#read trigger warnings!!!!!

Soon enough it become a drinking ground for all the rouges, and that caught the attention of the city’s new vigilante, who to most, was still just an urban legend.

Once, after Marinette had closed up for the night, the lights in her bar started to flicker, causing the shadows to jump around, there was no noise, other than her own breathing, but she knew someone else was in the bar with her. She silently unhooked the gun from under her bar and held it up.

“Who’s there,” She shouted, pointing her gun around, ready to shoot. “Show yourself!”

A shadowy figure moved from one of the corners and came into the still-flickering. Marinette coaked the gun back, as now it was ready to fire. “Who are you,” her voice was low, and sounded dangerous, even to herself. But in truth, she was terrified. Who wouldn’t be? There was a demonic creature in her store, and she was pretty sure this is how she’s going to die. Damn, she really didn’t want to die in a bar, even if it was her own. Kwamis, did she wish she brought one of them with her. Tikki or Wayzz would've been able to help. Hell, even Trixx or Plagg with her would’ve helped.

“Ma’am, please put the weapon down,” The demon’s voice was low and rough, just as one would expect from a creature like this. The demon walked further into the light, which had finally stopped flickering. Marinette resisted the urge to sigh of relief. The ‘demon’ wasn’t actually a demon. Just someone dressed as a bat. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to ask you some questions.”

“Not until you answer mine. Who. Are. You,” She said, the gun still pointed towards him. Just because he wasn’t a demon, didn’t mean she was just going to drop her guard. She’d seen the type of damage normal humans can do.

The person sighs and before she knew it, they had kicked the gun out of her hands and trapped both of them behind her back. Marinette was startled but refused to go down without a fight. She maneuvered her hands and arms until they were out of the person's grasp, and proceed to kick them in the gut.

The person was surprised, but also refused to back down. After minutes of fighting, the person ended up on their back on the floor, and Marinette on top of their chest, her knees on either side of them, as she held a knife to their neck.

“Now, answer the damn question, Spooky! Who are you,” She yelled again, her hold on the knife tightening. When they refused to answer her, she pushed the knife harder. “Either you answer the damn question, or I’ll take that mask off myself, Spooky,” She rose an eyebrow. “And if I were you, I’d just fess up now.”

The person grunted and nodded towards their hands. More specifically, the hands she had incapacitated. She slowly let one of them free, not allowing the other in case they tried anything funny.

Marinette watched as the person took off their cowl, revealing the face of a slightly disheveled Bruce Wayne, aka Gotham’s local Richie Rich.

She couldn’t help but laugh. Who would’ve thought rich people like to run around as furries. The thought was quickly followed up by the reminder that Adrien was the same, but instead of a bat, he was a cat. Marinette sobered up at the thought of her old friend.

“What’s so funny, eh?” Bruce Wayne grimaced at her. She gave him a smirk.

“Nothing. Just, who would’ve thought that Richie Rich liked to go around terrorizing innocent bar owners in the dead of night. I know I certainly didn’t.” Her smile grew at his eye roll. “I always thought the rich spent their nights doing different models.”

He gave her a sarcastic laugh. “Now if your done making fun of me, will you get off?” It was only then did she notice that she was still on top of his chest.

She narrowed her eye, contemplating what she should do next. When she had a plan, she lifted the knife from his throat, and let go of his other arm, but didn’t get off of him. “I’ll get off after you explain why you're here, and why you’re wearing that,” she waved her hand from where his cowl laid next to him, to the bodysuit he was wearing,” monstrosity.”

Bruce sighed. He knew there was no way out of this situation. God, he wished Alfred was still monitoring comms, but the man had rushed off somewhere else, giving Bruce a vague explanation, right before he entered the bar. So he spilled everything. From becoming a vigilante to the suspicious villain attraction to the bar.

When Marinette seemed content with what he was telling her, she got off of him and offered him a hand up. After they were both up, Marinette went behind her bar and poured them both a glass of Japanese Hibiki Whiskey.

“So do you want to tell me why there are so many Rouges coming into your bar every day?” He asked, taking a sip from his glass.

“I don’t discriminate. They can all come as long as they follow the rules.” She stopped there, but from the way Bruce was looking at her, she knew she would have to continue. “For them, I have three rules. Rule one, no fighting each other. That rule includes regular bar fights, attacking each for any reason, and murder.

“My second rule is, that if they don’t respect me, I won’t hesitate to put them in their place. I’ve already made an example of Joker and Penguin, so they know not to fuck with me.

“And the third rule is, if they in any way, disrupt my civilian customers, they get kicked out and banned.” She quickly took a sip from her glass. “So far most of them have been pretty good with following my rules. The only one who hasn’t is Joker. But he’s no longer allowed here.” She finished with a smug grin.

Bruce looked surprised but didn’t say anything, knowing full well she could take of herself, considering how gracefully she took him down.

After that, the two of them talk for a while before Marinette closed up shop and Bruce left to finish patrol.

__

For months after that, Bruce would come in after she closed, and they’d share a glass of whiskey and just talk. It was nice for both of them. Bruce, they didn’t really have anyone he could really talk to other than Alfred, but Bruce hated having to burden the dear man. And Marinette didn’t have anyone in Gotham, other than the kwamis. All her friends and family were scattered around the globe and the kwamis, while Marinette loved them dearly, weren’t the best at giving modern-day advice.

So having someone around their own age was healthy for both of them, and in some ways therapeutic. And all the is without mentioning the fact they both caught feelings.

__

It was a cold October night when Bruce had went into the bar, as usual, but found a sight that broke his heart.

Marinette was lumped up against a wall, on the floor, two empty bottles of beer next to her as she nursed the third one. She looked at him, but it was an odd look as if she wasn’t really processing he was there.

He picked up a beer from the counter and made his way to sit next to Marinette. As he popped it open and took a sip, Marinette turned her head towards him.

“Did I ever tell you about Paris?” When he shook his head no, she faced forward again and stared at nothing. “When I was twelve, we had a supervillain, Hawkmoth. He had this power, where if you felt any negative emotion, whether it be jealousy, anger, even mourning, he’d take advantage of it and turn you into a monster that would terrorize Paris.

“We had two heroes to fight Hawkmoth. Their names were Ladybug and Chat Noir. They were twelve, Bruce. And they were fated with protecting the world.” Bruce wanted to say something. Anything. Because of the way Marinette was talking, it wasn’t the way civilians would talk about their child heroes. It was the way a child hero would talk about themselves. But Bruce restrained himself. He could tell she needed to talk about this.

“For years,” she continued. “They fought for the people of Paris, but what they didn’t know was that the heroes were slowly losing themselves with every Akuma they had to fight. They slowly started to blame themselves for each time a civilian died during a battle. It didn’t matter that Ladybug’s power would the person back without anyone but them remembering it. Both of them became depressed.

“It was awful. So many horrible thoughts in their heads every moment of every day. It got worse when they lost their only mentor and Ladybug was named the new guardian. Ladybug started to get better, though. With the help of the deities that she was responsible to protect, she got better. Chat Noir,” her voice cracked at his name, and Bruce wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer. “Chat Noir didn’t. Things got worse for him because he found out that Hawkmoth was his father the entire time.

“Kwamis, the look on his face when he told Ladybug was heart-wrenching. The day Hawkmoth was defeated, his identity was revealed to the public. Everyone in Paris knew that Hawkmoth was Gabriel Agreste and they were angry. While Gabriel,” She spat his name as if it was venom. “ was taken to a secure facility where no one could get to him, his son was left to the wolves. People would go to his home, scream horrible things at him.

“One night, Ladybug just had a feeling to go the Seine. She didn’t know why, but she knew she had to. When she got there, a single ring on the railing next to a letter with her name on it. After reading the letter, she jumped into the water, but it was too late. He was gone.” There were tear tracks going down her face.

Bruce didn’t know what to say. So he didn’t. He just pulled her closer into his side and hugged her, both their drinks long forgotten.

“Sometimes,” Marinette started up again, “I feel like I can see his ghost. Like he’s still watching me, taking care of me, even after he’s gone.”

__

Adrien watched from a stool by the bar as the dark knight of Gotham comforted Adrien’s best friend and he couldn’t help but let a tear go down his cheek as a small smile formed on his lips.

She would be okay. She would be okay without him. She would be okay because she has someone who will take care of her.

“Are you ready, kid?” Plagg said from behind him. Adrien looked at him. Plagg was in human form, with black messy hair, bright green eyes, and dark skin.

Adrien looked back over at Bruce Wanye and Marinette Dupian-Cheng before nodding at Plagg.

“Yeah, I think I am.”

_