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Chapter Text

The school year had been rough. She felt like she could say that thousands of thousand times and still it wouldn’t explain exactly how tired she felt after dealing with her classmates for two entire semesters. Lila had built an empire of lies around her, dragging whoever wanted to hear her into the maze, so Marinette was alone now most of the time. She still had a few friends from outside of class such as Kagami, Luka, and Aurore, however, she couldn’t find it in herself to trust them with everything. She had already been betrayed enough times for her own liking. So, although not bad exactly, Marinette had made an art of spending her time alone and thriving on her new sparetime, she was still tired.

By that point she only wanted to lay in bed during the entire summer and sleep the tiredness off. 

Sadly, Marinette had already promised Jagged and Penny that she was going to accompany them in Jagged’s tour through the U.S. The two had adopted her as a sort of niece for the last 4 years since they had met her. So off she went with them, with her parents blessing, to help with the musician’s wardrobe and styling problems. At least it served for her resume. She could say that she had had an internship for The Jagged Stone. (it’s not like her own fashion brand, MDC, wasn’t working. There were already several finished commissions that she had to send before the day was done).

Though, Ladybug still had to do a final patrol. She had already warned Chat Noir that she was going on vacation, so that she would only be present for battles, using Kalki to teleport back and forth. It was a good plan, but it still made her uncomfortable to be away for so long, even more so now that she and the cat had decided not to use temporary holders. Hawkmoth and Mayura had a nasty habit of learning their identities.

Her relationship with the destruction holder was also not great, to say the least. She knew he was constantly busy, but still his constant missing of battles and disregard for the danger of akumas was making her weary. She almost felt like she was the sole upholder of balance in the city, while everyone else just held no regards for any consequences or troubles whatsoever.

But she took herself out of her musings, she still had things to do before dealing with all of that. She stood up in the middle of her own room, grabbing the already made packets with all her commissions, and headed out to go to the mail. With quick words to her parents she headed out of the bakery through the side door, making her way through the city with her arms full of packets. Thankfully, the post office was almost empty, so she did all her errands swiftly and was free for the day. She decided to stop for a coffee on her way home, just to give herself a treat for finishing the school year and having everything ready for an exciting vacation overseas. 

Marinette ordered a Latte and two brownies, storing one in her pocket as soon as it was given to her. “For later” she answered the unspoken question of the barista, smile on her face as she let herself out of the coffeeshop. She walked at a leisured pace beside the Seine, smiling at Tikki as each one munched on her respective brownie. Once home, she let herself in and shouted a greeting to her parents who were closing the shop down before dinner. On her way to her room, she threw the now empty cup of coffee in the trash making a basketball throw and smiling at her luck when it fell in. 

She spent the rest of the afternoon finishing her luggage and cleaning her room, while simultaneously talking to the small kwami and passing the time relaxing. Dinner was a happy affair as her parents had prepared her favourite meal as both a end of the school year celebration and a last meal as a family until she came back from the tour. 

That night she transformed and went to patrol with a smile on her face. She tried to memorize the view from her favourite spots around the twenty arrondissements of the city, making a note to draw them later as she was sure she would miss the freedom that patrolling provided. She only had to stop a few altercations and a bar fight. But the crisp air of a summer night and the feeling of parkouring and free falling made her night a pleasant one.

The next day, she was up and ready early in the morning. her parents more glad than anything to see her leave Paris, seeing how much of a toll everything had taken on their lovely daughter. They drove her to the airport were Penny and Jagged were waiting next to the international flight’s entrance. After greeting the two of them, Mari turns around and says goodbye to her parents promising to call and giving them a last hug each.

 As they leave, Mari can’t help but to turn to give a final wave to her parents knowing that she will miss them but hoping that she would have a good summer vacation. Toma and Sabine wave back to her, before turning to leave, hoping that this experience will help their daughter. They had noticed how alone she had seemed lately and how she has been lacking her usual exuberance.  They have only been able to watch and stand by as she slowly wilts under all of Paris’ pressures.

******************

In the darkness of a cave, a woman plotted. A few men loyal to her waited at her back and a dead man was lying on the ground in front of her hidden by a shroud fitted for a king. They were scarcely illuminated, a few torches hanging from the rocky walls, emitting strange shadows throughout the protuberances of the rock, and the faces of the ones in attendance.

The woman was seated on the cold stone in the middle of the room near a pit with murky waters.  There was a book at her side and a handheld mortar her hands, various flasks and and stems of dubious origins surrounded her, all empty of their content. Her hands moved with efficiency and precision grinding the stone against the different plants and ingredients until she had an homogeneous concoction of a muted brown colour. Grabbing some of the paste with her fingers she took a final look at the page of the opened book and started to draw on the skin of the corpse. Her mouth moved making almost inaudible sounds as she smeared the same runes written on the book into the black and gold fabric.

With a sudden gust of wind, the flames started to flicker causing the shadows to dance over every surface available. This movement, however, continued even after the wind had stopped causing the men guarding the entrance to look around in wonder and fear. They didn’t notice the intrusion.

 A new shadow solidified from the darkness on the other end of the cavern. Another woman, this one dressed in purple and silver, came to seat next to the first one. 

“I thought you weren’t coming, sister” the one whose fingers were covered in brown paste said once every rune had been drawn. 

“Although I don’t approve, I will help you” was the other one’s only response.

Giving a decisive nod both women, one in red the other in purple, sat side by side reciting the final words for the ceremony. Waiting with bated breath, both stared at the shroud until the ancient runes started to become more defined, gaining more colour and turning from a dirty brown into a blood red. Each ancient letter seemed then to radiate power and a malignant energy born from blood and war.

Around them, the lights that had been flickering dimmed and the cave was covered in even more darkness. From the pit came now a noticeable radiance, glowing in a sickly green colour that seemed to call to the redness of the shroud. Everything stopped, tension running through every person that was present. The sudden silence was deafening, the stillness of the air making the feeling of wrongness and tension more apparent. However, the two women didn’t stop to contemplate the sudden chill that run through their backs and the coldness of the stone that seemed to anchor them to the rock. With a final prayer, both women stood up and, ignoring every instinct in their body, rolled the body into the pit letting it splash against its cloudy waters. 

“I hope he is still himself” said the eldest, looking with an impassive face the unbreached surface of the pit while the green glow reflected in the silver of her armour. 

The warrior dressed in red and black answered:

“He will be, he’s always been” 

Out of the water bursted suddenly the figure of a man, ageless and turbulent as the water surrounding him.

“Father” she greeted while the green light source reflected in her teeth as she smiled, “You have been missed”.

Chapter Text

It had been a couple of weeks when they finally got a break. Marinette talked with her parents almost daily, and made sure to send a message to her friends every now and then, the only moments when she allowed herself to stop for a few minutes of the whirlwind of what was Jagged Stone’s rock tours. That day she found herself eating takeaway with Penny and Jagged in their suite, the three of them finally taking a break. They were placed around the small coffee table of living space, Penny on one side halfway leaning on the artist’s shoulder and Mari on the other with the TV at her back.

She was hunched over her plate, her eye’s dropping with sleep. There had been an akuma back home while she was sleeping, so she had to get up on the middle of the night to deal with it, Thankfully she had her own room so teleporting back and forth wasn’t an issue, but the akuma had been an intense one, and Chat had been late again so she had to deal with it for a few long hours before the akumatized item was purified. As a result, she had had very little time to sleep, an Fang, Jagged’s pet, had eaten part of the wardrobe for tonight’s show making it so she couldn’t take a nap like she desperately wanted. So she really couldn’t be faulted for not hearing the discussion between the two adults when the musician asked: “c’mon Mari, tell Penny here that it will be a wonderful idea”
It took her too long a second to realize that the question had been directed at her.
“Wait, what??” was her elaborate response.

The two adults shared a look before staring at her again. Penny was the first to answer her, a worried look on her face.
“Jagged was saying that he wanted to go meet an old friend whose hometown wasn’t that far away from the next concert location. Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea, you can take it as a vacation, sightsee a little, go to shops … it could do you some good Mari after all this is also your vacation time.”
“Yeah, we could totally make this a summer trip kido” exclaimed Jagged, “My friend Bruce lives in Gotham, we could go for a few days, maybe three or four. The fashion in Gotham is completely different from everywhere else, you are gonna love it. It’s so rock’n roll!!”
astounded, Marinette took a moment to process the information. “Suuure” was her final answer “if you think this is a good idea” she enquired looking at the manager.
“I wouldn’t be able to go, there are a few things I have to settle with the other part of the tour, but maybe I could join you on the fourth day? Jagged has five days free until the next interview on Metropolis, so I think it would be fine if you took off tomorrow morning. I can join you later in Gotham, before we head to Metropolis which is really close so there should be no problem.”

Marinette couldn't argue with that logic, she would more than welcome a few days to rest and just act like a tourist. After all, this was the first time she was in the united states, and until that point she couldn’t say that she had gotten to know any of the places they had visited.
She happily agreed so they kept talking and organizing the trip, until Penny got up to make the hotel reservations and Jagged went to call his old friend to tell him the news. She excused herself with a smile and a wave and headed to her room where she immediately picked her cellphone to inform/ask permission of her parents.
She wasn’t exactly prepared for them to be so worried, she had heard that Gotham had a bad reputation, but even her parents, that lived in Paris and constantly had to dealt with a supervillain, were scared of letting her go. At the end, they acquiesced, asking her to please keep safe and with Jagged and/or Fang at all times.
After ending the call, she decided to do some research on Gotham and its inhabitants, just to be safe. She already knew that Gotham had some vigilantes and villains but she wasn’t sure to what extent the cruelty or chaos that grew over the city extended. She discovered that was way darker than she thought, hiding all sorts of criminals and delinquents.

She would have to be constantly on alert, and getting a place to hide in order to transport and teleport would be difficult. However she hoped that Tikki’s luck would be on her side and help her if they ever came to be in a tricky situation.
With that in mind, and hundred plans and contingencies forming in her head she went to bed, not without first giving a cookie and a goodnight kiss to the luck goddess.

***************

The next day Marinette woke up late and, seeing a message from Penny on her phone, asked for breakfast to her room. The couple had apparently gone out to finish some preparation and to resolve some last minute problems, but they would be back for lunch. She spent the whole morning in pajamas just doing some new designs and looking at her social media. She had taken inspiration from the research of the day before and now had some pretty good designs based on Gotham’s heroes.

Lunch was a quiet affair between the three of them. They had decided to eat at the hotel’s restaurant so they didn’t have to go out and come back for the suitcases later. Marinette used the time to comment on the new designs she was working on and she listened to the two adults as they talked about their own morning.
When they finished the young designer went to her own room where she thankfully had almost everything packed. She hauled her suitcase and her other bags to the entrance and did a last check of the room. Making sure that nothing was forgotten in the wardrobe or under the bed. Then, after one las glance, she moved her things out of the door closing it behind herself. She met the other two at the hotel’s entrance where Penny was making the check out for the other two. Mari handed her the key card of the now vacated room and went to wait besides Jagged and Fang.

When that process was done, Penny guided the three ones under her care to the entrance where a black nondescript car was waiting for them. Although, none of Jagged Stone’s usual style, they were hoping to pass inadvertently to the press or possible fans that could recognize the rockstar. Thus, the car had to be pretty simple yet somehow safer than usual vehicles. Penny waved her husband and her little niece goodbye on the sidewalk, and promised to see them in a few days. They promised back to call if there were any issues or if they wanted to talk about anything. Thankfully, they didn’t have any problems on the whole trip so the girl decided to take a nap that lasted most of the ride and only woke up upon arriving to Wayne’s Hotel.

Apparently, Jagged’s friend had , after hearing form the musician himself that they were going to be in town, reserved for them a better room than they had asked for on the first place. After shuffling with their things and doing some paperwork for the hotel they headed to their suite. Marinette was begrudgingly impressed. She thought that Adrien and Chloe were wealthy but this was another level entirely. The suite looked more like an apartment, having two rooms, a living/ sitting area, a kitchen and two bathrooms. Plus, they had access to a small balcony with a few chairs and a hammock. To say the least, it was impressive.

Marinette chose the small bedroom and headed directly to one of the bathrooms for a quick shower and a change of clothes. Afterwards, she, Jagged and his crocodile decided to get some food out as, besides their trip to Gotham, Mari had been cupped up in a hotel the entire day. Although she wasn’t completely sure if this new room could be counted as such because of its enormous size. Back in the hotel’s lobby the adult got a recommendation for a near restaurant while the teenager made a call to her parents to inform them of their arrival to Gotham and following plans.

It took a while to convince Fang to put on his collar and leash, but it would be totally impractical to let the overgrown lizard run around on his own considering the dangerous city. Nonetheless, they managed after a lot of pleading and an unnecessary tear in the designers jacket that had her grumbling to the pet for most of their walk to the diner.
After that the night was tranquil and calm allowing the two french speakers to finish settling in for the night and preparing for the next day.

Chapter Text

It took a lot of Tikki’s help and practice to get the sleepy girl up on time as she slept right through the alarm. After a quick breakfast, the designer and the musician headed out to do some tourism. They had donned strategically inconspicuous clothing picked specifically by Marinette as they didn’t want to be recognized, or worst, mugged or kidnapped. Fang, sadly, had been left behind as he was too easy a give away and would have also made it difficult for them to visit some parts of the city.
The whole morning was spent walking through the safer parts of town and stopping to take some photos or to buy small gifts that Mari planned to give to her parents once back in Paris. Inside a gift shop, she noticed that there were a lot of knicknacks based on the city’s heroes, so she commented what she knew of them to Jagged which devolved in a very loud and animated conversation on the style of the suites and if they could or not be compared to Paris’ own heroes. Marinette ended up buying a Nightwing themed mug for her father, and, after a lot of debate, a necklace with the horrible colours of Robin’s suit.
“It’s hideous” she argued, and then to the artist’s concern “I love it!”
To the bewildered cashier she said “even a designer has to know the power of horrible items, with clashing colours, to bring a pop to a full design”. The young man, behind the machine just gave her a laugh and a timid acknowledgement: “I suppose”. But still his face said otherwise, and when the two customers left his store he just looked entirely baffled by the interaction and the happiness of the petite little girl.

A little after that they sat down for a coffee and a small snack outside a coffeehouse in the business street. There were a lot of banks and office buildings surrounding the small shop. At the end of the block, Mari could see the silhouette of the Wayne Enterprises main building, with its black glass reflecting the sun of the summer day. While sitting down, Jagged still fidgeted with the hem of his black leather jacket simultaneously muttering to himself.
“I hate them Mari” and “at least they are well made” left his mouth every now and then regarding the state of so called boring clothes.
His wardrobe manager, knowing this attitude by now, didn’t bat an eyelash in response. Used to the artist’s eccentricities, she kept scrolling down her phone gallery looking at the new photos they had taken of each other.

“Well, what’s the plan next?” she asked once she had her extra large cappuccino in her hands. She was kind of an addict to that stuff.
The adult just tiredly watched her drink the still scalding drink, still not used to the extremely large amount of coffee that his favorite designer consumed in a day. “well we still have some time before we have to go back and change. Bruce said that he was going to send a car to the hotel to get us before lunch. We are going to the manor were we can have some of Alfred’s amazing food. He is Bruce’s butler by the way, makes the best food. Except pastries, your parents bake better i have to admit…”
“And there isn’t going to be any problem with me going, right? I mean, if you want to spend time with your friend I can stay at the hotel”.
“I don’t think so little lady. I already told my pal about bringing my head designer, and he said that it was fine. He also has a few sons that he wanted to introduce me too, maybe they could be around your age? That could be so Rock n Roll!!”.

Although she hadn’t noticed before, Marinette felt a strange feeling in her gut that told her that something important was going to happen. She didn’t know exactly what but her years as the Guardian of the miraculous had taught her to trust her instincts. Still, there was no arguing with uncle Jagged once he had made up his mind and he really wanted to introduce her to his old friend.
Yet the feeling in her stomach wouldn't go away, and intensified even further when Jagged got up to pay the check. Right when he was reaching the door to go inside to the counter a boy her age came out dragging a pretty bedraggled older guy with him. They were looking the other way but she was able to see the dark hair and tanned skin of the one that seemed her age. With a flash of sadness she looked down. She could remember the same features in a boy from her childhood accompanied by green bright eyes and a sardonic smile. She missed him.
She watched them go, not turning once to look back.

In order to distract herself, she set on to pay attention to the people surrounding her. More specifically to the clothes they were wearing. She was determined to learn about Gotham’s unique fashion sense so she could apply it to later designs. Most of the suits that she could see were very sharp-looking, and well fitted. Since she was in the business district she wasn’t really surprised that most of them looked specifically fitted and not store bought. In Marinette’s eye, they were exactly the sort of thing that she would create for an important meeting or someone who had an important role in an office building. Nonetheless she could still see in them some accents that distinguished them from normal parisian suits. It was as if someone had put some punk accents into office attire, making a weird but strangely endearing picture.
Most women were wearing leather boots and dresses with some metallic studs on them. They clearly tended to darker colours with some red details thrown in. The men, on the other hand, were different because of the strange mix between skinny jeans and pantsuits. The pants tended to be slimmer and narrower than the ones she was used to seeing, although the dark colour palette still remained. She could also see some leather accents that made the suits more entertaining than the usual office attire.

Jagged reappearing to put on his jacket took her out of her thoughts, although some remnants of that gut feeling still remained. But nevermind, Mari had a city to see and a tour to finish, there was no point on feeling weird and burdened by memories when she had a reason to be happy (or so she had learnt from her adoptive parents).
After walking some more, a visit to the main museum and a few shops later (Jagged bought most stuff), the musician and Marinette decided to call it a morning and stopped a taxi to get to the hotel. Thankfully, the driver didn’t pull any funny business as the grimy interior of his vehicle suggested he would, probably too amazed by the amount of shopping bags that they were carrying.

Chapter Text

Marinette had decided to dress herself in a baby blue wrap around skirt that fell just above her knees, paired with a black turtleneck and tights of the same colour. The addition of a coat was enough so that she could brave Gotham’s colder climate, and the colours, although with a spot of vibrance, were similar enough to what she had observed on the street. She put her hair in a high ponytail and made sure to have everything she needed in her pocket, alongside Kalki’s glasses, before ushering Tikki into it with a few treats for her to munch on.

She was glad of her choice of simple yet elegant clothes when they arrived at Wayne manor. It was beautiful!! At least that’s her first impression as Alfred drove them past the entrance gate. It was clearly generations old, although she couldn’t tell how many. The architecture, nonetheless, still felt modern and clean with little baroque detail hidden in plain sight. When they pulled to a stop and the kind butler opened the door of the car she was almost buzzing to get her sketchbook and draw inspiration from the magnific place. Sadly she couldn’t exactly focus on that with a tight knot on her stomach, and the sinking feeling she got. Her mind was screaming “something is wrong and “abort abort abORT” and she couldn’t quite focus on the details around her when she was trying to maintain a calm face.

Jagged, on the other hand, was extremely excited almost jumping out of the car as soon as he was able. “Oh my, I missed this place!! It hasn’t changed a bit. I wish that Penny could be here.”

“I'm sure that she will get to come eventually” replied Alfred, leading the way up the stairs and to the door. Mari followed the two men reticently, almost tripping on a stepp as she was dragging her feet.

Tikki, hidden alongside Kalki’s deactivated miraculous, patted her from her jacket’s pocket. At least she had help of the magical kind if anything went wrong.

Ahead of her the butler pulled the door open and held it there for the two visitors plus Fang, who scurried through the opening eliciting some shouts from the other side. When she went through the door she was able to see the three people standing on the other side. The two younger ones were cowering from Fang, who was affectionately trying to snuggle their legs like an overgrown cat. Clearly they had been the ones to shout at the sight of the crocodile. The older man, around Jagged’s age, was looking at the other two with an amused look in his eyes.

Thankfully, Jagged, upon entering, noticed Fang’s affectionate attack and called him to his side, much to the relief of the two young men. At least they recovered quickly, trying to play away the embarrassment to the other four who were clearly used to the animal’s antics. Alfred made sure to close the door after the two guests had come in and turned around with the intention to introduce them to the manor’s present inhabitants. However, he was interrupted before he could begin by a very excited musician that, having made sure that his crocodile wasn´t terrorising the other two gave his old friend a hug that would have toppled a lesser man.

“Brucie!! My man!! It’s been a while. How have u been?? I love the decoration, did you change the chandelier?”

Bruce Wayne, his aforementioned old time friend, returned the hug altho much more courtly. “It’s been a while” agreed the taller man making an attempt to disentangle the eccentric artist from his attempt at strangulation. Alfred and the other three younger ones present just looked with amusement being used, or at least having heard, of some ridiculous stunts that Jagged liked to play. After being successful, Bruce turned to his other guest and had to do a double take not expecting her to be so young.

Jagged Stone noticing his stare seemed quick to make introduction and so, putting a hand around Marinette’s shoulder turned to their host.

“Bruce, I would like to introduce you to Marinette, she is my personal designer and sort of niece for the pasts few years.”

“It is very nice to meet you” answered the businessman shaking the girl’s hand, “My name is Bruce Wayne and these are my two older sons Richard and Jason.” This time he had turned to the older man. “Jagged, I believe you met Dick in your latest visit?”

The one named (or at least as far as Mari could tell) made a step forward from where he was standing at the left hand of his father. He greeted the musician with a big smile on his face and gave him a hug. “It is very nice to see you uncle J. It really has been a long time.” Then he turned to Marinette and extended his hand to her with another smile, while the one named Jason made an attempt to talk with the older guest.

“Hi, it is very nice to meet you, you can call me Dick”

“It’s nice to meet you as well, I’m Marinette… but you already knew that” she flushed while saying. “Mmm, you have a very nice house?” she tried to make small talk.

Dick thankfully decided to take mercy on her as he didn’t mind the comment. “Yeah it is a very old house.” he answered distractedly and then “Do you mind if I ask you how old you are?, because my god you can’t be older than eighteen and you are already Jagged Stone’s personal designer, I mean that is huge!”

She flushed again and answered this time with less nervousness: “Yeah I’m actually seventeen. I started designing for Jagged when I was fifteen.”

“Fifteen?” enquired the one named Jason getting closer to them, “isn’t that like really young to start a designing career. I mean not even Tim started working that young” he added looking at the eldest brother.

“Tim?” asked Marinette.

“Our brother, he and the youngest got caught up in work and couldn’t leave for lunch, but maybe if you stay for dinner you can meet them.”

“Ohh sure, I mean it depends on uncle Jagged’s itinerary, but I don’t think we had anything planned for the rest of the day. So maybe?”

The clearing of a throat interrupted their answer. “Master Dick, Master Jason, I do recommend that you take our youngest guest to the living room so as to be more comfortable. It cannot be comfortable to be standing in the foyer for so long.” having said his piece, the butler turned around and went to, presumably, the kitchen.

The two of them raised their heads and, processing the absence of both Bruce and Jagged, proceeded to lead Mari to the mentioned living room. Dick apologising profusely while Jason just grumbled about his inattentiveness and tried to blame the blunder on his eldest.

**********

By the time Alfred announced lunch was served the brothers were making plans to adopt the french girl. They were completely enamoured with the tiny girl who had babbled about her designs and laughed at Dick’s jokes and had witty answers to Jason’s mean comments. In a pause in the conversation they asked Bruce exactly that:

“yeah B we are definitely adopting her, right?” questioned the eldest, “I mean, she even fits the mould, dark hair, clear eyes, 100% adopting material” he continued interrupting the two adults conversation.

They had been seated calmly in the living room, Mari in one side of the big, gray sofa, while Jagged was seated on the other side. Dick had foregone the armchair that was next to the girl to sprawl on the floor in front of the coffee table, with closer access to the drinks that had been served in a tray. Jason, on the other hand, was half reclining on the same armchair’s arm, not entirely comfortable with staying put for so long.

On the identical armchair situated at the opposite side of the table, Bruce lifted his head from his and Jagged’s conversation. A look of cautious confusion was on his face, causing Jason to cackle maniacally. This threw the younger girl into a round of giggles which developed into a full belly laugh as Jagged joined the conversation gesticulating wildly and with a manic look on his face.

“You do not get to adopt her” he directed this at Bruce, “if anyone gets to adopt her it will be me, and her parents refused!!”

Seeing this reaction Dick sputtered, not having expected to receive this answer to his question “And you know this how?”

“wait wait, you actually asked…” Jason managed to get out before interrupting himself with more laughter. “You actually asked he-her parents if you, oh wow, if you could adopt her?? oh my….”. And he promptly fell off the chair.

Alfred, having seen the exchange, and being used to a certain level of chaos from living in the house for most of his life just rolled his eyes as he assessed the situation. Clearing his throat brought a second of pause to the room, which he promptly utilized to inform them about lunch.

Chapter Text

Lunch was more of a quick affair, filled with chatter and laughter as the to sons made it their mission to entertain the girl while Bruce continued his conversation with the artist, having to pause sometimes to reproach the rambunctious two.

As time progressed, the laughter and the family ambient began to ease the feeling of wrongness and anticipation that has wanted to make a whole in her stomach.  Although she still could feel dread and foreboding in the back of her mind, their effects had lessened enough to let her eat and talk with normalcy. Enough to enjoy the meal and let her laugh alongside the others for the afternoon.   

Once lunch was done, they decided to move to one of the drawing rooms that were accessible through the entrance. Although Marinette had tried to help Alfred with the leftovers and cleaning the dishes he wouldn’t budge. So the young lady resigned herself with following the younger two to a more comfortable space. The room was a pretty cozy but still clearly a part of the house designed for guests. 

In it, the two groups continued their pattern of having two different conversations while simultaneously listening to the other one for interesting facts and new knowledge. At the request of the brothers, Mary showed them her sketchbook that she had with her, the one meant for quick ideas and inspiration. She explained a few ideas she had jotted down and the different textures that she had planned to join in one design and how she could make them work. a few of them were just quick lines with notes written at the side while others were actually very developed drawings and almost finished ideas. Those, Jason noticed, were signed with a tiny mark plastered adjacent to one of the drawing lines.

“Hey is that your signature? the MDC letters at the bottom of this skirt?”

“Wait wait…. MDC???” was Dick’s sudden screech “like the MDC?? the one that created Clara Knightingales’ dress for the met gala last year??, the one who only accepts a very prestigious clientele and whose every design is just simply a gorgeous piece of artwork? that MDC??”

“Y...Yess??”

“I need your autograph, like right now”

“I think you have been spending too much time with Steph and Kori” was Jason’s comment “like wayy too much time” he emphasized, elongating the y sound.

Dick answered with an offended face, and proceeded to try and hit Jason on the back of his head. However, as he was perched on the back of the couch this time he overbalanced and fell from the back of it, into the floor. Jagged and Mari rapidly moved to help himg, but the other two remained unperturbed used to such antics. however, they didn’t even get  one second to react as Dick was immediately on his feet answering his brother.

“Hey that is unfair and MDC is literally the best how can you not know about her dresses and her ingenious use of pop-culture and traditional looks to make the most cute outfits ever?? like really it is so clever I can’t even begin to describe them to you.” he said while he signaling that he was fine to placate Mari and his so called uncle J.

“Ohh shut it Dick. Yes I know how you get about that stuff, Barbara and Kori definitely did a number on you. And you can’t even dress yourself - Yes you wearing mismatching sock I saw those, don’t try to hide them now you hypocrite, Mr fashion sense.”

“wha?? Jason!! he answered indignantly, but was interrupted by Marinette’s voice.

“Emm guys?” she said now seated back on the sofa and trying to look at both Jason, who sat next to her, and Dick who was now standing almost behind her. “You know I’m still here, right?”

From one of the armchairs, Bruce looked disappointedly at them, while Jagged at his side had a look of amusement and unadulterated glee, and was giving the young designer a look that definitely meant ‘don’t you see’ and ‘I’ve told you’. She on the other hand was red as a tomato but had a bemused smile on her face. On seeing the face directed at her from her uncle she gathered all the grace she could muster and sticked her tongue out at him in a childish way. This distracted the other two from arguing any further while stopping Bruce’s lecture on manners. To the astonishment of the rest Bruce actually let out a chuckle before resuming his conversation with the rockstar. He, on the other hand, threw Mari a quick wink before turning once more to his old friend.

After that, the afternoon passed quickly with a lot of jabs thrown around but mostly soft conversation and a few laughs.

It wasn’t too late when Tim and Damian finally left the car in the garage and headed towards the living quarters of the house. Damian advanced rapidly through the brightly lit corridors, towards the foyer, trying to get to his bedroom and the last of his homework that he still needed to finish. At his back, he could hear Tim still trying to convince him to join their guests in the drawing room instead of doing his duty and finishing the damned essay.

“Just come and say hello, it’s the polite thing to do” he continued the same way he had the whole car drive “B asked specifically that you meet them, apparently the designer that came with his friend is your age?” 

The young heir sighed one more time and entered the grand entrance that led both to the guest part of the house as well as the more public spaces. He knew his father expected him to meet the visitors, for a while now he had been trying to get him to meet new people outside of vigilante activities, but he had just had a long tiring day and, although he didn’t want to admit it, he was tired. More than that, there was a big pile of homework still waiting for him in his bedroom desk that he had to finish for the next day, unless he wanted to miss patrol.

“I can’t okey? not today. I don’t have the time to be meeting some annoying old friends of father even if he wants me to meet them and ingratiate ourselves to them or whatever. If I could have simply…” and then he heard it.

That, that laugh… He knows that laugh. 

He… is it coming from one of the unused drawing rooms? That, that…

He notices more than sees Drake come to a halt at his side and realizes belatedly that he has stopped walking. Why-when did he stop walking?

And there it is again, that sound that he knows so well but hasn’t heard in ages. It is her, it has to be.

*********

Tim was baffled. He had been talking to Damian when he simply stopped mid sentence and looked off into space. Getting to his side in order to see his face hadn’t shown him any clear indication of what was going on. 

A noise drew his face to a side corridor and alerted him that a door had been opened. Alfred came out of one of the side rooms were probably the visitors had been seated. From the room he had just exited came the sound of a feminine laugh. Damian tensed even further muscles coiled to.

“Wait!!” his mouth reacted first but he wasn’t fast enough to catch the younger Wayne who had suddenly started running in Alfred’s direction. Damian didn’t even acknowledge his shout and maneuvered into the corridor and pass the butler’s surprised face. His run was quickly interrupted as he came to a stop skidding across the floor until he was in front of the open door completely still. He looked as if someone had frozen him in place, as if he had seen medusa's head and was now petrified. Every single muscle tense but no action available to release the tension. 

Trying to stop whatever was going to happen he tried to get him to back away from the doorframe, however, the quiet emotion of his younger brother when he spoke stopped him in his tracks. He had never heard Damian be so emotional before. Ever.

“Mari?” he inquired with a hopeful, small voice. Not feeling Timothy or Alfred at his back looking at him with discomforted faces and a lot concern for the youngest resident of the house. 

He was staring, Tim noticed, right at the young teenager that had been seated next to Dick and Jason. Now everyone was either seated ramrod straight or had just stood up from their seating place. From their respective places all the room occupants were staring at Damian like he had suddenly grown a second head. Tim grabbed his shoulder trying to move him back into the corridor, “C’mon, maybe we should…”

“Damian?” inquired the girl with as much timidity and hopefulness as the Wayne heir had before. There was a look of fear and hope in her eyes and, quick as lightning, resolution.  The next thing Tim was aware of was that the girl was in Damians arms, holding onto him as if her life depended on it. Tim immediately gives up his hold on the man’s shoulder and takes a step backwards alongside Alfred, their surprised faces mirrored by the ones he could see from inside the room.

“You were dead, you were dead”…. “I thought I...I-I lost you” the girl kept repeating. Now with tears in her eyes and a broken voice. “I thought-” She was interrupted by another wave of muffled sobs, devolving into more hysterical crying, breathin quickening into rappid puffs of air.

And then the demon brat did the most amazing thing.

He hugged her back and started making soothing motions for her to calm down. He was ACTIVELY comforting her. Tim’s brain couldn’t feel any more clouded, was he having a weird coffee fueled dream?

Chapter Text

It took a minute to get Marinette to calm down. Damian had taken her to another room hoping that being away from the commotion that were his brothers would make it easier for her to regain her breathing. Thanks to Alfred’s help, they settled in a nearby office room that wasn't really used except when Father or Timothy had to do private meetings in the house. Although rarely having such visitors, the space was a cozy office decorated in blues and browns that looked nicely with the wooden book shelves that lined the walls. 

Foregoing the solid wooden desk that occupied the centre of the room, Damian helped Mari seat down in a reading nook that was set into the right wall, away from prying eyes. It was a small hole carved from the wall itself, surrounded by bookshelves and decorated with blue and gray pillows that were meant to make it more comfortable but less accessible to someone looking from the door. He settled her there and, remembering Dick’s actions comforting people, the young Wayne immediately grabbed a blanket that was at the other end of the cushioned nook and draped it around her shoulders. Simultaneously making sure she was covered but had enough space to move if she so desired.  

Noticing that she was a bit more calm than before he asked her: “Are you alright?”

“I-I thought” she took a deep breath to steady herself “I thought you were dead, I was sure…” her voice failed her in that moment, and she concentrated on her breathing to keep from breaking down again.

“Hey, Hey, look at me. Mari look at me” He asked her, lifting her face so that he could look her in the eyes. He didn’t realize that his own eyes were watering until his vision blurred.

“I thought you were dead too Mari, I… I’ve missed you” he admitted wiping the tears from his face and looking up so as not to shed anymore.

He felt her hands grab his and looked at her again.

“The last time I saw you before Slade attacked, I thought Joab would have been one of the ones specifically targeted for his connection to Ra’s, and with him killed you would have been too. I’m sorry, I didn't even think to look for you. What happened to you?”

By the end he was looking down at their hands, trying to compose a mental image of what happened all those years ago, trying to make sense of Mari being right there in Gotham at his family’s house.

It took a few seconds for her to answer but when she finally did it was a simple phrase “I ran. Master F… Joab, he wouldn't let me go find you, and …” Mari stopped there, continuing to breath through the knot in her throat, eyes closed tightly to not let any other emotion out. She attempted to clear her head before continuing trying to calm herself as much as possible before reacting to a situation.

Damian, not used to his old friend trying to mask or hide her feelings when they were alone looked at her in confusion. He questioned her, trying to get her to finish answering his previous question, impatient and disoriented by this new quirk that he was seeing from his childhood friend. 

The girl opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. Both teens leaned sideways, their heads appearing from behind the wall of the hidden nook to look for the one that had interrupted them. Dick was there hand raised to the wood, and behind him lingered Jason with a scowl set on his face that couldn’t, however,  hide his curiosity and bewilderment at the whole situation .

“Are you two done? cause Alfred was about to serve dinner” claimed Dick, noticing the two teens looking at him. He worried a little when he saw the tear tracked face of the girl, however what really made him worried was Damians face. He was clearly scowling at the interruption but couldn’t quite hide that his eyes were a bit redder than usual. Had he been crying? He and Jason exchanged a look: the family could count in one hand the number of times they had seen the youngest cry, so this was clearly not normal behaviour.. Still, to light a bit the atmosphere he quickly added: “You know how the englishman feels about his meals, there is no getting out of it little D” the half smile on his face however denoted his worry for anyone to see.

“Quite you are master Dick, however I would prefer if Miss Marinette had some time to refresh before sitting down with the rest of us” said a voice directly from behind him making him jump in surprise. Belatedly, he noticed that Jason hadn’t jumped and was giving him a knowing smile, the smug bastard.  Alfred decided that moment to come into view with a tray full of glasses of water and an Advil bottle. The butler continued ignoring the two oldest that were now at his back. “I thought drinking some water may help you young miss, and may I suggest taking an Aspirin to avoid possible headaches?”

“Yes thank you Alfred” answered the girl, removing the tear tracks from her face with her sleeve as she moved to stand. “I think I will take that aspirin or advil, it's been a while since I cried so much and I haven't been drinking enough water to avoid dehydration”.

“You would be correct, miss. If you want there is a bathroom were you can freshen yourself up right at the end of the corridor. Master Damian?” he turned toward the youngest making sure to pass him a glass as well. “lead Miss Marinette to the bathroom, would you?” he said not before he had seen both teens take a sip of water and making sure that Marinette took one of the offered pills.

On his acceptance nod, and seeing both leave the room together he turned to the other two still at the door. “And you two should know better than try fishing for information, specially relating to your brother. I expect you both to have your hands washed and be seated with the others by the time I return with the food.”

At hearing the implied threat Jason and Dick scrambled out of the way, meeting Tim hidden in a corner of the corridor, outside of Alfred’s view. “Soooo” he started as soon as they came to a stop “did you learn anything?”

Jason grumbled annoyed by his lack of knowledge. Dick, less annoyed by their failure but still fool of concern, answered his brother “nothing, they were talking pretty low for us to hear anything and they were hiding in the reading nook so no much for us to see either. Although, they were both crying?” he added at the end almost like a question.

“Humm maybe the assassins training?? I mean the silent, quiet speaking not the crying bit. Or maybe they just were being cautious, have to wait and see” he murmured almost to himself forgetting about his brothers presence in order to further organize his theory. “Wait he was CRying?” he added now that his train of thought had come to an abrupt halt

“WHAT?” and “Assassin's training??” was what his only response, which annoyed him because that meant he couldn’t know about his brother’s wellbeing. However, the abject horror present in the faces of his brothers just made him annoyed losing focus on what he had wanted to know in the first place.

“Nevermind. Don’t worry about it, it's probably nothing” he grumbled quickly turning around and going into the previous drawing room “and you call yourselves detectives”. There sat Bruce and Jagged still, both trying to understand what had happened with their youngests. By the look of it they hadn’t had more success than the others what with Bruce trying to not touch a lot of sensible topics regarding Damian and with Jagged not having much information either.

“I think it would be better if we move this to the dining room”

*************

As soon as she was inside the bathroom Marinette closed the door behind her, leaving the glass of water next to the sink. With the water running, she washed her face, getting rid of any remains of the tears and the salt that had stained her face. Thankfully, she hadn’t put on any makeup, otherwise it would have been a lot harder to clean up. 

Having calmed down a bit, she put the water to it’s colder setting and pressed her face against the stream in order to get the puffiness surrounding her eyes to disappear. She stood there for a few seconds before deciding that she couldn’t take much longer and closing the faucet. She checked on the mirror to see if she had had any success, finding, sadly that the redness had only dimed a little bit. She had always been a messy cryer, independently of how weird it was for her to do so, and she was sure that wasn’t going to change much with the years. 

After drying her hands and face with a towel that was nearby she opened the door surprised to find Damian still on the other side.

“I thought you joined the others” she told him voice more calm with a calculative edge in it.

He stood from leaning against the wall and uncrossed his arms before completely turning to her: “Well, I wasn’t sure if you knew the way”. Every trace of his tears had been eliminated and his eyes were no longer red. She was jealous.

She answered with a nod, an uncertain look on her eyes. He could tell that now that the emotional moment was over, she was acting more cautious than she had had before. Cautious of his story and his family maybe? That could possibly explain why she turned away and started walking to the direction they had come from in the first place. Noticing that she wasn’t going to answer verbally he hurried up to match her stride, intending to question her before they made it to wherever his family awaited. 

He put his hand on her back trying to slow her pace down so that they could talk more before getting to their destination. She, now extremely aware of herself, stiffened at the touch but easily relaxed her shoulder and leaned into the hand to let him know it wasn’t necessarily unwelcome. Her stride slowed, but only marginally. However, seeing that his gesture had not had a negative reception Damian took it as a win. He went to ask again about the years they hadn’t seen each other, but as they were approaching the voices of his family he decided that it was better to change tracks and leave that conversation for sometime where they could talk privately. 

Instead he asked: “Are you feeling any better now?”.

 To anyone else that question coupled with the impassiveness of his voice and the stern look in his eyes could sound condescending, or even annoying. She, on the other hand knew him enough. The care and preoccupation was present in the crinkled corners of his eyes and the tightness of his lips, so she embuyed her answer with as much truth as she could muster and leaned towards him to say: “I’m fine now, we can talk later”. 

That’s how they both walked into the dinning room, his hand on her back guiding her making the proximity between the two apparent to anyone to see. And the intense gazes while they looked at each other gauging the sincerity in the other’s eyes unintentionally making that closeness even more apparent. 

Chapter Text

Dick thought he would never see his brother like that. He had hopes of course, as every older brother had hopes for the happiness of his younger siblings. He had hoped that someday he would get to see Damian being close to someone that was outside the whole masks business. However, seeing him react as he had seen previously, with the uncharacteristic behaviour of hugging someone and the crying? yeah things were definitely not going as expected.

Seeing him coming into the dining room had been a surprise as well. I mean, Damian?? willingly standing close to someone?? touching said person?? willingly??. Yeah, this was beyond any normal tuesday. And it was wednesday!! 

He followed the teens with his gaze trying to decipher how they knew each other as they clearly did. Still, Dick refused to believe the sweet girl he and Jason had been talking to the whole day was an assassin. No sir. No way!! Dick would bet 100 dollars on it, dollars he didn’t have, damnit!!. like, sure the girl clearly had some muscle and moved like a ballerina but the clumsiness and awkwardness couldn’t possibly belong to someone with an assassin’s training. However that still left open the question on where she knew Damian from. Because they clearly knew each other as there was no suspicion on his eyes as he pulled the seat out for Marinette. A calculating look, sure, but not an ounce of suspicion reserved for strangers or baddies. 

And she thought he was dead? where did that come from?? clearly he was going to have to interrogate Damian to get answers. Or maybe both. Could he say something while they waited for dinner? hopefully Alfred wouldn’t kill him. He waited until everyone had taken their place before he asked what surely everyone had been thinking.

“Soooo” he started glancing at his brothers, Bruce’s and Jagged’s confused faces “how did this happen?” he asked signaling between the two with a fork in his hand.

Damian, from his own end of the table, placed right next to the young designer, frowned at his eldest brother. When Dick made a curious face at him, prompting him to answer he received a roll of the youngest eyes for his trouble. The little traitor.

Marinette, to his surprise was the one to break the silence clearing her throat with a pensive look on her face, gaze directed at the mantle. 

It took her a few seconds to answer, but once she was ready with a deep breath, he saw her square her shoulders. Was she expecting some kind of problem from her response? He couldn’t be sure but it looked like it. 

“We met when we were kids, basically” she began sharing a look with Damian. There was a movement from his little brother’s part. He probably moved his feet but then she looked at him as if reassured.  “After an accident that killed my parents in a village nearby this elderly man took me in, I was around two years old. He took me to another… village, were I met Damian. We were almost raised together until… ummm” she stopped mid sentence not knowing how to continue.

“Until it was attacked” finished Damian. He had been looking at Bruce with a daring look on his eyes as if daring him to comment. It was also him the one who continued  turning around to look at Marinette “They know were that is, and how things were done there. My father even went there on his youth.”

Okey so Marinette was actually raised by assassins. Great! another one, just what they needed!!

Dick could feel a strange tension surrounding the table. Damian’s challenging stare was now reciprocated by Bruce, putting the rest of the table on edge and none wanted to interrupt. Dick himself looked at Jason hoping that he would say something, make a comment or even annoy Bruce. He wasn’t going to have such luck as his brother looked at him and then pointedly shook his head in a negative. Tim, on the other hand, seemed too invested in the visitors and the puzzle they represented to get the hint. Thankfully, it was Jagged the one who, apparently unprompted, broke the silence to question Marinette about her history. 

“So then, how did you get to Paris, because you told me you met Sabine and Tom when you were ten?” although he was trying to maintain a light tone some concern had seeped into his voice.

“Eleven actually. After the attack I made my way across Asia, to Turkey, and then into Europe. I ended up in Paris a little bit after my eleventh birthday. Ended up meeting Tom and Sabine a few months later, my adoptive parents” she added at the end for the benefit of those who didn’t know who she was talking about. Mainly everyone on the family but Damian, O no wait, Damian didn’t know that too by the frown on his face.

“You made the whole trip into Europe alone?” inquired Tim, ever the detective, with his brilliant mind catching what he hadn’t.

“Well not completely alone” she told him with a rueful smile “I met some people along the way who helped me. Besides, I can take care of myself.” 

“Oh that she can!” claimed Jagged from his seat excitedly trying to give her a side hug from his seat. “We were once coming out of the hotel Penny, Mari and I, and this guy comes running with a purse he had clearly stolen and a lady yells from down the street for help. Mari was awesome!! As soon as the guy was near us she stopped him with a kick and took the purse back to give to the lady!!”

So she apparently has some training, but at least seems to be one of the good ones. If she helped that lady, that’s a bonus on his book. Dick mentally gave a shrug and let that piece of information go. Although it would serve for later, they were still talking, and had a whole dinner to go through first.

Embarrassed by the praise the teenager turned red and mumbled something for herself and her uncle. Thankfully, years as a crimefighter had enhanced his senses and he was pretty sure the whole table heard her say: “It was only a common thief, Jagged. Besides it wasn’t that big of a deal”. 

He shared another look with his brothers, clearly they understood what wasn’t being said in the conversation. Dick couldn’t say he liked what they had discovered. No one would like to know that a trained killer had been in your home and no one had had a clue about it.  However, he still felt like there were pieces of the story missing so he would do what he did best in this cases: he would reserve judgement for later. Still, knowing that she had to survive by herself for almost a year brought some feelings of concern and some overprotectiveness into his mind. No one deserved such a fate. 

Taking another look at Bruce, he noticed that he had started developing a look of suspiciousness in his face. Brow lowered over his eyes and his jaw locked, it was clear to all his family although hidden for everyone else. Dick wasn’t sure about the outcome but he was aware that the Bat’s reaction to anything League related tended to be overboard and negative. The first Robin vowed to keep an eye on that, at least to help his baby brother. Speaking of Damian he noticed that the little bird had a look of concern on his face, one that he rarely displayed and that was reserved mostly to those he considered family. That in itself was another clue for the ones that were looking.

The little bird crossed a look with Marinette both their gazes filled with hidden meaning and disguised truths. It was apparent that although years had gone by since they last saw each other they still held a closeness that was achieved by very few and usually only through hardships. Years of loneliness were evaporated in their silent communication. After a moment they both nodded, and then diverted their gaze as if an agreement had been reached. 

Not a second later Alfred interrupted the weird silence. He came out of the kitchen with a tray full of food and delicious looking plates, that he served in front of the guests first, gaining the joyous comments from Jagged Stone about how he shouldn’t count as a guest. With that the tension was broken in favour of eating, although he caught Jagged leaning towards Marinette and telling her that they would have a conversation later. Tentative talks and gesture gained force as the meal progressed. Dick, catching the look on his baby brother’s face and the not so hidden glances he was aiming at Bruce decided to change the topic. The youngest had always looked up to his father, looking for his approval or daring him in small acts of rebellion. The relationship between those two had improved tenfold since the first years, however, they always seemed to have some complication communicating. He gave Bruce a pointed look and then asked Marinette about her hobbies besides art and designing which rapidly devolved into a conversation on animals, and the appropriate number of pets one can have, as she volunteered in a shelter.

After that the meal didn’t take long and Jagged and Marinette had to go back to their hotel as they had spent almost the whole day in the manor. They had all gone into the foyer to see their friends get into the car, not before shaking hands and some hugs from the rockstar. It didn’t take a lot of effort for Dick to notice that Damian had put a note into Marinette’s coat pocket when they were saying goodbye. However he couldn’t be quite sure what that was about.

They would talk about everything later. No secrets and complete disclosure, all of them. 

Thankfully, although Bruce was clearly suspicious of Marinette now that he had learned about her upbringing, he behaved civil and treated them kindly. Probably thanks to Alfred’s influence and beliefs on appropriate etiquette that none of them could cross without getting severely punished. He ended up being a little colder than usual but Jagged didn’t seem to mind that much or at least pretended not to notice. He seemed intent in getting his niece outside that awkward situation he noticed her discomfort. Not really minding, then, that the goodbyes could be court. 

He didn’t seem put out by any of the weirdness although he wanted to get both him and Marinette as fast to the hotel as possible so he continued his loud and rambunctious but maybe a little bit hurried goodbyes until he was in the secured car with Marinette at his side. 

Chapter Text

Damian was glad that his family had mostly kept a cordial appearance with Mari and the musician, but he knew that the set of questions hadn’t ended. On the contrary it had only been temporarily postponed. Once the car had passed the gates leading to the street, however, everyone that had been standing around turned to look at him, wariness and questions clearly written on their faces. “At least it wasn’t suspicion” he told himself, recognising that just a few years earlier this outcome would have been completely different. 

It was his father’s voice that broke the impasse, springing everyone into action as they had only five minutes to be at the cave in full uniform. The younger moved into his bedroom, lying the jacket he had been wearing at the feet of the bed and trying to find something to distract himself before the coming interrogation. 

After a minute of staring at the wall with his back and neck tensed he decided to give up, turning around and letting his shoulders drop with a sigh. he exited his room quickly, closing the door behind him and rapidly walking into the studio were the grandfather clock hid the entrance to the cave. A quick melody in the piano and the staircase was revealed living him to quickly go down the stairs, ignoring the gazes his brothers were giving him from next to the main computer. He didn’t slow down to grab the Robin suit and head to the changing rooms that had been installed down there. He took his time putting on everything minus the cape, and made double sure that the green domino mask wasn’t going to fall.

Grabbing the cape he decided not to put it on for now, as it would be awhile before they finally went on patrol. He couldn’t delay the confrontation for much longer though so he turned to exit the changing room and stepped into the main cave were his father was standing with Alfred a few meters away from the rest. 

Upon seeing him enter, they all stopped what they were doing and turned to look as he approached. To mask his restlessness, Damian draped his cape across his right arm, hiding his fidgeting fingers under the fabric. He came to a stand in front of his family, his face as impassive as he could manage, although he was afraid the encounter had left him a bit rattled.

Again, it was his father the first to break the silence, moving a step forward and addressing him directly. “We need to know about Marinette” he stated. There was clear suspicion in his features, not having put on the cowl just yet it was displayed for the rest of his family to see.

He wasn’t sure where to start or even if he wanted to have that conversation so instead of saying anything he turned to the rest of his audience trying to asses their thoughts. It was Dick the one that broke first trying to appease the situation, no surprise there as he was the softest of the family.

“Look we just need to know what that was about? It's the first time we have seen you act like that with anyone that isn’t family” he steps closer with his hands out in a placating gesture. 

“Or even with your family” murmured Tim in a mock commentary that only got him a scowl and a threatening look in return. “What? It is true” he defended in a louder voice after a second.

The eldest just turned around rolling his eyes and addressed once again his closest brother. “We need to know about her. We need to assess if she is a threat and if her staying here will bring trouble.”

That definitely rubbed him the wrong way but he forced himself to remain calm. However he couldn’t help his scowl before he started talking. The sooner he got this over with the sooner he could go out on patrol. “She told you the truth as far as I’m concerned. She was taken into the league at a young age by one of the league’s elders. Ra’s allowed us to train together as we were close in age. The attack happened during our separate training so I didn’t know what happened with her”

“Holy hell, so pipsqueak really is from the league??” Jason really seamed shaken by the news. “Are we really going to pretend like that’s nothing?”.

Damian shot him a glare annoyed for the interruption, but it was actually Dick the one who made him shut up with a slap to the back of his head. When everyone had turned his focus back to Damian he continued:

“As i was saying, mother wouldn’t let me go looking for her, choosing to get out as soon as possible. Besides, Slade made sure to attack the league's commanding force first. Killing all those that had a high position on grandfather’s court and those that were around them. It was logic to assume that she, alongside her mentor, had been killed.” 

“But she was not” were his father’s words, he hadn’t moved yet but his eyes examined every movement and every words as if to dissect them to find something hidden.

“No, she wasn’t, although I don’t know what happened for her to escape. I can only assume that she told the truth as she did with the league part, probably editing some for her uncle’s comfort.”

“What is she capable of?” was Tim’s calculating question.

Procuring to stand straighter he put his hands behind his back, letting Robin’s cape fall into his palms in what looked like a soldiers resting position.

“Mari was trained at my side in everything but my grandfather’s lessons. By eight we were matched in hand to hand combat as well as in weapons training. Although she did prefer smaller weapons that she could conceal on her own person over swords, archery or more traditional weapons. She specialized in a rope-dart fighting though, a weapon she could use for long range but also close combat.”

For a second everyone stayed silent and then Jason shot Dick a strange look, which he reciprocated with a smirk. Tim, on the other side, was looking at Alfred and Bruce, their emotionless faces reflected back at him. He was about to question what that was about when Dick interrupted his train of thought.

“Mari?” murmured the eldest, a smirk on his face and wagging his eyebrows for good measure. 

He flushed red. His cheeks were burning and his hands clenched in embarrassment yet he didn't understand exactly why. “Her name while in the league” was his rebuttal made through his teeth.

Alfred made sure to end the possible fight before it began and brought them all to the point once again. “Master Damian, may I enquire about the separate training you mentioned? While you were training with your grandfather, I presume Miss Marinette didn’t keep idle.”

He pursed his lips before answering, choosing to give the abbreviated version that the other members of the league had received. After all there was little that gods and magic had to do with them now. Besides, if his father heard of that connection he would be even more suspicious of Mari, possibly even sending her away from Gotham. With his mind made up he answered:

“Joab, the elder who took Mari in was the one in charge of the league’s cultural research, if you would. He was the keeper of ritual objects, books and other ancient artifacts that had a purpose for the league, ritual, ceremonial or otherwise. He also served as a hermeneutic, when his knowledge was required. He would use his skills to understand and translate some of the league's findings and then pass that knowledge onto Ra’s. Mari was training as his apprentice and to hold his position in the future.”

“So what, he was the league’s sage?” asked Tim “Don’t they have computers? google? you can get most information there you know” 

That earned him a ferocious scowl and a raised voice “They do as you well know, Drake. However, Joab’s title had an implicit counseling role to it, specially related to archeological items.”

“Whatever, it still seems pretty stupid to have one man doing all the research you know”

“That is not what I said and you know it, you stupid...”

After that it only took a few seconds to have a full on fight going on in the batcave as Damian threw his cape to Tim’s face and used his distraction to throw himself at him. Dick, of course tried to stop him but he quickly got involved in the fight as well as Jason who had been laughing at the others’ behaviour until a flying kick flew into his face. 

“I am afraid that is all the information you will get from master Damian today, master Bruce. May I recommend however that you do not make a judgement on young Miss Marinette based solely on her stay with the league of assassins. You have more than proof enough that change is possible sir. If not, you should look again at master Damian.”

“Oh you mean the one that just roped all his brother’s into a fight” the Batman said with a tone halfway between amusement and worry.

“The very same one that, may I remind you, is not really determined to cause harm to his brothers.” Alfred answered with a deadpan look and a pointed glance towards the fight. “God knows that that teenager is completely different from the 10 year old kid that arrived to the manor years ago.”

Right then a blaring alarm came from the enormous computer that was set against the caves wall. Bruce pulled up the incoming file as the fight behind him came to an end. Reading what was rapidly appearing on his computer screen he let a low growl escape his lips. Sensing his change in mood Tim rapidly came to his side, positioning himself in between him and Alfred, reading what was exposed. “Scarecrow escaped from Arkham. It says that they discovered an impostor on his cell. They don´t know how long he is been missing.”

“High alert everyone, I want everyone to go out in pairs and be on the lookout. Any suspicious activity, you report it. I will be going to Arkham to pay the guards a visit.”

“High alert?” asked Jason grabbing his helmet, “since when is Scarecrow high alert?”.

“He has known ties to the league of Shadows. Now head out!” he growled moving into the batmobile, not living space for an argument.

***********

“Wait!! should I call your parents for this? I feel like I should call your parents for this.”

Jagged hadn’t waited until they had gone through the manor’s gated entrance to start questioning and mother henning her. They were both seated in the back of the car, the partition with Jagged’s designated driver pulled up to give them a semblance of privacy. After a few seconds of firing away questions non-stop, leaving the girl no room to answer, he finally came to an abrupt halt upon coming to that sudden question.

“I guess?” she actually asked “I am as lost about this as you are.”

“I am calling your parents” he decided then already bringing his cellphone out of his Jacket. It was part of a suit that Marinette had designed for him a year ago. Full of purple flames contrasting with the formal dark gray material. Thankfully he had been wearing it with a simple shirt to give it a more informal look, wanting to appear more relaxed when seeing his friend after years of no contact.

At the end, the phone call lasted more than the car ride, and had to be interrupted as the reception from the hotel’s parking lot wasn’t the best. Afterwards, they settled for a video call, with Penny included. Marinette explained what she had said at dinner, making sure to clear some details and obfuscate others that would have scared the adults involved. Sabine new that she could fight and she and Tom had assumed that she had learned some from the old man she said she had been with before she had come to Paris. They were very happy to learn that their daughter had met an old friend of hers and encouraged her to continue in contact with him. 

“Well I know you don’t like to talk about then but you did mention a Damian once, I’m really glad you found him sweety. Maybe Jagged can help you get his number?”

“No need Maman”, she said pulling a slip of paper from the coat she had laid at her side on the sofa, “I’ve got his number.”

A few exclamations and impressed hums sounded from the computer and from her own side. Penny threw her a look from the screen that she didn’t really want to understand but did anyway much to her own charging.

“How did you get that?? when??” were Jagged’s baffled words, looking at her as he didn’t comprehend what she had stated.

“When we were saying goodbye” she nonchalantly asked not wanting to explain really that he had slipped the note into her pocket. She had noticed instantly, of course, and had decided to let him get away with it so that they could keep in contact easily.

“I was thinking he could come with us tomorrow? It will be nice to have someone that knows the city come with us” She smiled innocently trying to sell the idea to the adult in charge. “Pleaseeeee?” she added with a pleading pout, just for good measure.

Her Maman and Papa just chuckled from the screen rolling their eyes in good humour at the antics of the teen. Penny, for her part, just shrugged her shoulders with a smile on her face, letting the rockstar make the decision. 

“Fine” he acquiesced at last, “text him to meet us here tomorrow morning. And we are taking Fang with us, just so he knows. After all, keeping a low profile with a Wayne at your side doesn’t really work”.

Marinette ended up texting Damian as soon as she was in the confines of her room. Guarding off Tikki’s knowing glances she had sent him a quick introduction to let him know it was her. After fifteen minutes of waiting for a response though, she gave up on politeness and introductions and decided to tell him the plan for the next day, asking if he wanted to join them and at what time they would be departing.

It was hours later, after she had fallen asleep that she received a text back. The buzzing of the phone against the bedside table made her grumble in annoyance. The affirmative message she received back made her smile as she fell asleep again.

Chapter Text

For the next day, thankfully, they had nothing planned early so she had time to slack off in bed before she had to get up. Marinette took a long shower, washed her hair and then got dressed into comfortable clothes she could walk around in. She had decided on wearing skinny black jeans with a t-shirt of the same colour tucked in. Her combat boots and red leather jacket would tie the outfit together. She took some minutes to contemplate if she wanted makeup but then decided not to, preferring to style her hair into an elaborate bun that gave the outfit that pop that it was missing. 

After a quick breakfast that Jagged had asked for to room service, both of them decided that they were ready to head out. This time the musician had chosen to dress himself, going for something way more extravagant than for their excursion the day before. The navy blue cashmere jacket he had on paired well with the black slacks and Fang’s collar that had been specifically designed to match his owner. 

Damian was waiting for them at the hotel’s lobby, wearing a black leather jacket over his own burgundy shirt. He straightened as soon as he saw them appear, taking a longer look at the crocodile that walked at the older man’s side. 

“Look, we match” She said in lew of a hello. She pulled her hands on the jacket’s pocket pulling them a bit away from her as to exhibit the item more clearly. After a moment of inspecting her he seemed to relax a little letting a huff go with an amused look on his eyes. There was a miniature pull at his lips that in anyone else would have meant nothing but meant a full on smile on his face, she was sure. 

“Yes we are”.

He threw a nod at her and then proceeded to respectfully greet Jagged, addressing him as “Mr Stone”. She would have giggled in other circumstances but Damian might have stabbed her for that so she smiled instead. Curiously enough, Damian knelt next to Fang, not at all faced by the size of the reptile, and greeted him as well. The animal sniffed at his hand for a little bit, but then seemed content to be scratched by the new teen.

“Well, that’s odd” Jagged said after a few seconds, echoing exactly what was going through her mind. At Damian’s enquiring look she explained “Fang doesn’t take well to new people since last year, there was an accident, let's say it didn’t end well for anyone involved.”

The young heir just nodded, almost impassive to anyone that didn’t know him well.

“So…” decided to interrupt Marinette gaining the attention of the other two men, “shall we start the tour?”

**************

Damian chose to take them to someplace that was colloquially known as Ivy’s park, but really was named Ilwis Houston’s park after the guy that had originally donated the space to the city. Poison Ivy, Damian explained, had used the almost abandoned plot of land to practice and create a space of her own in the middle of the urban jungle, but then had to fight against the city’s politicians as the newly created garden had drawn a lot of attention. After a lot of political gibberish, maybe a few illegal activities, and a very good lawyer provided by Wayne Enterprises, the council had decided to establish the space as a local park and tourist attraction that must be protected and given funding. Furthermore, Ivy, who was legally known as Pamela Isley, was given free and unrestrained access to the park as well as other strategically placed public gardens. All that under the condition that she would cease any illegal activities and research with poisons as well as maintaining and being the main carer for those spaces. As payment for her services she would receive an instalment so that she could lie from that provided she didn’t get into trouble. 

There had been, of course a few problems in the beginning, specially when Harley became involved, but now the legal contract was being fulfilled by both parties equally and was considered a great success. As a result, all the parks tended by Ivy were beautiful and the prettiest ones in the whole city. They were also considered safe spaces as no one wanted to get into the ex-criminal’s bad side by causing trouble in her territory. That was possibly one of the reasons Damian had taken them here to begin the tour.

It was one of the most beautiful gardens that Marinette had seen in her life, and that was a very high praise for someone who lived in Paris and could take a train ride to go walk in Versailles. She took a lot of care in taking pictures that she could use as inspiration for her designs. Specially on a bed of roses that had been placed on a high planter in the middle of the park. Those would definitely serve for a spring inspired dress, with a lot of layers and different colours . 

She took her time taking pictures of everything she found beautiful, but that had made their progress through the park rather slow as they stopped every few steps. Fang, of course, wasn’t quite happy with the pace and had tugged at the leash until Jagged had conceded, going ahead for a bit. Damian, on the other hand, had remained at her side constantly, observing almost everything she did with rapt attention.

He kept looking at her as she lowered herself to one of the roses, taking a close up photo of the fading sunrise plastered on the petals. She wasn’t sure what motivated him to look at her like that. Was it suspicion? Fear that she was going to vanish, as she was afraid he was going to do everytime she turned? They clearly needed to talk. A lot. With Jagged there however, a few steps ahead it would be impossible to cover the more compromising subjects. The musician was clearly distracted trying to rein in the massive crocodile but there was no way she was going to take any chances.

Not having passed one minute since she thought that, however, she got lucky. Another tourist had been startled by an overly curious Fang, and, upon recognising the owner, asked for an autograph. She would have to thank Tikki for her good timing as just a minute later Jagged was stopped by another person. And then another, and then another. Soon enough he had a whole crowd surrounding him, while the two teens watched from the sidelines. Between signing the autographs and taking selfies as the two waited he looked at her with a sheepish smile on his face and eyes that could only say “what can you do about it”. He quickly motioned to his phone and sent her a text, proceeding immediately to calm down his reptile who was also in the middle of the crowd alongside his owner.

Mari chuckled at his discomfort, rolling her eyes at their luck one hand on her pocket rubbing Tikki’s head as a thank you. A few seconds later she pulled her phone from her pocket reading the message sent by Jagged. 

“It says that we should  go on with the tour without him. That he will catch up later but it seems like it's going to take a while” she told him signaling with her hand to the rest of the park.

He inclined his head in thought and after a pause, said decisively “Let's go then,” turning immediately to walk in the direction she had pointed. In a few seconds she had caught up to him, grabbing onto his arm to slow his walking.

“What? Are you planning to run away or something?” she teased lightly with a smile on her face.

“Just trying to get away from the crowd before they start recognizing me too: They wouldn’t stop us, but I definitely don’t want anyone staring at us or any magazines gossip tomorrow.”

“That’s actually a good reason. Let’s go” She conceded, accelerating her pace once more but still not letting go of his arm. “And you mister have a lot of explaining to do as I still have no idea what you are doing here. I told you my story, it's only fair you tell me yours, non?”

He scowled at that but not entirely serious on the action as he was amused at her digging for information. “You didn’t exactly explain everything, or anything important really.” He turned towards her with a pointed look to which she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “You only said what could be discussed in public, and we both know that you left a lot without saying. For example, how did you get out? Slade’s attack was in the middle of your training, you would have been right next to one of his targets”.

“Well Joab had been training me, and by then I could use more than one magic source without getting excessively tired. With Joab’s and my power’s combined those shabby soldiers that came after us had no chances.” At that she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I wanted to go looking for you, you know? Joab had to restrain me and basically drag me to one of the secret passages until we were a few hours away. Then it was no use trying to get back.”

She still could see the devastation that had occurred on Nanda Parbat from kilometers away. The smoke coming from the hidden grounds of the league of Shadows had blackened the snow around them. It had been useful to cover their tracks as they made their way west, the ashes settling over the disturbed ground. Still the black and white landscape did not offer any comfort nor any solace. There was no space for hope in that nightmare. 

A sudden tug brought her back and she looked up to see Damian watching her face attentively. There was worry on his eyes, but it was obscured by something else. Something warm that made her remember years spent together. After a few seconds he gave a low exhale, as if coming to a sudden realization. 

“I should have known that you would use the miraculous. I spent so much time thinking you were dead and you just…” His voice stopped suddenly as his hands moved in a gesture he quickly aborted. Then he gave another exhale, sharper this time. “I’m sorry I didn’t look for you.”

His face remained almost impassive but she could see clear as day that there was truth and pain in his eyes. Mari took a second to compose herself, and then blue met green once more. She stopped both of them to turn fully, her eyes looking directly into his. “I don't blame you, and you shouldn’t either. I thought you died too so, you know, I’m equally to blame here.”

She made sure to put as much emotion and conviction in her voice so that he would really listen. It took him a few seconds, where she waited anxiously to see if he would believe her. Then he nodded, and looked away while clearing his throat.

She smiled a little at his discomfort, but made sure to grab onto his arm and continue walking as if nothing had happened. At least that hadn’t changed. Damian had always had a rough time expressing his emotions, preferring to put those into his training and his studies. So, although it had been a very long while since they had known each other, she still knew to give him space to figure himself out.

“I wanted to do the same, you know? Come find you I mean. Mother wouldn’t let me. She had orchestrated an escape plan days before, apparently she knew that something was about to happen. She took me here, to my father’s home, and left me with a man I knew nothing about. The next time I saw her two years had passed.” he laughed humorlessly at that, his face halfway through a grimace. “It didn’t end well, for anyone involved.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she told him. “So Bruce Wayne is really your father? You know, now that you say that you kinda look like him.” she said with a smirk, trying to alleviate the dark cloud that had turned their humour. 

“Yeah I’ve heard that before, believe me” he answered with a snort. A second after he became serious once again. “You still haven’t told me what happened afterwards”.

“I kinda did though, just not all of it.” She knew a cheeky smile was on her face but she couldn’t stop it as she continued “Joab and I made our way west, but then, halfway across Iran he just…” The smile fell off at the memory. Damian put his hand on top of hers in silent support and, after a few seconds, she found her voice again. “He told me that we couldn’t continue together. That his priority had to be the miraculous. Keeping them safe. So he put me on a bus and told me to head west. That he would find me when it was safe once again. So that’s how I found myself eleven years old and living in Paris’ streets. I lived from money I could pickpocket from tourists and saving as much as I could in order to continue moving west. Sabine and Tom found me a few months later.”

She stopped then, breathing in order to keep her voice level. “I tried pickpocketing Sabine” she chuckled wetly. “This small petite lady, only a little bit taller than me looked like a good target. As soon as I got my hand in her pocket, though... She turned around grabbing my hand in a death grip. I couldn’t get her to let go. Me, a kid that had been trained by assassins and killers for eight years couldn’t get her to let me go. That should have been my first clue, really” she let a small laugh at the memory and then a bigger one at he confused look on Damian’s face. “Just when I thought she was gonna scream at me and drag me to the police, she looked me dead in the eyes and asked me if I wanted a home cooked meal.”

The young Wayne scrunched his eyebrows at that but she continued.

“You know, I think that even before we ended that meal she and Tom had already decided they wanted to adopt me. It was crazy, they are just so homely. It was like something I had never seen before. It took a few months, but they officially adopted me right before my twelfth birthday.”

“And Joab? Have you ever seen him again?”

“Oh yeah. He came back alright. A few months after the adoption had gone through, I saw him walking on the street. He changed his name to Master Fu and opened a massage parlour. It took awhile but at the end he couldn’t continue with the guardian’s chores on his own. I ended up training with him once again and that’s pretty much it.”

“So what, now you are a normal tennager that has magical training on the side” He goaded with a smirk on his face.

She blushed at that description but then she retaliated. “Well you're one to talk mister prince of the Shadows that now lives with his billionaire dad. Besides, it’s not as if school were…”

Right then a small but insistent beep came from her pocket. A sound that she had been dreading since Monday morning.

“Shit” she said and then at seeing Damian’s face she added “I have to go”

She didn’t hang around for him to answer, but she could hear him at her back as she turned around quickly, running for the park’s gate and the busy street that was beyond it.

“Wait!!”

Chapter Text

Damian had very clear instructions: keep an eye on her for the duration of her stay, as best as he could. He knew that Mari was not involved with whoever had let Scarecrow out of Arkham, probably. But his father was paranoid when it came to anything related to the Shadows, which he really could understand, but still it was annoying when that suspicion was directed to someone he trusted. Or, had trusted. They had been close, damnit! It wasn’t really his fault that he had missed her. And no, he wasn’t compromised as Tim had so readily insinuated. Besides, keeping a close eye on her and by extension Jagged was the best way to get the answers he needed. The invitation to show them around the city had only helped his point, that he was the only one equipped to know if they were hiding something. 

And he was going to prove that they weren’t hiding anything!! At least in any sense that pertained to Gotham or the safety of its citizens.

But now she had run off. 

He stared for a second, dumbfounded by the turn of events, before remembering himself and what he had come to do (watch for any suspicious activities, that’s it), and followed at a run. She seemed intent in getting away, looking back at him with a determined look on her face before focusing on her path. She waved around people with all the grace and poise of an expert athlete but he really wasn’t expecting anything else. They had been equals in everything, after all, it was to be expected that she had kept up at least part of her training. Her smaller stature helped her dodge pedestrians and lamp posts but his taller build helped him keep an eye on her as she did.

At the end of the sidewalk she just kept running, avoiding only by a hair a car that was passing and sliding over the hood of the next one. Thankfully for him, every car had stopped in shock and panic at her crossing, which left him to weave his way around them without causing further distress to the drivers. 

However his distraction cost him dearly as when he reached the other sidewalk she was nowhere to be seen. He kept running avoiding people as much as possible, a scowl now a permanent fixture on his face. Then, just passing an alley he saw movement on his peripheral vision. He bolted in that direction before being even sure of what he was seeing. Although it paid off as he noticed that she hadn’t gained much distance. 

She looked back again, and he heard a muttered curse as he started to gain ground on her. The pounding of their feet was reververated by the walls of the alleyway as they got away from the main street She jumped over a dumpster and then over the fence that was right ahead, but lost a few precious seconds as her jacket got stuck on the sharp edge. 

“Stop following!!” she shouted but it only echoed on the walls as he came to a stop on the other end of the fence.

“Why are you running?” he asked instead of answering but then had to climb the fence himself as she started running once again. He was mindful of the protruding edge on which she had stuck as he climbed, but quickly regained his pace by kicking the fence to gain impulse as he started running again. When finally the alley came to a dead end, he came to a halt a few paces before her as she looked at him with anger and frustration written in the tight lines of her face. 

“Why the hell are you following me?” She almost snarled at him. 

“You can’t just go running around Gotham!!” he said looking at his surroundings. Why had she stopped? There were no windows overlooking this part of the alley and no cameras, yet, if she had wanted to run away from him she was more than capable of getting to the rooftop of the three story building to their right, and going from there.

“Oh because I can’t take care of myself?” Mari’s tone was off as she said that there was suspicion but also impatience. And her eyes were darting around as if looking for options, lips tight in an emotion he couldn’t quite place.

“Wait, you don’t want me to go without you because you have been shadowing me! You think I am a threat!” his expression had twitched for a second, before falling into a blank mask. It was fast, but not enough so that he couldn’t identify the hurt and betrayal written in her eyes. That made him pause for a second, not being able to look at her eyes in shame.

“That’s not what… That wasn’t…

He couldn’t finish his phrase, however, as a louder, insistent beep came from her pocket and then she averted her gaze. On her hand she was holding her phone which had given the incessant warning. She huffed out loud at what she saw agitation and uncertainty warred as she looked at what was displayed. From his position he couldn’t see anything more than blots of colours moving around.

His gaze was drawn again to her face as she whispered something, but then he jumped and averted his gaze as a blinding light engulfed her. Putting a hand in front of his face he got into a fighting stance as the brightness dimmed to leave in its place Mari dressed in a brown suit. 

It took him a few seconds to process and then…. “You brought a miraculous to Gotham?!” he wondered, halfway accusatory, halfway astonished, procuring nonetheless that his voice wouldn’t carry or echo. “What? Why?!”

She looked at him with disdain and anger still, and turned away in dismissal. Upon looking at the dead end that was comprised by another building, she raised her hand, palm outwards pointed at the building.

“Voyage” she said. A swirl of light gathered in the wall that she had pointed. In a few seconds she had passed through the portal, but he didn’t waste any time as he jumped behind her just as it started to close. 

He landed on his hand, performing a roll and tucking his chin in as to not break anything. He came to a halt with his feet under him, ready to jump up at any moment. 

“That was stupid” said a voice right next to him “The portal could have dismembered you if it closed before, or you could have been lost in space”. The deadly tone wasn’t comforting, angry as she was. But they were alone in another alley, now that he looked around, and she had detransformed so if anything happened he could retaliate. 

What he wasn’t expecting, was for her to unsheath a knife she had hidden in her left boot. The metal gleamed in the afternoon light, the sun way having passed its peak in the sky. Were they in Europe? If so he would have a lot of explaining to do.

He went to grab the garrote that was hidden in his belt but another bright light, this one coloured pink, distracted him, making it impossible to look directly at her. Before he knew it he was pushed against a wall by an armoured red hand, with black fingers. He didn’t even get to blink before the knife that she was holding was embedded in the wall right above his shoulder. His jacket had a tear in it, along with the shirt underneath, both pinned by the knife, preventing him from moving away.

“Stay PUT!” The dotted wielder barked at him in a tone that could rival that of Batman when pissed. She went to say something else but a loud explosion coming from just beyond the alleway stopped her. She gave a step back instead and turned to the small floating creature of a horse that had been floating a little way behind. With a kinder tone she added: “Kaalki, please keep an eye on him”. And with that she was gone, jumping to the roof of one of the apartment complexes nearby with something that looked like a yoyo being used as a grappling hook.

He ignored the kwami for the time being and focused on getting the knife out of the wall. It had been firmly lodged almost into the hilt, and it wasn’t budging in the least. He pushed his back against the wall, exerting every bit of strength he had to push the knife in the opposite direction. He hated the miraculous enhanced strength, there was no way he was getting out of this one without further ripping his clothes. 

“You are not going to help?” he sulkily asked the kwami that had been looking over the corner of the alley, probably at whatever was causing all that noise. He had noticed that it had decreased a bit since they first arrived but there was still the tell-tale sound of things crushing against the street, cars that honked and people screaming.

The kwami didn’t respond, too busy with whatever they were looking at to answer. 

He groaned instead of pursuing the issue, getting both hands to the handle of the knife once again. He stood still for a moment, but then pushed with both hands upwards as he let his body fall, all his weight hanging from the where the knife was stuck. There was a horrible ripping sound as both his shirt and the leather jacket split from the force. Once he was out, he inspected both items. He would have to buy new ones as soon as possible, the tear too noticeable to pass inconspicuously. 

Still he had things to deal with before he could think of his clothes. That thought brought to attention the noises that came from the street. Grabbing the knife from the other side now, he used the wall for leverage, placing his foot on it and pulling as much as he could.

After a few seconds, the knife finally gave away, the blade coming out in perfect condition. He flipped it closed and marched to where the kwami was standing, peering around the corner as well. 

What he saw didn’t particularly lift his spirit.

There seemed to be a teenager floating in midair in the middle of the street surrounded by various kids and teenagers of all ages who mingled at her feet. Right in front of them was Mari, dressed in an armoured red suit covered in black spots. Her sides, neck, elbows and knees were coloured black, providing a contrast but not overwhelming the ladybug aesthetic. And that was what it really was he supposed. She was using the Ladybug miraculous but that one had been reserved for the direst circumstances.

“What the hell” he murmured to himself.

That did get a rise out of the kwami. The small creature turned startled to look at him and then at the place in the wall where he had been stuck. They looked at his clothes and then puckered their small nose in disgust. “You trained assassins and your disregard for material things. You didn’t need to do that, she would have let you go”. At that a flash of doubt crossed their face: “eventually” they amended. They turned once again to the battle going on, a look of worry clear in the equine’s features.

“What’s going on? Wait, are we in Paris?” he had been looking for a possible explanation but what really caught his attention had been the top of the Eiffel tower peeking over one of the rooftops at his right.

“You have missed a lot al Ghul boy. Hawkmoth has been attacking for four years now, the akumas appear at least twice a week nowadays. Ladybug is needed to stop them and cast the cure, to return the city back to order.”

“What??” he asked without comprehending.

“The akuma, that girl over there with the cornflower blue suit, she has been possessed by the butterfly user. He takes over people with negative emotions to do his binding but only Ladybug can stop him. Breaking the akumatized object and casting the ladybug’s cure is the only thing stopping France from falling into chaos.”

“But I thought the butterfly had been lost alongside the peacock. That was before I was born”. Ra’s had sent two of his best men with the miraculous to a mission to prove the effectiveness of the guardian’s claims. But they never came back, both having decided that the magical objects were more valuable than their alliance with the Shadows. That had been the reason that Ra’s had allowed Joab so much freedom, not forcing him to use the miraculous for more missions or training his soldiers in the secrets of the miraculous.

He was sure that the kwami was about to answer but right then something drew his eyes. The battle had progressed closer to them, Mari was holding herself against the small army of kids but was unable to get close to their leader. But what really had brought his attention back to the scene had been a black figure moving towards the fight, across the opposite rooftops. 

It was a blond teenager, probably their age, that was clad in black leather with a tail at his back and ears on his head: the black cat miraculous holder. He noticed that he threw himself at the akuma victim, claws extended towards her hair band that held her hair in a braid. 

The girl saw him coming, however, and moved out of the way to let him crash strongly against the ground, in the middle of her followers. Apparently not all cats landed on their feet, he thought.

“I was hoping he didn’t show up” murmured the tiny god posed right above Damian’s head. At his confusion it declared “He has been nothing but a hindrance lately. He always gets in the way, and tries to play prince charming. It makes Ladybug crazy as she has to worry for two. And that is when he shows up and doesn't leave her to fight on her own.”

The cat holder had made his way out of the crowd and appeared miraculously unharmed. The heroine on the other hand, paid him no mind and had invoked the lucky item (a ribbon) to end the fight as soon as possible. 

“Here we go” the kwami rolled his eyes and looked the other way in annoyance. 

Not understanding what they meant his eyes rapidly scanned the fight, now a mere 30 meters away. The two holders were giving them their back, a space between them and the akumatized victim with her fighters. Then the cat holder leaned against Mari, his face annoyingly close to hers and proceeded to say something but she forcefully pushed him away, disgust and anger directed at the cat. 

Oh. OH.

He turned completely to the kwami that still was floating inside the alleway they had arrived in, but was now refusing to look at the fight.

“Is he flirting with her? They are in the middle of a fight, what is he thinking?”

“Oh I’m pretty sure he is not. But that is a problem for another day” they chose that moment to throw him a look “And well aren’t you going to do something? She told you to stay put not to not interfere. Besides I think your interference would be welcome right now”.

“What do you..” and then his eyes slid down. He still had the knife. An idea came to mind. “So, tell me, as long as I don’t go out there and as long as I’m not seen I’m not doing anything against her orders aren’t I?” He could feel himself smirk at the kwami who took a calculating look in return.

“Well I’m not gonna endorse that thinking but right now…” they gave a shrug and made a gesture with their paws “Feel free to try”.

 So he lined up the shot and, after a second, threw. 

***********

Chat Noir had been in the middle of scowling her for treating him like that as if he was her parent or something when it happened.

“You can’t keep treating me like that. I'm only being friendly, you know. We are part… MeOCH!!

Like the cat he was dressed as, he jumped up, back arched and landing without any grace on his butt. He looked astonished and scared at the place where his foot had been about to step as he got closer to her. Again. Suppressing a sigh, he followed his gaze and was surprised to see that her knife was embedded right in between them. She could feel her face twitching as she processed what had happened. I took a second:

She laughed. 

She couldn’t help it: a laugh escaped her throat at the stupidity of the situation. She looked back at the place where she knew the knife had come from. Okay, so maybe she had been a bit harsh with him, but he really twisted her hand by following her and she had been angry that she had to reveal being Ladybug to him. They would have a lot to talk about.

But first, she couldn’t suppress a smile as she grabbed the knife from the ground, a plan forming in her mind as she did so. She left Chat Noir sputtering on the pavement as she tied the ribbon to the knife. After making sure that it was firm she started twirling it around as if it were one of her old rope-darts. With the other hand she detangled the yoyo from her hip twirling it with her left.

The fight that followed was a little more deadly and brutal than Ladybug’s usual ones. But hey! It ended pretty quickly as she smashed the akuma’s phone before she could set off another explosion or order her minions around. After the knife thing, it only took ten minutes for the fight to be over, to cast the miraculous cure, and to comfort the victim. 

She quickly went away, after the police took over, avoiding Chat and taking a detour so that no-one would look at the alley she was heading. Damian greeted her with a blank look on his face, but his eyes held worry and remorse that made her deflate further. She had always hated fighting with him, it felt like she was holding onto something that would burn her if she held on for too long.

 It looked like that hadn’t changed.

She let go of the transformation, and she felt naked under his eyes as if he could see into her mind. She pulled a ziplock bag from her purse giving the necessary snacks for the kwamy then she turned to him with a serious look on her face, no longer clouded by anger or hurt.

“Okey, let’s go talk”

Chapter Text

His clothes had mended. It was such a small thing but at least he didn’t have to worry about that. At least not immediately as it seemed that he had a lot of other things to worry about. The Butterfly miraculous had been found and it was currently being used by a supervillain. Paris had been under an emotional terrorist for years and there had been no exterior help. 

His old friend was one of said heroes. She had been fighting almost alone and only with incompetent help for years now.

The portal back had left them right where they had been before. They made their way back to the main street where thankfully the traffic jam had cleared and was moving normally. No one was looking at them, so that was a good sign.

“Can we get something to eat? I’m kinda starving” she announced when they were passing next to a food cart. 

“Has your uncle said anything? It's been almost 45 minutes”.

“Nothing yet” she answered after checking her phone, “I’ll give it another 30 before getting ready. 20 if Fang gets hungry.”

“Then there is a coffee shop that I sometimes go to, it’s two blocks from here”

He knew that she was still angry, so maybe giving her some space would help him in the long run. But still he needed answers about the akumas and the fight that he had witnessed. 

“How do akumatizations really work? I kinda got the strong emotions equals possession and the destruction of Paris, but can it really be anyone?”

“Well as far as we know, it can be anyone but it has to be inside of a perimeter. And no, before you ask me I don’t know the extent of that perimeter or this would have been solved long ago. As far as we know Hawkmoth has made a conscious decision to only akumatize teenagers or adults that could be described as typically civilian with civilian problems. Maybe to bring less attention towards himself as he is not involving any military or strategic person that would ensure more coverage and involvement from other countries. Or even superheroes.”

“Although,” she added more pensively “there have been some cases that defy that theory. Paris’ mayor, for example, a policeman and a few others.”

After a second he shrugged her shoulders, as if letting go a thought, and then went on with what almost seemed like a debrief “As far as I have gathered, those are the exceptions that only serve to confirm the norm. Take the girl from today for example. As far as I gathered, she was a typical teenager that wanted to go out with friends but didn’t have her mother’s permission. She got akumatized while texting on the phone, as that was the last thing she remembered.”

That brought a lot of more questions to his mind as they turned a corner, him leading the way.

“They don’t know what they do while being akumatized? Doesn’t that make them more dangerous”

“I don’t know about more or less. Honestly Rebel’s powers, the girl from today, meant that she gave other kids and teenagers the power to order the adults around them to their heart's content.” She turned to look at him and then said: “If you ask me, today could have been way more serious than it was. Even more so if the attack had lasted longer. Oh she could also throw bombs with her phone, I forgot that one.” 

“Yeah I think I saw that”

“But overall, it was one of the milder ones.”

He tried to wrap his head around that. “And Paris just goes on with it?”

“Well it has been four years now, so we have learnt to deal with it. As far as I’m concerned for the citizens of Paris living with Hawkmoth around has been like dealing with earthquakes. The first few times they happen you get concerned and it’s the only thing everyone talks about. After a while though, if it doesn’t affect you or your family, you go on with your day. Sure you take precautions as long as it’s active, you know, but afterwards things go on as if it hadn’t happened in the first place.”

By then they had arrived at the place he had offered before, so he stepped forward to open the door for her, letting her go in first. The welcoming smell of coffee greeted them both, calming a little bit the anxiety that had been coursing through his veins till then. The knowledge that the miraculous were not only in Gotham but had to be active was overwhelming. Learning why had been an adventure all on its own.

“And the victims?” he prompts, lowering his voice as they both get in line.

“Well the police interrogates them about the event to make sure to gather all the information. There is a task force dedicated only to deal with akuma victims and avoid new akumatizations or people getting in the way. Still there is nothing they can do about magic.”

“Okey” he accepts, and then: “I’m gonna need a strong coffee to understand all this.”

She chuckled at his misery and turned to look at the board with all the drink options without a care in the world. Or at least feigning it. Now that he took a closer look there was definitely tension corded through her shoulders. And her spine was tense. She was standing with her weight on the toes, ready to act at any slight misstep.

He breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. As she had said, they had a lot to talk about but he wanted to do it right. He would explain his actions, his father’s reasoning and apologize properly. He owed her that at least.

When they got to the cashier he made sure to pay for both of them, the two coffees and a sandwich for him plus the quiche that she had ordered. They were now nearing lunchtime so the small place was getting a little crowded.

When she made her way to one of the tables he stopped her with a hand to her arm. “I know where we can go that we won’t be overheard. We can discuss everything there.” And with that he turned to get out once more, stopping only to open the door for her. He guided her through the now crowded streets over one block to the east of the commercial street, until they were in front of a building. Entering an alley that was right next to it, he explained: “My father's fiance owns the top most floor and has set up a few stools on the roof where we can talk and eat. Since she no longer lives here, but only keeps the apartment for emergencies no one would disturb us if we go directly to the roof.” And with that he pulled the emergency staircase to street level so that both could get up.

Once they were both in the landing, he made sure it was secure before moving upwards. The old building had only 5 floors so they didn’t have to climb that much thankfully. He did notice that she was tense and he berated himself for bringing her somewhere that was clearly no neutral territory for this conversation. Although there was no place in this city that could be considered truly neutral.

“Still” he thought “bad idea”. 

They came upon the roof moments later. There were a few seats and a coffee table, plus a few fairy lights that Selina had installed to make the place a little more cozy. Not that she really used them. 

He wasted no time depositing the food he was carrying on the table, taking his phone out in the process to warn Selina that they were going to be using her roof. He wanted no intrusions but the space wasn’t his to just demand it. 

He made sure to check his notifications bringing up the family chat to see if there had been any breakthrough in Scarecrow’s location. He pretended not to notice that Mari had not taken a seat yet as she was studying his actions. He thought about reassuring her that this was not a trap and that he really only wanted to talk and explain his own actions. 

He didn’t react as she exhaled loudly as if in defeat and drawed a seat back to sit herself opposite to him. She left her own cargo on the table and took her own phone to check for notifications. Apparently there was no news yet as she quickly put it away on her jacket’s pocket.

He mirrored her action, putting the phone away and waited for her to look at him while resting his back on the backrest of the seat.

Look I really wasn’t planning to discover anything related to your other identity nor even follow you to Paris.That… Yeah I didn’t plan that at all.”

She didn’t say anything, nor reacted in anyway he could qualify, although he could see in her eyes that she was annoyed with him. So he quickly continued: “The thing is, yesterday we got notification that Scarecrow was out of Arkham. He is one of the normal Rogues that clutter this city and run rampant if left unchecked” he clarified not knowing if she possessed all that information. “However, the important part is that he has known connections to the league of Shadows. Knowing that we decided to keep an eye on you just to be cautious.”

She seemed to accept the explanation but her face was still bare of emotion. Only his keen observance helped him notice the change in her posture. Although her face had remained the same, her shoulders stiffened a fraction before dropping down as if she had shed a weight, but still indecisive about what her actions were gonna be.

“So what you are telling me” she started saying “is that you chose to believe that my past, my allegiance to the Shadows that was brought to me by adoption and not by choice, is a damning fact that immediately aligns myself with rogues and criminals.” her voice was like a knife scraping on stone. She was extremely mad, but he guessed he deserved that so he let her continue without interruption. “You had no evidence to indicate any illegal or damning activity from my part yet you decided to put me at the same level of brutes and murderers because of my past? That’s rich coming from you Damian Wayne.”

He winced at the implied insult and contemplated her for a second. By the end of her sentence the emotionless mask she had been wearing all that time weavered and he could see that real anger was inscribed in the lines of her face. In any other circumstances he would have jumped at that tone and the accusation on her words. He made himself breath , counting to twenty in three different languages before he felt his anger recede.

 “Look, I’m not saying it was right. I actually thought it was a very wrong idea from the very start. Specially because there was no evidence to signal that anyone from the league had been involved in his escape. Much less you. However a very significant amount of time has passed since we last saw each other, so I couldn’t exactly vouch for you. If spending time in your company could clear your name and give me a better understanding of who you are now I was going to take it.”

Lowering his eyes away from his face he relented, giving into the urge to apologize for his own actions: “Look I’m not sorry for shadowing you in order to prove your innocence, but I do apologize for uncovering something you wanted to keep hidden and had nothing to do with me or this city.”

Not wanting to see her reaction he turned fully into the city, observing the roof’s reflection on the more modern, glass covered building that was to his left. The taller but older building that was located at his back would give them a little shadow to cool down in if they stayed into the afternoon. He doubted that would happen as any minute now they would receive a call from Mari’s uncle.

“You said we” she interrupted his thoughts.

“What?” his head whipped to look at her.

“When you mentioned that you got a notification that Scarecrow was out. You said we?”

Backpedalling mentally to what he had said he cursed himself for letting that go. “My family” he tried to say as if it were a given.

She must have noticed something on his face because she pressed the answer.

“So your family just gets inside intel from the police department? Things that are not in the news.”

He stayed silent, trying to convey what he couldn’t say to her. 

She opened once more her mouth to retort but then closed it a second later. It was clear on her face that she was analyzing him because she took a second to speak. He didn’t know what to do but if she knew that his father was Batman then they were going to get into a completely different discussion and his father was not going to take it well. Probably. He would make it a point to further interrogate her while distrusting her at every step. 

So he tried to convey how urgent it was for him that she didn't press anymore. Finally she seemed to have read it off of his face as she lowered her shoulders once more. “Fine” she conceded. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

He hadn’t noticed that he had stiffened, his shoulders also holding tension at his uncertainty. He let it out with a breath, and leaned forward to grab his food to start eating.

Before he took a bite Damian looked her in the eyes, those endless pools of blue light that had been his companions throughout childhood. “Thank you, I mean it.”

Chapter Text

Afterward that was dealt with they ate in almost silence. She was lost in thought contemplating what had happened in such a short span of time. She had rekindled some of her friendship with Damian although tentatively. The akuma attack had happened and she had had to reveal that she was Ladybug because apparently she was a suspect in Scarecrow's liberation. And then, as he explained that he had not only apologized for his actions but had also asked her not to pry into his family’s secret. She could count on one hand the times Damian had so openly asked something of her, as if admitting a weakness. The number of times he had admitted wrongdoing and apologized for it was even lower.

So she was surprised to say the least. He had clearly changed. The question now was how much?

“Can I ask you something?” he interrupted her thoughts. 

She looked at him with half his sandwich in his hand, and his jacket draped over the seat back. He looked really good and relaxed. That was also another thing that had changed. He wasn’t so tightly wound as he was before but, well, neither was she. Marinette waved her hand in a go ahead motion and took another bite of her own meal.

“The horse kwami, Kaalki? They said that you have been fighting that hawkmoth for 4 years now. Is it because of his powers? Is that why the Ladybug and Cat miraculous are active? I thought they were only needed for world ending threats?

Although it was certainly hidden in a mask of stoicism there was worry in his eyes. ‘For her or for the world’ she wondered. There was no way to be sure. 

A shrilling sound from her side made her suddenly come out of her musings. The tone was obnoxiously loud, but she ignored it in favour of answering Jagged’s call. 

“Mari!!” was the happy trill that greeted her once she got the call connected. She resisted the urge to yank the phone away from her ear, but did purse her lips in annoyance. “Fang and I are getting out of the park now. He got annoyed with all the people moving around. We even got the attention of some police officers who thankfully are helping to keep the crowd away. Where are you guys? Have you had lunch already?”

“Hey Jagged, Yeah we already ate something but maybe a dessert would be good. We are actually not that far from the park ourselves. Where do you want to meet?” She stood up, the leftover of her quiche in her other hand. She made a vague motion to get him to stand up, watching as he took the final bite of his sandwich and proceeded to clean up.

At Jagged’s unsure answer he turned to Damian and asked him: 

“Hey, do you know a good restaurant around here with good desserts?” 

She watched him think for a second and then nod, so she passed the phone to him  to give directions to uncle Jagged.  She listened for a second as he relied the instructions and then looked away to finish grabbing her own things. 

On her peripheral view she saw him make a gesture towards the staircase so she started that way. A second later Damian handed her phone back and both of them made small talk as they returned to street level and joined the crowds that moved around. The walk was almost entirely silent but she was quickly getting used to it. Damian had never been anything like the other kids their age she supposed, and neither had she. Years of dealing with normal teenagers however had changed her perspective, so this although normal in the past was now something she had to get used to once again.

It was only when they had the restaurant in sight that he turned to look at her, stopping in the sidewalk, and told her with meaning in his voice: “I want to help, if I can.” 

At her quizzical look he amended: “with your problem in Paris. I am offering you help in any way you may need it. I am aware that you have a partner but I did notice that he is heavily undertrained and you need someone competent watching your back.”

She gauged him for a minute. Mari recalled that she had been doing that a lot lately. But he was as unreadable as he always had been. She would have to answer this as she had been doing everything lately, letting her instincts and a little hope guide her steps. In any other occasion she knew there was no way she was letting hope dictate her decisions but she was Ladybug after all. She had luck on her side when it mattered. 

“Fine. But I won’t have you fighting by my side that would be…. extremely complicated. I could use some help with the investigation part though.” and then giving him a tight smile she added “you were always better with computers, after all. There are things we will need to discuss though. A lot of information that you still don’t have.”

She felt that there wasn’t much she could say while still in public so she continued walking until both were at the restaurant's entrance. It looked very fancy and richly decorated. From what she could see from the entrance the restaurant wasn’t really crowded, although a lot of tables were fully packed. There was a lot of space between tables allowing the occupants to talk privately. The white and gold decoration and the combination of classical with baroque architecture creating a stark contrast with the attendants dark wardrobe.  

‘It was almost funny’ Mari mused, how the building's interior could contrast so much with its exterior. She couldn’t really say that the street was awful. It was certainly cleaner than the other streets they had passed, but it still wouldn’t have looked like a street where the wealthy restaurants and stores were. Or at least it wouldn’t look like it in any other city on the planet she supposed. 

They had only been standing at the entrance when they spotted Jagged coming from down the block with Fang on his leash. Although they were a little rumpled, both looked fine if only annoyed. 

She smiled and waved at them, bringing back the lightness if only for her uncle’s sake. 

From the corner of her eyes she could see Damian sending her a dubious look. He clearly wanted to comment if his slightly pursed lips were any indication. She made quick work of silencing him with a glare in his direction. She mentally thanked whatever god was listening because Damian did actually stay silent and didn’t question her in front of the musician.Once again Marinette put all her effort into presenting the most sunny disposition she could and beamed when Jagged reached them. 

“Hey!! How was the crowd? Did you get a good look at the park at least?” 

Jagged answered in kind commenting that the park was beautiful although they didn’t get to see everything what with the crowd following them and Fang’s sour disposition that only worsened as more people approached. The anxious crocodile only calmed down once the police started helping to keep the crowd controlled giving Jagged enough space for him to make a quick retreat.

After that, conversation flowed easily with Damian occasionally interrupting to provide more information of the city and to answer direct questions. They had been ushered inside quickly once the hostess recognised the Wayne heir so the meal had progressed well.

The desserts both teenagers asked for were indeed delicious even though Jagged complained that they couldn’t rival the creations of her parent’s bakery. 

Overall it was a good meal, and a good day. Things clearly didn’t progress like she had wanted but they clearly ended better than she had thought.

Chapter Text

The rest of the week passed much more quietly and calmly than those first few days in Gotham. Jagged and Marinette had enjoyed visiting the different touristic places while staying away from the more dangerous areas such as Crime Alley and the Narrows. Damian joined in a few of the outings providing knowledge of the city while also getting to know this new version of his old friend.

She was more lighthearted and bubbly. Ready with a smile every time someone was looking at her, he noticed. She also seemed more carefree. She still held herself on guard but there was a clear difference in her eyes. There was no planning every action, every thought structured to take action. To takedown, to oppose. Despite himself, he liked this version of her. She seemed more free than he had ever seen her. More herself.

Her smiles were also, sometimes, a mechanism of defense. A distraction for those that didn't notice enough. However, when they were truly genuine her smiles were an image to behold. Her joy was also contagious, he noted. He was drawn to those moments like a cherished gift. A secret he didn't know what to do about but was sworn to keep. He had found himself more contemplative than ever, going back through his memory and categorizing every new aspect he discovered.

Of course his brothers had noticed. Obnoxious or not they were trained detectives. Made by experience to notice every new aspect or every little thing that did not behave as previously concluded. They had restored to pestering and annoying him every time Damian entered the manor’s walls. He didn’t have answers for them so it was complicated.

He had started to spend more time outside for that same reason. 

And being outside, of course, usually led to Mari. She was the perfect excuse to get away afterall. 

So the week passed and they spent a lot of time together. She ended up giving him a lot of intel on the current situation in Paris. Although he suspected that was not all of it, as she still looked at him as waiting for something. Gauging his reactions. That was fine. He could wait for her to trust him. It wasn’t as if he had trusted her with everything either, what with a certain bat-secret pertaining to vigilantism.

Regarding those same secrets, however, there had been no news on Scarecrow's whereabouts. That in itself wasn’t so worrying as the rogue was known for taking his time before striking. Afterall, creating enough fear toxin to really cause an impact in a city renowned by it’s villains activity took time. What was indeed worrying, and what had weirded the family out was that none of the man’s usual henchmen presented any unusual activity. It was as if Scarecrow was still locked in Arkham. There was no-one helping the guy as far as they could tell. Almost as if he had disappeared.

The only thing they could do was wait for more intel. Or for someone to get sloppy. So, as the week passed the concern grew. Thankfully Damian had something to keep his mind from worrying too much with different activities to fill the days.

That way the weekend came quickly enough, and with saturday also came Penny. He was introduced to her while hanging out with Mari at the hotel. She arrived in a flurry of activity and questions, but was quickly distracted by Jagged’s antics as he attempted to write a new song. That was brought to a stop as the manager announced that they had received an invite by Bruce Wayne himself to a dinner at a high end restaurant. 

Inevitably, when Mari and Jagged turned to look at him, Damian only shrugged his shoulders as he had not been aware that a reservation had been made. He of course had to leave after that as Mari got too preoccupied on choosing the outfits for the other attendees and he had to go change himself. 

The dinner thankfully had been a success. His brothers had not been able to attend as someone had to be out patrolling, but Selina had accompanied his father so it wasn’t so awkward. She had always been the best of all of them at social conversation after all. The Catwoman knowing exactly what to say to get everyone to like her while simultaneously getting everyone talking. It was always a sharp contrast to his and his father’s stoic demeanor. 

His father's socialite persona of Brucie Wayne did, thankfully, not appear during the conversation as Jagged “Knew him too much for that”. 

Overall it was a good meal and a good goodbye as the Europeans were going to be parting for Metropolis the next day. After having said goodbye and all the way back to the manor in the backseat of his father’s Audi, Damian considered going the next day to have a more personal farewell.

He didn’t know why but the idea kept coming into his head as if trying to promise him something he didn’t really understand.

 Right before he went to bed, however, he dismissed the idea. He and Jagged Stone’s entourage were nothing but acquaintances, so it would have been unbecoming of Damian to pretend otherwise by appearing personally. 

He ignored the voice in his head asking if that was all Mari was to him.

A text would have to be enough to quench whatever type of attachment or anxiety he was feeling.

The next morning, he apologized via text for not being able to be there personally and wished Mari and her not-so-adoptive family a safe trip for the rest of the tour. He ignored the heavy rock in his stomach telling him that he had lost an incredible and very important chance. 

It loosened a little bit when Mari promised to keep in contact via text.

***************

The news came slowly, but they came. 

He had seated patiently on his throne for months now. Planning, strategizing, giving orders and then planning again. Now he was on his study, the big oak desk occupying most of the space. Nyssa was by his side patiently waiting for his attention as he looked over the reports from his subordinates. 

His eldest, Talia, sat by the side of the door, preoccupied in sharpening a few blades. Her inattentiveness would be corrected, but there were more pressing things to deal with first. Like gathering the few resources that were available to the League and getting rid of those that had defected. 

At least a good tool had been delivered, bringing an old player back to the chessboard. The escape of the rogue would keep the detective busy for the time being, allowing more space to prepare and execute his plan. It was going be hard to keep the Scarecrow from going off of the determined script but Talia would go as a representative form the Demon himself. He would have no chance but to obey then and the people would learn again why no one dared cross Ra’s al Ghul.

They had the perfect plan; they just needed the spark to set it in motion.

And then Uras came back.

Back straight but shoulders loose, the messenger clearly brought good news.

He kneeled before his superior bowing to the man that sat across the desk. The two  ladies moved to stand by their father’s side. At his left as they would always be. 

“My liege” said the newcomer’s voice. “I’ve got news from Paris that might interest you”

Ra’s waved his hand in dismissal of the guards stationed at the entrance and behind him. They left their stations immediately and without question as good soldiers. Every bit of information was going to be important for what he had planned, but they needed to keep a close tab on those who knew. 

At a gesture of his master the man on the floor continued with what he had came to say.

“There has been an intervention in Paris. There are reports of Ladybug receiving outsider’s help in her crusade. Someone who wasn’t in possession of a Miraculous, sir.”

There was a flash of pulsing green coming from the man’s eyes. Dangerous and waiting. Uras quickly averted his gaze and lowered his head even farther in a show of respect. 

“And why should this news interest me?” Ra’s temper was quick to devolve into annoyance and it was apparent in his tone as he continued: “It is hardly noticeable that a passerby lends their heroes some help, especially if they are from the city that is under their protection.”

The servant took a second to answer which annoyed his master farther. He, however, breathed in deeply, aware that the next sentence would be important. The silence stretched and then bursted.

“My league, the urgency of the message does not concern what was done, my lord.” claimed Uras “It is who was involved that drew our watcher’s attention”

The demon’s head arched an eyebrow at this, his gaze as cold as his body had been mere weeks ago. He took a harsh breath and then stoically lifted an eyebrow intrigued despite himself by the turn the news had taken. He inched a millimeter forward on his seat and glanced, by the corner of his eyes, at his daughters who were closely paying attention now.  

“Oh? And who was it that entered the fight?”

“Your grandson, my league. Damian al Ghul, heir to the demon.

Chapter Text

In the beginning, the texts came sporadically. telling him how the day went and about akumas. They slowly evolved into regular checkups and asking how the other’s day was going.

More slowly though they changed into good morning wishes and late-night conversations. She told him about her trip, how the interview in Metropolis had gone. How one of her designs ended on the front page of the Daily planet’s webpage.  She had started receiving more and more commissions as the tour progressed and now she had to postpone any new ones until she was back in Paris. It was that or getting swamped in work. More work really. 

They actually talked about Akuma's busyness, however, about a few close calls with them, how to avoid the heavy hitters and so on. Nonetheless, as much as they worked on the case and went over the little clues they had they still couldn’t find anything. Marinette worried about that but as the journey and Jagged’s tour came to an end she had even more things to do. 

Thus, it’s no surprise that once she was back in her family’s bakery, once the celebration and dinner were over and a few days had gone by and she got into a routine, she felt lost. She was so sure that something would have changed when she came back and now she felt like no progress had been made. At all. 

There was nothing to look forward to either. No clear path of action. She came back to her parents home and there she was going to stay for the perceivable future. Until a plan of action changed her course.

She spent the whole tour moving from one place to another, the only constant being Penny, Jagged and their ridiculously overgrown lizard. Of course after gotham, another constant was Damian, or his texts. She still couldn’t believe they had found each other after so many years apart. 

And, it was also nice to be able to reconnect with him even if it had started almost entirely profesional. It was how the both of them worked after all. She was glad to have him back even if he was an ocean away. 

*********

With a few days before the new school year started and everything already prepared for it, Marinette had taken to wandering the city to entertain herself. She would occasionally send pictures of interesting things to Damian, or even stop to sketch and enjoy the last of the summer weather. 

That Tuesday, the day before school, found her strolling alongside the Seine, her feet marking a rhythm among the heated stones of the path. She had dressed comfortably but stylishly, the pink blouse’s elegance compensating for the commonality of the blue jeans and the ballet flats. 

She went mindlessly down the steps, lost in thoughts that seemed not to settle on any topic, until she heard the sounds of a well known guitar up ahead. The Couffain boat was parked a little way ahead of her she noticed. Anarka, Luka’s mother, had the strange tendency to change its location every once in a while to “stave off boredom”. She claimed that it helped her remain unpredictable but really Marinette thought it was so as not to annoy the neighbours for too long.

Right as she had predicted Luka was seating on the Deck of the family boat, strumming away at his guitar. As she approached the melody changed into the one that Luka had described as hers. He had noticed her proximity without even having to lift his head just by listening to her heartsong.

A few seconds later, the young man raised his head just as she came to a stop in front of him. He greeted her with a smile which she answered readily. It had been quite a long while since they had seen each other, they had talked of course but it wasn’t the same.

He noticed the question in her eyes and quickly informed her that his sister, Juleka was out with her friends. It was then that Anarka’s popped out of a window below the deck and saw her still standing on the walkway. 

“Permission to board Captain?” the young designer asked as she had been doing for years now. Every time she came to visit they would treat the woman like the captain and she would answer as if they were sailors. 

“permission granted, young Lady. How was the trip?”

“Extremely good!! we just arrived last thursday but uncle Jagged and Penny had to go back to London the next day.”

“Ahh that is good to hear Marinette. And what big adventure have you planned for this year?” With the approaching school and the end of the vacations everyone seemed to want to know what everyone else wanted to do now.

The girl however frowned at the reminder, she was clearly restless but she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Nonetheless she chased the thought out of her mind and put a smile on her face: that would be a matter for later. 

“Nothing for now, although I would be sure to tell you when I find something new to do” the young designer claimed. 

“I’m glad to hear that, now come on board, sailor!! I’m sure it's been a while since you last saw Luka, you must have a lot to catch up on!”

“Right away, Captain Anarka!'' she said and quickly made her way across the plank into the deck where Luka was now standing. He greeted her with a smile and a warm hug which she returned happily. 

More than an hour had passed until they had finally catched up on what the other had been up to. It had been an eventful summer apparently, Luka was apparently seeing a girl from his university campus. They had gone out a few times but it was nothing really serious just yet. 

Mari couldn’t be more happy for him! She wanted to know everything about their not really dates and how the girl acted. She sounded really nice too.

The animated chatter died after a while however and she used the time to check her phone for new messages. When she looked up once again, Luka was watching her with a weird smile on his face.

“What?” is all she could ask.

“Nothing,” he responded almost too fast.

“No seriously, what? Do I have something on my face?”

He let out a small laugh but then replied “It’s not that it’s just… you are different”

“Different? What do you mean different?” a smile now graced her lips as she contemplated his answer.

“Well I’m not sure.. more yourself I guess, less scatterbrained” he added with a laugh and a teasing look. “It’s a strange mix between more grounded and descentered. Does that make any sense?” he questioned. 

“Absolutely not” She couldn’t stop herself from letting out a laugh at his description. “But I kinda get what you mean” she amended after a few seconds. “I feel different too. Like I’m less attached to all this” her hand motion could encompass everything and nothing but she knew he had understood what she meant.

“So what happened?” he questioned quietly as if they were sharing a secret. 

So she told him what she had avoided mentioning beforehand. Luka knew a tweaked version of her life story and she knew that he knew it to not be entirely truthful but he never pressed. So she tried to tell him most of the truth every time she told him something as a thank you of sorts. This time was no exception as she retold what had happened in Gotham. 

Mari told Luka about her long lost friend and how she had found him a continent away living with his family. About how she had cried like a baby upon seeing him because she had thought he was dead for almost a decade now. 

“We knew we couldn’t be close because so many years had passed, you know? But it was clear that we both wanted to get to know the other again. He also discovered something he shouldn’t and I… I certainly wasn't hoping for him to offer me help! I mean he could be the only one who could be as close to me in understanding but he actually offered me help. I… I don’t know, I feel like there had been a part of me missing for years and once he offered help It was like I rediscovered that part all over again. I was no longer missing something.” she hadn’t noticed how close to tears she was until her voice broke at the end of the statement. She took a shuddering breath trying to fortify herself once more.

“Come here” Luka’s gentle voice said by her side, his hands open to offer her an embrace.

“So she accepted the hug and said into his shoulder: “When I started living with Tom and Sabine I thought I had to be different as I was before. More normal. I hadn’t realized how much of myself I was actually cutting off and extinguishing to fit the role of Marinette until someone saw me only as Mari again.” She felt silent after that, the minutes trickling by as she contemplated a part of what had been bothering her.

“I wish I had noticed how much it was bothering you, I’m sorry” was all he said as he rubbed her back in comfort and stood guard for Akumas helping her let her feelings out.

It took her quite a while to rein herself in once again, but once she did they rapidly changed the topic deciding not to risk more events that could cause an akumatization. 

Luka did everything he could after that to cheer her up, and when she left for her home hours later, she did so with a smile on her face. 

When she found herself in her room alone except for Tikki, however, she couldn’t help but think about what they had been talking. Reclamation. 

Chapter Text

Damian had been sitting on the roof when Nightwing found him. Patrol had been long and they still didn’t have any clues as to where Scarecrow could be. He was laying extremely low for now, leading them to believe that he might have left the city. So the new Robin had gone to one of the city’s roofs for now. It was his favorite one in this sector of Gotham because it casted the darkest shadows and its ledge was firm enough to seat away from prying eyes.

He had been rereading some of the texts Mari had sent him throughout her day. He was impressed at how their conversations had progressed, from formal and pretty much to the point onto very friendly texting and talking about their respective days. It was comforting in a way, to know that she was happy and still there. Even if it was an ocean away. 

‘Thank you for reminding me who I am’ the message had read. It had been written ten minutes after she said goodbye, like an afterthought. He didn’t know exactly what it meant but he was sure it was important.

“He Little D, you ready for your last school year?” said the blue clad vigilante one he found him. He took a seat beside his little brother. 

That brought Damian out of his thoughts. He reread the last message that had been sent an hour ago before putting his phone away in the utility belt and turning toward his eldest brother. 

“Tt. I’m sure it will be as boring as the other years have been” 

“Oh c’mon!! You are going to be finishing school, do you know how important that is?? You would be like the first to graduate from actual school and not just from taking GED’s”

“Yeah that’s because school is useless” he responded but allowed a smile to turn the corners of his lip upwards. It was funny, as smart as all his siblings were he would be the only one to actually finish school.

“Besides” continued Dick “that also means you get to graduate, and attend the graduation party with friends and a date. Also, I’m sure that B would like to throw you a dinner or something. It sure is gonna be a busy year, maybe you should take a break from all … this.” he finished by pointing at the city in an over exaggerated gesture. 

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the youngest one answered shoving Dick to the side with a push to his shoulder. 

Nightwing only laughed but he was soon joined by Robin who was way more quiet about it. A comfortable silence followed and Damian’s hands immediately went back to the pouch that was holding his phone. He stalled the unconscious movement as soon as he noticed it, his hands in the middle of taking the phone back out. He put it back again and decidedly placed his hands by his side on the cold stone of the roof.

It was pretty obvious that Dick had noticed but he didn’t say anything, opting to prye about the contemplative state the younger was in. 

“So what have you been thinking so much about huh?” and then at Robin’s raised eyebrow he added: “You’ve been more quiet than usual. You actually passed a great opportunity to quip about the fighting skills in the second thieve you encountered. I was listening.”

“humm” was his answer. “I’m not sure actually”

when Damian failed to elaborate Dick prodded: “Does it have to do with your phone? You have been looking at it a lot more lately.”

True to his words, the young Wayne hadn’t told anyone about what was going on in Paris. His father would surely like to intervene if he wasn’t aware of it already and keeping a safe distance because of the akumas was going to be a priority if someone went to the city of love.

 Now that he thought about it, most missions that would have taken place close to France and specifically Paris were mostly cancelled or postponed. But that couldn’t be a coincidence, couldn’t it?

‘That line of thinking would require further investigation’ he decided.

“Kinda … I don’t know I just don’t know what it means”. He frowned in thought, still not sure what Mari had meant in her last message or even if it was meant to be read.

“What what means, Baby bird?”

“I just, I’m not sure, she just sent this message and then erased it a few minutes later. Should I answer that? How am I supposed to answer that?”

“wait? She?? who??” Nightwing exclaimed louder than intended. And then a second later recognition splayed across his face as fast as a truck. “You are texting the designer girl!! Since when have you been talking? I thought the last you knew of her was at the dinner with B!!”.

Damian supposed that it was a fair assessment. People in their line of work didn’t tend to keep tabs on each other or keep in contact unless it was an emergency. With her being an escapee from the league it would be normal to assume that they would follow the same pattern as most masks. Only checking in if they needed something from the other, which they kinda did but...

Still, they had been close.

When he looked up Nightwing was observing him with a manic grin on his face, his body almost vibrating with unexpected energy.

‘Oh boy! Bad idea! horrible idea really’ Damian incriminated himself in the safety of his head. Outwardly he made sure to present an unimpressed look with a boring tilt of his head. ‘Hopefully that would work in calming the other one down.’

It didn’t.

The next five minutes were spent with Nightwing making almost incoherent gushing sounds as Robin struggled with himself as to not shove the eldest down the building. 

Five minutes after that he was finally able to get an answer to his questions. 

“Just tell her you managed to read the message before she deleted it. Be polite about it” his brother reminded him, shit-eating smile still on his face. “Ask her if she wants to talk about it, and if not then don’t pressure her.”

Dick got up, signaling for his brother to do the same and then, as an afterthought, he added. “Better do it tomorrow though, It must be pretty late back in Paris.”

*************

Marinette was still thinking about her conversation with Luka the day before as she dressed herself almost on autopilot. The shower had helped her wake up, but the early hour still made her feel like she had tons of weight on her shoulders. She stretched a last time before going on with her daily routine. 

Thankfully, she still had time as she shoved everything in her bag and made her way to school, saying goodbye to her parents. 

The class proceeded….. much like the last years had gone. She sat on the back, doodled until the professor arrived and then took notes. Everything was exactly like the year previous until her phone vibrated in her pocket a few hours into the day. 

‘Read your message’ the text said and then ‘Do you want to talk about it?’.

She coloured as she read that message. She wasn’t sure why she had thanked him the day before but it still felt like something she should do. She had regretted it immediately, the dramatism too much for her taste. 

She sent him back a polite negative but was surprised by his response. 

‘You should be paying attention to class, Mari. I won’t distract you further.’

She let out a chuckle entertained by his formality but touched by his kindness. It wasn’t as if history was a topic that interested her that much.

‘Nahh this is boring. You can distract me as much as you want :)’

Chapter Text

 She almost couldn’t believe the day had been going so well. She had spent the majority of the school day avoiding those that once stood at her side. Turning a deaf ear to what they said and the rumours that they started. 

To her surprise, Chloe had been doing the same, still seating in the front of the class but now alone and quiet. Lila and her pose had ignored the blonde, at most murmuring when she passed by their desk. Adrien on the contrary and to no one's surprise, really, had done nothing to try and be friendly with his lifelong friend. He had just turned his head as if he hadn’t seen the hurt look on Chloe's face. He had left not long after that, to do a photoshoot or something for his father.  

The hours had gone by calmly and steady, Damian’s messages the only thing to highlight from the whole first day of classes. There were only forty five minutes to go until the bell rang when the other shoe had dropped.

 The Akuma alert had signaled everyone that school was finished for the day and that everyone should return home as soon as possible. 

Marinette had used the excuse to head towards an alley and transform. With Tikki’s magic she had gone to confront the akuma, a man that had been fired because of a cut in the company’s budget. Apparently Hawkmoth was running out of ideas because the man, now called Murphy loi, had the power to do just that, apply Murphy’s law to whatever he saw fit.

That had been hours ago. 

Throughout the fight she had tried implementing various different plans that varied in every way possible. the Akuma, however, managed to always get the drop on her as everything would turn out wrongly to his advantage. 

She had had to recharge two times by now, each one leaving her more drained than the last. And there were still no signs of an alley cat to help her. Tikki had warned her that she should look for external help if things kept getting worse. Marinette had argued at first, telling the tiny god that the other’s identities had been most certainly compromised, and she didn’t have the time to test and give someone else a miraculous. After all, involving someone who didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t take the life of a hero seriously was what got her partnerless in the first place. 

“Then pick someone you already know” had been Tikki’s answer. “Or at least see what your lucky charm suggests.”

Knowing that she wouldn’t change her mind about it, she agreed to at least see what luck would have her do. Mari transformed once more into her costumed self and, standing between two buildings so as to mask the magic from view, proceeded to do just that. She wasn’t expecting for only an innocuous piece of paper to come down floating meagerly into her hands. 

Cursing her luck as the answer once again wouldn’t be simple, she snatchet the paper out of the air and then ran to one of the hiding spots a block away. Swinging into the roof of Notre Dame, she procured not to be seen from street level as she did her best to slide into the shadows of a column. The flair from the lucky charm would lead the akuma in the other direction giving her a few minutes to plan and regroup.

She kneeled down, knowing that the people of Paris were counting on her, and regained her breath as best as she could. The slip on her hands had only a few numbers etched onto them. 

“a phone number?” the heroine murmured into the wind.

It wasn’t a number she knew or of anyone she had met previously, she would remember it otherwise. She imputed it into her yoyo, knowing that the magic from the weapon would keep her untraceable from anyone trying to track her, and called the foreign number.

“Ladybug! I’ve been trying to contact you for hours” claimed the very familiar voice from the other side”

“Dam…” she ended the phrase before she could say his name “what?? How did you…?”

“I hacked the cameras around the area. I’ve been following the fight since my lunch break hours ago. Besides, I might have a plan but you need to remember, ‘No names in the field.’”

He sounded somewhat annoyed, but she was far too tired to ask if something had happened at his end.

“No names in the field” She agreed. The familiar voice and the conversation’s weirdness was slowly helping her regain her footing as she focused on breathing and what he had said.

 “What should I call you then?” Mari enquired.

“For now, call me Prophet. I can be your eyes in the field, but you are going to need more help if you want to pull this off. Wasn’t there a hero that could reverse time? the snake I think. you are going to need him.”

She closed her eyes at the last bit, despair threatening to overtake her mind. Images of what had happened and what could have been passed behind hyer eyelids and a knot settled on her throat as if to choke her.

“I… I can’t. It is too risky, we don’t know if Hawkmoth knows his identity.” And then trying to steady herself she added: “his family as a whole could be in danger if I put him on the field.”

Damian answered immediately, logic and stubbornness on his side:

“If Hawkmoth knows his identity they already are at risk. The fact that the villain has kept his distance shows me that he knows you are the main keeper of the Miraculous so he has nothing to gain by going after his family.”

“No, the only reason Hawkmoth hasn’t gone after them is because he knows I retired the other heroes, if I bring him back again….” She tried to make him understand with her words and his tone but he wouldn’t give her an inch when he once again interrupted her:

“Then you can retire him again after the fight is done.” he snapped over in annoyance. “ Look, I don’t care if you want to use the same snake as before or a new one. But right now? You need help, the only way to defeat someone that can make every probability go against you is by using things with no probability.” She contemplated his words which seemed to encourage him because he took another breath before continuing. “The only way to ensure that any plan works is by having multiple opportunities at hand. Honestly I’m pretty sure you knew this already, and still you have put yourself and everyones else at risk because of whatever stupid reason you cooked up in your mind. And to be quite frankly I’m completely píssed at you and how poorly you have handled this.”

‘Yeah’, she had gotten that from his tone alone, ‘he didn’t need to tell her’ Mari summarised in the confines of her mind. She could feel herself getting angry in response, her blood starting to thrum with energy through her whole body. 

“Okay,” she answered first. And then more strongly she added: “Okey, you are right, I thought I could handle this myself. Clearly I can’t. I’ll give you that. But once this is over? you and I are going to have words” she muttered darkly. 

This was her city. How dare he tell her what to do.

“I’ll stay in the line” he answered shortly, “use your brain, not your feelings.”

 Right that second she felt the incredible urge to mock him. To spat the same words back at him as annoyingly as she had heard them.

A breath, and then she let it go.

She snapped her yoyo closed. It didn’t matter, she had a Miraculous to recover and no time to lose.

************

After the fight. After she had relieved Luka of his miraculous and when she could throw herself into bed in an exhausted heap she could give it to him: Prophet’s input had been invaluable in the fight. She had used the Lucky charm to procure earpieces for Viperion and herself and had both connected to Prophet’s line so he could relay messages back and forth and give his own counsel when he could. Having someone to coordinate without her to relay every single order had helped a lot. 

It even could have been the deciding factor towards winning the akumatized object and restoring the city.

She could give Damian that recognition, but for now, sleep called with all the charm of a thousand sirens. So she succumbed into it. 

Later, she could speak with her friend. ‘Later’ she promised.

Chapter Text

“You were right” were her first words when he answered the communicator. His father had grounded him for the night because he had completely missed the last part of school to oversee the resolution of the akuma battle in Paris. He had had no better answer than “research” when his father enquired about it later, alerted by the school’s director about his absence. 

So now he was grounded without patrol for the night, however he still had access to the computer as he had installed himself in the cave to finish the homework he had missed, while the others went out. It was a cold night to be down there. The humid air sticking to the cavern’s walls and every smooth surface. 

“And hello to you too” Damian responded back through the earpiece that he had put on again suspecting she would call. “You figured out, in the end.”

He zipped his hoodie up and threw a careless look at the bats that were chattering from the shadow’s of the cave, way above his head.

“Later than I should have” the voice said from the other end. “It was your comment about the odds that did it. The only way to beat the odds is if you are playing with absolute truths.”

“So you basically threw him off a building” he knew the smirk was still present in his voice but with her he couldn’t really care.

All the way in Paris she let out a sputtering laugh. “well, what is more absolutely true than gravity? After I figured that out the plan just fell into place. But you were right, if it wasn’t for Viperion I wouldn’t have been able to get the ropes right.”

“Poor man” he tried being sympathetic.

“I can tell that you are smiling, Prophet. Besides, who are we talking about? Viperion who had to reverse time because I screwed up or Murphy loi who had to live through it although he doesn’t remember it.”

Her voice was pleasant but it had a sharp edge to it, a hurt one. The idea that she was still hurting sobbered him up instantly so he tried for a little more conciliatory “probably both.”

a humm was his only response for a few minutes. For a while there was only silence over the line and the anxiety of having answered wrongly started creeping into him. ‘Was that not what she wanted him to say?’ 

“look,” she said, that single word banishing his thoughts from his head. “I’m really sorry, I could have handled the situation better and I get why you were angry with me. But you still can’t interrupt a battle like…”

“You really think I was angry about that?? Ma… Ladybug, he corrected himself taking a breath before continuing. “Paris is your city, you can handle it however you please because until now you have been doing so pretty well.” 

“But,” he said sensing she was going to argue, “you don’t value your own life and thus put yourself in unnecessary risks by confronting the akuma without a full-functioning plan and any backup. That was stupid and idiotic, and that’s how people get themselves killed.”

He knew that an outburst was unusual for him but it just came out of him like a tidal wave. Noticing wha he had been and how close the situation had gotten he took a deep breath. Counting to ten he let it out again in a controlled sigh that left his lungs empty.

At the other side of the call she stayed silent, probably taken aback by the lack of his usual composure. So he continued in a much more calmly manner:

“You have access to all the miraculous in the box, that is unimaginable power. I mean, shit, it is more power than my grandfather ever had in his hands. Why on earth wouldn’t you use it?” His shoulder tensed and he pushed the chair back, needing to be on his feet for this conversation. 

He hadn’t managed to go more than two steps when she answered, her voice sounding meek through the earpiece. That brought him right out of his agitation as she quietly said: “That’s not how it works, if I give someone a miraculous that is not fit for them I would be endangering them in ways you can’t imagine.” 

“What?” was all he could reply. ‘what was she even talking about?’

She took a deep breath as if centering herself before a tough conversation. In a much more mannered and neutral tone she explained.

“The miraculous are like a key. Magic is an inherent trait for human beings, it’s what lets us evolve into what we are nowadays. That hidden link to constructing cumulative knowledge. However each mind is built with a door within, that door that separates normal human abilities to what we could do with free access to magic.” 

“however, as each mind works differently we have different key holds to use the magic. Those keyholes are made by some characteristics pertaining to  mentality and personality. So a Miraculous would work correctly only with some people and not others.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for example: The Tiger Miraculous represents bravery and stubbornness. So it would work only with people who hold those traits.”

“But then Hawkmoth and Mayura?” He hadn’t noticed he had stopped moving until he turned around to start pacing again. ‘This was incredibly bad news’.

He heard some noise from the other side of the comms. A quiet shuffle followed by the twip of a grappling line and then she talked again. “Sorry, I had to change roofs, someone came to the balcony for a smoke. Anyway, no. To answer your question they would still be able to work the Miraculous without holding those characteristics, but it would be like forcing a door open with the wrong key. It does work, but at the cost of damaging the keyhole. In this case, damaging the person's mind, corrupting them.”

Another shuffle sounded, probably as she accommodated herself in the new rooftop. “ By forcing the use of the miraculous they would forcibly develop the negative traits associated with them. So, as with the example of the tiger, a forced use would drive the person to recklessness and an impulsive attitude. Imprinting those traits into their minds until those are the only traits that matter.

Horror dawned on his head. That would actually explain a lot of things. It could also mean a lot of other things…

“Does that…” he cleared his throat at the sudden knot that had taken residence there “Are you, endangering yourself?” he tried again succeeding this time in forcing the words out.

“No, no'' she seemed to sense his uneasiness as she hurried to reply. “If ever, I was brought up with most kwami’s surrounding me throughout my whole childhood. That’s when brain matter is the most malleable, so you could say that I’m the most qualified to wield a lot of them, The ladybug, maybe the cat and the fox. Certainly the mouse because of how much time I spent with Mullo.”

“Oh okay” he couldn’t describe how relieved hearing that made him. “So you…”

As he failed to continue she elaborated. 

“So, because I spent so much time with the kwami I developed as I grew the traits needed to wield a big number of them, so I’m in no danger from using them. But it’s not something I’m willing to risk. Hell maybe that’s what happened to Chat Noire but I can’t tell because the old guardian never told me his identity.”

her frustration was clear by the end of her small tirade so he tried to help her. 

“Hey, maybe that is something I can help with. Would it work if we figured out who he was? Maybe you could make an alliance with him, and explain what’s going on… I don’t know, maybe you will feel better knowing…”

He let it at that. Trying to comfort someone was definitely harder than he had originally thought it was. Especially when he wasn’t so good at expressing himself with words. Action had been instilled in him since he was a baby but verbalizing was never a skill he had needed to develop. 

Thankfully, she understood him.

“I don’t know, but thank you for offering, our first priority has to be Hawkmoth though, so we can’t stray too far looking for the cat. How is it going actually? I'm sorry, I feel like I keep burdening you with my problems. 

“It’s not really a problem” he answered as sincerely as he could. “Actually it’s kind of funny, you know, I got grounded for missing school today”

“You didn’t” was her incredulous response, her voice sounding weird through the earpiece. 

“Well I kinda did” he smiled relieved that she was laughing “wanna hear more about it?” 

After that the night went smoothly for both of them. The topic of the siege of Paris was still present but it wasn’t bothering them as much now, the day drawn to a close in good spirit.

As he spoke he headed towards the batcomputer and piled up his things. He started to head towards the stairs to the manor as he recounted his father’s reaction and his poorly prepared answer.

Chapter Text

The last few weeks had been more stressful than usual and she had begun to tire. The beginning of the year had begun not only with more chores and schoolwork to complete during the day but also the appearance of a sudden uprise in the illegal activities that she had to stop during the night. That in itself was causing a rise in Marinette’s stress levels as well as those of the whole population as more and more people succumbed to Hawkmoth’s influence and became akumatized. Every day she stopped more akumas during the daily hours more and more criminals committing petty crimes and stealing things during her patrols. 

Overall, she hadn’t gotten that much time to talk with Damian except when he would connect to her yoyo in the middle of the akuma battles. She guessed that he had been busy as well as he had sounded rather tired and less patient during the last one. Snapping when the akumatized victim did something neither of them had foreseen.

It was as if the whole city had held its breath in that second and, even days later, was still holding it, waiting for something to happen.

That in itself was driving Marinette’s nerves insane. Those quiet minutes of the night that were usually spent inside, sketching or de-stressing unless on a patrol day, now found her solely on the Parisian rooftops. The last sun rays saw her now costumed and guarding over the city she had been protecting for years, looking over as each of its citizens arrived home or were on their way to it.

She decided to do a wider circle than usual, changing the patrol ever so often gave her an upper hand of unpredictability and, although she was inherently lucky thanks to Tikki, it was always good to avoid any possibilities of an ambush. The lack of a pattern had already saved her from nosy reporters, so she wasn’t about to get complacent by unknowingly creating a schedule. 

Besides, the streets were definitely not quiet that night so the more she expanded her patrol the better. She had already saved a girl that had been pulled into an alley by the back of her hijab. And stopped a group of young adults who were trying to break into a corner business. And stopped another breaking an entering from a young girl who was sloppily trying to lockpick the door of an apartment building. And another mugging attempt. And, and and…

‘As she had said, crime was definitely on the rise’ She thought. ‘At least the Champs-Elysees were quiet’ she mentally reminded herself as she roamed the roofs from across the street.

If they didn’t watch it they would end up with the kind of reputation that belonged to Gotham or Detroit in the old days. definitely not to the city of lights.

She let out a chuckle at the irony but then her face soured into a grimace. She had tried to mention it to Chat Noir once, in the rare battle that he did appear. 

‘Yeah that hadn’t been helpful. At all’.

At the beginning it had seemed as if he had been contemplating her words, a sad look on his face. A second later a  grin had overcome his features and he had asked her on a date as if the problems with Paris didn’t really matter. Not helpful, as she had already said. 

And then when she had finally managed to talk with Damian to even get it out of her head an akuma had started breaking havoc at the eiffel tower, so it hadn’t really been the time. Speaking of the Devil, she thought it would be a good moment to try and talk to him, but his phone, from what the previous week had yielded, was not an option.

So she would try another method, using the number that lucky Charm had given her now almost a month ago. This wasn’t an emergency per se, but it was actually important. Well… important enough, she justified to herself. They hadn’t even made a review of what happened in the last battle and if she mentioned the uptick in crime certainly a Gothamite would have tips to provide to avoid trouble. She could pass those on to her family or even make it circulate through the school. A security pamphlet or something would be very useful to spread the word more easily.

So Marinette actually needed his help. It wasn’t as if she was trying to sike herself into calling him or anything. Not. At. All. 

With a sight she retracted the yoyo from its perch and went to stand more steadily in the middle of a rooftop, looking down at one of the side alleys in case there was any trouble. 

After one more second she pressed call in the already marked device. Magic was intuitive like that. 

A moment of insecurity made her squat down, avoiding any prying eyes but drawing closer to the smelly mist that seemed to emanate from one of the sewer holes down in the street. 

She gagged reflexively and made to hold her nose right as the call connected.

“Aughh yeah sorry. Give me a moment!” she called to the other side and dashed towards the next building, trying to leave the putrid smell behind. After she was far enough not to smell it, she glanced back and swore she could see an outline of the smelly mist creeping up still. Someone should probably go check on that sewage tunnel as it was not working properly if the smell was so strong. 

A clearing of a throat snapped her out of it and she turned right into the phone call. 

“Yeah sorry about that, that rooftop really had a bad smell!” she let out an uncomfortable chuckle and then berated herself for it. “I’m… I’m sorry I called you, I didn’t want to disturb you. It is just that I had some questions about Gothamite’s approach to crime. Is just… Do you have time right now?” Mari cursed internally at how insecure she sounded and let another grimace show on her face at how he might answer. 

“Ladybug? yeah it’s fine, just give me a few seconds he replied curtly. There was a rustling sound and then he was quiet as if having disconnected. 

She looked at the yoyo to make sure but he hadn’t disconnected the call. Probably just put her on hold then. A minute later his voice came through again. 

“Okay, now we can talk. You caught me in the middle of something, that’s all. What did you want to talk about?”

“I’m… sorry about that is just that we haven’t had time to talk normally and I don’t know if you noticed or if you are even following the news in here but there has been a rise in the normal crime levels and wanted your opinion on it.”

“Yeah, no I haven’t” he sounded a bit distracted. “Are we talking about a rise in the last few years, months or weeks? and how much of a rise, like critical, medium or low? because that could be caused by completely different reasons.”

She was intrigued by his train of thought. He asked for how and why in a completely different approach from her management one of what to do next. 

“I mean... just in the last few weeks, a little after school started actually, and pretty high actually. It’s not 10 pm and I already had to stop 5 completely different felonies.” And then as an afterthought she quipped: “that must be a new record.” 

“Well that’s odd.” replied Damian’s stern voice. “Are you sure there are no other reasons for it? Usually those rises if they are so sudden it’s only because there is someone to blame. Have you noticed anything weird lately?”

That question in itself made her pause completely. ‘Had she?’.

“Well not really. There is the usual number of akumas and the police hasn’t said anything about any organized crime. Oh! they did have this weird case some days ago. But I’m pretty sure nothing came of it.”

He made a humming sound which she took as a prompt to continue:

“It was nothing really. They just kept finding these weird piles of canisters. I actually went to investigate them, I couldn’t get anything out of it. No magic. They just had this weird antiseptic smell to them so I don’t really know what it was about. The police ruled it as some company leaving their waste where they shouldn’t.”

“Could they be connected to Hawkmoth?” he prompted brusquelly as if wanting to confirm sometyhing

“Well, as I said they didn’t have any trace of miraculous magic, but maybe as a holding for his akumas? It could be possible. With magic I mean. Hey how is your search for our butterflies doing?”

“Disappointing. But I did start profiling our subject. I have a question about that, regarding our last conversation”

“Shoot” was her quick answer as she tried to bring all her knowledge of the miraculous to the forefront of her mind.

“You have mentioned before that you don’t think Hawkmoth nor his accomplice are real holders for their jewels, something about potencial?”

“Yes because they haven’t reached the full potential of the miraculous abilities.”

“Right, that. So because they aren’t real holders they must have developed the destructive traits of each jewel which would be…”

“extreme emotional distance for the butterfly and carelessness or fickleness for the peacock.” she finished for him. “Why?”

“One moment. So we are looking for two people with a free working schedule, which indicates at least one of them has some level of wealth. At least Hawkmoth must be a recluse, must also be, more than anything emotionally detached or even inept at social interactions and cold. And, most importantly, have a motive for wanting to rewrite reality.”

She only hummed as she wouldn’t have thought to put it all that way but it made sense to have such a profile for Hawkmoth.

“Yesterday I compiled a list and I had three possible subjects. Now, knowing about the emotional aspect I have only two. Does the name Richard Martel mean anything to you?”

She made a negative sound and moved to the next roof following a suspicious shadow that moved down in the street.

“Well I thought it wouldn’t. The other name, I’m sure, would be far more interesting to you. And I’m particularly leaning towards seeing him as the culprit, really. It would make more sense.”

“Who?” she asked, feeling dread start to crawl in her stomach. ‘They were so close’.

“Gabriel Agreste, his voice said , cold like a stone. “The famous designer.”

Chapter Text

Waiting for his daughters debrief in the screen was tedious enough, Ra’s mussed. It wasn’t as if the technology was fast and modern enough to suit his tastes, after all he was one of the richest men alive. No, what grated on his nerves was the certainty that the plan was perfect, yet he couldn’t be the one to bring it to it’s execution.

Certainly he had used middle men and people to do his binding before. But now, with his own death and revival so fresh in his mind, and the powers that had revived him still fresh in his system, he couldn’t risk someone recognising that magic, immense power or not. Besides, his loyal daughters would certainly win in their respective endeavours, he was certain. Otherwise he would have had to see to their lack of skills. 

It wouldn’t do if they had let their abilities go to waste in his absence. 

Finally, with a click of the Tv his youngest daughter appeared, ready to please him if her smile was anything to go by. 

He let a frown cloud his face. It wouldn’t do her well if she was so easily readable, he had trained her better than that. Or at least, he had seen that she was. At least she waited for his command to speak as her head vowed to her better.

“Daughter, is everything set for the raid?”

She answered curtly, mindful of the Demon’s temper.

“Yes father, everything is prepared, the distraction would be set in motion at your word.”

“Humm” he agreed, taking a minute to answer. “have you heard from your sister?”

The flash of annoyance was immediate. He sipped at his wine as she controlled her emotions. His youngest has always been weaker in that sense, not having the same poise as Talia. Nevermind, fueling that sisterly competitiveness meant only more loyalty to him, and with the years passed and his influences depleted the more loyalty he could assure the better. 

“No, father,” Nyssa said. “She was supposed to be in this call as well.”

As if summoned by those words another click sounded and the screen in Ra’s study divided in two. The image of his eldest appeared next to the red clad woman.

Instead of showing her sister’s submissive attitude, Talia stood tall and strong eyes focused on the camera that must have been situated in front of her. Her gesture of deference, Ra’s noted was very brief and almost passed over which almost made him snarl. Yet another thing he would have to rectify once his power was secured. 

‘All in time’ he reminded himself . ‘Everything will be addressed in it’s due time’.

Once the miraculous were in his power he wouldn’t need the numbers because he would hold all the power. Besides, with the new guardian by the shadows there would be nothing for Ra’s to worry about. Death would be but an inconvenience. He would be above it, with even more certainty than the pit had ever afforded him.

But, first he had to concrete his plans. 

“Talia, my eldest” he called, “How is Paris?”

“Everything is ready as you commanded, father. Our ally has fulfilled his promise, and the plan is ready to be set in motion.”

“And the girl?” he asked with his eyebrow arched.

“She doesn't suspect a thing. Besides, we have confirmed that she remains in contact with your heir, my son. It would be useful if we do not sever that contact upon executing our plan, father. I suspect she could be useful in bringing Damian back to our graces.”

“Nonsense. Damian will fall to our side one way or another. Once the new guardian is secured she is to be cut off from all contact with the world as I already stated once. Follow the plan!”

Somehow mollified, or at least looking like it, his daughter gave a rapid nod, a stern frown on her face. 

“As you command, father.” Talia stated before pursing her lips.

“Very good then, you are to execute the plan as we had accorded. And Nyssa, take care of the detective. Do not fail me daughters or there would be dire consequences.”

**************

After the talk with Damian and after he explained his theory Marinette had a horrible night. She had agreed with his theory after a while, Agreste’s profile matched Hawkmoth’s way more than Martel’s did. And, although they still had to confirm his identity, Marinette’s subconscious seemed eager to confirm said hunch as nightmares of Gabriel Agreste haunted her in her dreams. 

Saying she had had a terrible night would have been an understatement. So lost in her thoughts it took her what she felt like ages to fall asleep. And then waking up was, obviously, way harder than usual. Her alarm had already sounded three times by the time she managed to get out of bed and into the bathroom. 

When she was finally awake enough to notice the time on the clock, she was already running late.

To her charging and the amusement of her classmates she arrived late once again, missing completely the conversation that was going on around her. 

To everyone's surprise, little after 10 o’clock the day started to become strange.

 Each phone in the classroom started to go off with incoming calls and alerts. It took them seconds to navigate with their phones into the subject of the alert.

A weird gas seemed to be coming from a sewer near the school and the authorities were requesting for caution as they didn’t know the origin of the putrid smell. A few minutes later another alert came in as a sewer near the louvre had started to spew the same gas. Then it was near Trocadero. And then another and another…. In an hour various points along the city’s sewer system were overflowing with the pungent stench, until the entire city was covered with the nebulous thing. mIt was much like a mist setting over a lake.

It only took Marinette a few minutes to connect it to the smog she had encountered the night before, the video on her phone clearly showing the fog tailing after the people who tried to get away from it with a hazy quality. Right as she came to that conclusion, someone on the live footage that had been projected into the front of the classroom started to scream. 

It was a shriek full of hysteria and confusion, as tears started to roll down her cheeks. For a moment it seemed to hang in the air, suspended as by pure will, until the noise started to expand a howling joined in by the rest of the pack.

In a matter of minutes the whole city was screaming in terror, the mist making the atmosphere and general ambient even more confusing and terrifying. Uncertainty permeated the air as everyone looked at the others for an answer

Marinette was the first one to notice as the fog seeped through the cracks in the windowsill, her breathing becoming more agitated in fear. A few others noticed the look on her face and, following her gaze, detected the imminent danger. Soon everyone was standing near the door, but there was nowhere to go. The other side of the door was as covered by the mist as the windows now were, and tendrils of it were seeping from under the wood. 

It only took a few minutes.

The young heroine tried to remain calm as everyone around her descended into hysteria and terror. Her breathing exercises helped, but only so much as she could still hear the blood rushing in her ears as the room around her descended into madness. people screaming and crying, trying to get away from invisible foes.

Marinette took a deep breath, centering herself, and opened the door to get out. ‘She needed to do something!’ she thought to herself ‘Call Damian, or transform into ladybug. She needed tO HELP!’

And then, the first akuma appeared

Chapter Text

Damian had been having a terrible week. Or, more exactly, the whole family had been having a terrible week what with all the problems occurring in Gotham’s streets. First it had been the string of murders in the darkest depth of the Narrows. Then came the sudden uptick in robberies that had made them all wary, although Selina quickly assured them that she had nothing to do with it. Strangely enough, the only objects that were being stolen were not the most luxurious in the stores and museums that had been broken into. 

Drake (Red Robin) had been the first to figure it out. The homicides had only one thing in common: the faces of the victims were always disfigured, marred or even cut off, leaving the rest of the body almost always unharmed except for the initial wound that had caused their deaths. That corresponded with one of the cases that had occurred years ago, where the culprit was a villain by the name of Flamingo, a serial killer turned cannibal who had been interned in Arkham Asylum when Dick was still acting as Batman. Apparently, no one had notified the authorities about his escape a few weeks ago. 

The robberies were a little more difficult to figure out but it was actually Selina the one that suggested it when she finally decided to look at the files of her “would be competition”.

With an arched eyebrow she had looked at her boyfriend and simply stated:

“Didn’t you already fight a guy that only stole silver? this is getting ridiculous by now”.

“Silver?” had been the response of the Batman. He clearly didn’t get her point and was trying to get an explanation without asking for one.

“Yes, silver. The thief is clearly a professional as he didn’t set off any of the most well known alarms. Besides, he had some time to look for what he was taking before he did, he just seemed to prefer silver over the more expensive stuff. Wasn’t someone like that when you were first starting as Batman? I thought he was in Arkham for rehabilitation” she had put more force in the final word, making quotation marks with her hands as she went over it. 

The Dark Knight didn’t argue the point and frowned down at the files that were still in her hands, positioning himself shoulder to shoulder with the Catwoman.

“The one obssessed with silver, he seemed to think that one day the metal would be higher in the market than even gold or diamonds. Humm Silver Sterling? No that wasn’t it. Humm…”

Damian, who had been watching the interaction from the training space in the batcave had startled as Drake suddenly yelled: “Sterling Silversmith!!!!”. The teenager had been seating quietly at the computer station, eyes cast downwards in drowsiness and a work induced coma. He had, upon stating that name, jerked upwards from his seat, flailing into motion as his seat rolled away from him at his back.

Damian smirked secretly and saw his father eye the chair in contemplation, hoping that he wouldn’t say anything to Tim who was currently hacking into Arkham’s security system?

The chair forgotten, everyone who was in the cave stepped up to the platform where the computer was installed. Dick, being the fastest, reached the Red Robin before Damian could, but not fast enough to pass Father and Selina who had been the closest.

“What are you doing?” was the eldest enquiry as he hovered over one of Tim’s shoulders, Bruce on the other. Damian had reached the dais and decided to stand next to Selina who calmly waited for the other three to reach a conclusion, files left abandoned by her side. 

“This is the second low level threat that has escaped Arkham recently. Knowing that he doesn’t need much preparation for his schemes the escape must have occurred at most one week before his first robbery. That leaves us with a timeframe of two weeks since his escape, same time as the Flamingo’s which means that there could be more missing patients.” the manic tenager spewed in a rush, denoting urgency in his straight posture and tense shoulders. 

“Good work, Red Robin”. Batman responded as he put one hand on the boy’s shoulder. “See if someone of the heavy hitters is missing, containing those would be our priority right now, the police can deal with Silversmith for tonight.”

With that he took over another station in the computer area, dismissing everyones else as he sent the information of the thief to the police for them to deal with. He also announced to Commissioner Gordon that they may be encountering a massive break in in Arkham asylum so as to keep their eyes open. 

That night’s patrol had been tense, everyone keeping their ears to the ground in the riskier areas of Gotham, as timothy tried to confirm if any Rogue was unaccounted for. It was only after unending hours of patrol that the confirmation came. None of the A listers were missing, however, at least 8 more low level threats had managed to escape in dubious circumstances. It was clear that at least one more week of intense work was ahead of them if they couldn’t get any concise leads.

They had all sighed at the notion, being tired by the uptick in criminal activity already. Damian really wanted a vacation, and he meant a real one, away from the city and maybe even the country. Because clearly, what he had been having in the summer, with the internship in WE and the almost daily patrol did not count. 

************

They finally got to bed by 4 pm each ditching the capes and boots in a tired companionship. Getting out of the armour and the unclasping the buckles in his gauntlets took longer than Damian would have wanted but he managed at last. He headed towards his bedroom without showering in the cave’s dressing room, just wanting to hit his bed and pass out in the comfortable and warm embrace of his sheets. 

What took him most by surprise, however, was the message waiting for him in his cellphone, encrypted and rarely used. He had left it on his desk before going down to the Batcave as he did every day, yet he rarely found any messages waiting for him when he returned. the light flashing. Blue colour illuminating the walls and the last of his homework on the wooden surface of the desk. He checked it to see if it was anything from his other siblings, that weren’t home but he only found an untraceable number with a simple message. 

‘Be prepared little one. Don't let them fool you’

************* 

The next day he showed the family, or at least those who were present, the message he had received and who he thought had sent it. The nickname was a clear giveaway once he had cleared it with Jason. The title ‘little one’ was one that his mother had bestowed upon him in the moments of calm and gentleness that they managed to share between all the training. Jason, had later taken to calling him that too, once Talia had introduced the two of them in the league. 

Everyone had tensed and debated over the meaning of the cryptid message but there was no solid answer more than that of “be alert” that had been instilled into all of them since they joined the manor or even before, in Damian’s case. It was clear now that, whatever was going on, whoever had let those ten inmates escape, was connected in some way to the league.

However they had no way to figure out the plan without more leads. 

So Damian was excused from school and put on backup duty while Nightwing and the newly returned Signal took on the streets in broad daylight. Red robin, Oracle and Batman scoured the internet in search for any clues but it was slow going and tedious. 

Robin ended up being the only one currently at the manor who didn't have a task specifically assigned so, although he wanted to go get his phone and contact Marinette he ignored the urge. It would be distracting and he needed to be in his prime if they were to confront the league of Shadows. Instead, he settled for playing fetch with Titus near the house, and also tending to Batcow down in the cave, staying away from any electronics that were not set in search for Gotham’s suspicious activity. 

By midday, everyone was exhausted as Alfred forced them to take a break. By midafternoon they got the first lead.

There was a fire near park Row, the possible suspect being Firefly. Robin headed out to be joined by Red Hood, while Nightwing and Signal approached the scene from wherever they had been. It wasn’t yet dark outside, but the smoke and smog flying through Gotham’s streets provided more than the usual cover the night did. The people who usually would stand by and watch as firefighters quenched the fire were nowhere to be seen. 

In their stead, a colourfully dressed villain stood in the middle of the street, right in front of the burning building as if admiring his handiwork while people called and cried from the inside.

It WAS Firefly. So of course a fight ensued. 

The vigilantes managed to get everyone on the burning building to safety, Red Hood and Signal working on clearing the civilians while Nightwing and Robin kept the villain back and tried to subdue him. 

‘The hardest part’ Robin mussed ‘was to actually get close to him,’ as everytime they managed to get the upper hand the combination of flames and wings managed to keep him out of the young hero's grasp. 

Damian let out another growl as he dodged another blast of fire headed towards him. Tired of the fight already he went more on the offensive, driving Firefly back with every swing of his sword until he felt they finally had a chance to subdue the flame throwing villain. 

It was a shout from Nightwing that alerted him from the incoming blow. Someone had tried to hit him from the side and Damian had to make a quick retreat so as not to pay with his life. 

He stood in the middle of the street, with Nightwing at his side, Firefly diagonally placed from him. And there, right in front of him stood his aunt, Nyssa al Ghul. She wore her usual reds and blacks. An almost feral smile adorned her lips, and it took a lot of Damian’s energy not to feel distress by the way she held an arrow pointed at him. 

Robin took a careful step backwards, giving himself more space for maneuverability as the other two opponents held their places.

“hello nephew”, came the dry remark. “It is lovely to see you after so long. You have grown” commented the accented voice.

“Nyssa” was Robin’s curt answer.

Around them more shadows separated from the walls and the roofs, creating a fan formation in Nyssas and Firefly’s back. It was strange to notice that quite some of the shadows had been the missing Arkham patients, while others, recognizable by their garb, were clearly members of the league of assasin.  

The fire at Damian’s back illuminating the faces of his opponents in a flickering and eerie light. Nightwing had tensed even further, regaining a battle pose reminding the young Robin to return to his own.

They were basically surrounded by enemies and the silence grated on everyone's nerves. In his ear the comm came to life with a sudden bip.

“Reinforcements incoming in 15 min” were Oracle’s words. He didn’t outright say anything but he released a small nod, knowing that at least a camera would pick it up for the woman to see.

At his right, Nightwing did the same, keeping his eyes to the ever present threat. 

It was Red Hood, the one who broke the stalemate. Apparently done with rescuing civilians he jumped from the nearest roof landing precisely in the middle of the two parties. Wacking the nearest assassin in the head with the but of his gun.

The man crumbled instantly, at the same time as Nyssa released her first arrow. 

Then all hell broke loose.

Chapter Text

Entering the mansion had been easy enough. Although the security system had been impressive, it had been nothing against the training required to be Ra’s daughter. 

Talia waisted only one second in the foyer before striding towards her targets. After all, she had been to more impressive and luxurious places without batting an eye. This was nothing compared to the richest she was used to. 

The assassin had left her men behind, knowing that leaving them to shadow the girl would be enough to get the information her father craved. 

The family portrait at her right made her pause for a second, reminding her of a time her son had stood at her side as well. She hoped he was doing alright on his end, even if it was against her sister. Nyssa wouldn’t hurt him if the situation didn’t require it, and if she did, well, sisters or not the other would suffer the consequences. However, even if Damian made it out unharmed, what was going to happen to the girl would hurt him anyway. They had been close, years ago. They were probably close now too, a worthy match if she could say so. 

With a shake of her head she drew her focus back to the present. The message to her son had been enough of a distraction for today, she decided, continuing to walk alongside the marble corridors.

 ‘The man she would leave as a warning, the other two could live’.

*******************

Dozens of people had been akumatized. It seemed like an exaggeration when she put it like that but it really wasn’t. To make things worse there was no civilian help, no external aide and worst of all, no clear mind with a plan to fall back to. 

Although the suit and the rebreather provided by the yoyo helped her in some measure against the toxic gas (was it fear gas? had there been any warning about this whole thing?), Marinette could still feel her mind spinning and her heart speeding at every shadow. At every turn, at every waiting roof.

She had run out of the classroom and transformed into Ladybug as soon as she had the minimum cover. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and since nowhere in all her knowledge of the miraculous was an answer to the current dilemma it was fair to say that it definitely was a desperate time. 

‘What was she even going to do?’ she thought as she looked down to the street. Most people were whimpering and screaming voices too horase to pronounce and articulate anything anymore. Chaos encompassed the street but thankfully, no one was outright violent at the moment. possible riots and skirmishes forgotten in fear and helplessness.

‘The smoke seemed a little lighter here’, observed Ladybug. the openness of the street let the gas roam through the nooks and crannies, but blew it away, dissipating it, in the openness of the asphalt. 

At her right, the tickle of a drain pipe drew her attention, the water seemed intent on staying on the licking pipe but the wind drew each of the drops away, into the waiting ground and a little to the left. The murky water seemed to absorb the gas, pulling it down with its own gravity. Each drop taking a tiny bit of the smoak down.

That image seemed to grab her attention away from her breathing, from which she had been keeping count since she first suited up. (Why was it so important that she keep count again?). She could feel her heartbeat accelerating once again in her ears, her pulse making her hands tremble by her side. 

Oh.

Her breathing, the wind moving the drops, pulling them down and away only to be brought up once again after the water dries. Ladybug drew a breath letting the tainted air fester in her lungs. 

It couldn’t be that simple could it? After all, it was a cold day, and light clouds seemed to cover every space in the city. It kept the smoke trapped within the buildings but she could work with it.

‘But not really’, she thought, there were still akumas by the hundreds, and she didn’t know the capacity of an akumatized butterfly miraculous. It was like the scarlet Hawkmoth incident, all over again, yet ten times worse. Put on a Richter scale. 

She looked again at the drain pipe, a plan forming on her mind. She needed to get help.

****************

Getting help from Gotham had been a bust. Either Damian was too preoccupied with his own things to act as Prophet or he was ignoring her calls for whatever reason. She wasn’t in the right mindset to lean either way so she wouldn’t pass judgment just yet. (In the back of her mind something nagged at her: ‘He left you alone didn’t he? like all the rest). She decided to ignore that thought, no thinking of anything but the plan right now.

‘It isn’t going to work’ her traitorous mind supplied. ‘Then I’ll get another chance’, she answered back.

So she had to go local, choosing to give Luka his miraculous and grabbing the dragon one for herself as well, she would need all the power she could get to make this work. After a too long second of looking at the box, she closed it without grabbing any other jewel, although her instinct clamoured for her to get the bee. ‘Not yet, she decided’ she would give it a few days to think about that urge.

While she was in her room she couldn’t help but overhear the chilling screams of her parents downstairs. Screaming for each other and their daughter, too consumed in anguish and despair in their fears to notice anything other than their terror. She left through the window, leaving it almost closed at her back so she would be able to quickly get in if she needed to return for something else.

The rebreather was helping, time passed, however, she didn’t feel any effects receding. Her breathing was still a tad too fast, her pulse was as quick as a rabbit, and her mind seemed cloudy and completely agitated. It made her feel unsettled to have her own body so out of her control even with the magic of the suits protecting her. 

Luka was way worse. 

The boathouse had been a little clearer of mist than the rest of the city, the cooling air of the river drawing away most of the toxic mist, to who knows where. At first glance the boathouse appeared to be empty as no one moved and the usual loud and lively place was plunged into silence. Another stone dropped in her stomach and she felt her breathing quickening again in response. That’s when she heard the whimpering sounds coming from one of the windows below the deck.

She found her friend in his own room as she entered through his previously closed window. Luka was curled as a tight ball by the feet of his bead, hiding from the world as he muttered incongruent sounds into his own knees. His own guitar, his normal companion, had been discarded by his side, his hands cramped and mangled white with force into the fabric of his t-shirt. 

Ladybug had had to pry his hands from his body, to get the snake miraculous on his wrist. He flailed in an attempt to punch her as if trying to defend himself from an unknown evil but she quickly grabbed his hand. She thanked her luck that he was less affected than others the heroine had passed in the street while she coaxed him, with gentle words, through his own fears until he was able to mutter his transformation words. It sounded almost like a question and Sass threw her a pained look before entering the bracelet, as if asking her to take care of him.

To Marinette’s relief the transformation brought Luka out of his daze as if he were coming down from a high fever. For a moment, she wondered if she had looked the same upon first transforming, the manic look slowly receding into consciousness. 

“dragon bug?” were his uncertain words. His voice broke in the last syllable and she gave him a second before answering, unsure if he had lost his voice from fear or from screaming too much. A strong thump came from the other side and both remembered that Anarka was still in the boat, not screaming or crying but certainly not okay either. 

“What happened?” was his question and she rapidly indicated, with silent gestures so as not to further upset the other woman, for him to pass on his lute. From it, she produced another rebreather, giving it to him before taking off her own to answer. 

“I think it’s fear gas,  but I’m not completely sure. It makes no sense that there’s fear gas in Paris, but the number of akuma victims keeps increasing so I really need your help. Are you sure you can do this?”

“Of course, what do you need me to do?”

She explained her plan as quickly as possible, detailing what she had noticed about the mist and how she expected it to work under different elements. 

Of course he didn’t like the plan, It was a really high risk plan and everything could go wrong but he didn’t have any ideas either and he trusted her words. 

They headed to the Eiffel tower. 

They had to sneak past a lot of akumas and leave behind a lot of crying, imploring citizens who asked for Ladybug to save them from their imagined attackers and deepest fears. A few people had started attacking others in their fear, looting and assault were becoming present fixtures wherever she looked at.

This was not something the city was going to recover from any time soon.

They both made it to the tower with as much haste as they could, beating hearts and constricted throats left them both talking through signs. It was better this way, so as not to draw any attention. 

Ladybug grabbed Viperion with an arm on his waist drawing him closer and tighter while the other hand threw her yoyo towards the tower's highest point. She made her best effort to contain her breath as her weapon pulled them both up as quickly as it could without drawing attention towards them. 

As soon as their feet touched the ground Viperion separated from her to post himself as the lookout while Ladybug executed her plan. If anything went wrong he was tasked to return in time and warn her of the danger. 

Marinette drew herself to the middle of the space, breathing away the acrid smell through the rebreather placed again in her mouth. The seconds ticked by as she counted each breath, centering herself and not trying to let her mind wander (what if it didn’t work? what then?). A second later she drew the yoyo away from her mouth, both feet planted solidly on the ground, and she called for the water dragon. 

Although the clouds covering the city were white and not dense enough small droplets came down over the whole city, taking away the smog and condensing it in the asphalt down below. It definitely wasn’t a permanent solution but it would have to do for now. 

The rain came down hard, every drop taking more of the white smoke down with it,, it’s putrid smell receding until they could finally breathe clear air. It took longer than she had wanted, but finally the streets were clear of the stinky smell although its effects still cursed through her body. (What now? was it even going to disappear?).

There, in the highest part of the Eiffel tower, Ladybug and Viperion could finally see the full extent of the chaos that had taken over the avenues down below. With the white mass finally out of the streets, the car crashes the broken buildings, the fires were finally put on display (Were they ever going to recover from this?).

She could see people screaming and crying, some bent over cars that surely had caused more than one death and a fire that came out of more than one building. She choked down a sob as Viperion next to her shuddered at what they were seeing. 

Worst of all were the akuma’s. the ones that had been hidden by the mist were all on display now. Their actions caused more chaos and disorder than there already was. ‘It was a nightmare, one brought from her already frightened mind’, Ladybug decided.

“We…” her voice trembled and she reflexively swallowed down the bile that seemed intent on creeping up her throat. “We are going to need to take care of the akuma’s” she tried again. “It’s only the two of us so we should probably try to deakumatize them one at a time, Can you” She breathed again as her heartbeat sped up again at the prospect of facing each of those scared people. “Can you do that?” She forced out.

An ashen face looked directly into her eyes and she hated herself for a moment, for bringing a civilian into this life. It was cruel of her and thoughtless.

As if reading her mind, he pursed his lips in distaste, however a nodd came to answer her previous question to which she almost collapsed in relief. 

“Okey, let me make a call first”

****************

Damian hadn’t answered, and the fear still in her mind nudged her towards worry for him. What if something had happened? and she couldn’t help him? had he said something about trouble?

She pushed it down, making her mind collaborate with her even if it was like grasping water with her bare hands. Her deep inhalation grounded her a little more to what had been going on around her. 

They had managed to subdue and deakumatize two of the akumas, the others too preoccupied by their own fears and panic to notice Ladybug and Viperion picking them up one by one. It had taken a little planning, but ultimately they had decided not to cast the cure immediately after an akuma was taken care of as they didn’t know how that would affect the gasses permanence on the ground

The third akuma was now dangling from her yoyo as Viperion and she tried to figure out where the akumatized item was on his streamlined suit. The poor guy hadn’t put much of a resistance, but he had been hard to catch as he appeared and disappeared from view at almost random intervals. The guy had been in an entirely white suit, calling himself Nemo and vanishing and returning from view as he dangled from one of the lowest beams of the eiffel tower, his face at level with theirs who stood on the ground. 

It had happened in a second. 

At one moment he had been in his akuma garb, mumbling things and looking at them with fear and anger in his face and the next second he wasn’t. 

A dark matter covered his figure, leaving him in normal clothes and completely deakumatized. A normal human had been in his place, passed out and dangling from Ladybug’s yoyo.

The heroine untangled him with careful movements before sharing a glance with her partner. (What had happened? was this a new plan from Hawkmoth?)

A white butterfly came out of a pocket in his brown suit, and both heroes followed it with their gazes, confusion apparent in both the teens' faces. Had this happened to everyone or just the Nemo guy? 

With a sharp inhale Ladybug drew herself to her full height, if this was part of a new plan from Hawkmoth’s end, they would be prepared for it. In quick words she indicated to Viperion what they were going to do. 

Viperion was to go recharge and start his count again, so if anything happened they would be prepared. They were going to do a swift but small patrol to see if any other akuma had been affected by whatever had happened to the one lying at their feet. 

“meet me here in half an hour, we will see what we can do then”

The turquoise hero didn’t waste any more time, tired as he was and made a quick retreat to follow her orders. Once alone, she plopped the now unconscious man against one of the Eiffel tower’s legs so if anything happened he wouldn’t be caught in the open. 

She hoisted herself once more unto the top of the tower, grabbing the pole at its top to steady herself against the wind that flew this high up. From her position she couldn’t see any akuma’s on the street, just the same destruction as before and more people collapsed in the street. Had Hawkmoth decided that his strategy wasn’t working? Was he finally showing some mercy to the citizens of Paris?

She doubted the last one. Seriously seriously doubted it.

Instead of going down to ground level once again, Ladybug made use of her weapon to swing onto the nearest rooftop. Every street she passed was the same, no akumas just people passed out in the street next to other people still crying, fighting or just lying there motionless. And that was without taking into account the structural damage caused by cars, fires and the pillage and looting that had been going on by the scared crowds.

It was an awful view, the one from the rooftops. The usual sights that used to bring her comfort were now mangled into nightmarish visions, making her heart jump in fear and apprehension. (What was the whole damage? Were her parents okay? How could she help against this?)

She stopped in an alley to detransform and get Tikkis input. Although the goddess was an optimist, she usually was a source of wisdom. While the kwami ate a strawberry macaroon, Marinette checked her phone one more time. There were no new messages, no call back. Nothing. 

The pit in her stomach had not lessened since this whole thing started and she was starting to think that the worst of it hadn’t really occurred yet. 

Bracing herself once again, the young teenager made up her mind. After inquiring after the goddess's knowledge and feeling a sour taste at the lack of it regarding the current matter, Marinette shot the Kwami a reassuring smile and stepped back to gain some space. 

She gently placed her cellphone on the floor and pronounced the words to transform. Once in her suit she placed the cellphone in her yoyo’s compartment, following her hunch that she would need to have it at hand. 

She quickly made her way back to Luka who seemed as perturbed as she felt about the whole day. Her feet touched the ground near him and she approached to enquire about his report. 

All the akuma’s were gone. At their place, all the people who had been akumatized were now sleeping or unconscious where they once had been standing. All of them had had a pulse and a strong heartbeat, so whatever had happened to them it wasn’t fatal. Just, hopefully not permanent either. 

That still didn’t leave them with a lot of answers. 

“Did you start the count again?” 

he shook his head and opened his mouth to say something when a figure made herself apparent at the periphery of her vision. She turned around to observe the woman who calmly approached them, completely unperturbed, as if the gas hadn’t affected her and the carnage and chaos surrounding her wasn’t anything important. 

Marinette recognised her. How couldn’t she. Another ghost of her past coming back to haunt her. 

“Lady Talia,” the Ladybug heroine said while inclining her head. She had never been in a bad position with the woman and she wasn’t about to start now. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t have any misconceptions about the woman, if she was here she wanted something and she would most likely get her. 

She readied her stance for a possible attack and at her back Luka murmured “second chance.” They had five minutes.

“Good afternoon Mari how have you been?” the silver clad lady, dressed in armour answered. 

At her back Luka drew in a breath, inadvertently calling the attention of the deadly woman. 

At his reaction, Talia said. “Well don’t look so surprised, I know all about all of you and Mari’s team” and then directed at Ladybug she added in a more apologetic tone: “Ra’s has been pleased with your performance as a guardian Mari. It is good that you have thrived in your role.”

The heroine just looked at her in confusion, what was the play here? Was she behind all this? for what? The woman was clearly still serving her father but there was an undercurrent there when she said his name. Marinette couldn’t place it but she was sure it hadn’t been there before. 

At her silence the woman let out a sigh.

“I came here to do you a favour, now I expect you do one for me.” She nonchalantly stated as if talking about the weather.

“A favour?” was Marinette’s reticent question.

In lieu of a response the woman drew three items from her sleeves showing them in the palm of her hand. 

The three miraculous were brought into the light. The peafowl pin, the butterfly brooch and the black cat ring all glinted in the light, reflecting it in their smooth surfaces. Within a second Marinette knew that those were the true miraculous she had been fighting against for the last few years. How had she gotten them? What had happened?

As if reading her thoughts the woman answered “You see, the good thing of not working alone Mari, is that we actually have the resources to know what we want and to get those things without much setbacks or opposition. I’m sure that, with my son’s help and enough time, you would have gotten there eventually. But, you see, it was us who had the upper hand this whole time.” 

At her words an assassin clad in black appeared out of a nearby shadow, and Marinette realised he wasn’t the only one. Ladybug and Viperion had been surrounded from the moment they had set feet down at street level again. She cursed herself internally as the assassin approached carrying something in his hands.

A desperate sound came from her throat then, and she realised with mounting horror what the assassin was carrying towards his Lady. 

It was the miracle box that she had left safely in her room, window slightly open so she could get it back. 

She took a step forward to fight it off of the guy but a hand on her shoulder stopped her cold. Her friend's face was white and desperate, looking as if he had been confronted with death merely seconds ago. Maybe he had. 

“How many times?” she whispered to him. 

“Thirty two, non good” was his grim response, voice barely coming out of his mouth. 

“What then?” she asked, turning her face once more to look at the assassins in front of her.

“you will have to negotiate with her. It’s the only way” he murmured into her ear, and she nodded in agreement.

“Lady Talia, I would only ask one more time. What do you want?”

“My father has become fearful after his revival” the woman said to Mari’s consternation. No one could talk about the Demon’s head like that and live. “Death really does mess with a person’s mind. So I came to propose you a deal.” Her words were crisp but her voice held a warning. Warning against disobeying or not she wasn’t sure.

The woman continued: “You come with us, to Ra’s side as the old guardian stayed for over a century and you get the miraculous. All of them, in return for Loyalty to Ra’s and the league of Shadows.”

She was about to refuse again, but another tap on her shoulder stopped her. The miraculous. she had to think about the miraculous and her friend standing at her back. About all citizens of Paris that had suffered through this attack just to get her here. 

“And for how long would I have to stay with the league?”

“As long as Ra’s pleases” was the bored response. 

It didn’t take her long to make up her mind. The dies were casted before this whole thing had started, after all. The worst part was that Talia basically knew it too. 

“On one condition.” Ladybug answered with her voice firm. “You do no harm to my friends, you do not go after them or my parents and you do not come back to my city.”

The woman thought it for a moment, but a pleased look came to her eyes. The silence stretched but Marinette did not take her eyes off of the older woman, expecting her to reach a conclusion, and wary towards what it could mean.

“Very well, Guardian. Your criteria is accepted, the league will not harm anyone in this city as long as you hold your end of the deal. However, the snake miraculous comes with us as well.”

Luka let out a loud breath, in surprise or relief Marinette wasn’t sure. 

“I will not have him disarm in front of your people. You may know who he is, but your subordinates do not. Give him, at least, the peace of keeping his identity a secret from them.”

The assassin lady nodded and with a gesture of her hand she exclaimed: “Very well. Rashim! escort them to the alley over there, he will detransform and leave through the other side so that my subordinates don't see his face. Would that suffice, Guardian?” She added in mock or actual respect Marinette couldn’t tell.

She nodded and a man stepped closer to them, signaling for them to follow him. With a curt nod towards Talia Marinette and Luka followed the man into the alley, observing him warily as he turned his back towards them, positioning himself as a wall between that entrance and the rest of the world. 

Marinette knew that, although his back was turned, he was still listening, and at the mere sound of someone trying to escape or doing something against the agreement, the whole squad of assassins would be upon them.

Keeping the man in her periphery, Marinette looked at Luka. They didn’t have the time or the space for heartfelt goodbyes but she hoped that he knew how grateful she was for his help, for being him. for everything. She threw her arms around the turquoised clad hero in a tight hug and then grabbed his wrist as he closed his eyes in defeat. Worry and shame had been warring in them before but once he opened them up again she could only see determination and care directed at her. 

He gave her a stiff nod which she took as ascent. With one swift motion, she took the bracelet off his wrist and squeezed his hand. 

A sudden idea struck her as he turned to leave. 

Grabbing the same hand, she turned him back around making a wait motion with her other hand. With his attention on her she reached into her yoyo and took out the phone she had previously stashed there. 

As if giving him a final hug, she leaned against him and murmured in his ear so that only he could hear. 

“that’s my phone, you know the password. Once everything is done, call the number saved as D. Tell him what happened, he can help.”

Ignoring his questioning look she turned him around once more and shoved him towards the other end of the alley. “You will get it, now go!”

He turned once more, the determined look coming back to his features. She shot him a small sad smile to which he waved goodbye a grim look on his face before he turned once again. She waited until she couldn’t hear his steps anymore and then turned herself to face her destiny. 

******************

“It was a trap!!” Was screamed across the room, the voice accompanied by the sound of something big crushing to the floor.

It could be heard all the way to the other side of the cave, making everyone in its vicinity jump in surprise. It had been a very long while since Damian had sounded so angry about something. 

This must have been the piece of information that they had been missing.

Chapter Text

The fight had mostly died as soon as the reinforcements appeared from Gotham’s shadows. The sight of Batman, driving the assassins into a retreat, Arkham’s escapees looking in horror as their allies retreated, leaving them behind. 

As much as Damian wanted to pursue his aunt, chase the league until he got his answers (What were they doing here? what did they want?), he knew that returning the ones left behind to Arkham was their first priority. After all, if they left to follow the league members over the rooftops the casualties of civilians were going to be ten times greater with the inmates let to their own devices. 

If left alone, the league tended to disappear until the next strike. The asylum patients, tended to be less inconspicuous and ten times deadlier to the common citizen

It took most of four hours to apprehend those that had been freed by Ra’s forces. 

By the time they were done handing the villains to the police officers, Oracle had lost track of the assassins and Nyssa herself, somewhere along Gotham’s Harbour and the estern side. 

Batman and Nightwing were the only ones to go and investigate, having little faith in finding any lead as the possibilities of them staying behind or leaving any clues was minuscule. The rest of the family were dismissed into the confines of the Batcave or the manor’s ground, to wait and gather what little information they could find online. Any trail or indication that would let them know what the intent behind the attack was.

**************

It only took ten minutes for the Demon spawn to separate from the others, Jason noticed. When it came to the league, he tended to get as agitated as the old Bat sometimes. However, this lack of patience had to be a new record. 

They had all gathered at the computer station, Tim taking control of the monitor’s with Duke pointing suggestions while the rest watched from behind. At the ten minute mark, Damian had separated himself from the group and was perusing the internet from his own wrist hologram, blue light reflecting on his face, while he paced from one side of the cave to the other. Passing Batcow’s pen without even sparring her a glance or a pat on her head. 

Jason observed from afar as his face seemed to transition from annoyance to concern as the brat seemed to check something, a series of alerts appearing on the hologram before being dismissed. A few more strokes in his keyboard and his face turned ashen, eyes scanning whatever information he had found with something akin to fear. (‘Was the Demon Spawn really scared of something? This had to be the end of the world’ Jason thought as he felt a knot tighten in his stomach)

He was about to ask the kid what was wrong when his face suddenly changed to pure anger. As quick as a whip Damian suddenly turned around, unleashing his fury in a training mannequin that crashed to the ground with a loud bang at the sudden kick. As if that wasn’t startling enough for the ones that had been concentrated at the monitors, the youngest chose that moment to let them know that the whole thing had been, in fact, a trap. 

With the most angered look that they had seen from him in a while, the Demon brat turned to the monitors. 

Jason stood on his way and cleared his throat to get his attention.

“Hey brat, care to explain what’s going on?”

The kid didn’t really act as if he had heard at all. He bypassed Jason, gaze still intent on his own wrist computer, and went to connect it to the main servers of the cave. A few seconds after he plugged it to the main server, a few files started to load into the main screen, everyone looking between it and the Demon child.

And then an image popped up. An assassin, clad in the league’s usual garb had been sighted, was that a Parisian rooftop? The architecture seemed to be one of the typical Parisian buildings and Yep! that was the tip of the Eiffel tower in the left upper corner. Why were there league assassins in Paris and how was that connected to Gotham?

the picture had been taken the same day, just a few hours before they had made it to the cave. But why would there be assassins in Paris, what had that to do with Nyssa being in Gotham?

Damian took control of the computer, his siblings stepping away from his path as the youngest was too concentrated on what he was seeing to not smash into them. He manipulated the keys and a few seconds later another image came up, this one depicting a horrifyingly familiar coloured gas covering the streets of the city of love. 

‘Fear gas’, Jason’s mind supplied. ‘There was fear gas covering the streets of Paris as people cowered and screamed in anguish.’

The muttered words drove him out of his musings as if he had been slapped. Damian spoke quietly to himself, but still loud enough that everyones else in the room heard his words.

“This actually confirms that Scarecrow was working with members of the league of Shadows as he must have provided them with the gas. Now, the objective of doing such a thing is still unclear but regarding the effects it must have had and the possibility of a mass akumatization It could only be disastrous and I’m guessing Ladybug will need external help as this is not the type of thing she deals with usually.”

At that everyone’s gazes zeroed onto him, focusing on Damian instead of the images while not comprehending exactly what he was saying.

“Mass akumatization?” asked Tim, his tone clearly denoting the confusion written on everyone's faces.

Damian actually raised his head at that as if finally aware that he had been talking aloud and not theorizing simply within the confines of his head. His eyes widened as he surveyed the faces of those that were clearly expecting him to explain himself. 

After a moment of silence he cleared his throat as if coming to a decision: “Call Father” he demanded, twirling away to look at the screen.

“He will need to know this too.”

***************

As soon as he had been safe enough in an alley a few blocks over from the assassin, Luka stopped to catch his breath. He couldn’t believe anything that had happened. They had taken Ladybug, and with her the only hope of the whole city. 

And what had he done? just stand there like an idiot. Thoroughly outmatched and unable to find any way out of the situation. It had taken him many, many tries to figure out that there was no way out of the situation without negotiating, and more times even to understand that they would stop at nothing to get Ladybug.

He hadn’t been able to find a way out. He just….. hadn’t. He was a failure, the worst of the worst friend and ally anyone could ask for. All his efforts had been useless. 

Worst of all  he had recognised the phone as soon as it had been in his hands. 

He had often behaved as a recluse, only hanging out with the few people who would understand him for what he really was. His capacity to read people was not only a gift, but also a curse when it came to meeting those that were not pure of heart. The insecurities and anxiousness of the everyday man causing him to cower under the weight of their emotions. 

But with Marinette it had been different. She was always happy, was always creating. It was almost a balm to be with someone that saw the world and thrived.

He had recognised the phone, and with it came images and memories of the most kind hearted woman he had ever met. Estranged from her peers she had turned towards the few ones that she still considered friends, him and Kagami still thankfully within that list. 

he stopped a few blocks from the eiffel tower, just a few blocks from where everything had gone to shit. It was claustrophobic and exhilarating all at once. What was going to happen now?

The cycle of usual akuma’s was completely disrupted thanks to the appearance of those assassins, (were assassins something he needed to watch out now?). Marinette was certainly in danger because of them, and Paris would suffer the consequences of not having her with them. 

(Did it mean that it was the end? Were the years of Hawkmoth's related troubles finally over? Was the cost really worth it?)

He couldn’t tell. No one could really tell as he listened to cries and pleads for help, as hundred people lied in the street as if their strings had been cut from the base. As if they were dead too. 

He needed to do something, to save Marinette. To save the city

He slipped the phone he had been passed into his pocket. The pink and bright casing teasing him as if wanting to light up the horrible day that would only get worse as it progressed. 

He started to walk towards his home. He would check on his mother and sister, he would make the call, and then he could figure it out from there.

He hoped that whoever the D person was could help.

Chapter Text

It was moments like this where Batman felt obliged to think that maybe all his children had a penchant for secrecy and whether that was his fault. He was pretty sure it was an inherent characteristic anyway.

He emitted a long sigh and squared his shoulders again to hear the story one more time, this one determined to make a plan. 

“Run it by me again, one more time” he gently commanded his youngest. Damian thankfully understood the need and didn’t react with anger, just mere annoyance. He had come a long way from his younger self and was a lot calmer if not impatient to act.

“Today at 4 am (ten am in Paris), as we were fighting the missing rouges, Paris was put under attack by external forces. Witnesses claim that something like fear gas overtook the city, producing more or less the same effect we have seen of the gas here in Gotham. A few hours later a small rain, not announced in the forecast came down, temporarily downing the mist particles to the ground. The few people that were lucid enough reported sightings of the heroine Ladybug and her partner Viperion on the eiffel tower and its surroundings which led them to believe that she was responsible for the rain. Oh, also the Parisian terrorist, named Hawkmoth used the fear produced by the gas to send a horde of Akuma’s out, yet the mist prevented them from organising as they had in previous occasions such as the battle known as Hero's day.”

Batman  pinched the bridge of his nose and gave a tired exhale, trying to make sense of the report. Somewhere out there it was already day but the cave was as dark as ever.

 “And then what?” he asked gruffly.

“Again a few witnesses claim that Ladybug was sighted purifying and taking down the different akuma’s, however she disappeared almost an hour after the last sighting. This coincides with the apparition of the league of Assassins and the rest of the akumatized people dropping unconscious, as there were multiple reports of them on the roofs of Paris. The attack here in Gotham must have worked as a distraction to make sure we didn’t intervene in whatever was going down over there.” 

Damian's words were measured and controlled, maintaining his emotions at bay by pure will alone. He cared about whatever had happened in Paris, was this related to his friend? Mari? 

“And what do you make of it?” Batman asked his final question.

“Taking into account the league of Shadow’s old allegiance with the Order of the Miraculous, Ladybug’s source of power, I would say they were trying to regain their control over said objects which probably implies taking Ladybug herself. She is the current guardian of the magical objects.”

Damian, still dressed in his Robin attire hesitated for a second and then, with a frown on his face, he explained with what was bothering him:  “Considering my mother’s and Nyssa’s disdain for magical artifacts, however, I cannot see how they would be interested in regaining such items.”

Batman nodded understanding his son’s concern, a frown settled on his own face as he considered this new information. “That would be an understatement. We will have to investigate that piece of information later on, however. Our main objective here would be locating the provider of the gas, most likely Scarecrow himself, and capture him in order to return him to the proper authorities. Being from Gotham or Paris. Once that is done we can worry about the rest of the investigation.”

Robin looked as if he was about to protest and his brother’s weren't that far off  as Batman observed the faces of the other ones seated at the table. He raised a hand to ask for silence and was thankful when everyone quieted immediately, giving him the chance to continue.

“This is an international matter so we cannot intervene as just the Bat’s of Gotham. We need backup, someone politically strong enough to stand against France’s ban on superheroes without falling into the red tape of politica affairs. That means involving the justice league, who hopefully already knows part of the story.”

He took a deep breath before stating:

“That means we will have to play a team game, we are the experts on all Gotham’s Rogues so that means our objective will be on finding Scarecrow while other heroes take care of the public and civilian relief”

Then he turned to his eldest, also seating at the table and watching with rap attention as Batman relayed the plan.

“As you know that means we can’t leave Gotham unprotected. Nightwing, Red Hood you are in charge of your respective city sectors. Spoiler would be on reserve if any of you need help. I will inform Black Bat of the situation, see if she wants to be on reserve too. If she agrees to that, that means another person staying at the house.”

He put a menacing face to which each children rolled his eyes:

“Do not burn the house down, that is an order”

He turned then to the computer on the far wall from where a mechanised snort was heard. The holographic face greeted him with a tiny smile on her lips so he added for her benefit:

“Oracle will be our main support on both sides” he explained before finally turning to the two youngest: “Red Robin, Robin, you come with me to France. We will have to stop at watchtower and inform the others. If everything goes according to plan we will take two or three more people with us.”

He rose from his seat as a silent shadow, his cape swishing in the room’s silence.

“You have fifteen minutes to prepare, take whatever you need. Move!”

**************

Luka’s walk towards his home had been a nightmare in the flesh. There were destroyed buildings and screaming people wherever he looked. People lying unconscious in the middle of the street while a few others were starting to get up, panic still written on their faces.

His family had thankfully been okay, once he reached home. More or less okay. Anarka was getting up from the floor as he made it inside. Juleka was still not there, probably somewhere near the school, hopefully not passed out.

 The boathouse had thankfully been left untouched, except by the small pieces of debris that floated down the Seine’s stream.

He talked to his mother, made sure she was as fine as she could be and reassured her about his own well being. Then he checked his phone for any signs from Juleka. There was no message nor call but the motion reminded him of what he had to do. 

He had a call to make.

He grabbed Marinette’s cell phone from his pocket and imputed the password almost automatically. He had done it dozens of times before, but now it was different. It felt different. His fingers tingled as he pressed the buttons for the contact list. There were only two numbers in the D section, one marked only by the letter and a sword emoji.

He pressed call. 

belatedly he realized he was shaking as the tone ringed from his hand. He couldn’t even put it to his ear. And what was he supposed to say if they picked up? Should he tell them that Ladybug was taken? Would they even know of Ladybug or should he say Marinette? 

Fuck, he hadn’t thought this through. At all.

He didn’t realize how long he had gone with the phone ringing until the voice machine went on on the other side.

“You have reached the voicemail. You can leave…” He shut the call before it could beep. 

An unsteady exhale left his lungs and he had to breathe deeply so as not to let panic take over him. He had to make that call, it was Ladybug’s last command. He called again, and again. And again. Until the voice in the line said the other phone was out of service and he couldn’t keep ignoring the problem. 

If no one was going to help then he would have to help by himself. He wouldn’t let the city be overrun by chaos at the heroine’s absence. He was going to help, and he was going to make her proud.

Chapter Text

The justice league, following Batman’s advice, had decreed that a multi pronged approach to the Paris problem was the best action plan. On one side, Diana had used her status as Princess of Themyscira to secure access to the city and interrupt the ban on external heroes. Flash and Green Lantern, being one of the few accessible but not really intimidating heroes, were put on civilian duty, helping those that were left on the street and assessing the damage done to the destroyed buildings. Their combined superpowers would be the most beneficial to helping civilians that had been trapped in debris or were in immediate risk. Batman and his personal team, composed by Robin and Red Robin would deal with the scarecrow problem and whoever was left of the league of assassins. 

If there were any more surprises left by the Shadows, then they would also be the ones to handle said problem. 

Robin, on his own volition, was proving to be the only one in disagreement with this plan. He had been pacing the cabin of the plane as soon as he was given his orders and was muttering under his breath something about a dead phone and a contact. Later, they would have to talk to him about whatever it was bothering him, but now they had a rogue to catch. 

They divided to their respectives chores as soon as they touched down in one of the smaller airfields in the outskirts of the city. Not three hours later Batman and both Robins found the warehouse district from where the chemicals for the gas had come from. It took a matter of minutes, thanks to Oracle and Red Robin’s efforts, to narrow it down to the single warehouse that had presented the most unregulated use in the last weeks. 

The plan was simple, Robin would go in through one of the side windows, and would be their eyes inside until they secured the outside of the building. Red Robin, would be in charge of disabling any security measure by going through the roof into the office that was at the back of the building in a second level. Batman, lastly, would finish securing the rest of the building, and would go in only when they had Scarecrow’s location. 

After the plan was laid out the three figures dispersed into the shadows camouflaging themselves into the darkness of the building’s nearby.

Busting out Scarecrow's operation was easier than they had originally thought. Crane had been alone in the warehouse that had been set up as a chemical lab. Robin was the first to see him, bent over a desk as he did a new experiment or prepared a new doze of the horrifying gas. He was murmuring as he did, mutering things so lowly and so quietly that only the raspy vibrations of his voice projected across the room.

The boy wonder, although impatient to act and go check on his friend, willed himself to remain still, to not attract the attention of the hunched figure. He had to wait for now, so he willed his tense muscle to relax while keeping himself in position. His back to the wall, he crouched in the darkness left by some crates, watching his prey like an animal seconds away from pouncing. 

 Once everyone was in position the three descended down as wolves upon their prey, it took only a strike from Robin to subdue the man, leaving him unconscious to the world. 

The quickness was worth his father’s reproachful look. They were done here, they could go help. ‘find Ladybug’ a voice kept repeating in his head: ‘find Mari’.

Batman took care of the rogue, taking him to the specialized plane they had come in where a celd awaited him, and Damian decided to go along to recover his now charged cell phone, it would be the most straightforward way to find her. 

Tim, on the other hand, was told to go to the others, to offer a helping hand if they needed, and to wait with them as to debrief later. 

**********

Tim made his way across the Parisian rooftops quickly. It was different from what he was used to, the rooftops not level enough to run across them and fewer perches from where to hang. In any other conditions, the city would have been beautiful. All that remained now was chaos and destruction. 

He stopped every few streets to help people under debris or to move people that were lying catatonic in the street. There was still no sign  of the assassin anywhere. Nor were there any signs of the miraculous heroes anywhere in Paris. 

What he did see was finally some emergency forces and pararescue that had made it to the scene. He made it down towards them as he noticed a kid conversing with them. His shoulders were tense but squared, in a way that denoted certainty and grim knowledge.

“What we do need is to start cleaning the street, if we start moving cars and running around, all the dust that Ladybug cleaned is going to come up once again, and the gas, whatever the hell it was, is going to start affecting us again. We have to hose the street down so that then we can safely move things around”

One of the firemen took a step forward. “Kid, we can’t just hose every street, there is not enough of us, or enough water in the pipes to do that.”

The blue haired teenager, he noticed his age now up close, opened his mouth once again to argue his point but realization dawned on Red Robin’s mind, and he thought it was a good time to intervene. “He is right, the reports state that Ladybug pulled the gas down by making it rain in the area.” He grimaced at his own mention of the unexplained events, or rather, magically explained events.

“She might have gotten rid of the problem, but it was only temporarily. The only way to get rid of it permanently is to push the fibers of gas into the sewage system, where they won't be breathed by anyone else. Green lantern and Flash are one block away, they would help  with the water issue if need be.”

Thinking of it that way, it was a mistake to have brought the Flash along, he would only speed the issue further with all the running he did. It would be completely different if this were Gotham, where rain fell regularly enough that the fear gas was usually washed away without any help. Here, rain, or at least a heavy enough rain, wasn’t forecasted for at least two weeks. Fear gas wouldn’t last that long in the ground without being kicked into the air once again. It acted like smog, after all, the cars and general movement would lift it again and again until it was actually washed somewhere where it couldn’t rise. 

The firemen and his crew begrudgingly accepted the idea and the young man with the blue tipped hair turned to Tim to give him his thanks. He was definitely older than he had seemed in his initial assessment.

“Hold that thought one second” Red Robin said, raising one gloved finger when he saw that the other was about to speak. He quickly raised his hand to the comm on his ear and told Flash “Here Red Robin, Flash we need you to stop running. It will only get the dust of the fear gas up again in the air.”

“Figured as much Red! GL is hosing down the street from a near fire hydrant. I’m helping a group of pararescue to set up a camp for the ones that are lying motionlessly still. Debrief in 10?”

“See you then” Tim cut the communication. He returned his look toward the boy who had drawn his attention before. He had been patiently waiting for him to finish his conversation, yet he seemed rather nervous as he fiddled with a bright pink cell phone in his hands. It was an odd choice, considering the guy’s main aesthetic consisted in black and blue. Or really, black and aquamarine. Cute. 

He caught himself transfixed by his hands, and raised his head to look at his face more directly, where he found a calculating look directed at him. 

“Thank you for the help …” the guy said, leaving space for him to introduce himself.

“Red Robin, and you are welcome…”

“Luka, nice to meet you”

“You too.” he added, shaking his hand, “May I ask what were you doing out here? It’s clearly not safe, but you seem to know a few things.”

Red Robin tried to make it sound like a question, more than an accusation. He truly did, but he was also anxious to have any new information that they could have. The whole day he had felt as if pieces of the puzzle were missing. A secret that was just out of their reach.

Luka thankfully, seemed to understand that as his severe face, full of worries until then, relaxed just the tiniest bit.

“I was supposed to contact someone,” he said, raising the phone in his left hand as an explanation. “Since that is clearly not working I decided to help anywhere I could. The riverbank is the least contaminated place in the city centre so me and a few others are taking those that we can there to recover.”

“That’s… a good plan actually, the open air and the easy access to the river water should be enough to keep the people safe until the streets are cleaned. Come, we can tell Flash about your plan, and we can start mobilizing people towards the safer zone.”

Chapter Text

Luka started moving, he worked and worked and moved and talked until he finally stopped thinking. He ends up dead on his feat but there were still too many things to do. The superheroes had been working near him, the Red Robin keeping him in sight after he asked a few more questions. 

He still works some more after that. There are too many debris pieces to clean, too many streets to hose and wash, too many people to convince of an action pann any plan. The light had started to dim now, the afternoon starting to make way to the night as the surrounding shadow enlarged into the horizon. The wet concrete at his feet was taking its time drying up, as the temperature descended once more to accommodate the darkness.

Thankfully more people had come out to help as time passed. That meant more help with the auxiliary tasks, but it also meant more people passing through the streets that weren’t cleared yet. A mounting problem if they did not finish with the streets soon.

He had tried to expand the info, making it known to every form of official or political figurehead he met. Telling Red Robin had actually helped a lot as they seemed to be in contact with someone in an official capacity. They, in turn, had opened a channel of communication between the president and those who were orchestrating the salvaging efforts or were just concerned neighbours, just victims.

A few of the unconscious men had begun to wake up and were now in the hands of the emergency units stationed near the river. Most of them had woken up to incredible strong migraines and headaches, probably the effects of cutting communication with Hawkmoth so suddenly. Magic taking its toll. 

After a while of working under the dwindling sun, two more caped heroes joined the ranks of the ones he had been tenuously working along with. They melded out of the shadows, down from the roofs as if that's where they belonged. (‘Was that another type of magic? he couldn’t tell). The older man’s dark figure cut out an imposing silhouette against the light of Paris day, the black seeming to absorb the oranges and pinks that the sky started to develop. The younger man at his side was a smaller colourful version of the dark shadow who he stood by. The red of his suite clashed with the dark green of his boots making further contrast to the yellow lining of the cape.

For a second he couldn’t escape but to think that either Marinette would have loved it or hated it, there was no in-between option.

A pang of hurt reminded him of his failed task and he once again retrieved the pink cell phone from his pocket. The battery had started to go low, but it would still hold for a few hours, he hopped. There were a few worried messages from Marinette’s parents, and he remembered that they still didn’t know. No one had told them. It was up to him to tell them what had happened. That someone had taken their daughter and there wasn't even a reason for it. He couldn’t even tell them why or give them solace,  a sign of comfort. Nothing.

He had to go there. Go to the bakery a few blocks away and inform Marinette’s parents that their daughter was missing. He couldn’t bear to move his feat at the horrible realization. 

Letting out a sigh of tiredness and frustration, Luka let the thought go for now. There was still a lot for him to do before the sun came down. Before his own mother grew worried.

He threw another look at the masked vigilantes who had come through to their aid. They were still talking, in that tightly knit group where only whispers could be heard by those that lingered in the street still.

Suddenly, the youngest of the bunch, the one coloured like a traffic light seemed to tire as with a wary glance at Batman and the other heroes, he drew out.. was that a phone? Communication device out of one of his many pockets. He seemed to deflate after a glance but a second later his shoulders were once again squaring themselves as he separated himself from the conversation. A lingering look from the dark knight was all the indication that the youngest behaviour was unusual, but that was all Luka could discern before his own pocket started to ring.

No, not his pocket, the pink cell phone in it. Marinette's cell phone. 

Before he could even begin to consider answering it a pinprick at his shoulder told him that someone was watching him. He raised his face to look around him but came immediately face to face with the multicoloured guy who looked at him unreadably through the mask.

Something that could have passed as anger washed through Luka, so quick that the worry and sick feeling that clogged his throat almost threw him to his knees. He was missing something; he knew he was. But those emotions weren’t his. Was he listening to the emotions from the guy in front of him?

Slowly, deliberately, the vigilante raised his right hand, extending it to Luka, as if wanting him to see. In his hands a lit phone was held face outwards, facing the blue eyed teenager. 

A second passed where he could only blink his eyes in confusion and then Oh. Oh.

He looked at his own hands, phone still ringing there and with jerky, clumsy movements, declined the incoming call. The phone set across from him took only a second to show that the call had been cut off. 

‘well shit’ he thought.

He didn’t back up as the younger man approached him, but it was a close call. A sudden silence had overtaken the whole street and he suddenly could feel four more sets of eyes focused on him. A quick glance showed him that yes, all the other heroes were looking at him now, and the sudden pressure made his ears burn in discomfort. He didn’t have enough time to process it, however as the coloured hero (he really should learn his name) came to a stop in front of him, had tilted and gaze calculating. As cold and hard as Ladybug’s best death stare. 

The dark knight had seemed scary enough, he thought in the further back of his mind where there was still a piece of him not concerned with damage control, this was worse. With the scary looking vigilante staring into the depths of his soul, and feeding himself from his fears there wasn't even a comparison possible.

“You are Viperion”, the man in front of him said. Cold with certainty. Not a question, just a fact.

He drew in a breath, not sure of what to do, but even before he could try to control his reaction, he knew it was too late. He already knew that he was, that breath confirming what might have been a suspicion. And now everyone that had been looking at him knew as well.

“so, tell me…” the certainty became harsher, crueller. A threat was barely hidden in the music. “What happened here, and where is Ladybug?”

Chapter Text

Awareness creeped up slowly and then all at once. Marinette sat in the bed she had been given as if lightning had cursed through her veins. It took her a few seconds to regain her bearings, to notice where she was and let dread consume her thoughts. She shouldn’t have agreed to Talia’s proposal, even if she had had no other choice. 

She was back in Nanda Parbat. The place from where she had run when she was a child, where she had promised never to return. The cavernous wall kept the room cold, keeping away the suffocating heat of the desert and dunes outside. The room consisted of the carved stone walls that made up all of Nanda Parbat’s quarters, plus a few wooden structures that served for utilitarian purposes but little for decoration. 

She stretched with a yawn, getting up from the bed she had been on while feeling how tight her shoulders were with stress. 

Once she got to her feet, she felt something odd in the room, something that she hadn’t realized the day before. A sense quite like when a stray thought crept into her conscience, something that she knew but didn’t at the same time. The furniture disposition and the carvings over the door, she had seen those before. Protection spells, she realized after a heartbeat.  Master Fu’s protection spells, carved there for peace, rest and safety. 

Walking toward the door she came to a stop right under the swirl of carvings. All of themied together at the centre but dispersing to the outside, like a rose’s petals coming away from the stem. She knew now why the place seemed familiar; she had been many times in these quarters when she had been younger: They were the Demon’s magical advisor living rooms.

‘Creepy’ She thought. ‘Even worse if the old man pretended that she take on the role of her elder. 

Taking her eyes away from the art piece that still radiated magic after all the years past, Marinette decided to do a sweep of the room. Just to be sure she was truly left alone and was as safe as she could be for the time being. 

She didn’t find any microphones or cameras or any kind of device that could be used to spy on her, but there were two trained league guards standing outside of her door, which meant that Ra’s or Talia weren’t taking any chances. They were clearly not giving her any possibility of escape. The small window wasn’t an option either, what with having no foot hold anywhere near her and it being so high up in the cliff face that there was no way she could lower herself safely to the ground.

Thankfully, she found the miraculous box right where she had left it before nodding off the day before, too exhausted to even look or care for the room and security around her. She didn’t know how it hadn’t been thrown off the bed during her sleep as it was on the end of the bed, which clearly wasn’t a secure enough place to hold magical jewellery. Never mind that she had only been thinking of keeping it close, and that if anyone tried to get the box away while she was asleep, she would have known.   

But that safeness didn’t mean much when she was in the league of assassins, people who would kill her in a second if she so much as stepped out of line. She opened the box and went over every jewel, waking up each kwami to check on them and their magic just to be sure. 

Sometimes being paranoid was necessary. Specially in the life she had led since she was taken in by Joab, Master Fu… ‘whatever’ she reprimanded herself mentally. It had been tough before having Damian there to crash two parts of her life into one.

Being in the league of Assassin again? That was definitely worst. 

Tikki and Sass had been concerned, the other kwami ignorant or worried. Plagg? Under all that bravado and curses? Plagg had been livid. It had jolted her out of the almost meditative trance she had fallen into while checking the miraculous. Furious and afraid for his kit and angry, scared, for what it meant to have Talia tracking his jewel. Apparently his Chat Noir had tried to fight. Chat Noir couldn’t stand against an assassin’s training apparently, and that had cost him. Luckily, as far as Plagg knew he was still alive, but he couldn't say the same about his father, who had been Hawkmoth. She would have to deal with that latter, she was sure. But there were still two Kwami she hadn’t talked with yet. The two most abused of the miraculous that had been recently active. She had a lot to do if she wanted to reassure them and heal them as a good guardian should. 

‘She had her work cut out for her’ she told herself while expertly falling into a meditative state once again to make contact with the damaged jewels. 

*************

Damian knew he was being rude. Knew he had unfolded critical information for everyone close enough to hear. Right in front of members of the Justice league Ladybug had tried to keep out of the event. But he would deal with all of that later.

 He was worried about her. She wouldn’t disappear if there wasn’t another option. Even without the miraculous she was a force to be reckoned and from what he had learned while being prophet, she was extremely good at  organising people and getting everyone to follow her lead. She would be out in the streets, alongside her partner at least. 

That only meant that she was incapacitated, probably by the Shadows. 

He needed to know.

Damian took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart. There would be no figuring anything out, if his mind was not clear enough to listen. To see. 

“She was taken” Viperion started to say, voice unsure. “There was a woman there, she found us when we were trying to figure out what had happened to the akumatized victims….” A silence hung in the hair as the older teenager tried to order his own thoughts. “with a weird look he said “You are prophet aren’t you’?” But he inmediately shook his head, not leaving space for any response. “Nvermind, The woman had the missing miraculouses and demanded Ladybug come with them in an exchange for the jewellery”

“There was no other way” The would be hero said. “I tried going back, as far as I could. We didn’t win in any timeline, it was impossible. So I told Ladybug to negotiate. It was the only way she could keep the miraculous, and our lives. It was a chance to get another chance and she took it.”

“And who took her? Any clue about who this woman could be?” Damian asked, feeling a pit of dread deepening in his stomach as he concentated on not letting any emotion into his voice. 

“Assassins” was the dreaded answer. “It was some kind of Assassins group led by a Talia something. Ladybug knew her, treated her with respect even before she introduced herself.”

Robin let out a sling of curses and swears. He felt a presence nearing him from his peripheral view, but knowing it was his father, decided not to look at him. He was going to explain everything later, but it would be better if he had all the information on hand first. 

“Did they say anything else? Mention any name or place that could tell us where they were going and why do they need Ladybug?”

The boy’s, Luka’s face, took a more pensive look, a seriousness pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“They mentioned a name I believe, a man’s name I think. Someone named Ra’s?”  His intonation rose with the name and a coldness went through the gothamite’s spine 

“I am not sure, but it was something like that” continued the teenager, ignoring the gasps of those surrounding him. “I’m sorry. If I remember anything else, I will tell you, but that’s all I have for now. I’m sorry” he repeated and then retreated a few steps as if unsure if he could go. 

‘OH no,’ was all Robin could think about 'Not that Ra's, not again.' 

Thankfully, Red Robin took over from there and guided Luka toward a near shadow where he could seat and breath away the anxiousness the conversation must have caused him. 

Robin prepared himself mentally. He felt his fathers gaze on him, indicating that now was his time to explain. He straightened his spine, imbuing sureness into his posture, and turned towards the Batman, knowing that it was time to come clean. 

Chapter Text

The cavern walls were cold and damp wherever Mari looked at. The ground at her feet was uneven and rough as she marched forward, passing opened doorways and arches leading to darkened and empty alcoves. The echoes of her quiet footsteps resonated just a tad before the more forceful ones of her two guards.  It was a testament to Ra’s superiority complex that she hadn’t even been cuffed to make the way to meet the boss. Or, at least, she thought that was what was going on. They had been walking for a while now, turning corners and coming down staircases that she didn’t remember from her life in the league. She was thoroughly convinced that she would need help if they expected her to go back to her rooms.

The miraculous box was, of course, still in her hands. As if she would even dare let it out of her gaze and protection. Even if she was going to meet Ra’s himself and all his malevolence and genius madness.

They turned another right in the entrenched maze of corridors and passageways and the image of a mouse trapped in a labyrinth suddenly came into her mind. She quickly dismissed the thought, however. She might not have known These passages, but she knew Nanda Parbat. It had been her first home after all, and even if she didn’t like it there was a familiarity in every step. The maze welcomed her with every stride, and she grudgingly accepted the memories that came with that welcome. Better than being a complete stranger trapped in a game where she knew not her part. 

She supposed that in another universe that could have actually been her. If she had never known the league maybe she could have been just a normal girl playing in Ra’s’ chess, unknowing or uncaring of her own place in the game. 

‘But’ she supposed, ‘There was still a lot to learn about where she stood in the new board Ra’s had so suddenly drawn out’. During her whole morning of undisrupted peace and solitude she had been looking forward to this part, so that she could finally learn what Ra’s wanted from her. All her possible actions from here forward would pend on the information she could gain from this single interaction and the plans that would be introduced there. 

As a guardian it was now her job to keep the balance, so she would counteract Ra’s agenda as she saw fit.

It would take a lot of planning, though, if she wanted to go against Ra’s mandate. A lot of careful planning and energy. Afterall, the walls of Nanda Parbat had been sealed years ago to stop any type of magic from getting in … or out. The magical seal had been the reason why Joab and her had had to make their way out by foot in the first place, and, that was a trip she didn’t want to have to repeat. Especially if she planned to make it in one piece.

Marinette swiftly banished those thoughts out of her mind as her guides ushered her into a larger corridor with a big carved arch in its middle. It would not do to confront the head of the league of Shadow’s while distracted, much less planning his downfall. 

Beyond the arch a brightly lit room awaited her. It was big and spacious, designed to hold at least a hundred people mingling around. Chandeliers and torches kept most of the shadows at bay, but the guardian was sure that outside of her vision, in the corners and behind tapestries, more than a few assassins were ready to abide by their ruler’s command. 

At the end of the room, where a dais would be situated in a chapel, awaited her the throne and two smaller chairs. For Ra’s al Ghul himself and his two daughters. Talia, the eldest surviving, and Nyssa, the most loyal one. 

The man himself was seated on his golden throne, eyes a pit of murky avid green. Nyssa was seated by his side in her designated place, her gaze as eager as her father’s. Talia, on the contrary, stood a little to the side and back, her eyes full of boredom, as if uncaring for what was about to happen with the young guardian. She tilted her head to one side when she noticed Marinette entering the room. Her lips were in a serious bored line that was only belied by the keen attention of her eyes as she followed every movement and step that occurred in her eye field. 

Feeling all eyes on her, the young heroine stepped into the middle of the throne room, right in front of the man who must have ordered her kidnapping. The man that wanted her there for a reason, and who thought that he held all the cards on his hands. 

The guards that had led her there bowed to Ra’s before being dismissed into the side-lines, but she did not follow their example. She would not submit to Ra’s authority just because she was in his palace, or in his presence. The old guardian may have submitted to his authority in exchange for security and a peace, but she was not Joab, and her place in the world was not next to a murdering psychopath and ecoterrorist. 

Her life had not been part of the deal made between the old guardian and Ra’s al Ghul, therefore, she was not compelled to follow the man’s commands because the vows had never been renovated since she became the guardian. Even before that, the vows hadn’t been renovated since the league was invaded and Ra’s had been, allegedly, killed.

Hadn’t he been declared dead? She was almost sure he had been, she even thought Damian had said something about it. And if so….

She reached towards his aura, wanting to see if there was something special she could find and immediately recoiled, almost taking physically a step back at the sight of the void that radiated from him. It was just darkness, and it was angry, pulsating around the man like a hungry, desperate lion, that had been chained down and left to die.

She had never seen an aura like that before. It was unnatural.

She tried to keep her face blank from the horrific sight that had greeted her, bringing herself rapidly to this plane of reality. However, by the gazes directed at her by the addressing party it was clear that she had not made it. Talia’s gaze particularly claimed her attention as the woman pursed her lips as if having a theory or something confirmed.

“Do you know why you are here child?” the voice of Ra’s resonated in the cavernous walls and brought her out of her musings. Without waiting for an answer he continued: “Ages, almost a lifetime ago I came to an agreement with your predecessor. He would serve me as an expert in magic and as an advisor when it came to miraculous matters. He had full reign of all magical objects under my property if he served my purposes when I asked him. Under this agreement, after a few failed endeavours, I allowed him to bring you into the league, to serve as a successor in my service and gain. This was the reason why you were allowed to train alongside the bests of the Shadows, including my grandson.”

Mari’s face turned grim and determined but the man didn’t let her interrupt his speech. He raised a dark eyebrow and leaned further into his seat, as if dismissing her as a threat. 

“I have come from beyond the grave. Magic more powerful and ancient than anything we had had at the league was used to bring me back and we need you to keep that magic in check and ensure that it won’t be needed again. You and the miraculous under your care would be at my service as the guardian was before you. In return, you will have the full protection of the league and the help from my forces to complete your duties as the new guardian. You will be part of my council and closer allies and your interests will be my interests.”

That…. That didn’t sound so bad as she had been expecting, and a frown marred her face as she tried to understand what was not being said. Sure, she didn’t want to be at the service of a madman, but the offer of a position like that was highly contradictory to all the trouble Ra’s had gone through in order to acquire the miraculous. So… what did he really want? And how could she get that information. 

To gain time and see where she was really standing, Mar decided to bluff.

“And what if I refuse your offering?” came out of her mouth a second later.

The answer came more swiftly and more sure than she had been expecting.

“You can’t. The deal you made with my daughter was made for the miraculous. Therefore, it was done through magic and has its own consequences, and you know better than anyone my dear that the consequences of a deal like that are binding. Your agreement l ensures that you will remain by the league’s and my side until our agreement is broken.”

A pool of dread solidified in her stomach. Rocks as cool as ice weighed her down as the consequences of her desperate act were laid down in front of her. She should have known better goddamnit!! She should have thought for a minute and not let her desperation guide her. Now, she had exchanged the miraculous for her freedom and the safety of Paris, now she had to keep to her own words. And what had exactly been the wording of the deal? She would give her loyalty and service to Ra’s in exchange for the jewels? That… that was highly specific, and Talia must have known exactly what she had been doing.

How could she be so stupid!

She would have to think about that later. Find some leeway to manoeuvre around without going directly against the bindings of the contract. ‘She could do that’. But for now…. Shit!

“And if I agree, what would exactly entail being a part of your service?”

The man had let a victorious smile grace his face. The gesture was a mockery of a happy person’s smile, full of malice and plotting

Chapter Text

“Damian, while I understand your motive you can’t keep that kind of information from us,” although his father’s voice was gentle, the use of his actual name instead of his vigilante persona told him that he was completely serious. “It could have put everyone in danger, and it’s not something we could have planned or prepared for.”

By now, the darkness of the night had clearly won against the battle for dominance in the sky and a few stars glimmered above. Robin and Batman had situated themselves in a nearby rooftop building, close enough to be seen and see the others if an emergency occurred but far enough that they weren’t heard. Red Robin had also remained with Green Lantern and Flash in a valiant effort to supervise the two senior members of the Justice league.

Damian was about to answer to negate his father’s words but Batman beat him to it as he raised a hand to ask for silence. “As I said, Damian, I understand,” but then in a stricter tone he added “Just make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Robin nodded sourly, a frown creating a dent between his eyebrows. 

“Now what?” asked the teenager.

“Now we wait,” said the man. “I’m asking your brothers to join us here and then we will depart at dawn towards the league of shadow’s base. If Ra’s is really back, we must confirm that information immediately. Besides, we do not know yet why they would want your friend back now, especially considering that they have let her be for all these years without bothering her.”

“If grandfather is alive” Damian pensively added, as if thinking aloud to himself.  “That would mean that they want her as guardian of the miraculous, but that begs the question over why take her and not just steal the box with them. Ra’s knew enough of the jewels to use them for his own volition. Although, he must not know everything about them if he needed Mari. Besides,” he added looking at Batman’s cowl, “that still leaves the question of how he is even alive. He was clearly dead when mother took me to Gotham.”

“Probably has something to do with the miraculous, and the reason why he would want your friend to go to him.” Batman theorized, his head tilted to the side in question or evaluation.

“You know, just because I knew her from infancy doesn’t make her my friend, we barely had time to talk last time we met.”

Batman hummed in response, an annoying tone that indicated he knew exactly what he was doing. 

Damian huffed in distaste. His father could think whatever. He wasn’t going to feed the flames of whatever crazy notion he had gotten into his head. He turned around and avoided the smile that he knew was plastered in his father’s cowled face.

“Inform Red Robin that we are leaving, and see that Green lantern and Flash are kept on track.” came the instruction. “Maybe try to find that boy from before, Viperion? Ask him if he has recalled any new information. Then go to the plane and rest, as soon as your brothers reach us we go.”

Robin nodded in acknowledgement and deployed his grappling hook to a nearby building to make his way towards where Red Robin stood at street level. 

***************

It was closer to midnight when someone knocked on her door. She had been seated in the middle of the room, meditating and thinking up possible plans of action while the kwamis were lounging around the room.

On hearing the knock she startled, the kwami’s hurrying towards the box at her silent gesturing, and blinked a few times to get used to the darkness that surrounded her. The person at the door knocked again, this time with more insistence and she hurried to answer. Preparing herself, she opened the door, feigning more sureness than she felt at the moment. 

‘Who would seek her out at this time, and why?’ she thought. 

The person on the other side surprised her. Talia was alone, shoulders squared and completely poised. Her stature made her seem like she hovered over Marinette, but the young guardian squared her shoulder of her own and prepared for whatever it was the other woman wanted of her. 

“Come” she said in a courtly manner, and turned around leaving Marinette to follow after her. Struggling to comprehend what the woman could possibly want from her, Marinette followed after her steps, making sure she was behind the woman, but close enough so as not to be rude. 

She traced the path they were taking in her mind, most of the mental description consisting of ‘taking all the stairs down’. It was much later, seemingly when they had reached the interior base of the mountain, that they came across two guards, that were positioned in front of an ornate door she had never seen before. Both assassins, a man and a woman considering by the shape of their faces, shared a look, before opening the massive doors for them. 

Marinette hesitated before going in, the eerie green glow coming from inside, coupled with the strong magical essence, made her nervous. Talia, uncaring of her hesitation, walked inside with a purposeful yet graceful stride. It was obvious that she wanted the guardian to follow so Marinette drew her courage around her like a warm cape and stepped inside after her. 

It was the pit at the middle of the room, she discovered, which gave the room its greenish tint. Transforming the cavern walls into a mosaic of light greens and dark shadows that moved and turned like smoke in water.  

Talia was situated at the edge of the pit, the murky lights reflected in her sculpted face and Marinette followed her gaze to the waters she had heard so much about. All her life she had heard of the pit and its effects, the green waters troubling her childish nightmares, yet she had never seen it in person before. The old guardian had forbidden her to get close to them, but he had taught her about them, imparting her the knowledge that would drive a lot of her fears and nightmares.

The Lazarus pit had been a result of the combined efforts of creation and destruction. A means to achieve one of the wishes that had been imparted by the use of both those miraculous. A terrible wish, because even if it could return people to life and keep them strong and young, its use would drive even the most strong-minded people to insanity, granting them delirium and visions that would drive the person to horrible acts.  

“Months ago, my father was dead to the world,” came Talia’s voice, dark and grave as the pit itself. “In his death his body had been hurt enough that not even the pit could bring him back, so it had been put to rest in a tomb not far from here. It was my sister Nyssa, in the reconstruction of Nanda Parbat, who found this book of spells that we could use to bring him back. You see, it was a theoretical work, made by the old guardian himself, about possible uses of the combination of miraculous magic and the pit waters. A dark tome, highly theoretical, but my sister was set on using it to bring father back.” 

The woman spoke with an impassive tone, but her face carried a hint of distaste and worry that made the unease in Marinette grow. ‘Combined magic? it couldn’t be right. Joab wouldn’t have risked it? And why leave such a book behind?’ it didn’t make any sense to her. 

In her turmoil, she couldn’t figure out what to say. Talia was lost in her own head it seemed because, without looking at the teenager beside her, she continued talking.

“The spell worked alright, or at least that seemed to be in the case. The spell restored his body and the pit brought his mind back. His soul though? That spark that created humans in the first place? I have done my own research but you confirmed it this afternoon, there is something wrong with him and you know it.” With these words she did turn to her listener, an intent look on her face but standing as still as marble otherwise.

“His aura,” came the whispered reply, confusion and apprehension clearly displayed in the younger’s face, “He didn’t have any.”

The older woman only nodded as if she already knew the answer., then turned once more to the pit as if lost in it’s waters.

“That’s why he needs you. He cannot use the miraculous himself as the jewels require that spark to make use of the magic (the whole door analogy and all that), but he doesn’t trust us enough to use them in his stead. Not without betraying him.”

“He doesn’t trust his daughters?” came the unsure question. Marinette had also turned to better address the woman. She couldn't grasp what she was hearing, millions of questions revolving in her head.

“He never has” answered the woman with a sardonic smile. “Besides, as I said before, my father has become fearful of his death. He is afraid that it will happen again and that this time it would last. Even so, Ra’s al Ghul knows what he has lost, and he knows that without magical help he cannot keep his life for much longer, that is why you were brought here, little one.” The smile this time was less sardonic and a little bit nicer, but still as inscrutable as everything else the woman had done.

“But I cannot recover that spark for him,” claimed the young teenager, voice unsure but eyes firm. “It is an inherent part of human beings, it cannot be born by outside magic.”  Of that she was sure.

Talia turned fully to her then, the last time, before looking her dead in the eyes. When she spoke 

“Yet you owe your servitude to the league, to Ra’s.” Her voice came like a slap. Stronger and clearer yet forceful enough that Marinette though the words reverberated in the cave. “So, that begs the question:  what are going to do about it?”

Chapter Text

Getting to Tibet on the Batplane hadn’t taken as long as Damian had originally thought it would. They were all tired of course, and it had taken them hours of seating in uncomfortable chairs, but it hadn’t been as bad a flight to the other side of the world, or even a trans-Atlantic one. Jason and Dick were the most tired out of all of them. They had boarded the plane as soon as they reached Paris, whereas the other 2 passengers and the pilot (Batman) had had time to stretch their legs in between. It was 1 am in the current time zone, but it felt much later than that for the present Bats.

The tense air was making everyone even more cranky as they all felt jittery and ready to move but were apprehensive of what they might find inside the hidden caves of Nanda Parbat. The plan was petty simple, yet that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t have to be changed when they made their way inside. A plan was always as good as the initial contact with the enemy allowed, after all.

 They had decided to divide their forces, sending Nightwind and Red Hood to neutralize the Lazarus pit with a component Batman had created a while ago. After a bit of deliberation, the bats had decided that this would probably be the most promising chance they would have to destroy the pit and stop anyone from coming ack from the dead again. Damian didn´t really care about what happened with the pit, but he knew that his father wanted it destroyed so he approved. Meanwhile, Batman and Robin, were going to search the compound for Marinette, using Damian’s partial knowledge of the compound to take as much of a direct rout as possible to the old Guardian’s chambers. He was the one who had more knowledge about where Joab’s old room was located, as Jason has hadn’t had any contact or knowledge of the man or of Marinette from his time with the league. 

Red Robin, on the other hand, was going to remain abroad the Batplane to ensure that the vehicle wasn’t seen or recognized even in it’s veiled state. He would be their eyes in the sky and their final resource if they needed a quick getaway. 

Once they reached the drop zone, they divided without further words, Jason and Damian each taking point of their respective task forces. Robin and Batman creeped through the hill’s sides silently and unseen towards one of the hidden windows of the compound while the others went to the other side of the cliff’s face.

Once inside, the two dark shadows of both blood Waynes moved across the cavernous halls and stairs, avoiding any detection from guards and passers-by. They were surprised to notice that there were a lot more men than they had been expecting in the first place, making it difficult to move unnoticed.

At least they had practice from moving in Gotham’s streets and other dark places where not being detected was crucial to the mission success. 

Damian silently guided Batman towards the eastern part of the compound, a few stairs down and more halls to the left. There were fewer guards in this part of the cave but Damian wasn’t about to chance it as he plastered himself to a corner and listened for a pair of incoming, too light, almost silent footsteps.

A fist swung toward his throat as he took a pick beyond the corner, and he immediately reacted in the defensive. His attacker had a knife in one hand and the other one had been curled into a powerful yet tiny fist, but he was not expecting for the figure to be so small. 

**********

Mari had attacked without thinking, startled at the fact that there was someone trying to sneak past her beyond the corner of the wall. So, as soon as she saw the face picking out she had chard with her fist, other hand curled around the knife she had managed to swipe from one of the guards that had been posted at the pit’s entrance after Talia had left her alone. 

She was quite astonished when she noticed the masks on both her attackers faces, letting her surprise and recognition slow her down. Her would be victim took clear advantage of that second of hesitations and quickly managed to pin her to the floor, taking the knife away from her and grabbing her arms to her back, hard enough that she could break one of them if she tried to escape.

With her back pressed against the front of her attacker’s chest, she had a better view of the second man that was in the corridor, and a confused mutter came from her lips without her intending to let it out. 

“Batman?” and then a glance at the one restraining her “Robin? What?” She didn’t get much further after that as a curt voice, strangely familiar came from right behind her ear.

“Mari? I…” Then a second of hesitation and the voice she only could recall from nights of whispered conversations during patrol and good night calls recovered, saying in a stern tone: “Long story. We need to go?” 

An accusatory “Damian?!” slipped from her lips that time as her confusion and rose to another level, as her mind struggled to join the pieces of the puzzle that had so suddenly appeared in front of her. 

She could feel him struggling to come to an answer himself. But right when he opened his mouth a crackling came from his earpiece, so close to her own ear that she could hear it come back to life with a voice she vaguely recognized as well. 

“B! we are in position. I think we misjudged the amount of neutralizer that would have to go into the pit.” Came the cheery voice of who she supposed was another of the Bats. “This thing is way bigger than we had though!”

Her mind came to an abrupt halt at hearing those words, the senseless spinning it had been doing seconds before suddenly coming into a stop in a way that made an awful lot of sense. ‘They were there to poison the pit.’ 

She pushed against Robin’s (Damian’s, her mind supplied) restraint on her arms and this time he let her go enough that she could face him.

“You are trying to poison the pit?!” she resented the hysteric note to her voice as soon as it came out, and tried to moderate her voice accordingly in her next words: “What? How would that even work?” 

Yeah, it didn’t come out right either.

“Not poison it, neutralize it,” came the curt response as if the answer were obvious. “My father’s been working on the antidote for years.”

“It won’t work!” She tried to say in a way that didn’t convey the ‘duh’ that was on her mind. “What? Of course it would! We have tested it.”

 She could feel clear as day the unsaid ‘duh’ that he was also avoiding to say and closed her eyes in a moment of internal frustration. 

she decided to ignore the unsaid jab as she explained: “No, it won’t! The pit is a creation of both the creation and destruction miraculous! Your neutralizer may function for a while but Plagg’s magic will chip away at it, until the effect is gone. It may last a few months, hell it may even last a few years but the only way to truly destroy it is by using the miraculous that created it.”

He hesitated for a second and then looked back at Batman’s figure who made a gesture she could only interpret as ‘its your call’. (Wasn’t Batman supposed to be the leader of the Batclan? She really needed to get to sleep soon). 

After a second of deliberation the current Robin nodded his head as if coming to a conclusion and said to her and the dark knight: “It’s a start, at least it would buy us some time.” Then he reached his earpiece and relayed the instructions to go ahead to whoever was on the other side of the line, ignoring her indignant squawk of protest.

 “And then what?” she whisper-shouted as soon as he had released the button on his comm, “You would sneak in here again and do the same in a few months? Excuse me but I don’t think that you would be able to.”

In response Damian growled in anger, but Batman had a contemplative look on his face. Or at least she thought he did, there was a tilt to his mouth that could be nothing else. 

Then you could help us”, said his deep voice in an almost friendly tone.

 She automatically took a step back, face downcast as if in pain or misery. “I … I can’t. Talia she …” the girl let out a growl and then said the words as if they were painful to get out: “She made me promise my allegiance to the league, to Ra’s al Ghul, in exchange for the miraculous. I cannot break that promise.”

“A deal done with magic?” Intoned Damian’s voice from behind the mask a furious look on his eyes

“yeah” came the sad replay.

“What do you mean? You gave us information, why can’t you help us? Came Batman’s even more gentle tone. He was clearly picking up that there was something he didn’t understand. Something terrible from his son’s own tone of voice and look of fury. 

Marinette took that moment as her time to explain what she meant by her and Damian’s words (It was so weird that it was Damian but it made so much sense). She couldn’t actively go against the leagues orders and she told as much to Batman. Talking about the pit to them had meant preventing the pit from being destroyed which was in accordance with the league of Shadows’ wishes so that hadn’t really counted. Besides, until Ra’s died or passed the mantle of Ra’s al Ghul, the demon’s head, to someone else, she was stuck on her servitude to the horrible man.

It took a few seconds to explain everything in a way that would be comprehensible to someone without magical knowledge but she managed as she guided the two vigilantes towards a more secluded place she had found a few minutes previous in her aimless wandering of the halls. 

It was there, after a few minutes of silence that Robin and Batman shared a meaningful glance she couldn’t quite decipher, before looking directly at her with an intensity she hadn’t experienced before. 

It was Batman the one who broke the silence, looking her dead in the eyes, he told her his plan and told her what exactly were they had been trying to achieve in coming to Nanda Parbat. She wanted to face palm at the infuriating situation of them trying to come for her and her not being able to go with them, but she placed all that anger and squared her shoulders instead. 

She examined both men in front of her and making a quick decision told them: “Then, we need a new plan.”

Chapter Text

Robin snuck silently past guards, avoiding lights and the incoming voices of assassins as well. All the practice he had avoiding his brothers had granted him a lot of lessons on stealth that his training in the league of assassins hadn’t imparted. It was, in retrospect, a lot of practise. His feet made almost no sound as he glided past corridors and down multiple stairs. Always going downs, down towards the chamber that contained the Lazarus pit.

It was easier to move around now that he didn’t have a silent, dark shadow following his movements, and only the thought that he had no one now to cover his six kept him on alert. 

He moved through the familiar yet not quite corridors with a grace that bordered in fluency, the sense of knowing those corridors almost overwhelming his need to remain alert as he fought to not fall into the persona he had worn in the league all those years ago. He would need to fall into that character later as a part of the plan, but sneaking was a role that had been characteristic of Robin, the caped vigilante. Not of the Assassin child that he had once been.

He went down a pair of stairs, and then another. At the pace he was going, part one of the pla would be completed without a hitch.

***********

It had been half past midnight when the call came from the other side of the doors. Ra’s al Ghul had been about to go to bed as two servants prepared a freshly made silk bed for him. 

There was a respectful silence right after the knock, telling him that whoever was at the other side was someone who at least knew his taste and the manner he demanded his servants to have. It was with his loud humm of acknowledgement that the voice from the other side finally spoke: “My lord, we have an intruder in the western wing of the compound, a camera caught them sneaking past the one of the entrances in the higher part of the mountain.”

This time Ra’s did frown, and with the hand not occupied by the wine glass he indicated one of his servants to open the door as the other one waited respectfully by one of the walls. 

Seeing his face, the man that was beyond the gate hurried to bow in an almost exaggerated way. “ We have a team tracking him right now sir.” Hurriedly finished the guard.

Ra’s answer was furious and sudden:

“How dare they? Who was it?” thundered his voice.

“One of the men on guard identified him as one of the Gotham vigilantes, known as Red Robin, my liege.” The man did not stutter but that was not enough to cover his obvious nervousness, so Ra’s took a steady breath trying to remain himself that shooting the messenger would not foster any kind of positive image nor would it achieve any purpose with his assassins. 

 “Bring him to me,” came the cold response of the leader of the Shadows. “I want him alive. And check the rest of the compound, where one bat goes, usually the others follow.” His impatience was obvious, but he paid no mind to it as he silently commanded both his assistants to fetch him his robes.

“Yes sir” said the guard as he bowed and turned to the door intending on performing a hasty retreat.

Ra’s let him, although a morbid smile crossed his face as he evaluated once again the emotions he valued on his subordinates. 

There would be no retiring to sleep, he decided. Tuning towards his assistants he spoke: “Fetch my daughters. I will see them in the throne room in five minutes.”

**************

“You said the miraculous are the only things that can destroy the pit, right? So that means that…” he had stopped there to let her elaborate.

They had been in the middle of planning when Damian suddenly changed tracks in the discussion. It took Marinette a second to comprehend what he was asking and to bring those memories to the forefront of her mind.

“Both the Ladybug miraculous and the Cat are needed to effectively neutralize the waters. One to destroy its influence and the other to siphon the remaining energies into something else, something that would be neutral in its base.”

“Do they need to be used simultaneously?” he had asked as if searching for something. His head had been tilted to the side and the hood that covered his face laid odd shapes across his features. 

The dim shadows of her room hadn’t allowed her to judge what he was thinking but she could feel his impatience in the set of his shoulders and how tightly he held himself.

“What do you mean?” Mari had asked in consternation.

“The miraculous?” his tone had grown sharper: “You said creation and destruction cannot be used by the same person at once. What if one person used one and then the other in order to neutralize the pit fully?”

That, actually, had caught her off guard, ‘what if ….?’

“I… I don’t know, I never considered it. But the only one who could do that would be me, because of the whole adequacy to different miraculous, so there is another flaw in your plan.” She had told him.

“Well,” he had retorted, impatience showing more clearly, “what if we found someone else?”

“Well,” she had answered in the same tone, feeling her hackles rise as his impatience did. “I doubt you could find another Ladybug in a place like Nanda Parbat of all places”. ‘Where was this conversation even going? They needed to go if they wanted not to get caught.’ 

Damian had been about to answer with something rude by the look on his face but Batman’s voice came first, distracting both teenagers from their thoughts: “What about a cat?”

He had positioned himself at the side. A silent observer and a guard, but clearly not the main point of the conversation. Maybe the man had decided that he didn’t have all the information and that it was best to wait and gauge the situation or he just wanted to be dramatic and not talk much. Either way, his silence had almost helped her forget that she was actually dealing with the Batclan and not some ridiculously dressed Damian.

“What?” had been their simultaneous response that came from the startled teens.

“You said that you couldn’t be able to look for a Ladybug here, what about a cat?” he had said in an almost reasonable tone.

“I wouldn’t need to look for a cat, I’m looking at one, right now.” Mari had grumbled making a gesture that could almost be called dismissive towards Robin’s form.

This time it had been Batman’s turn to be surprised as he looked at his son, surprise also evident on his young face as he processed the information.

“Oh” had been the teenager’s response.

Oh indeed.

***********

“My liege!” Came two guard’s voices, running into the throne room where Ra’s awaited sided by his daughters. “We found these two intruders as they made their way towards the western wing, past the new guardian’s quarters sir”.  

The two assassins were followed by four more guards that were holding two battered and bruised individuals in between them. Red Hood and Nightwing, were clearly hurt but conscious, and Ra’s let out a smile at the sight of the two pests being caught by his guards. 

Finally, he was getting ahead of the Detective. Whatever he had planned, his team would have to drop if they wanted to reach their teammates soon enough, and the Ra’s would finally have the opportunity to confront them. 

‘Maybe he could even get his heir back’ he morbidly thought, ‘surely it would be difficult to convince the child, but not impossible.’

Nonetheless, it was still necessary to remain cautious if he wanted to come out on top of whatever the Detective had planned.

“Pass the Guardian’s quarters you say? Humm, perhaps it would be a good idea to question the new guardian too. Nyssa, dear, would you go fetch our new miraculous holder?  We really don’t want her to miss this visit. After all, they know each other, no?”

The smile still played across his face and he raised an eyebrow at his daughter. Nyssa, however, didn’t react to it. She rose gracefully, without an answer and, diligently, went through the arch and out of sight. 

He looked instead at his left, where Talia’s face remained impassive as ever. A bored look marred her features and he wondered if she knew how ridiculous and ugly it made her look. She had been appraising the newcomers who were being manhandled by the guards that surrounded them. There was something interested in her eyes. Something that couldn’t bode well for his plans.

“Talia, would you go and see what’s taking so long in catching our dear Red Robin?” There was a menacing note in Ra’s warm tone. His amusement denoted darkness and enjoyment at the sight of his prisoners. “we don’t want him to miss his brothers too much.” 

Talia only nodded, and, just like her sister, passed the doorway without a word. A purposeful stride marking her exit down unseen the hallway as he still sat on his throne. 

Chapter Text

It had happened extremely fast.

Marinette had been brought into the throne room just as they had planned, in order to quell Ra’s suspicion. Upon entering, she had only wasted a glance towards the two restrained vigilantes which she supposed were Dick and Jason, before her attention was commanded back to the centre of the room. 

Ra’s had held himself with the air of a cat who had caught the canary, the air of someone who had victory on their hands and knew it. Someone who had nothing to lose from the situation at hand. 

That air only grew once Talia came gliding into the room, Red Robin held in tow by at least four more assassins, towards her father’s seated figure. 

The young guardian, once more spared a glance to the newly arrived vigilante, but continued to answer the demon’s questions. The man was determined to know if she had any involvement in the sudden Bat invasion, so he kept pressing for answers. 

She held herself stiffly, arms at her sides as Talia claimed her space on the raised dais. The woman held an intrigued look, clearly knowing that there was more than met the eyes and knowing it would unfold if only she allowed it to happen. If she knew what was going to happen, Marinette didn’t know, but she clearly didn’t seem intent on informing anyone else, so at least that was a win. 

Mari was about to answer another question of Ra’s when a commotion was heard from beyond the doorway and the artificial lights, cleverly hidden across the room to artfully illuminate it, flickered out. 

Sensing the danger levels rising, and blinded in the dark, Marinette quickly used the cover of darkness to move to one side of the room. Away from the guards but also from the Demon’s head himself and his pose that could react badly if the plan went accordingly. 

She could sense a miraculous user pass her by, but she ignored the magical pull in favour of keeping attention in her surroundings. Making sure she didn’t make a sound while stepping away from her previous spot.

The sound of sloshing water came right before a small thud came from where she had been standing, right in the centre of the room. It was the sound of someone setting something heavy down.

Then, right as her back met the wall that had been to her right, she heard a few clicking sounds of chains to her left to which were added the sounds of multiple people unsheathing their swords at once.

She pulled out her own knife in response, the one she had previously used to attack Damian when she had thought he was a threat to her. In the hallway. She didn’t care any longer if Ra’s knew that she had swiped it from one of his officers. She couldn’t go directly against the league, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to help the bats. 

An electrical hum came from right behind her ear just a second before the lights came back on and she found herself blinking against the bright glare of the returned light. She quickly took stock of her surroundings, discovering that, in the darkness, almost everyone had moved. 

Five guards had conglomerated at the entrance to keep everyone from leaving, or was it entering? the room, she wasn’t so sure. A bunch of other assassins still held onto the prisoners who still were standing right inside the door, Nightwing and Red Hood to one side and Red Robin to the opposite one. The rest of the royal guard had moved towards the throne, where the Demon himself stood sided by his daughters. 

They were all holding their weapons at the ready, but there was no one to use them against.

Apart from them, the room was empty except from a rusty old bucket that had been placed right in the middle of the room. 

The tension grew with the silence as everyone stayed still. 

It was Ra’s himself that broke the standstill when he cautiously approached the waters held in the bucket, his whole entourage moving with him. 

After a few seconds of carefully inspecting the dark waters and ashen consistency inside of it, he said with a puzzled but resounding voice: 

“What is that?”

Another silence followed the question and Talia, in an aborted move, looked towards her left (behind her own position) and then directly towards Marinette herself who still kept her place against the wall. 

Not knowing how to interpret Talia’s inquisitive look, the guardian returned her gaze and then looked again at Ra’s who, thankfully, hadn’t noticed the exchange and was still waiting for an answer. 

A sudden clearing of a throat made everyone look behind the throne from where a figure emerged dressed in bright colours. 

Ra’s made a slow dramatic turn on his own heels to look at the figure, while his guard hurried to point their swords to the appeared Robin. 

“That, Grandfather,” said Damian’s unhurried form, “are the waters of the Lazarus pit. Or, at least, what is left of them”. 

************

Damian watched impassively as Ra’s al Ghul’s face contortioned through various emotions before he forcefully shut those down, placing a calculated air of indifference in their stead. It was all fake, he knew, but it was a valiant attempt to save his compostue. Or at least, to make his people believe he was unperturbed.

Damian would have to push his grandfather’s restraint further if he wanted to succeed. 

“And why would I believe that?” said the man with mild amusement in his tone. 

Damian made his way around the throne to its front, taking his time to formulate an answer:

“Because, anytime now, someone would come to inform you about what happened to the pit. Or, better yet, you could send someone to check it yourself.”

Damian was grateful for the distance between him and his grandfather’s entourage because, as he saw his lips tip down into a scowl, he knew he was about to make his anger worse. 

He took a step backwards in the dais, until he could feel the throne’s coldness against the back of his legs. 

“After all,” he said with a smile that was purely Robin and nothing of the heir Ra’s had known, “I’ve always believed the waters were important to you.”

He looked straight into Ra's eyes as he said those words, and with a smooth movement he gathered his cape to the side and swiftly sat down on the throne, a challenging smile still on his lips. 

A second passed, then two. Three as Damian held his breath, behind his confident façade. 

From the corner of his eyes, the young Robin saw his mother’s lip twitch upwards as she looked at him from her father’s side. 

Another second, and then Ra’s face started to become blue.

Blue turned to purple and a guard shuffled his feet in the silence.

A sharp snicker followed by a cough came from one of his brothers but he didn’t turn around to look at them, his whole attention set on Ra’s and the assassins that surrounded him. 

“You… You dare – you…” Ra’s voice finally came. 

Damian would have called that voice thunderous in his childhood. Would have been completely terrified if it had been directed at him then. Now? He couldn’t help it but find it slightly funny to see how incongruous Ra’s got when mad. How little he was used to shows of disrespect. 

“You insolent child, I will kill you for this!!” Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s head, finally managed to articulate with a fury that shook his whole body. A shout that finally lifted the veil of silence.

Damian plastered another smirk on his face, this time a little more sincere. He subtly changed his position on the throne, reading himself to pounce. 

“You may try.”

Chapter Text

As soon as he said those words everyone sprang into motion. His brothers, Nightwing, Red Hood and Red Robin, dropped their lockpicked cuffs and attacked their respective guards with a viciousness rarely seen in Gotham’s streets.

Damian would have loved to keep observing their progress, but right then two of Ra’s personal guards hurled towards him, swords drawn and ready. Robin jumped over one sword arch and over the shoulder of idiot number one, whose momentum let him directly to fall, sprawled, across the recently vacated throne.

Idiot number two was a little more cautious as he approached Damian. She held her sword at the ready posture perfectly balanced except for a slight preference towards the left leg. Seeing the assassin’s wariness against attacking, and knowing that he needed to be quick to not let his grandfather escape, Damian used her own hesitation against her striking as fast as a Viper.

It took Damian two rapid hits to disarm his opponent. He gave her only a second to comprehend what had happened, eyes widening comically in fear, before he used the hilt of his katana to knock her out.

He used another second to breathe in the chaos surrounding him, watching the different fights that had appeared around him before he stalked towards his next target.

Marinette had been cornered by one of the guards but, as he watched, she cleanly used the shackles tied to the assassin's belt to pull him down. She swiftly disentangled the object from his robes and used the man’s confusion to tie one of the man’s hands to his own ankle. As fast as she had acted, she stood up from the ground and turned to look at him with a cheeky smile in return to Damian’s raised brow.

He shook his head  to dispel the effects of that blinding smile and stepped aside from the path of an incoming knife. He cursed himself internally and did a quick swipe of his surroundings noticing the two Reds fighting against the remaining guards while Nightwing moved towards his mother.

Ra’s al Ghul was making his way to the entrance, followed by a diligent Nyssa.

She was the first to spot him coming and drew her twin blades poised to defend her dear father. The hurling knife startled them both. It had come out of nowhere, a slashing sound passing right next to Damian's ear that scraped Nyssa’s left cheek and cut a handful of long brown hair.

Robin used this distraction to move past her and attack Ra’s who had turned just a second before. It was a bad idea to give his back to Nyssa (she was as deadly and bloodthirsty as a piraña in bloody waters) but he hoped that whoever had hurled a knife at Nyssa could keep her entertained.

*********

Marinette’s smile fell from her face as soon as she saw where Damian was headed. Ra’s had his back turned but it was clear that he was ready for a confrontation. That was alright, she thought, as much as she didn’t like it it was still part of the plan.

Nyssa’s smile as she turned, however, made Marinette’s stomach curl. ‘At least this time she could do something about it’ Marinette reflected as she weighed the knife in her hand. She had taken the sword of the downed guard so she wasn’t going to be left weaponless, although it wasn’t by far her favourite weapon.

She took one more second to calculate  and then threw it with her right hand.

The knife flew true and a more morbid smile adorned the teenager’s face as she saw part of her opponent's hair gently flow to the ground.

A heartbeat later the guardian was raising her sword in defense, the metal rattling her bones with the force of a parried strike. Nyssa was quick , she had to give her that. The fight against the daughter of Ra’s was brutal and incredibly fast paced.

As the minutes went by, Marinette couldn’t say she was gaining any ground, but at least she wasn’t losing it either. A combination of thinking fast and being incredibly lucky was keeping Mari alive, so she thanked the kwamis for her time as Ladybug.

“How are you even fighting?” screamed the youngest al Ghul in outrage as Marinette avoided another blow. “You shouldn’t be able to fight against us! You can’t disobey the league!”

The young guardian parried  cut that would have hit her in the head and screamed back her answer:

“There has clearly been a challenge for Ra’s al Ghul’s position” she responded procuring not to pant with exertion. “It questions his position as demon’s head and head of the league. The only way to address it then, by the league’s own guide,  is for Ra’s himself to face his opponent in combat” she managed to spit out in between dodging and returning blows. 

Nyssa growled in return and, taking a second to recompose herself, asked again: 

“So what? You still owe service to the league” claimed the angry woman. 

“And I also owe service to Ra’s al Ghul, whoever he may be after the challenge is addressed. That means that I must keep the combat from being interrupted at all costs.”

Ra’s daughter didn’t waste any more time in acknowledging her answer, just growled louder and made a move to strike her down once again. The fight continued without much more talking and Marinette began to feel her arms getting numb from all the hits and strikes she had had to defend against. 

She needed a plan, fast. 

Mari stopped another blow and vaulted over an assassin’s shoulder, landing in the middle of Red Hood’s own fight against an assassin. The movement put some needed distance between her and Nyssa, and had the even better benefit of guiding the woman farther away from Damian’s form. 

She used Hood’s towering height between her and the assassins to discreetly take some needed breaths  in order to regain her bearings. She wasn’t exactly hiding behind the vigilante, that would be ridiculous. She was just… using the tactical advantage of his towering figure to get some space. To retreat until she made a plan.

“Hey girly” suddenly came the voice of her not-really-shield. “Wanna trade?” he asked as he beat down one assassin and another stepped up to take his place. 

‘That… wasn’t a bad idea’

Marinette took a last breath before squaring her shoulders: ‘That was actually a very good idea’. She readied her sword once again and, with a confident face, answered back: 

“Gladly”

Without further warning, she jumped into the fray. The young guardian fell to her knees as the Red Hood parried a blow that would have landed directly to her head, and used her momentum to slide past the assassin’s feet. Marinette grabbed the guard’s foot as she went, rapidly putting her own feet under her and pushin upwards as the man’s momentum made him crash head first onto the awaiting floor. 

A kick to his head rendered him unconscious so that she could focus on the ones fighting around her. She needed to go where she was most needed.

Red Hood had fulfilled his promise and he and Nyssa were now engaged in a fight that looked extremely deadly.

Red Robin was finishing a fight with two of the last guards while Nightwing threw insults at one another. 

‘That was weird’, Marinette decided after another second of observation. They were circling each other  throwing jabs and taunts but they looked as if they weren’t really interested in the fight itself.

Nightwing kept sneaking glances at Damian’s and Ra’s fight, clearly distracted by the dangerous position his brother was on. Talia however, wasn’t really pressing the advantage like she could have. 

‘It was … suspicious,’ the teenage decided. As if Talia didn’t want to fight at all.

Shaking her head, the young guardian decided to think about it later.

She began to approach Ra’s fight again, intent on not letting anyone get the drop on Damian. Just as she approached, Damian’s sword flew from his grip, crashing against a nearby wall and clattering to the floor.

**********

Damian knew the fight was going to be difficult as soon as Ra’s raised his sword to defend against the attack. Although it wasn’t unexpected, the young Robin still was surprised when his katana went flying from his gip and crashed against the wall.

By that point his arm was hurting and his fingers had cramped against the leather handle. It was a miracle he had been able to fight for that long.

Ra’s had been sword fighting for centuries perfecting every kind of martial arts until he was the sole winner of any discipline. It was almost impossible to beat him, Damian had known that when they had made the plan.

That’s why he had been reserving a card up his sleeve. 

“Then how would we beat him?” had asked Marinette when Damian had voiced his concern,

“We won’t, not fair and square  but we have something he doesn’t know how to counteract” he had answered before looking at his father’s cowled face. “I know you don’t like magic, but even you have to see the tactical advantages of using the miraculous.”

“True,” had agreed Batman, slowly. “But Marinette cannot give them to us, as per her agreement with Talia.”

Robin deflated a bit at those words, but it was she who gave them an answer.

“Well, I cannot give them to you,” she reflected with a pensive frown.  “If you take them against my will, however,” she added impishly, “that’s another thing entirely.”

Damian had wanted to ask if she was sure. Seeing the determination and fierceness on her face had dissuaded him of doing so at the time. 

Now, Ra’s sword point bare millimeters from his throat , Robin wondered what she would have said. Her eyes had been asking him to trust her , but he had been too nervous to really consider what it meant. 

The Demon’s head murderous face now only left him one option, so he trusted her: 

“Claws out” he murmured.

***********

The light of the miraculous transformation blinded Ra’s to Damian’s attack. With the extra strength provided by the jewel, it had been entirely simple to disarm his grandfather

Overall, the fight after his transformation was entirely anticlimactic.

With a definite movement, the new black cat swerved his staff through the air until it met its target in his opponents temple. His grandfather crumpled to the floor with an audible thud that was punctuated by Damian’s sigh of relief.

The fight around him stilled.

Chapter Text

When the assassins realised that their leader was down, the fight decidedly turned into the Bats favour. It was so evident that in a few minutes almost all the remaining assassins had surrendered and those who hadn’t had been immediately knocked out.

Tying up every one of the guards took a while, but the present bats finally managed with the help of Marinette. There was a lot of dragging and grumbling involved, and a lot of securing the different members of the league as tight as it was possible. 

Ra’s of course was the hardest to secure. Not because of his position or any type of physical difficulty, of course, but just because the man had a way of swaying people to do his bidding, and they didn’t want to leave him any chances of escaping. Around him, a conversation arose between the two teenagers that had been checking over him securing him to one of the legs of his throne chair. 

It was a bit ironic, seeing him on the ground just out of reach of his precious throne but not being able to sit on it, even if he were to try. ‘Though with how he appeared to be completely dead to the word and some small snores left his mouth, it would be impossible for him to even try,’ Marinette thought, but guided the conversation to more important matters.

“Does that mean that you are the new Demon’s Head?” she asked the dark-haired teenager that was inspecting the ring on his hand with laser focus.

Damian recoiled at the mere suggestion of it but it was another voice that answered the whispered enquire. 

“Technically, you would be correct” came Talia's voice from one side of the room. She hadn’t let anyone near enough to cuff her, but she had gracefully admitted defeat and had peacefully gone to sit where she now was, guarded by a very suspicious but off-put Nightwing. Marinette spared a glance for Nyssa’s unconscious form who lay close to her but was still out of commission. 

Nyssa, contrary to her eldest sister, had refused to concede defeat so she had needed to be knocked unconscious by Red Robin who had approached from behind while she struggled against Red Hood.

“However, as you used an unfair advantage in a fight that should be ceremonial, and your methods were quite unorthodox… I don’t think most parts of the league would accept your claim to the throne.” Talia’s words drew everyone's attention back to her, face neutral but looking directly at her son.

He stared back with his head tilted and gaze locked in concentration, something shifting rapidly in the depth of his eyes.

After a minute of just observing his mother, her relaxed shoulders and unbothered posture as she reclined against the wall, legs crossed underneath, he spoke certainty of his tone.

“You were hoping for this weren’t you?” Robin said, tone flat.

Talia angled her head to the side and answered with a kind yet proud smile on her face, completely different from the woman they had been dealing with until now:

“For what, my love? For you and your family to decimate the few forces my father had managed to regain? For you to finally accept your place as Ra’s al Ghul? Or for my father’s fear and pride to drive him to foolishness and recklessness?” She let her words hang in the air, relishing in the attention the whole group of vigilantes, plus one superheroine were giving her. “With all sincerity, as my father regained life I knew we were committing a mistake in bringing him back. Yet for the love of my sister, I stayed by their side.”

 “As Ra’s fear and panic grew and with it his selfishness and obtuseness, he started to become less of the man he was, worried about the world and its affairs, and more of a man I didn’t know. Someone he would have disapproved of, caring only for his survival and a possibility with extending his life. Worried only for keeping away from the cold hands of death he feared so much.” 

The woman let down a tired sigh and let her shoulder slump further.

“No, Damian. I was not hoping for this to happen, but I did predict it. When I realized my father planned to go for the miraculous, and thus, a known friend of yours, the ending of his crusade appeared evident to me. I’m only sorry that I could not give you a proper warning for you to prepare better, and that my sister will suffer the consequences for Ra’s foolishness.”

Talia’s smile was more sincere this time as she inclined her head towards her son, an expression of wonder and love etched on her face. 

It was then when a rasping sound came from the entrance of the room, and everyone turned to observe the black-clad figure that came into the room, his back towards them. 

Batman’s cape was the first that everyone noticed as the man slowly advanced into the room, his back to everyone as he pulled from a zip line tied around his waist. The sound of something dragging through the ground reached everyone’s ears right before the first body came into view. 

Behind him came more, every assassin tied to the zipline by their wrist and dragging through the floor as a morbid parody of a Christmas decorative string. 

“Ha, I was wondering what was taking you so long, old man!” cried Jason’s voice from behind the helmet, his own laughter not muffled by the cold surface. 

Batman only glanced at him briefly, focusing again on the bodies that he was dragging, being careful not to jostle them too much. 

“Did you wonder too why no one else came into the room?” Batman answered in response. His amicable tone did nothing to soften the deadpan look he gave even with the cowl. 

Marinette couldn’t help but let down a snort at that, noticing that Damian hid a small smile at his brother’s sputtering face. Nightwing and Red Robin weren’t so discreet as both let out full belly laughs, and even Talia smiled a little bit at Red Hood's affronted face.

Even Batman let out a smile when his second eldest tried to get a response that did nothing to save him from his embarrassment and made everyone laugh even harder. In seconds, all the bats plus Marinette were laughing hard and loudly. Marinette specifically felt tears in her eyes as she finally released the tension of the horrible days she had had. She laughed so hard that she couldn’t stay upright and almost dragged Damian to the ground with her when she tried to use him as support. 

When she leaned down the collar she had been wearing slid out from under her shirt, and Damian couldn’t help but feel his gaze drawn to the familiar colours. He unconsciously made an inquisitive sound in the back of his throat as he leaned down to grasp the plaque at the end of it. 

His brows furrowed in consternation as he studied the Robin themed pendant. 

Noticing his interest, Marinette's gaze went to his face for a second before her eyes widened completely and she went down again with another fit of laughter. Damian’s brow furrowed in confusion as he looked around him. 

He only saw his own bewilderment mirrored in everyone's faces as even Batman had stopped to look at the par. 

Noticing their gazes the young guardian had tried to reign herself in, lifting her head to look at them from her position on the floor and whipping out the tear tracks from laughing so hard. After a few seconds, almost a minute, she managed to calm herself down a bit and she managed to say with a huge smile on her face.

“It’s a Robin pendant I brought in Gotham,” she replied to the inquisitive looks letting out a chuckle, “I just thought it was so…” another chuckle passed her lips and she breathed deeply to try and calm herself again. “I remember I told my uncle it was absolutely horrible, the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen,” she managed to say in between giggles. “And it’s fashioned after you!” she exclaimed a last, bringing everyone into the joke.

“Hey!!” exclaimed an indignant Damian, while everyone around him laughed alongside Marinette.

**************

“Are you sure you can do this? Asked Damian a time later.

“I’m sure,” replied Marinette, “just sit there, with the miraculous activated and I will funnel the energy out. It shouldn’t be that hard”. She made a gesture with her hands and he hurried to obbey, feeling completely out of his depth.

He proceeded to spend over an hour seated where she had indicated, watching amazed as the energy seemed to flow through her and then outwards, towards the edges of the cave where they were absorbed harmlessly into the walls and ceiling.

He couldn’t help but be in awe at her calm demeanour as around her flew forces that even he could see with all his lack of training. She was calm through it all, not noticing his shock at her unconscious show of power.

He wanted to know more about this, this side of her, how she did it, what she felt as she purified every last bit of water from the godforsaken pits. He wanted to spend more time with her, he decided. 

‘He could’, he supposed, ‘he would if she let him.’

****************

Marinette returned to her home and let herself bone tired and struggling not to fall asleep.

Everything that had happened, everything related to Ra’s had been horrible. What she gained from it… ‘What she gained from it she would cherish for a long time’, she decided. 

She finally had someone she could rely on. People who knew her in and out of the mask and who were willing to step in when things got out of hand for her. She had support. 

The bats had explained what had happened in Gotham and how Ra’s had used Nyssa as a distraction. They also explained how they had immediately determined to help her. 

Likewise, knowing that the danger of Hawkmoth was now a thing of the past, Batman offered to get in contact with people who could help her further improve her knowledge of anything miraculous related. He offered to investigate and use his skills as a detective to make sure there weren’t more miraculous books with information lying around. To ensure that something like Ra’s resurrection could never happen again, not if the consequences were as severe as losing one’s life-spark.

Damian had also talked to her after she had cleansed the Lazarus pit. He had been determined to keep in contact with her, even if their joint project of catching Hawkmoth was now done. He was really earnest about keeping in contact with her, so she relished in the confirmation of friendship and care, knowing that they would see each other again.

Overall, she decided, lying in bed hours later, she was decidedly more hopeful for the future, things were finally looking up for her.