They don’t need any dads, they have me.”

“But they’re ours, right?” Jon presses, tone so hopeful, but Marinette refuses to answer. That’s an answer in itself.

“Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you call?” Damian speaks again.

“I called you!” She hissed, eyes blazing in anger, but keeping her tone even so as not to upset her babies too much. “I called you and left voicemails and then both your numbers were disconnected, and I got the message! If you didn’t want anything to do with me, then I didn’t want anything to do with you either!”

“I didn’t change my number,” Damian says slowly, eyes never leaving the little face on the changing table. And then what he said seem to register and he retrieves his phone with a deep frown to swipe through the apps. “It’s not the same number.” He then looks at Jon with an almost wide-eyed look and Jon takes out his own phone to seemingly so the same manip.

“Me too,” he reveals, shocked. “Someone changed our numbers. Damian!” He hisses, this time with a glare for his boyfriend.

“Marinette, can you please give us the possibility to explain-”

“I’m this close to throw you both out, Damian! There’s nothing you could say that would make anything that you did okay!” She replies hotly.

“Please, Mari,” he pleads. “Please, just hear us out. You can throw us out after. I promise, if you want us to go, we will.”

Jon doesn’t add anything, but he bites his bottom lip and nods jerkily.

“Just… just go. Wait in the living room. I need to feed the girls.”

They both listen, thankfully. Marinette needs a minute.

Someone changed their phone numbers? Without their consent? That seems stupid and unfeasible, but… but she wants to believe them. She missed them. God, she missed them so much.

Marinette fusses a bit with Asha’s onesie and tries to make a list of all the reasons why she shouldn’t let them back in her life. When Scarlett makes an impatient noise that announces her readiness to cry again, Marinette knows that she can’t wait any longer. She scoops the girls with their favorite plushies and goes to the living room.

Damian and Jon are sitting squished on the armchair beside the couch.

Marinette sighs again and sits carefully in front of the couch on the plush carpet. It takes some maneuvering, but soon Asha is leaning across her lap, gently sucking her pacifier and looking at Marinette with all the trust her little baby heart knows. Marinette arranges the Tikki plushy on her tummy so she can grasp it.

“Let’s feed Scarlett,” she tells her daughter. “You know she’s always hungry.”

She then uncovers her left breast and, removing the pacifier, guides Scarlett to her nipple. The baby latches onto it and start sucking greedily, her little fingers kneading Marinette’s sleep shirt.

And then she waits. She’s not going to make things easy for them.

Jon is the first to move, seemingly transfigured by the sign of his daughter. He stands up in the living-room to face her.

“It’ll be easier to show you.” He says, before starting to spin so fast he’s only a blur, but when he stops, he’s wearing Superboy’s uniform and Marinette feels like a stone has dropped to the bottom of her stomach.

“I’m Superboy,” Jon tells her almost gently, as if he doesn’t want to spook her.

“And I’m Robin,” Damian utters after him. He hasn’t moved from the armchair, but there’s a green domino mask between his fingers.

“Oh,” Marinette says quietly, before she drops her gaze to Scarlett’s face. Her daughter has closed her eyes while she’s nursing.

Marinette… Marinette doesn’t know what to say. She knows what it means to be a hero. She used to be one, after all. She knows the sacrifices, the missed opportunities and the excuses. She knows the necessity for a secret identity and what it means to trust someone with it.

“You broke my heart,” she admits in a whisper, because what else can she say in the face of that, and she can feel her eyes prickle with tears.

Jon drops to his knees in front of her, back in his jeans and hoody.

“I’m so sorry, Mari. I never wanted to do that. It broke mine too to end things, but we couldn’t tell you.”

“We asked for the permission to tell you our identities,” Damian says, kneeling beside Jon on the carpet to face her, “but we were denied.”

“We had a long mission,” Jon continues. “Dad, Aunt Kara, Conner and me, as the last Kryptonians, were asked to help two planets come to an understanding. They were at war and their whole solar system was suffering from it. The mission was to stop the war long enough for a ceasefire and then helps with negotiating a peace treaty. Green Lantern helped and Damian-”

“I wasn’t going to let Jon walks into a dangerous fight without back up,” Damian cuts him off.

“I’m basically indestructible!” Jon replies without any real heat, proving it was an old argument. “And Dad, Aunt Kara and Kon were my back up!”

Damian ignores the interruption, focusing back on Marinette.

“The Green Lantern Corps was part of the mission too and while it’s officially over, the situation is still tense on those planets. The Corps is keeping an eye on things for now. We may have to go back if things turn south again, but hopefully, it won’t require our deployment again.”

“And we wanted to tell you the truth.” Jon tells her, earnest and heartbroken. “But when we asked our dads, they said our relationship was too new. That we couldn’t risk it. Even more so because we were going to leave for months and we wouldn’t be there to ‘make sure you don’t tell anyone’.” he finishes bitterly.

“As much as we didn’t want to end our relationship with you, without the permission to tell you the truth, we couldn’t disappear from the face of the earth and invent an excuse like ‘we’re doing a tour of the world and you’re not invited’.” Damian sighs and grabs Jon’s hand tightly. “We spent the last few months trying to come up with a way to win you back. Anytime we had some down time, we brainstormed about what we’ll do once we’re back on Earth.”

During their explanation, Marinette had switched the girls for feeding. Across her lap, Scarlett was now looking in direction of the men, probably intrigued by those new voices she didn’t know.

“And the phone numbers?” She eventually asks.

Damian slumps, breaking his rigid posture. “Do you know who my father is?” He asks.

“Batman?” She tries, but she’s almost certain. If he’s Robin, then it makes sense for his father to be the big bat himself. Which also mean that his siblings are the other Gotham vigilantes.

“Yes. Jon and I had to leave our phones here. Even the communications with the Watchtower were scarce. If you called more than once, Father must have changed our numbers.”

“But why?” She growls. “What right did he have?! You’re both adults! He didn’t even try to find out why I was calling you!”

“I’m sorry, Mari. I know Father loves me, but he tends to do what he thinks is best without always consulting us. Rest assure that I’ll have words with him.”

Asha choses that moment to push away her breast and Marinette does the usual ministrations to clean her face and clears her stomach of gas.

She hesitates a second, before closing her eyes with a deep sigh.

When she opens them again, she holds Asha out like a present. Jon scrambles closer without hesitation and very carefully accepts her in his arms, following her instructions on how best to hold her.

“This is Asha. Asha Gina Dupain-Cheng. She’s Dami’s.”

“Oh my god,” Jon exhales and a few tears immediately escapes his eyes. “Hello, Asha. It’s very nice to meet you.” His voice cracks a bit as Damian looks over his shoulder with an expression so soft and lost that Marinette’s heart aches with it. She beckons Damian closer too and places Scarlett in his own arms.

“And this is Scarlett Sabine Dupain-Cheng. She’s Jon’s.”

Damian is more confident in holding her, so he frees a hand to gently run his finger down her skin.

“Hello, Scarlett.”

“How…” Jon chocks on his tears. “How does it work? They’re twins, right?”

Arms free, Marinette slumps against the couch.

“It’s called ‘heteropaternal superfecundation’. My ovaries released two eggs at the same time, and both were fertilized. That alone would have resulted in fraternal twins. Except that one was fertilized by Jon and the other by Dami. So, twin babies with different bio dads.”

Because her Luck was just like that. Of course, Tikki’s influence would make Marinette’s first pregnancy the result of almost impossible odds.

For a long moment no one say anything. Jon and Damian are pressed so tightly together, both alternating looking at each baby in their arms, that it brings s a reluctant smile to Marinette.

“You have so much groveling to do,” she tells them. “You broke my heart. I’m not kidding when I say that. And the father section on the birth certificates is going to stay blank until I can trust you again. But you do something like that again and Scarlett, Asha and I are out of your lives for good. I don’t care if Scarlett is half-alien. They’re mine more than they’re yours right now. I carried them for eight months, I gave birth to them, and now I’m feeding them. And I was alone for all of that.”

“I promise, Habibti, that we’ll prove to you we’re here to stay. We want you and we want the girls.”

“It was a long mission,” Jon grins cheekily. “We definitely earned some downtime.”

“Exactly,” Damian agrees. “What would you like for breakfast, Mari? I’ll cook.”

“I made French toasts, last night. The preparation is in the fridge. You can cook that.”

With a small smile, Damian carefully gives her back Scarlett and then presses a dry kiss to Marinette’s forehead, before disappearing in the kitchen.

Jon moves until he’s sitting by her side against the couch and smiles at her. She missed his smile.

“So, what can you tell me about your daughters?”

“They are very healthy babies,” Marinette starts. “Scarlett definitely inherits your appetite. I need to complement her diet with formula because I don’t produce enough milk for all her feeding, plus Asha’s. That’s the alien biology, I suppose?”

“Yeah. Mom had some problem with that too when she had me, but at least she only had one baby to feed. What about Asha?”

“She’s fine with just breast milk, but she’s fussier when it’s time for sleep. I hope she’s not a premature insomniac, but now that I know about your nightly activities, I shan’t hold my breath.”

Jon snickers.

Breakfast is a lively affair. The French toast was only one portion, so Dami made pancakes and a fruit salad to accommodate Jon’s and his appetite. For the first time in weeks, Marinette can eat without one of her arms being commandeered by one of the twins. She knows things aren’t completely better. They need to talk about their relationship, their expectations, and relearn what it means to be together, all three of them plus two babies. But that particular conversation can wait a bit. For now, Marinette tells them about Asha’s curiosity and Scarlett’s boundless energy, about some of the weirdest things that happened during her pregnancy.

    Of all the things The Marauders (bar Sirius) had thought they’d be doing that evening, hiding beneath the cloak in a broom cupboard was not one of them. Unfortunately, it seemed Filch became more paranoid with each day as the end of their final year grew closer. The Marauders (bar Remus (and the now half asleep Peter, who had done his best to hold onto his bed in order to stay put but was ultimately dragged out of the dorm against his will)) were all incredibly insulted by this, and had taken turns scoffing.

   “I never.” Huffed James for the umpteenth time. “To suspect us!”

   “It’s downright rude.” Agreed Sirius. “Completely uncalled for.”

   “It’s an insult, not only to us, but to this entire institution.”

   “It’s profiling! Finding us guilty before we’re given so much as a trial!”

   “Prejudice!”

   “Would you be quiet!” Remus hissed, which prompted James to slap a hand over his mouth.

   “Shhh, Moony! He’ll hear you! We’re hiding!”

   “Hw’wl zeeh Ahdzez pheeht eefaw ee hrrz mhe.”

   “My feet are fine!” Regardless, Sirius crouched lower (but not in a self conscious way, because wasn’t Remus right). It seemed he was always the last one to remember his growth spurt and just how much taller he was compared to the others now. “And he’d be lucky to see my feet. In fact, he’d probably become distracted by how luxurious they look and give us a chance to escape.”

   “Eeh maigh leyk ftt?”

   “Moony likes feet?” Peter shook his head violently. That couldn’t possibly be the conversation (was this a dream? What was sleep like? He couldn’t remember, but felt fondly of the concept all the same). “It’s still better than Padfoot’s first idea.”

   Remus made a noise in defense of himself, which was noted but ignored.

   “I still stand by my original plan!” Sirius huffed. “Especially if Moony is going to become distracted by my feet. I always knew your interests would be a little left of centre, but to think that meant my left foot...”

   “Eye doun’—!”

   The door flew open and all four fell silent. There wasn’t so much as a breath coming from any of them, and they waited to see just who had discovered them.

   “Hmm.” Dumbledore’s hum wafted into the broom cupboard like thick smoke and sent a shiver down each of the Marauder's spines. The Head Boy, a Prefect, and two boys with detention records longer than all their arms combined, hiding in a broom cupboard in the middle of the night...it wasn’t the best possible situation, really. Dumbledore’s eyes travelled quite conspicuously to the ground where James and Sirius’ feet (why were the tallest at the front?!) were clear to see.

   In a controlled panic, Sirius pushed on James’ shoulders and forced them both into a hasty (if awkward) squat, which subsequently pushed Remus (who was directly behind Sirius) into an unsuspecting Peter, who stumbled backward and into a poorly placed bucket. The sudden loudness surprised the other three (mostly James, though he’d later blame Sirius, who would in turn blame Remus “Since it was all your idea, Moony!”), who fell backward onto Peter and landed in a tangle of awkward limbs on the ground.

   On the plus side, their feet were no longer visible (thank Merlin!).

   On the down side, several other body parts (including but not limited to: three arms, a knee, a (shapely, if he does say so himself) rear end, and Remus’ head).

Special Gift - part 02