Chapter Text
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”
The sound of heavy footfalls followed her as she sprinted down the busy sidewalk. Shouts of pain and surprised echoed as she passed, not registering any faces around her, focused solely on escape. Leave it to her to get separated from her friends on their first day in Gotham. If she survived, Chloe would kill her. Adrien would help. But she had to survive first.
Marinette’s eyes darted around, searching for a low-hanging fire escape, an open window—hell, she’d take a pile of boxes next to a dumpster to hide in at this point. If it meant she wasn’t about to get abducted, she would gladly accept help in whatever form the universe saw fit to present it. There was an opening between two buildings ahead, and she swore she’d turn their and figure it out from there. What kind of apathetic place was this that no-one she’d passed had stepped in to help? Why had they come here again?
Oh, yeah. She was the Guardian, and Gotham was teeming with misery and misfortune and it was her stupid fucking duty to try to restore balance to the derelict City of Crime. But they’d just moved in last night, she was exhausted, and she was already being chased by criminals. She didn’t even know why they were chasing her. But the group of burly men had approached her from both sides, trying to corral her, and the alarms in her head had screamed at her to dive out into traffic to avoid them—perhaps not her brightest idea to date, but it had worked—and then run for freedom. For such large men, they were surprisingly fast, if not light on their feet. The alleyway was so much closer now, she could almost taste her escape. And then the sound of another person sprinting reached her ears. He or she was much faster than the group that had first pursued her, and much lighter on their feet. Marinette panicked and put on a burst of speed, desperate to reach the alley and at the very least get out of sight.
But her new pursuer had other plans. She reached the alley, but as she made the sudden, sharp right turn, an arm wrapped tightly around her waist and she was yanked off the ground. The Earth seemed to just fall away from her feet. She would have been terrified if her Ladybug yoyo didn’t operate the same way. As it was, she performed some incredible mental gymnastics and reached the very helpful conclusion that she was being pulled to momentary safety by a grappling hook, attached to one of the local vigilantes. The knowledge stopped her from fighting her potential rescuer, but it didn’t stop her from shrieking in surprise. She stared into the mouth of the alley below her as the group who had been chasing her entered and stared around, gaping in dimwitted confusion.
“Fast and strong, but not very intelligent.”
The person who’d pulled her out of immediate danger snorted and she realized, Oh god, I said that out loud.
“Most low-level criminals are pretty stupid, Pixie Pop,” a deep voice murmured from somewhere above her head.
He still hadn’t let go of her waist. Taking in her new surroundings, she supposed that was just as well. They were pressed together on a narrow ledge between the windows of a multi-story apartment complex. She didn’t dare continue to look down after her would-be attackers moved on from the alley below. She was a civilian at the moment, with no magic yoyo to pull her to safety and no magic suit to protect her if she fell. And now, she was hyper aware of the large hand holding her snugly by the hip and the broad chest rising and falling behind her head. The vigilante was a giant compared to her. She knew she was small, of course. She’d inherited many of her mother’s traits—and Sabine Cheng was also a very petite woman. She was even smaller than Marinette, and that was saying something.
“You all right, there, Pix?” the deep voice sounded again.
She still hadn’t responded to his first comment, not that there had been much to say about the fact he’d offered. She was still too breathless to speak, so she simply nodded.
“I’m gonna get us up to a roof, okay? It’ll just take a second.”
She nodded again, and the sound of the zip line retracting signaled their retreat into the air. It was much slower than when she’d first left the ground, and she wondered what would happen when the line ran out. They’d still be hanging over the alley. Was he just planning on throwing her up to the rooftop?
She tipped her head back to ask what the plan was, but was distracted by the sight that met her eyes. The sun glinted off a rounded reflective surface, threatening to blind her. The red helmet was framed by the collar of a dark brown, leather jacket.
Red Hood, her brain supplied. The wild vigilante. The one who didn’t hide in the shadows; the one people said was dangerous, who didn’t seem to have the same moral objection to killing that Batman had. But all she felt at the moment was the overwhelming sense of safety as he held her against his chest while they were pulled skyward. Just as she suspected, the line ran out after a few minutes, and the pair of them were dangling over the street.
“So, did you have a plan for this, or…?”
His chest thrust out as he huffed a laugh.
“I could toss you up there, Pixie, but I don’t think you’d enjoy that. Gimme a second and I’ll swing us up.”
Absolutely not. Under no circumstances was he going to try to swing both of them over the edge of the roof. Not a chance in Hell was that going to happen.
“Oh, no. Uh-uh. I’ll climb up first, and you can swing up after that if you want. Otherwise I can pull you up.”
The next laugh was more genuine.
“I like you, Pixie. You’ve got spunk. I’ve never seen a civvie scale a building, but go off, I guess.”
Marinette scowled. It wasn’t his fault he thought she was just another civilian. But his tone was still insulting.
“Hold still.”
He did as asked, and she considered her options. She had a feeling he wasn’t going to like this.
“Okay, how strong are you? Like, if you put your arm straight out to the side, would you still be able to hold my bodyweight?”
“What?! What the fuck is your game, Pixie Pop?”
“Just answer the question, I don’t feel like hanging up here all day, and your arm’s going to get tired, and I really don’t feel like falling to my death in an alley in the City of Crime.”
He laughed long and loud this time, and Marinette had to admit it was a pleasant sound.
“All right, I’ll play along. Hang on tight, Pixie.”
She wrapped her arms around his forearm, and he extended his arm to the side, leaving her back exposed and her front facing the wall of the building. When she was satisfied that he was as steady as he would ever be, she tightened her core and pulled her legs up until she was perched on her toes on his forearm.
“Don’t say a word,” she warned him. “I need to concentrate on not dying.”
She was exceptionally pleased when he didn’t respond. Refusing to look toward the ground, now several stories below, Marinette tensed to spring. The roof was only two feet above her head, she had an impressive vertical—even as a civilian—and she was confident she could lift herself over the ledge once she’d gotten her hands up there.
Okay, she was mostly confident. It was really her only option at this point.
“Connard,” she hissed, then jumped.
Red Hood shouted something, but she wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t have the capacity to worry about what he thought or said. The only thing her brain had room for right now was directing her arms to swing upward, her hands to latch onto the ledge and to hang on for dear life until her lower body stopped swinging. It took less time than she thought, and she was grateful. She refused to acknowledge that her arms were shaking as she lifted her body over the ledge. Once she was settled on the gravel rooftop, she leaned back over the ledge, only to see that Red Hood had rappelled a little way down the side of the building and was working on gaining enough momentum to swing himself over the ledge to join her. She backed away. She hoped he’d done this before, but she wasn’t confident.
She was right to be skeptical. The muscled body came flying up, but wasn’t angled properly, and he was going to miss his landing. Marinette leapt forward on instinct, grabbing a fistful of the leather jacket and yanking him backward. Sweet Jeanne de Arc, he was heavy! And—shit—now he was landing on top of her. He seemed to realize it, too, as he wrapped his burly arms around her and twisted as he landed so that she was on top of him.
There was nothing she could do but laugh hysterically in relief that they’d both made it somewhat safely to the rooftop. He joined her, his booming laugh rumbling through his chest and into her own. She rested her head against his chest as she calmed, and he never unwound his arms from her waist and back. She couldn’t find it in herself to care, the adrenaline high from the last half hour clouding any sense of rationality.
“You absolute moron,” she whined into the red bat splashed across his chest. He just continued to laugh, sitting up and bringing her with him as he took off his helmet—probably so he could breathe easier.
Being confronted with a sharp and scarred jawline immediately erased any compulsion she felt to laugh. He seemed to notice her utter and complete mental shutdown.
“You okay, Pixie Pop?” His voice was genuinely concerned and damn her right to hell, it made her want to melt.
“Um…You’re very close,” she managed to murmur, staring at his chest as she tried not to spontaneously combust. By the heat she felt flushing over her cheeks, it was a wasted effort.
Red Hood laughed again—it was a truly joyful sound, something that had become foreign to her in recent years—and she found herself reveling in it.
“You’re the one who put me here, Pixie,” he reminded her, squeezing her lightly. She scowled up at him.
“Only because you decided not to wait for me and thought it would be a good idea to try to swing up here like fucking Tarzan. You’re lucky I decided to save your dumb ass.”
“You know, for someone with such a sweet face, you cuss like a sailor. What’s your name?”
“Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I suppose I should thank you for getting me out of the way of those idiots who were after me. I don’t even know what they wanted with me.”
He nodded seriously.
“Well, where are you staying? I’ll get you back there before you know it.”
“Yeah? You planning on swinging there with that contraption?” She quirked an eyebrow.
“Hey, now, this contraption saved your life. But no. I do actually drive. If you’re up for it, we can take my bike back to your hotel.”
“Oh, no. I just moved here with some friends. I mean, I’m all for the motorcycle. I’m just not staying at a hotel.”
“Oh god, you moved here? On purpose?”
“Yeah. Rent’s cheap and we can all three take the train in to Manhattan for work. Win-win for me.”
“Well at least you’re not here alone. Any chance you know your address by memory yet?”
She rattled it off for him, and felt a smug pleasure at the impressed grin he gave her. He popped his helmet back on and they broke apart to stand. He made to fire the grappling hook again, but hesitated to reach for her.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to her body.
“You may, thank you for asking.” She understood why he hadn’t asked the first time, and it somehow made this interaction sweeter. Despite his cocky attitude, he was respectful.
--
Red Hood dropped her at her front door, where she grinned at him from the top step, hair windswept and eyes bright as he removed his helmet once more. Before she turned to go inside, she stood on tip toe and kissed his cheek.
“Thanks for the rescue, Hood. If I need help again, I hope it comes from you,” she whispered with a wink.
She grinned at his slackened jaw, and skipped inside, where she was greeted by Chloe’s shrill voice.
“MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG, WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PANIC YOU PUT ADRIKINS AND ME THROUGH?! RIDICULOUS, UTTERLY RIDICULOUS!”
The sound of a motorcycle roaring to life brought a smile to her lips once more.
Totally worth it.