#wolfish-writes

“Do you Parisian heroes make a habit of getting impaled, or is that just you?”

Marinette wanted to go back to sleep, but a burning pain in her leg and throat kept her mind from drifting off. She almost hadn’t heard the sly remark above her because of it. Almost. Most of her nervous system was currently failing her, but she managed to groan out, “No’ usually, bu’ firs’ for every’fing.”

She was met with a chuckle, and she tried smiling back. She wasn’t sure if she succeeded. Her eyes fluttered open to a blurry world, a black and blue blob staring down at her, and she wondered if this was a pain-induced hallucination. At least the voice speaking to her was nice. Maybe it was an angel?

“Ladybug, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

Adrien?  No, probably Chat Noir. Not that that distinction mattered anymore. It had only been a matter of time until she found out his identity. If not on the field, she would have had to know as Guardian eventually anyway. She just wished it could have been under better circumstances.

When Marinette tried to mumble his name back at him, he quieted her. “No, don’t talk! You’re really hurt right now, and you have to stay as still as possible.”

Staying still sounded nice. She could do that.

“Listen, I know Tikki is slowing the blood loss, but I need her. Someone has to cleanse the akuma and use the miraculous cure. I'll give you Plagg. We just have to do this quickly.” He was stumbling over his words in his panic. “I’m so sorry I let this happen, M’Lady.”

In any other circumstance, she’d hesitate, not wanting to reveal their identities to anyone else. She still wasn’t sure if the black and blue blob was a real person or not, really, but their situation was dire. This would be an issue for her to deal with when she was more coherent. Tikki would understand, she was sure of that at least.

“Spo’s off.”

As soon as the red flash of light disappeared, Marinette began screaming. The pain was too much too soon. It hurt, and she heard Adrien sobbing out apologies as he removed her earrings. He grabbed her hand and despite both of their shaking, managed to slip his ring onto her finger.

Someone held her head down, and she heard another voice whispering, “Mari, it’ll be okay. I won’t leave you, I promise.”

The voice sounded familiar, but she knew there was no way Damian was in Paris with her right now. She listened to it anyway, and thanked the universe for sending her such a comforting gift in her final moments.

“Your partner said you need to call for 'Plagg.' Can you do that?”

A gloved hand was rubbing her cheek, and she leaned into it. She tried nodding, but ultimately gave up in favor of mumbling, “Claws ou’.”

The green light that encased her seemed to ease some of the pain. It had become much more manageable, and she tried to pull her focus onto the hands holding her face to distract herself. She needed to focus on anything but the cold metal in her upper thigh and her scratchy throat.

The hands came loose from her face for a moment, and she tried to follow before they quickly returned, bare this time. They were warm. She leaned into them as best she could.

One hand rubbed soothing circles on Marinette’s cheek, and the other moved up to stroke her hair. She barely felt the tears dripping onto her forehead.

Finally, the world was righted again, and she felt the ladybugs swarming her body before she saw them. It wasn’t very often that she had the chance to feel the miraculous cure from this side, but it felt like nothing in the world had ever made sense before that moment. She felt like she was home.

Marinette began to properly stir, blinking away the blurriness that had clouded her vision. The night was bright with Parisian lights, just like it should have been. She began to that she might have imagined the last however many hours, but her fears were assuaged when she held up a black gloved hand before her eyes. This wasn’t the Ladybug suit, and that certainly wasn’t Chat Noir looking down at her.

Holding her were two men she had only ever seen in the news — Nightwing and Robin. Where had Damian gone? 

The hands still performing ministrations on her head belonged to Robin, and judging by the sopping wet hair Nightwing sported, they were who had pulled her from the Seine.

She blinked up at them before Robin pressed a desperate kiss to her forehead, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

Wait, why was Robin kissing her?

What had happened when she was passed out?

—

Damian had never felt such righteous fury before in his life, not even when his father had gone missing or all the times Ra’s had beat him senseless on the sparring mat. He had arrested many monsters and let them live, but he knew he could never grant such a mercy to the man who had done this to Marinette. This pure soul deserved everything life had to offer, and he would gladly give it to her, which meant destroying Hawkmoth.

He hadn’t had the chance to think better of it before he began pressing a hurried kiss to her forehead; he just needed to feel that she was still there, from his fingertips to his lips. It was rather embarrassing that Dick had been the one to witness it, as well. He wouldn’t say anything of it now, but Damian knew he was never going to live this down.

Yet right now, nothing else mattered. His Mari was safe, her beautiful heart beating in tandem with his. Everything about her was beautiful. Her delicate face, lithe hands, and soft hair felt almost too good to be true. He could live a thousand lifetimes repenting, and he still would never truly deserve her.

Part of him was glad that she had changed suits because the black leather highlighted the deep blush painting her skin. The red spandex would have distracted too much from it. 

Marinette let loose a nervous laugh. “Uh, what did I miss?”

Damian never let his eyes linger from her own, but he could feel the shit-eating grin dancing across his brother’s face. He chose, very pointedly, to ignore it.

“I took too long to get here,” he whispered to her. “I wish you had been able to inform me of this foul bastard tormenting your city. I would have had his head on a platter for you in a heartbeat.”

Dick chimed in, “Wow, kid. You sure know how to woo ‘em.”

Marinette’s face somehow became impossibly redder, and the skin was burning underneath his hands. She tried to sink into herself, but the tight leather suit left little room to hide. The faux cat ears were definitely not helping her.

Before she had the chance to question the vigilante’s familiarity with her, her partner came rushing towards them. He now donned a red and black polka dotted suit similar to the one she had worn earlier. The accessories they had swapped seemed to be the cause of it, but they could discuss this later. Maybe when they hadn’t just watched Marinette thrash around in agony.

The ladybug hero fell onto his knees and threw his body around her, crying into her shoulder, “Thank Kwamis, you’re alright! I don’t think I could have lived with myself if anything had happened to you.”

Marinette pulled a hand up to gently pet her partner’s hair, a soft smile gracing her now less-red face. He buried his face further into the crook of her neck, and she brought her other hand to rub along his back. Damian felt his heart drop at the exchange.

“It’s alright, Minou.” She let out a dry laugh. “Now you know how I feel every time you throw yourself head first into danger.”

Damian was overcome with a sudden possessiveness. He knew who this other boy was. He was Adrien, the boy who had broken Marinette's heart, and the one she still called her best friend. Damian believed that perhaps she was far too forgiving. He would never let anything bad happen to her again.

One of his hands moved to push Adrien off of her, the other still tenderly holding her face. The other boy was caught off guard by the sudden movement, and Marinette’s eyebrows jumped in shock.

“Bug off, Minou, ” Damian growled at him. His hand returned to rubbing her hair back. “She’s mine.”

He felt a sudden smack against the back of his head.

“For fuck’s sake, Damian. I taught you to act better than that,” Dick chided him. Damian swung his head around to meet his brother’s menacing gaze with his own.

“So much for secret identities, Grayson.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Like she wasn’t gonna find out anyway. What, with your little kiss and confession.”

Heat rose in Damian’s face. Whether it was in anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t say, but suddenly he was tackling Dick back into the river. It wasn’t a ‘confession,’ okay? It was simply a truth she should be aware of. Damian Wayne didn’t do ‘confessions.’

They hit the water in a tangle of limbs and spandex, and Damian swore he could hear Marinette laughing as he submerged into the water. He was overcome with the thought that maybe, it wasn’t so bad to open up his heart to someone. After all, nothing in this world could possibly be sweeter than her voice. 

Jason Todd is just nine years old the first time he realizes the transient nature of human life. His father abandons him after a stint in prison, and his mother takes her last breath before his very eyes. It takes him an hour to notice she’s stopped breathing. He thought she was just taking a nap. 

When his father first leaves two years ago, Jason doesn’t understand where he is going. He doesn’t know what prison means or why so many men in blue outfits and funny hats came into their house to take his dad away. His mom cries, throwing herself against the floor, so he does too. He isn’t sure why, but it feels like the right thing to do.

His mother’s health starts going slowly, and Jason almost doesn’t notice that it coincides so perfectly with her increasing addictions. It starts small. She coughs a lot after her cigarette. She smells like smoke and it makes his nose burn, but he loves his mother and hugs her anyways. It was just one cigarette a day, but suddenly she’s smoking the last one in the pack before the night ends. The smell never goes away.

Then, the liquor bottle that sits beside their couch is empty, followed by a dozen more. Jason takes them out every week, and eventually, the bags become too heavy for him and they sit outside the door. His mom acts funny after she drinks, and her hands strike his face. His cheeks burn with her handprints, but he loves his mother and hugs her anyways when she apologizes.

Sometimes, she sits and coughs and vomits on the floor. Jason doesn’t know how to clean it up well, so the hardwood always has a little stickiness to it. He laughs when his feet stick and makes a game of it.

A year passes from the day his father left, and his mom said he would be home months ago. He wonders if that’s why she screams more or sleeps too long and makes him late to school. She looks pale – a new word he learns that week in reading class. He doesn’t know why she doesn’t move much, but one day she tells him to go down the street and grab the doctor. So, he bounds down the pavement towards the dirty door belonging to their doctor friend. He’s not sure what their friend will do, but he leads him back to his home anyways.

“She’s sick,” the doctor says, and Jason could have told him that. He doesn’t say why she’s sick or how he’ll help, but he stops by sometimes to check on her. 

His mom begins taking pills, and he assumes they’ll help her get better. She starts taking shots too, but he doesn’t think they’re helping very much because afterwards she lays on her bed and ignores him for hours. He eats cereal for dinner those nights.

The bills start to pool below the door where they come through the mail slot. He doesn’t understand money very well, but he knows they don’t have any. His mom isn’t working. Her medicine is harder to buy now, she says, so he starts mimicking the men his mom brings home sometimes and begins stealing.

At first, it's small things, a candy bar at the store because he’s hungry, a t-shirt he really likes that he knows will actually fit him. He’s not worn a shirt the right size since his dad left, but his mom can’t help that he had such a large growth spurt.

Then, his mom begins hitting him more, crying that she can’t pay the bills and it was all his fault, so he asks the tall guy who hangs around the alleyway how he can make more money. The man tells him to start taking car parts, so he does.

Jason is good at it. The guy gives him a tire iron and never comes back. He wonders where he went, but forgets about it quickly, more interested in what pieces he can take without anyone noticing. It’s a game for him, as all things were. He has fun, and his mom smiles and kisses his forehead when he brings back the money he got from the mechanic in the next neighborhood. He loves his mom, so he takes her kisses and hugs her even though she feels too thin and smells rotten.

He makes a large sum of money one week and excitedly brings it back to his home, where his mom lays on the couch and rasps out a breath. The needle is still stuck in her arm, so he pulls it out and throws it away for her. 

He sits with her, hopes she’ll wake up soon so he can tell her about his day, but she never wakes up. She went silent hours ago, so he runs back to their doctor friend and brings him to the apartment. Jason doesn’t know where his mom is going when the funny men in blue return and take his mother away under a sheet. All he knows is that she isn’t coming back, so he runs away. If those men catch him, he’s not sure if he’ll ever get to return either.

No one wants to help the dirty street rat, especially when no one in the neighborhood can take care of themselves. He hopes that Batman will come. He’s seen him flying through the night, helping the needy and defeating the bad guys. Jason’s needy right now. He’s alone and scared and misses his mom, so he really hopes Batman will come.

But one man can’t save every life in the city. 

Jason finds himself crawling through the gap of a broken door in a sketchy alley. It's just big enough for his small frame to move through, and the abandoned building behind it seems warm, at least for now. At least until Batman comes. 

But Batman doesn’t come to save Jason, so he has to save himself. He steals small things here and there to make a bed and keep his belly from hurting. Yet nothing he can steal will ever be enough for his hunger to go away, and the cold air of Gotham City never seems to cease.

Two years have passed, and Jason is eleven years old. He is cold and hungry and angry, and the man who he sat and prayed would save him every night is once more flying above the streets of Gotham, not a care in the world. Jason feels wronged.

So he pulls the tire iron he keeps tucked underneath his makeshift bed and sets off to the alley Batman came from. He puts the iron to the wheel of the Batmobile, desperate to get back at the man who never came to his rescue.

A shadow looms behind him as he struggles with the lug nuts. He knows it’s Batman. He should be washed over with fear. If he were anyone else, he might, but right now, all he feels is rage. He turns, his tire iron in hand, and goes to strike.

But Batman’s hands rest on his shoulders to hold him back. Even through the gloves, Jason feels the warmth — a warmth he hasn’t known since his dad went to prison and his mom stopped playing with him.

She used to kiss his head before putting him to bed and make soup when he was home with a fever. Her hands were always so warm, just like this, and suddenly he’s crying. Wet, hot tears stream down his face as he sobs into Batman’s chest.

There’s surely snot on his suit, but Batman doesn’t leave. He wraps his arms around the boy and holds him tight. It’s warm and for the first time in a long time, Jason is safe. He feels it down to his bones and the steady melody of his heart, beating ‘safe, safe, safe.’

His anger has subsided and he’s filled with grief. He mourns his family and the home he'll never return to, the boy he couldn’t save and the one that finally will be. He’s safe, so he lets all the emotion bottled up in his tiny body out into Batman’s chest, impossibly broad and strong. No fear will make way outside of the comforting arms of his hero, and he’s okay with that. Jason, for what he’s now sure is the first time in his life, is safe.

–

Jason forcefully tears himself from the ground at the age of seventeen, six years after meeting Bruce and two removed from his untimely death. He does not know where he is or how he got here, but he knows he needs to get away. It’s surely another way the Joker has decided to torture him, and he won’t be defeated so easily. He is Robin, the partner of Batman and he should never feel scared. They are meant to make the bad guys feel scared. 

His legs are unsteady as he runs haphazardly from the hole he emerged from. His chest is burning, and he barely notices the large T-shaped scar running down his torso. He didn’t remember Joker doing that, but he also doesn’t remember being buried six feet under. 

Talia finds him first. Jason tries to lift his arms into a defensive position, but his limbs feel like jelly and instead, he finds himself falling unceremoniously into her. He feels her grab him before the world goes dark once more.

He’s awake again, and he feels like he’s drowning. He flails around, attempting to grab something, anything to pull himself out of the water. It burns against the T-shaped scar, against his lungs, and rough hands reach in to pull him upwards. They grip against his shoulders, leaving crescent-shaped marks in his flesh. The tension of the water pushes against him, trying to keep him from breaching the surface, but suddenly he’s through and air reaches down his throat against his straining lungs. 

Voices indistinctly whisper around him, muttering in a language he cannot understand, but he picks up his own name and Bruce’s. He didn’t need to know the words they were saying to know that something was deeply off.

So he bolts, his legs fighting his will to move. He’s barely made it a few feet away before he’s knocked to the rough cave floor. A foot presses in the center of his spine, and he knows no amount of adrenaline pumping through his body can push back against the weight. He’s somehow done it – made it to Hell. Maybe he’ll see his father. But maybe even the Devil couldn’t find a place for that man.

The days after tell him, surely, that’s where he is right now. Talia is there, haunting the corners of his vision. She never speaks to him, and quite frankly, he’s not sure that she’s actually real. Her skin always emanates a hazy green, just like the water they pulled him from. She could have looked that way naturally, but his scrambled memory whispers otherwise.

Sometimes, she has a shadow. Mostly, it’s indistinguishable from the other shadows dancing along the wall, but every once in a while, he feels his stomach roll looking at it. This is when the shadow looks like Bruce.

The eyes are a different color, shining with the same green he sees around Talia, but the shape of them – those are Bruce’s eyes. He had spent so many years idolizing the man, memorizing every frown line and stray gray hair. He would know this face, and especially those eyes, anywhere. But he knows it must be a trick. Bruce was too stuck in the idea of redemption, for himself and others, to end up in Hell with him.

Jason often hears screams during his waking hours. Some are anguished. Some are gargled. But the screaming only ceases for a moment before it returns with a new voice. It echoes along the walls of the cave he is being kept in, shaking the stalactite dripping in the upper right corner of his field of vision.

That’s another thing – his head remains in the same position day and night. His arms are pinned to his sides and his ankles tied. They haven’t tortured him yet, but whatever demons are bringing those screams to his ears will come to him soon. He has no doubt regarding that, but he can’t be sure who’s face he’ll see above him next.

He hopes it isn’t Dick. He doesn’t think he can survive damnation with his brother’s disappointed eyes staring back at him. Jason knew, no matter what good he did as Robin, this is where he was supposed to end, but Dick never accepted that. He had that same fixation on redemption as their adoptive father, but with a warmth Bruce could never have. Dick made Jason feel like even he deserved a second chance.

Talia comes by the next day, and he knows the moment he sees the bowl in her hands, that he isn’t dead like he thought. He wasn’t lucky enough for that. Instead, he is damned to the clutches of Talia Al Ghul and a bowl of broth. It sits like lead on his stomach as she force feeds him, chiding him for fighting her iron grip on his jaw. He’s sure that at times he did hallucinate her presence, but this time, she is real. Terribly real and dripping with ill intent.

Her shadow takes form now, and he wants to cry when Bruce’s face stares back at him once more. His face is much younger and his skin a deep tan, and there is no care behind these cold green eyes. In fact, he cannot see anything but malice. He feels ashamed to be looked at this way with Bruce’s face. Has Bruce decided to abandon him just like his father?

The voice that comes from this mouth is different, however, and confusion begins swirling with the shame. This voice is high-pitched and no doubt that of a child’s. It tells him, in the same smooth way Talia speaks, that he is a fraud and “Baba was right to leave him to die.”

The rest of its speech returns to what he now realizes is Arabic, but the words won’t translate in his head. All he hears is that one sentence, over and over. Why was Bruce speaking this way? He would never want to see him die. 

Right?

Jason’s spirit falls further, despite it having already hit rock bottom days ago, but the shame and confusion now build into anger. He fights against his restraints, knocking the remnants of his meal to the floor. Talia tries to calm him, firmly pressing him back against the seat. He tries to move his head to bite her but to no avail; it’s firmly held by a thick leather strip.

He spits at her instead. 

Her face contorts in anger, cheeks flushing red, and she begins berating him. She’s screaming, “What a pathetic little ‘boy wonder!’ You don’t seem to understand the circumstances of your situation.” He stops thrashing around, and her face returns to her usual sultry smile. “Bruce left you to die. When the Joker kidnapped and tortured you, Bruce took his sweet time coming to ‘save’ you. The one man in the world you thought loved you left you to die and buried your body in a shallow grave.”

Jason attempts to shake his head before realizing he’s still trapped.

“Oh, yes. It’s tragic, really. But that’s when I came to save you.”

Talia began to strut across the length of the thin cave.

“See, the world had a little shift that brought a few people back to the living world, you being one of them, but it had some unexpected issues. Your body had already partially decomposed, and you would have never made it off of that mountain without me. I brought you to my home, finished reviving you in the Lazarus Pit, and nursed you back to health. I even brought your baby brother to see you.”

Jason is fumbling out a barely intelligible, “My brother…?”

His eyes trace to the figure now hanging from the ceiling. It’s Bruce, or maybe not. He isn’t sure until the boy speaks. “Damian Al Ghul, the blood son of Batman.”

–

Jason spends the better part of a year recovering and regaining his stamina. It turns out, being revived in the Lazarus Pit is not as easy as Ra’s Al Ghul makes it seem. He learns how to walk for the second in his life before building his motor function back to what it used to be. For the most part, he’s in better shape than he had been before his death, but he’s still only seventeen. He thinks he has been seventeen longer than he should have.

He tries to wear clothing that hides his autopsy scar, and gloves to cover his scarred knuckles. He doesn’t remember where these come from, but he can make some educated guesses. The one thing he can’t seem to hide, though, is the big shock of white that now stained his fringe. The rest of his hair has grown back to his natural ginger, something he used to dye black to match Bruce.

The brother Jason never knew about suddenly tails him everywhere. He’s silent mostly, only speaking to criticize his fighting form. His entire demeanor deceives the fact that he is only seven years old.

And Jason mutters, “I thought my childhood had been screwed up.”

Sometimes, they sit in a room together reading, and Damian asks him about his father. Jason says good things, at first, but as time goes on, he finds he only has angry words to spit about him. The man had abandoned Jason, and now he is abandoning Damian, too. Damian eventually stops asking, sated to sit in silence while they read Shakespeare’s plays. 

Jason finds that it only makes him resent Bruce more. 

They train together, and eventually Jason is able to brute force his brother into submission during spars. He likes that he now retains muscle mass. His lanky youth had held back any hope of being strong. Damian begins to undergo his own growth spurt, as well. 

But their repetitive schedule suddenly comes to an abrupt end when Jason hears of the one thing he dreads most: Batman’s newest Robin. Apparently, the boy appeared on the scene not long after Jason’s death day and was becoming a real concern amongst the League.

Jason leaves without a plan, pushed onward by rage and embarrassment. He doesn’t know what he will do when he arrives in Gotham, but he knows Bruce like the back of his hand and has no doubt he’ll find him. Combined with a healthy stack of guns and ammunition, he could do whatever he wanted. He can get revenge, or he can even take back what is rightfully his.

The fight is a blur. He remembers yelling at Bruce for abandoning him, for never seeking revenge. He doesn’t understand why reformation and revenge can’t co-exist. Bruce is crying underneath the cowl. He hurts the new Robin. He shoots at Dick. Bruce is on the ground.

And he wakes up in his old bed. Not the one in the mansion or the apartment. No, it’s the one he slept in when he was nothing more than a poor orphan on the streets. It’s just as cold as he remembers. 

–

Jason spends the next two years making life miserable for Bruce just to spite him. Dick comes to visit him sometimes, usually finding him in the alleyways of Gotham. He tries to talk, brings along meals from Alfred, and Jason walks away from him every time.

He sees the new Robin darting across the night sky. Dick says his name is Tim, and Jason laughs. He’s not sure what is so funny, but he finds he can’t stop. The laughter makes anger bubble in his throat. He cuts Tim’s line that night, and watches him fall before Bruce swings through to save him. That only makes Jason angrier.

He starts wearing a helmet, red like fresh blood, and takes on Joker’s original identity – Red Hood. It’s ironic, becoming the person who ruined his life. But he sees how it makes Bruce’s skin crawl, and decides he likes the name.

Most nights he only commits petty crimes. On nights when the nightmares seem to consume him, he turns to felonies. He particularly likes theft and arson.

Sometimes, when he becomes annoyed with Dick, he dons a makeshift Nightwing costume, and dumps a herd of criminals on the front steps of the police station. He likes to do good things, too, but he truly does it to see how much it frustrates his brother. He knows Dick can’t say anything because Jason is being a hero again, but Nightwing was never meant for anyone else to wear. He knows it was meant to be a slight at Bruce. It was supposed to empower Dick. But now, it’s empowering Jason instead. Dick struggles to stifle his anger.

Jason enjoys his time in the dark belly of Gotham, but he misses his family some nights. Those are the cold and lonely ones, when no amount of fire can make up for the fact that he’s nineteen years old. Nineteen year olds aren’t supposed to be crime lords. Nineteen year olds aren’t supposed to live in alleyways and a rotating chain of safe houses.

He never sleeps in the same place for more than a few days at a time, and he begins to miss the monotony of the mansion. He misses warm meals that weren’t made in a stolen microwave. He misses the things that made him gentle. He misses a time when he didn’t have to feel so angry. He misses Bruce, but he would never say any of this aloud.

His tipping point comes sneaking up on him one night. No formal announcement was made – it never was – that a new Robin was on the scene, but Jason knew the moment this child took his first step out of the cave.

It was Damian, his baby brother, here to finally claim his birthright. The traitor.

And now even he looks at Jason with disappointment. He can’t take it. But he’s suddenly falling into madness the moment the words leave Bruce’s mouth.

“Jason, you were my biggest regret.”

The rest of his speech becomes white noise and red hot anger. There is fighting and blood, and even though Tim stops being the Robin, he is now Red Robin . That’s all the justification Jason needs to beat his face in. He plans to return for Damian another day. Then, Dick. And he wants Bruce to see every single time. He wants to show him what it really means to regret something.

Bruce disappears a few months later. Jason sees it as an opportunity. 

His costume is not nearly as high tech as Bruce’s was, but he only really needs the impression of Batman to pull it off. He doesn’t have it. All he gets in return is a set of handcuffs and a trip to Arkham. He had taken so many things from Dick; he supposes it was time he had to give something up.

He tries to count the days he’s been locked up, wonders if this is where they used to keep his father, but he loses track. The time blurs together. At some point, he makes friends with Harley Quinn. They share the burden of having been traumatized by the same men. She sneaks him an extra pillow, claiming that death always gives people a stiff neck. He doesn’t laugh as hard as she does.

When his mood sours, she plays therapist, finally putting her doctorate to good use. She does a decent job, he thinks, and some days, he almost thinks he can forgive Bruce. But then Bruce Wayne returns, and the anger with it.

He says he doesn’t care. Harley knows it is a lie, but she doesn’t dain to say it aloud. She just sneaks him an extra pudding cup that night. Jason cries.

When Bruce appears in his cell the next day, he ignores him, chalking it up to a bit of pit madness. He doesn’t believe that Bruce will ever look at him with those kind eyes again, but he steals glances at the delusion anyways. They sit in silence, and Jason is thankful that his mind isn’t so far gone as to start hearing voices.

Imaginary Bruce returns day after day, sitting in the same rusty chair in the corner of Jason’s cell. Eventually, Jason starts letting himself look at him, and then he’s yelling at him. He curses at him for having given up on him. He pounds his fist on the cell wall, screaming, and Imaginary Bruce stares back at him with a sad smile.

Gabriel was frustrated, and after years of futile plans to bring Emilie back, he was becoming manic. Every second of every day was spent thinking, plotting, devising something – anything – to bring her back to his waiting arms. He hadn’t left the confines of his basement den in weeks. Any food was brought down to him by Natalie, and the little sleep he had gotten was on an air mattress beside his wife’s body.

He couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving her again, but he knew that he would have to for any plan to finally reach fruition. 

This one would be different.

It was time to create a team of his own, one that could outmatch Ladybug and her gaggle of pests. It was time to outsource, and he’d do it all at the Paris Young Designer’s Finale.

In the meantime, he’d just have to keep Ladybug busy.

–

Amidst the warm light of the afternoon sun peeking through her window, Marinette’s laughter echoed throughout the room. Displayed on her desktop screen was an ornate lounge room with three people. Tim stood stiff in the middle of the screen as a woman pinned the suit Marinette had sent into place around his body. Beside him, in a fluffy armchair, was Damian, brushing Alfred the cat with one hand and using the other to hold up his head. The boys were both bickering, but the amusement alight in their eyes was impossible to miss.

It had been over a week now since Damian had apologized, followed by a few phone calls from Tim and Duke, begging for her forgiveness. She happily provided it, but made sure to use the time on the phone to set boundaries for future guidance on meddling in her affairs. They were all too eager to get back on her good side, not that they had ever actually left it.

Damian’s texts and phone calls had become routine between the two. He called Marinette at 9:30 on the dot every single night. Occasionally he would facetime her, only for her to accept and be face-to-face with Titus instead. The first time she had been set into a fit of laughter so badly, she had to end the call immediately because she had accidentally peed herself. Damian found it too cute to be properly disgusted.

She was unsure how she had found herself in a strict routine, given the mess that she was, but Damian would relent on the structure at times to match her hectic schedule. Like today, a Sunday afternoon which she had been able to dedicate to monitoring the fitting of Tim’s suit. While she was sure the Wayne’s would never bring in an incompetent seamstress to assist on their end, it helped ease her mind to see for herself that her masterpiece would not be ruined by shoddy alterations.

Marinette giggled in tandem with Tim’s every complaint regarding Damian’s presence. He didn’t understand why Damian needed to be there, but she reminded them that this was the call time she had set aside for Damian, Tim’s needs just happened to overlap. If anything, Tim was the one who didn’t need to be present, but she only tossed that out to tease him.

His mock groan was interrupted by a knock at the door. She couldn’t make out the muffled speech from the other side, but seeing the annoyance flash in Damian’s eyes, she had a feeling it was one of his brothers calling.

His eyes flicked to the laptop screen he had set up for their call before he stood, gently moving Alfred the cat to spread out on the arm of the chair. He crossed the room in three long strides and ducked his head to be at eye level with the screen.

“I’m afraid Grayson wants to come in. Please know you are not obligated to give permission; I will gladly turn him away,” Damian softly spoke into the mic. 

Dick Grayson, the eldest of the Wayne brood. Marinette had heard many things about him, both from Damian and various tabloid magazines. She would often pick up Teen Weekly from the local bodega in order to keep up with American fashion trends for her business, and more often than not, Dick’s face would be sprawled across pages of the most eligible bachelors in the celebrity sphere. This was usually followed by a cheesy article on dissecting his past ‘relationships.’

According to Damian, Dick has never even met most of those girls he is said to have dated. While the media paints him as a sex icon and playboy, in reality, he was a good-natured man who was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, Kori, and spent most of his time at the gym. Damian wasn’t even sure when the last time Dick went on a date.

So, Marinette gladly gave consent to allow Dick to enter their conversation, much to Damian’s dismay.

The moment Damian called for Dick to enter, the door had been flung open and a handsome man in a pair of sweatpants and a fitted tee came bounding in. He surveyed the room around him before setting his mischievous eyes on the laptop propped up beside his brother.

“Is this the famous Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

Damian scowled in response to the excited shout and moved to block the screen from sight. Marinette blushed a little as she stared directly into his wide muscled chest. Really, what was it with this family and fitted tees?

Though she couldn’t see Dick, she heard his annoyed gasp. “Are you hoarding Marinette time now, Dami? I didn’t know you could be so possessive!”

“It is not hoarding if this time belonged to me initially. You ought to keep your crooked nose out of other people's business. We wouldn’t want Alfred to have to fix it again,” Damian grumbled. Marinette could see the muscles in his chest tightening.

Despite his threatening tone, everyone knew there was no real malice behind the statement. It would take a lot more to bring Damian to make good on his words. It was times like these that Marinette couldn’t help imagining him as a chihuahua, all bark and no bite.

Tim spoke next, “Oh, just move already. She needs to make sure the fitting goes smoothly, and you’re getting in the way.”

He had him there , she chuckled to herself. Damian still had yet to yield his guard of the screen, so Marinette finally spoke up.

“I want to meet your brother, Dami.”

Finally, he relented, stalking back over to his armchair. He flopped down aggressively, sending Alfred the cat darting out of screen. She watched as he crossed his arms like an angry child throwing a silent tantrum, but she could only laugh more, which resulted in a deep red flush to overtake his face.

Dick pointedly ignored him before approaching the laptop. He was careful to keep from blocking her view of Tim, but still allowing her to view his face. Beautiful blue eyes bore into her, so different from his brothers. Moments like these reminded her that these brothers were not linked by blood, something she tended to forget given their ability to seemingly read one another’s minds. She had grown up an only child, but this type of relationship was one she only saw in Alya’s younger twin sisters. 

“How are you today, Miss Dupain-Cheng? As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I’m Damian’s older brother, Dick.”

Marinette was a bit flustered as he stared at her so intently, a kind smile tilting his lips. It was one thing to see his perfectly airbrushed photos in magazines, but a whole other to come face to face with him. There had to be something in the water of Gotham, maybe some weird chemical that made everyone stupidly attractive. Or maybe Bruce Wayne specifically picked them out for that reason.

She swallowed hard before finding her words, albeit stuttered, “Oh, uh, just Marinette is fine! And I am doing super duper great!” She attempted to smooth off the sentence with an exaggerated smile, but soon realized the awkward pause she left. “Um, how are you, Dichard? I mean, Rick – no Dick! Dick Grayson!”

Tim burst into laughter, unwittingly pushing away the increasingly frustrated seamstress. He was doubled over, clutching at his stomach. Dick blinked a few times before awkwardly returning the wave Marinette hadn’t even realized she’d done. She did, however, realize just how much her face was burning. 

Another voice caught her attention, a deep rumble in the room, “Is there a reason Tim is dying on the floor in a suit full of pins?”

Dick’s face brightened once more, turning to face the source of the voice.

“Jay-bird! Come meet Dami’s girlfriend!” He turned back to her quickly, and she’s sure he must have realized his mistake. “That’s okay with you, right? He’s not nearly as intimidating as he wants you to think!”

Oh, he hadn’t realized. Of course, Damian had, and she could see that the red in his face had only increased. Before she could think on it further, another man came into the frame, this one much taller than his counterparts. His hair is the same shade of black with a shock of white in the front of his fringe, and his eyes are an identical green to Damian’s, yet they have a haunted look to them. He tried to smile politely, but it cannot hide the horror swirling within them.

This must be Jason. Damian speaks of him the least, and she’s seen even fewer pictures. But there is no mistaking his figure for anyone else.

He doesn’t speak, only nodding in her direction. Ah, it’s up to her to speak.

“This must be Jason, right? It’s nice to meet you!”

Dick frowns, making Tim only laugh harder. He has now found his way onto his hands and knees, the seamstress having long left out of frustration. Dick mumbles audibly to himself, “How come she’s cool with Jason? What did I do wrong?”

Damian spoke next, raising his voice to be heard above his brothers, “I apologize, Mari. It seems you have been put into an impromptu family reunion. Please do not feel you must stay if you are uncomfortable.”

All eyes shot to him and before she could even think to respond, a fifth voice echoed into the silent room. “Mari, huh?” Duke Thomas, thank the kwamis.

“I wasn’t aware Dami could call someone anything other than their last name,” chortled Jason. “Has our darling Mari tamed our own resident shrew?”

“Somebody call in Cass! We can’t leave her out of this!”

“Have you no respect for Mari? What if she does not feel comfortable?”

Above the din of conversation, Marinette managed to choke out, “No, no! It’s really fine! I am excited to meet everyone.”

Dick’s arms were flailing in front of the camera as he yelled at his brothers, “See, Mari likes us!”

And so on it went. Cass came in running, with nothing more than a wave to Marinette. Then, Stephanie, who she assumed must be some sort of cousin. Barbara, who she can already tell will become her favorite. Alfred the butler (Damian’s awful original with his pet names) , polite and well-mannered, and finally, Bruce Wayne.

He was the spitting image of his son, yet with blue eyes, a pale face, and hard lines from age. His presence caused comfort to settle in her stomach. He made her feel safe, like her own Papa.

The next hour was spent learning more about the Wayne family than she could have ever imagined. They were nothing like they were painted as in the tabloids. They were humble, kind, and seemed to love the youngest of the brood more than anything. In one conversation, she was welcomed with open arms into their family, forgetting, or perhaps ignoring, the fact that Marinette and Damian were only friends.

At the moment, that is.

She would love to be more, to find herself wrapped up in his life, for all the good and the bad, but she would not ask for more than he could give. She only hoped he might feel the same and broach the line they danced around. He brought her more joy than anyone else.

But happiness was not something she was rewarded for long, as an akuma alert brightly flashed on her cell phone screen. Ladybug took priority, no matter what Marinette felt, and the spotted hero was being called into action. 

Damian, seeing Marinette’s face drop, prodded her for information. “Is everything alright, Mari? I know my family can be a great deal to take in all at once.”

She swung her attention back to the screen, stuttering, “No, no! Everyone is great. I just - uh, my Maman texted me. She needs me to help downstairs in the bakery. I’m afraid I have to go.”

Chat Noir felt like his life was falling apart around him, and no amount of luck could save him now. When the akuma first appeared, it seemed like it would be just like any other. An angry ex-boyfriend who had found out his girlfriend was cheating on him and apparently needed it to be everyone’s problem. He thought it would be easy, and he might even get a full night of sleep tonight. Of course he had to go and jinx himself.

Ladybug had beaten him to the scene by just a few moments, and despite her serious demeanor, he knew she was just as relieved to have a quick battle. She had that tell-tale slump of her shoulders whenever she relaxed, a quirk he picked up on from their hangouts as civilians. He had heard the akuma yelling about some ‘lying, cheating ex’ through his bedroom window, and raced across town to meet them.

“Hello, Chaton. Fancy seeing you here,” she teased.

Adrien couldn’t help but smile in return, cocking his hip and placing his hand on it. “I was on the prowl , so I figured I’d stop by. How are you feline today?”

Ladybug rolled her eyes before turning her gaze back to the akuma. The man was almost indistinguishable from your average citizen, save for a green hue to his skin. Jealousy was a big green monster, after all, and Adrien couldn’t blame him for feeling that way.

“I’m feeling pretty lucky . Are you ready?”

He loved when she punned right back at him. 

The superduo drew in their arms for a loose fighting stance, scanning the akuma’s body for any sign of an akumatized object, and settled on the squirtgun in his right hand. What in the world was this man doing when Hawkmoth found him?

His face contorted into a terrible grin, which sent fear ricocheting through his bones, and suddenly, Ladybug’s shoulders were no longer relaxed. He raised the squirtgun to point at them, laughing in a way no human should be able to do.

“Hey there, strangers! Did you come to see my grand show?,” he cackled at the duo, before his face suddenly dropped into a deep frown. “See, my sweet darling girlfriend decided to tear my heart in two. I found her draped under a man in my own bed! And the best part?”

He stopped with a dramatic flick of his hand, waiting for them to respond. When he realized the heroes had no intention of doing so, he began shaking the squirtgun at them and screaming, “I asked you if you could guess the best part!”

Ladybug flinched backwards at the sudden aggression, so Adrien took the lead, swallowing, “Did she apologize?”

Laughter shook through the akuma once more, but it sounded more like he was choking on his own breath. He leaned down to place his hands on his bent knees in an effort to not double over. It was unsettling, and it felt as though a sudden chill had settled over Paris. Thankfully, the street had long emptied as they conversed. He stood back up, his face once more stilled into rage.

“She laughed! Can you believe that? She looked me dead in the eyes from underneath that man and couldn’t stop laughing! I had a ring! I was going to propose to her tonight!

“But Hawkmoth saw my pain. And he gave me the power to make the whole world feel it. I started with her and that man, spraying them with this sweet little squirtgun he hand delivered me, and they kept laughing. They kept laughing until they dropped.

“He lovingly dubbed me ‘Venom.’ I now have the power to destroy this city, and every person who has ever wronged another will laugh until they fall, too.” 

Venom hadn’t moved throughout his speech – not even to breathe or blink. He merely stared them down, and when he finished his declaration, he raised his squirtgun at them again. “And you, Ladybug and Chat Noir, are the biggest sinners of them all.”

The superduo managed to dodge right before the acidic liquid from the squirtgun could touch them, and the ground where it landed began to fizzle. His words hadn’t made much sense, but instinctively, they knew whatever was in that canister would spell their own deaths. And now, the battle truly began.

Venom began chasing them across the city, spraying whoever he could spy peeking through the windows. Adrien attempted to divert his attention by splitting off from Ladybug’s side. Their only chance of ensuring nobody else got hurt was to end this as quickly as possible, and to do that, Ladybug needed time to activate her lucky charm and formulate a plan. He just needed to be more interesting at the moment.

He turned around, winking at Venom and yelling, “Catch me if you can! We’ll see who’s laughing afterwards.” Then, he leapt to the right, and Ladybug to the left.

–

Marinette was racing against time, and apparently a green laughing akuma. This was not the way she imagined spending her night, and the ‘bakery’ excuse would only satiate Damian for so long.

She ducked behind a chimney, willing her heart to beat quieter. She had never been so afraid of an akuma, and it did not bode well for her limited luck. She needed to take him down as fast as possible. Her hands shook as she threw her yo-yo into the air, whispering, “Lucky charm.”

What fell into her hands was the last thing she expected, and she felt the tears begin to settle in her eyes from frustration. Sitting delicately in her palm was a polka dotted batarang. Aside from the pattern, it was identical to the very same one she had collected weeks ago. What was Tikki trying to tell her? To wait for back-up from Batman, of all people?

Aside from the fact that Batman hadn’t made another appearance since, she struggled to understand why she wouldn’t just bring in more heroes from the miracle box. This didn’t seem to be a villain they could risk much with, she supposed. She was already afraid of losing Chat Noir, the self-sacrificing idiot that he was.

What choice did she have but to run the akuma in circles until Batman appeared? She wasn’t even sure what the akumatized object was.

Laughter rang from the end of the alley below as a young woman wandered into it. Her laugh broke in what Marinette assumed was pain. She dared to lean forward just enough to see who it was, but quickly felt the bile rise in her throat. The woman’s face was contorted into the same terrifying smile as the akuma’s had been, showing too many teeth and her skin stretching in an impossible way. Her eyes were red from the strain and blood was dripping down her cheeks like tears. Her skin was a similar shade of green to the akuma, as well. Right before Marinette’s eyes, she coughed out a mouthful of blood and fell to the ground with a dull thud .

The horror coursing through Marinette’s body prevented her from doing more than falling onto her hands and knees and emptying the contents of her stomach onto the roof before her. Her time as Ladybug had forced her to see death countless times, but never like this. It was usually people being frozen in time, instant and painless. But this – this was a death she would never unsee. She had no idea Hawkmoth was capable of such horrific acts.

She wouldn’t do it – couldn’t go back out there – but she had to. Heroes didn’t have the luxury to give up. She would de-evilize this man, or she would die trying.

–

As it turned out, the more people Venom murdered, the larger he grew. He swung at buildings, toppling the Parisian skyline in minutes. Marinette had decided somewhere around hour three to take a chance on bringing out Viperion and Carapace to evacuate whatever civilians they could find. She knew they would stay out of trouble where they could, but the sinking feeling of fear still settled in her stomach. No one else could come out. They couldn’t take that risk.

At hour ten, she watched as Venom decimated her parents’ bakery with nothing more than a kick. Her entire life crumbled before her eyes into nothing more than rubble. She could only hope that her parents made it out in time. 

Hour seventeen found her and Adrien straddling the lower beam of Pont Alexandre III while their kwamis recharged their energy for the second time. Marinette felt as though the slightest breeze would knock her off of the bridge and into the Seine below. Adrien kept a steadying hand on his partner, but he was beginning to feel the exhaustion seeping into his strained muscles. If she went down now, he might just sink with her.

“How long did you say it would take for backup?,” he mumbled at her.

“I didn’t.”

It wasn’t until hour twenty-nine that the exhaustion became unbearable. They had dodged, ducked, thrown objects, cataclysmed what was left of the skyline, and fighting to keep Venom contained within the city limits. If he managed to escape, there was no telling what havoc he would reap across France. 

Marinette struggled to keep her eyes open and her body upright. Even with Tikki’s magical enhancement of her human limits, she had been awake far too long. The fight itself had only been twenty-nine hours, but she had been awake and working long before that. She wouldn’t last more than an hour, and Adrien wouldn’t be far behind.

Her maneuvers had become increasingly unsteady. All it took was her body reacting one beat too late to dodge, and she was hurtling into the Seine with a pipe stuck through her upper thigh. Her body had become numb somewhere through the day, so the only notion alerting her to the wound was the blood that trailed through the sky in her wake. Did she always have that much blood?

Everything was moving in slow motion. She saw Adrien blink away his tiredness, quickly replaced by a scream – at least, that’s what she assumed he was doing. She currently existed in a vacuum of space, no sound but the ringing in her ears. The concrete wall the pipe had originally been stuck in propelled her body further en route to the water, and she could see bits of gravel slowly flying off before her eyes. 

It had been six hours now, and Damian had yet to hear a single word from Marinette. She was scatterbrained, sure, but never had she forgotten to pick up her phone in such a long span of time, save for when she slept. He tried to reason with himself, initially. Knowing her, she could have easily gotten distracted by croissant dough and decorating cakes, or maybe she had even dropped her phone in a bowl filled with batter, leaving it to dry before she attempted to access it.

Marinette was known for finding herself in unique predicaments like that, but something gnawed at his gut, telling him, everything is not okay.  

Would it be too much to ping her phone’s location? She would never know, and it would bring some ease to his racing mind. No , he promised that her boundaries were to be respected. It would eat away at him knowing he had lied to her. 

So, he waited. He waited through the sunset, knowing it had only just brushed the skies of Paris when the call had abruptly ended. Her world had long gone dark, and surely, she was wrapped up in a heap of blankets, snoozing to the gentle hum of the Parisian streets. He told himself she was safe, repeating it like a mantra in his head. She was safe, he knew, he hoped, he prayed. Marinette was safe.

But he couldn’t shake the fear. When Gotham began to come alight along the background of the night sky, he should have gone on patrol with his father. Bruce had even come calling, curious as to why Damian, always so punctual, could have missed their routine. He did not miss the terror hidden beneath steady eyes. He gave Damian the night off.

The moon had crested high above the city, but Damian stayed alert. In a silent room, sitting crisscross like a child on top of his bed, he stared helplessly at his phone. All he needed was for her name to flash across the screen. He just needed her to be safe.

Bruce returned just shy of three o’clock, with no arrests beneath his utility belt for the night. He peeled off the batsuit, trudged up the stairs, and knocked at Damian’s door once more. 

“Maybe you could check a Parisian news outlet. If something has happened, they would be the first to report it,” he gently whispered to his son.

Everything was great – fine and dandy, even. No horrifying breaking news appeared from Paris well into the morning. No news was meant to signify good news, his classmates always said – not that he had ever taken their words to heart. The average citizen, even in Gotham, did not understand the true horror that lurked beneath the surface. No news spelled bad news in the eyes of a vigilante. No news meant someone was plotting, and there was no telling what that may be. Nothing was fine and dandy. It never was in Damian’s life.

Sunlight was streaming through Damian’s bedroom window now, but he remained alert, perched on top of his bed. Marinette had been just as silent as the news, and that only worried him more. Although she often overslept, it wasn’t like her to sleep in so late. Surely, he reasoned, she would call him, scrambled and swollen-eyed, to tell him a crazy turn of events resulting in her silence that only Marinette could experience. Perhaps her alarm exploded, or something of the sort.

Dick encouraged his brother to call her first, but the line never rang. He was sent straight to her inbox, which had become so crowded, he could not even leave a message.

Something was very wrong, and he was going to find out what it was.

“You cannot just pack up and hop on a plane to Paris! You have school! You’re Robin, for goodness’ sake!”

Damian didn’t have the patience to listen to his brother’s protests. All he knew was that Marinette was in danger, and he couldn’t leave her to deal with it alone. Maybe he could save her. Maybe he would have to leave a trail of bodies in his wake. It didn’t matter what he had to do, but he couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t lose Marinette. 

Right as Damian began shoving his emergency toiletry bag in his duffel – he was always one to be over prepared – Dick laid a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“Dami, I understand more than anyone how scary it can be to not hear from someone you love. It took me weeks to get used to the fact that Kori was somewhere in space without so much as a goodbye,” Dick gently said, his eyes full of understanding.

But Damian knew Dick could never understand. He backed out of Dick’s grip, chiding him, “This is not the same! Kori was always supposed to leave. Her purpose was bigger than us. And I know that if you had had access to a ship, you would have chased her across the cosmos!” Dick stepped back in shock. “Marinette is just a civilian, a normal girl who doesn’t have to worry about alien overlords! If something happened, I have to be there for her!”

Dick’s eyes hardened, any sense of understanding seemingly dissipating. 

“This is about the greater good, Damian. The Rogues are planning something, and Bruce needs you now more than ever. You can’t leave.”

Damian roughly shoved more clothing into his bag, as well as a few knives and bat-paraphernalia he kept hidden in his room, growling, “I can and I will.”

“You love her, don’t you?” A statement more than a question.

Their eyes met from across the room, steely resolve settling in Damian’s chest. It was something he had known instinctively, just as knew breathing and the beat of his own heart. It had come rushing at him all at once one afternoon, as he listened to her soft snoring. Marinette often fell asleep towards the end of these calls, her phone propped up to show her relaxed face.

He saw a soft smile bloom on her face. Whatever she was dreaming of was sweet, and he knew he would do anything to protect that.

“More than anything in this world.”

A heavy stillness fell between them, two men at an impasse. Dick knew he couldn’t say anything to change his brother’s mind – that’s just how he was. When Damian set his mind on something, he was nearly impossible to sway.

“Then, I’m coming with you,” Dick declared.

Damian hesitated before relenting, “Alright. Don’t slow me down.”

Dick moved to the door to go pack his own duffel bag, but right as he reached the threshold, he heard Damian mutter, “Thank you.”

He raised him right, after all, he supposed. At least he had instilled manners in one of his brothers. The greater good could wait a few days, or at the very least, he knew his family could hold out if need be. They were in this together.

Within the hour, the two men were sitting on the Wayne family’s private jet, duffel bags at their feet and the silence palpable. They knew the plan, had recited it to each other over and over.

First, Damian would head to the bakery, while Dick would keep an eye on the perimeter from a rooftop nearby. Damian would enter through the front, greet the Dupain-Cheng’s, and learn what they knew about Marinette. It would be simple and hopefully, seamless. But nothing ever went that way when Marinette was involved.

The moment the wheels had touched the landing strip, Damian knew he was walking into a warzone. The gut-wrenching feeling settled in his stomach, threatening to spill bile down his shirt, but he choked it back. He knew Dick could sense it, too. There would be no simple plan, no seamless rescue.

Danger covered them like a blanket, despite there being no outward sign of it. Something was very wrong in Paris, and Damian Wayne was going to get to the bottom of it.

Before his feet had touched the final step out of the plane, he broke into a sprint. He didn’t care how far he had to run; he just knew his senses would lead him exactly where he needed to go. Dick trailed behind him, barely breaking a sweat despite the break-neck speed Damian had forced him into towards the road.

A car pulled up beside him, Dick having called for the driver, and they both leapt into the car without a moment’s hesitation. This would undoubtedly be faster than even their quickest sprint.

“We need to get to The Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie,” Damian demanded before he had even settled into the seat. “There’s no time to waste!”

Their driver shifted the car into drive and sped off, but worry lines permeated his face. Damian caught on to it instantly, his entire body going into a panic.

“What’s wrong? What aren’t you telling us?”

Their driver swallowed before his trembling voice broke, “There’s something you must know, Master Wayne.”

“Then spit it out!”

Damian was lurching forward before Dick grabbed ahold of him and held him down in the back seat. He wriggled against his hold, but it was no use. Dick had the upper hand, and there would be no strangled drivers on his watch. Through the windshield, they saw the distant outline of Paris, crushed and mangled, and their faces paled.

“Paris has a curse, one that can only be discussed with those who are already aware of it, which you now are,” the driver whispered. “A man named Hawkmoth, who uses magic, has been haunting the city for months by turning civilians into monsters.”

Turning civilians into monsters. Marinette.

Dick pressed his hand firmly over Damian’s mouth to prevent any interruptions.

“We have two heroes who serve to protect us from him, as well as an onslaught of rotating sidekicks, but right now they’re losing…very badly.”

Before their driver could continue, the car lurched to the right as a concrete slab slammed into the road beside them. The car began to spin, before coming to a stop a few feet from another smoking vehicle. Damian began to realize that no other cars were moving on the road, completely abandoned. 

The driver suddenly began to cry inconsolably, shaking hands covering his face. He sobbed, “I can’t go any further, sirs. I don’t want to die. Your friend probably already has, but I can’t. I’m so sorry, sirs.”

Damian was going to kill Tim. He would hunt him down, strangle him, and hang him outside his room as a warning. No, better yet, Damian would leave him on the brink of death, dump him in the Lazarus Pit, and let his mother find and kill him herself. She would surely deliver his remnants on their doorstep. Yes, this was perfect. Then, his father couldn’t blame him for the loss of Tim.

Tim, however, saw this coming the moment he sent the email to Marinette. Packing up a few weeks worth of clothes, he decided to take an extended vacation to somewhere even Damian couldn’t break into – Ma and Pa Kent’s farm in Smallville. Of course, he had taken along Cassie, Bart, and Kon as extra precautions, and as an excuse to see his friends. Damian should have known Tim was planning something when he agreed to spend two weeks in the middle of nowhere, away from both his job as Red Robin and as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Damian was stupid to allow this to happen in the first place.

He was going to have to bide his time. Damian would place hidden cameras on every entrance into the Wayne mansion and Wayne Enterprises headquarters, including windows and vents. These would have a built in radar to alert Damian of anyone entering. He would catch his brother, one way or another through the power of vigilance.

Bruce could not know this was happening, so he would have to be careful. He’d make sure to steer clear of Alfred, too. Even though their butler did not have the necessary detective skills to find the devices on his own, if even a whiff of them came back to Alfred’s ear, Damian would likely never be allowed to leave his room without permission again. Batman may be scary on the streets of Gotham, but within the mansion, everyone knew it was Alfred you should truly fear.

Acquiring the cameras would be the easy part. Damian always kept devices like these on hand, knowing that they would come in handy on missions, and even more so against his brothers. He would just have to find the best time to place them. Perhaps, he could receive help from Duke, goading him into it with the looming fear of Damian doing the same to him.

To his benefit, Bruce was out on a mission with the Justice League, and Alfred had gone grocery shopping. This was the time. This was the perfect plan.

“The hell are you doing?”

Strike that. It was the perfect plan until Jason decided to visit at the most inopportune time. If there was one thing that had always bothered Damian about his brother, it was the fact that he had no presence. Their father said it was a side effect of the Lazarus Pit, or maybe the fact that he used to be dead, but Jason was able to silently sneak up on Damian without ever alerting him of it. It was annoying most days, but today especially, it caused a nerve to snap within him.

“Nothing of your concern, Todd,” Damian quipped, turning around casually to face his brother. He tried his best to pretend there was nothing happening. At least, nothing that would draw Jason’s unwanted attention. “Decided to visit since Baba is gone? You should really get past that little grudge of yours. It makes family dinners decidedly uncomfortable.”

Damian smirked at the slight twitch of Jason’s left eye. That was what he always did when he became frustrated. Clenched fists, a left eye twitch, and the air seemed to weigh a little heavier around him, but Damian grew up in the League. This reaction would never have any measure against what he had been born into. It was laughable how anyone could fear Jason in times such as these.

“Listen, whatever you’re doing better not interrupt my time here. I just came to bake with Alfred, so this sneaky shit you’re doing? Leave me out of it,” Jason grumbled. Damian knew he was meant to be menacing, but he looked more like a grumpy cat than anything.

They stared each other down for a moment before simultaneously deciding to walk in opposing directions. For this battle, Damian had won, but many still lay ahead in this war.

Just as he reached the other side of the room, Jason called back to him. “Hey, squirt! Give that stupid pen pal thing a try, will ya? Dick won’t quit pestering me about it, and I’m tired of having to ignore his calls.”

When Damian looked back to meet his eyes, he was taken aback. Of all people, Jason Todd was smiling at him. He scowled in return.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Damian swiftly exited the room and made a beeline for the next window requiring a camera installation. Brushing aside Jason’s odd behavior, Damian was determined to have every place in the mansion tapped before Tim could even dream of stepping inside. He would deal with Jason another day. For now, justice awaited him.

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Tim Drake

Hello Marinette,

This sounds wonderful. While I hope you gain the recognition your designs deserve, I am afraid I have heard unfortunate things about Timothy Drake and his history with designers. Just recently, it was rumored of his split from Audrey Bourgeois. Many believe it was stylistic differences, but the truth is, Drake is a horribly picky client. It was only a matter of time before Bourgeois became tired of the never-ending disputes on his daily attire.

Perhaps, it would be better to pursue opportunities with other clients. I’m sure Jagged Stone is capable of giving your designs the foothold in the states they deserve.

On an entirely different note, it seems two of my dear brothers have become aware of our relations. I had initially led them to believe that their attempt on improving my social standing was a fruitless endeavor, but I could not lead them astray for long.

Thomas became aware of our conversations on accident, but I threatened him into submission. Hopefully he does not become a bother to either party. The other brother, however, has become quite the nuisance.

As of now, he has fled the city on an extended “vacation,” but I am calmly awaiting his return. Revenge will find his company in due time. I will keep you updated on this situation as we both see fit.

Attached are pictures of Batcow, as you requested. I appreciate your patience. As you can see, her name is derived from her markings, which are reminiscent of the costuming of Batman and Robin, famed heroes of Gotham and longtime partners of the Justice League. I will let her know your thoughts on her posing ability. She is much more difficult to photograph than either Titus or Alfred.

For Now, Damian

–

Damian stared at his monitor for an hour, deleting and retyping one sentence before ultimately deciding he couldn’t send it.

‘How have you progressed on your path to finding a new love?’

He couldn’t ask her that. He couldn’t even ask Jon something like that, and they had been friends for years. The two boys know almost everything about each other, but one topic they never broached was love.

They had loved each other once, in a way much different from now. Damian would dream of a life where he and Jon could live freely – no legacies, no superheroes, and no assassins. Just them, living a life they could only ever imagine. Jon finally kissed him one evening and his stomach soared, but that was exactly the problem. Damian knew they could only ever love each other in this fictional life he had once conjured. Who they were, the sons of Superman and Batman, could not fit the love they shared into the life they lived now. The life they had to live.

If he could never find a place to fit Jon’s love, how could he fit Marinette’s? Or, the hope of Marinette finding it. Damian Wayne did not need Marinette’s love to be placed upon him. He would support, but in this life, he could never even wish to receive. That would be unfair to her.

Damian did not love romantically. He loved Jon as you would an old friend. He loved his father as you would your own blood. He loved his brothers in the begrudging way you would when you’ve shared the same life. He loved his sister and Barbara and Stephanie as you would when you’ve suffered the same fate. He knew what it was to love, but he could never be in love the way others were.

He saw the eyes that Tim made at Bernard and in secret towards Kon. The same ones Dick shared when he spoke of Koriand’r, and the soft gaze he drew facing the sky. Once, even his father had taken that look, too, speaking of the ‘old days’ and a name he wouldn’t say.

Romance was saved for people with hope still bright in their heart. Marinette was one of those people, but Damian knew he never would be. He could not ask Marinette about her love life. All he could do was encourage her and push her to a new partner whenever she prompted the discussion. She needed a partner full of light to match her own, and Damian was too far in the darkness to salvage any light now.

If Marinette had learned anything about Damian, it’s that he was very punctual. He was always on time to class, finished his homework in the hour he allotted each night, and his texts were delivered quickly, so long as he wasn’t in bed or class. It wasn’t like him to disappear off the face of the Earth.

After a vague discussion on the possibility of Damian arriving in Paris for the final stage of her contest, he had stopped responding to her messages, let alone reading them. She assumed it was a broken phone and tried emailing him for good measure, but all she received in return was radio silence. It didn’t help that not only had Duke forgone any social media activity at the same time, but Tim called her to let her know he had urgent business back in Gotham and the final adjustments would have to be done by an on-site attendant.

Alya reassured her that no, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Boys were just stupid like that sometimes, and it was very likely there was a good reason for all three of them to drop off the map simultaneously. So she went about her week as if it mattered very little to her.

What a lie that was.

Thankfully, she had many things in place to distract her. Paris had entered a cold front, so there was now lots of baking to be done. When the weather turned cold, many commuters would stop in for a warm baked good and a steaming cup of coffee on their morning stroll. Anything to keep them from freezing before reaching their jobs.

Marinette was working overtime to help her parents prepare each night for the morning rush. She readied ingredients, left dough to cool in the fridge, and tried her hardest to leave the kitchen as clean as she had found it – a difficult task for as clumsy as she happened to be.

On top of that, there was a major exam coming up in her history class, and she had finally received news about the upcoming finale of the Paris Young Designers Contest.

She was to begin sewing immediately. For the opening round, candidates had sent in a line of designs with a few mock pieces for reference. Her’s was centered around flowers and their meanings. Something about her continued partnership with Tikki had drawn her to like flowers more than she cared to admit.

For the second part, she was to create the line. Each piece would be examined by a professional who would come to each contestant individually and give critiques.

From there, she would use the notes given to her by the professional to improve the line before presenting it at the final fashion show on New Year’s Eve.

Everyone who was anyone in the industry would be there in the hopes of scouting new interns to add to their team. In years past, some contestants had even been lucky enough to be propositioned by investors to start their own company. The fame earned from the show could easily help them grasp a foothold into the world of fashion.

Right now, she had three weeks before the professional showed up on her doorstep to tear her designs apart, and only half of her line was finished. If she had any hope of getting a half decent review, she needed to keep her focus off of Damian and in the game. Quite frankly, the fabric draped over every surface of her room was starting to feel like it was mocking her.

After four straight days of sewing, stitching, baking, and studying, Marinette was going to rip her hair out. It was a helpful distraction to ignore her worries over her pen pal, but she hadn’t left her apartment aside from school and if she didn’t see the outside world soon, she may very well let herself be bald. Anything had to be better than this.

She dressed herself into the first cohesive outfit she could find – mom jeans and a pink sweater – and threw her stained pajamas into a pile in the corner. She had been wearing them for two days now, and the butter from the bakery was starting to crust onto them. It was certainly not her best moment.

Grabbing a purse and her long neglected phone, she raced down the stairs to put on a pair of old, graffitied sneakers. They were far from fashionable, but they were comfortable and Adrien had helped her paint them. She couldn’t bear to get rid of them when they held such treasured memories.

Marinette burst through the front door and raced down to the street below at record speed, not knowing where it was she had planned to go. She just needed to get away from here.

The afternoon sky was dark, clouds heavy with a whisper of rain. She wouldn’t be able to stay out long, but a few minutes of fresh air was worth the trouble. Her feet began walking, her mind clueless to their goal, but eventually she reached the park.

It was empty, of course, as it always was before it rained. The wind blew whatever leaves remained on tree branches to scatter past her and into the streets. There was something serene about it all. It was quiet, and Marinette could not remember the last time she had known Paris to be so. But she closed her eyes and let the ambience move through her.

The wind blew once more, curling loose hair over her face. She moved with it, laying down on the grass swaying peacefully around her, her back to the cold, hard ground. She was at peace for the first time in months.

There were attempts in that time to reach that lovely feeling, but they garnered little success. It was difficult to compare a forced calmness to true peace. Even the rain drops beginning to sprinkle onto her face could not ruin the moment.

Let the storm carry me away, she mused to herself. Perhaps it would be easier than all of this.

She didn’t think about boys or Batman’s momentary presence in Paris. Nor did she think of half-sewn designs and embroidery. Overflowing orders and baked goods remained in the kitchens at home. Akuma anxiety kept its distance. And her failure of a love life didn’t even dare to haunt her this time.

Marinette was soaked to the bone in cold rain, but her muscles relaxed and her mind kept steady in its pursuit of tranquility. She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, basking in the beauty of mother nature’s storm, before a dull ringing demanded her attention.

It took her a few moments before she realized what the source of the sound was. Her phone. Her phone was ringing, and who in the world was calling her?

Her eyes were blurry from letting the rain gather in them, so she didn’t bother to check the caller ID and answered with a groggy, “Hello?”

“Hello, Marinette,” returned a deep, gruff voice in English.

She switched over immediately to the uncomfortable language. “May I ask who’s speaking?”

“Yes..” An uncomfortable cough. “This is…Dami.”

Dami? Did she know a Dami? Surely, she would remember a name as interesting as –

Oh, Kwamis, it was Damian.

“Oh my! I should have checked my caller ID,” Marinette panicked. “I’m so sorry to have made you feel so awkward!”

He chuckled a bit on the other end, and her heart skipped a beat. She had never heard his voice before this, so how did one man have this much effect on her just by speaking? Maybe she had a fever. Why else would her face feel so warm?

“Uh, what’s up?” Stupid! Who even responds like that?

“I had not spoken to you in a few days, so I believe I owe you an explanation.” He paused slightly. “And an apology.”

Her hand went up to fiddle with a strand of hair. As soon as she made contact with the wet curl, she jerked her hand away in surprise. Kwamis, had she been out in the rain that long?

She laughed out awkwardly, “I’m a little lost. What are you apologizing for again?”

Damian took a deep breath, and she blushed a little more at the sound of it through the phone. She really needed to work on getting flustered so easily.

“First and foremost, I would like to apologize on behalf of my brothers. They unfortunately have little knowledge in the ways of boundaries, and they let the excitement of our friendship cloud their judgment. There is no excuse for how Tim betrayed your trust. He took advantage of your kindness and came to you with deceit rather than good intentions, and that was a line that did not deserve to be crossed.

“I also would like to apologize on my own behalf. While I did not outright lie to you regarding my identity, I withheld important information. You trusted me with various personal information of your own, and I failed to even give you my real last name. The packages you mailed to Damian Al Ghul at a P.O. box in Gotham were for Damian Wayne, delivered to and opened in the family manor.

“I did not want you to know I was famous, even if it happened to be by proxy of my father. I wanted to believe you could know me without knowing who the media believed me to be, and still find me worthy. I thought I could not trust you, despite you never giving me the indication that my worries had any foundation. I have treated you like a fool, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

Marinette was caught off guard. She wasn’t sure what to say in response, but he thankfully continued.

“I regret having left you this week with worry on your mind due to my absence. I suffered a nervous breakdown.” His voice trembled over the words, and she felt sick. “Father has kept me confined to my bed out of worry, and I felt too guilty to message you. I had done wrong by you. My brothers had done wrong by you. I could not bear to face the consequences.

“I understand if you do not wish to continue our communication further.”

Finally, Marinette found her words, almost shouting, “Why would I want that?"

She could hear his surprise in a small gulp through the phone, but she continued on.

“I realize now that, yes, Tim did cross boundaries, but I don’t hold it against him. The way he spoke about you while he was here; it’s clear that he thought he was just trying to look out for you. I was a stranger, who had the attention of his younger brother. I’m sure he just wanted to protect you, in his own misguided way.”

“But–”

“Dami, it’s alright. Tim meant no harm, nor did Duke.” She smiled to herself before whispering, “And I’m not mad at you in the slightest. Sure, I was a bit lonely, and you could have given me a heads up. But I won’t hold your caution against you. It isn’t easy to be vulnerable with another person, especially one you’ve never even met.”

Damian coughed. “You’re too forgiving.”

And she laughed in return, “I get that a lot, I’m afraid.”

They were lulled into a comfortable silence, and Marinette finally drug herself from the grass to head towards home. If she wanted to avoid a sick leave in the middle of the contest, she’d have to change and shower sooner rather than later. But she kept the phone pressed close to her ear, listening to the gentle sounds of Damian’s breathing.

“Perhaps it is time I work on overcoming my need to hide away,” he said quietly and suddenly.

“Oh? And how are you going to do that?” She knew the question was dangerous before she even let it fall from her mouth, but she swore she could hear him smile through her phone.

“No.”

Dick threw his arm over his younger brother’s shoulder, sweetly saying, “Oh, come on. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

“Absolutely not,” Damian replied. He shrugged Dick’s arm off of him before walking towards the hall to his room. “I refuse to be forced into your ill-considered schemes. Perhaps Thomas would be more receptive to such an asinine endeavor.”

Tim, Jason, and Dick followed their brother down the hallway, laptop in Tim’s hand. Damian walked with purpose, trying as he may to escape the shenanigans the boys would attempt to force him into.

Tim cried behind him, “Dami, we already looked into her background and everything! She would be a perfect pen pal for someone as socially stunted as you!” He shoved a laptop screen filled with pictures of a teenage girl in front of Damian’s face.

“See, she’s into art like you, and she seems like a big animal fan.”

“And she used to do martial arts as a kid! She won like six championships. You can bond over being ridiculously buff child prodigies,” Dick smiled, once more breaching Damian’s ‘no-touch’ rule with a hand gripping his cheeks. He forced his face to look at the screen.

“She has lots of pictures with friends, too. She could probably make friends with a rock – not that it’s much different than befriending you,” Jason teased.

Damian grabbed Dick’s hand and squeezed into the pressure point between his thumb and forefinger. Dick released him with a wince, and Damian resumed his walk back to the safety and solitude of his bedroom. A single lock may not be able to prevent his brothers from barging into his room, but surely a set of drawers in front of the door would save him some time. He settled the idea in his head, reading his body to make the necessary movements.

Damian was pulled back abruptly by his shirt. He turned to scowl at the assailant, “Leave me alone. I already have enough friends.”

Tim grinned. “Titus and Alfred the cat don’t count as friends.”

“Neither does the coffee pot, Drake, but you seem to spend an absurd amount of time with it.”

That earned Damian a look of annoyance from Tim, but a chuckle from the other offenders.

Damian pulled himself from his brother’s grip and opened his bedroom door. The boys set to follow him before the door was shut in their faces. The lock clicking was almost barely heard over their repeated knocking.

Inside the room, Damian swiftly moved his set of drawers in front of the door, and double-checked the lock. For his own piece of mind and additional safety measures, he reached up to put into place the chain-lock he had installed weeks prior after Dick had burst into his room unannounced during his painting time. He would never live down the embarrassment of his older brother cooing over the portrait of Titus in the garden he had been working on at the time.

Dick had been promptly kicked out, and the chain-lock was ordered minutes later.

The knocking continued, accompanied by the rattling door knob and three squalling men. Damian sat on his bed, pulled the book from his nightstand, and ignored the sounds. He could hear a few kicks at the door and defeated sighs.

“Serves them right,” he muttered.

A paper slid under the door and past the drawers. He simply turned on his side toward the wall in response.

“Damian, just look at the email! Here’s the password and everything. Give her a chance, at the very least,” yelled Tim.

No reply was given.

After a few minutes of quiet mumbling, Damian heard the three men shuffle away and back down the hallway. It was impossible not to hear Dick’s leather pants rubbing together quietly as they walked further and further away. Why his brother chose such ridiculous clothing as loungewear was beyond him. It was like he was asking for someone to break in and kidnap him because he couldn’t move fast enough in those stiff pants.

Whatever. His brothers could continue on their tirade of stupidity in their own rooms, far away from Damian.

–

“I told you that it wouldn’t work,” Cassandra signed with a smirk. She was perched on a chair, legs scrunched up beside her.

Tim threw himself down onto the sitting room couch, groaning into the cushions. His brothers followed close behind, seating themselves on his back. Tim only groaned louder.

“What the hell have you guys been eating? I’ve been hit with boulders lighter than the two of you.”

Jason only pressed more weight onto the boy beneath him, and Dick replied, “This is what happens when you skip training to go on dates with Bernard. Besides, this is what big brothers are for!”

“I didn’t know ‘big brothers’ were meant to suffocate me! And just because your love life went ass up doesn’t mean everyone else’s has to!”

Jason laughed. “Pipe down, Timothy. You’re breathing just fine.”

Dick and Jason began taunting their brother’s dramatics, assisted by flying hands and exaggerated faces. Cass laughed quietly. This only encouraged the two to poke fun at Tim further. Tim, on the other hand, was trying to swat at their legs to push them off.

As much as he complained about their picking, Tim was glad. Jason had been struggling to readjust to his relationship with Bruce and Dick over the past few years. Dying and being resurrected against your own will tends to do that to people.

The first few months, he didn’t know how to cope with having been replaced by Tim, and when he discovered Stephanie had also taken up the mantle of Robin in his absence, he became angrier. For him, that spot by Bruce’s side was a special place — his safety blanket. No matter how much he resented Bruce for the circumstances surrounding his death, he couldn’t give up on the possibility of returning to being Robin, the only place he had ever truly belonged. He has felt like the carpet was ripped out from under him.

The process was slow, stumbles and fights along the way, but Jason made the effort to stay at the manor at least once a month. He said it was because he missed Alfred’s cooking, but moments like these let the family know that everything was going to be alright, even thought he still avoided Bruce as much as he could. It would get better, as all things do, one step at a time.

The same could be said for Damian, who had shown up with unchecked violence and emotional instability not long after their brother. For him, being Robin was a means to an end. His father and mother’s legacy was all he had ever thought about, so each kid Bruce had brought in before him was nothing more than an obstacle to overcome.

His relationship with Tim started full of resentment for one another, mirroring each other’s flaws in ways neither wished to see, but time had changed them and in turn, how they viewed the other. Their hesitant alliance turned into genuine family ties. Tim wanted nothing more than for his successor to thrive. Damian had a deep stain on his heart, and Tim wished to heal it in whatever way possible.

They would find another way to remedy the darkness in his little brother’s heart. If there was one thing this family didn’t know how to do, it was to give up, especially on those they love.

– If there was one thing Damian Wayne could count on a family of vigilantes to do, it was to stick their noses where they did not belong. This intrusive habit had gone on since the first few months he had arrived at his father’s manor. Dick was determined to break into his icy exterior, calling it nothing more than “a front to keep out anything that could possibly be good for him.” Idiocy, truly.

This manner had continued on, manifesting itself into setting Damian up for a pen pal exchange without his knowledge. He pitied the poor fool who had signed up for the website with good intentions only to be matched with him. They would be a nitwit to think he would email them.

Which is how he found himself sitting in front of his computer, staring at what could only be described as a word-vomit of positivity.

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Introducing Ourselves :)

Hello, Redbird!

Is it okay if I call you that?

My name is Marinette, but many of my friends call me Mari (hopefully it’s not too soon to call you a friend). I am from Paris, France, and I am a busybody in every definition of the word. Currently, I am serving as class president, while also building my portfolio for design school and taking commissions. If there is anything you would like designed, I’m sure I could squeeze an order or two in! ;)

I’ve never done this kind of thing before, but my friend, Alya, recommended I try it in order to improve my English-speaking ability. I’d love to get to know more about you.

I hope we become great friends! (and that my English improves)

Au revoir, Mari