Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cover created and illustrated by me <3

Paris was a tourist attraction first and foremost—a city only second. A revolving door for tourists from around the world. It was what attracted her to the city in the first place; naive tourists, crowded public spaces, full pockets. Nothing was more appealing to a pickpocket like her.

Mari had been in Paris for far too long and it was beginning to show. She’d only planned to stay for at most two weeks.

Not to say it wasn’t a beautiful city, there was a reason Mari stayed for so long, but she was never meant to end up in Paris. She was never meant to end up anywhere at all.

It was raining at the dawn of an ordinary spring morning, and the Eiffel Tower was illuminated by the warm orange sun. The smell of rain and freshly baked bread was as brisk in the wind as the cold was biting.

Of course, Mari was used to the cold. It didn’t mean she liked it. Four harrowing months in Russia, hopping on and off trains in the unforgiving winter. That was after a five week chase through the Middle East. 

It had hardened her. And it brought bad memories, ones she could afford to forget.

So she was used to the cold, but it hadn’t always been that way. 

Nanda Parbat was a hidden city nestled high in the mountains of Hindu Kush. Within its walls, the League of Assassins took shape.

While the wind was cold in the Himalayas, the air was hot and the sun was blazing in the fortress she’d once called home. She was born on one of those days, on one of the last of summer, to an artificial womb she shared with her twin brother.

Damian Al Ghul would be born first—he would be the Demon Heir—and he was born perfect, the spitting image of their father. A healthy baby boy with emeralds for eyes and face full of color.

She was born second, and a girl. She emerged little more than the width of a hand, pale if not a little blue, and with a cry so weak the doctors worried she would die the same hour she was born. 

The reason they’d used an artificial womb in the first place was because it allowed for greater control over the baby’s development, ensuring it would only inherit the best traits from both parents.

Except early on in the gestation the doctors found that the egg had, in fact, split due to an error made by one of the doctors in charge of its development. 

They kept the deviation, but focused on one rather than the other as the original plan called for. Despite being technically identical twins, Mari ended up being the lesser infant of the two.

The womb they shared had made the perfect child at the expense of the other.

The difference grew more obvious as they grew older. While Damian grew strong, tall, sturdy, she grew especially twig-like and small. She was not favored by anyone except Talia herself who didn’t show any specific favor.

What Mari lacked in obvious strength she made up for in speed. Once she learned how to walk, they told her: learn again. So she learned how to move like a killer, and she learned damn well. She was clever too, using her slightness as an advantage.

Nobody could match her in this, not even Damian. But she was still no match for him.

Never a match for Damian. 

It’d been half a year since she escaped. She used to dream of leaving but she never thought she would get the opportunity, at least any time soon. She never thought she’d be free of the confines of her birth until inevitable death, or a far-off day when she was much older. 

Nanda Parbat was one of the most secure places on Earth, and it was teeming with the deadliest people who were all at her grandfather’s beck and call.

Paris wasn’t, in reality, an ideal choice of living. Cameras were in every corner, high profile people were left and right. There were certainly other places where she could’ve flown under the radar—but something about it blinded her. Paris was beautiful, especially at night when the Seine reflected the stars and the night sky.

In the daytime, she stole just enough to live. Paris was expensive. She could’ve stolen more than she needed, but she’d developed somewhat of a conscience since her escape. 

Like an odd breeze and a whirlwind of airy footwork. By the time you turned around, she was gone. And so was your wallet. And sometimes your keys, but those times were almost always by accident. 

It wasn’t honest work, stealing, but she consoled herself by thinking at least it wasn’t bloody murder. Not that a murder by her would ever be a mess. 

It was the first time in so long, maybe the first time ever, she felt that she wasn’t being followed or watched. Paris had so many people, and yet none deigned to look at her.

She wasn’t sure how she’d done it—she’d been followed by a team of bounty hunters for so long. It was only by pure miracle she’d been able to shake them off. 

If she were to guess, she’d lost them at some point East of the Swiss Alps, when she boarded a cargo train smuggling goods into France, off the books, at an ungodly hour by pure luck.

It wasn’t even that she liked Paris. It had never been her first choice.

It was the fashion, the architecture, the culture.

Even the Eiffel Tower. She’d never understood the appeal, until she was sitting on one of the beams, admiring the view– the city was just teeming with art. Sometimes, walking around with her head in the clouds, she felt like just another one of the tourists.

To forget was a dangerous game. Everyone in the world could’ve forgotten her—in fact, she would prefer it if they did. That would have been true freedom. Forgetting herself freed nothing, it’d only end up getting somebody killed.

It was on that rainy day she discovered the bakery. The place she found for herself—a forgotten basement under a rundown apartment building—wasn’t ready for the torrential downpour. 

All of her clothes were sopping wet, the few that she had, and she’d been due to change home base since yesterday. 

She was wet. She was freezing. 

She walked briskly through the picturesque streets looking for a laundromat open that early on a Sunday morning.  Not even in the scope of something she couldn’t handle.

She slowed her pace to admire the sunrise on the horizon, when a fresh smell drew her to an ornate entrance, ivory walls more than double her height, and tinted windows with letters written in gold. 

It was a bakery. The tall doors opened to a petite Asian woman with her back turned to the entrance. 

A small woman, approximately 1.40m. East Asian features. She wears a silver band on her ring finger, likely has a spouse, someone to notice if she disappeared. Burns on her hands entirely healed over. A loose walk with small but purposeful steps. Easy to kill.

Mari turned quickly around to leave. She figured the woman was there to shoo the stray child on her storefront away, when she heard, “Wait!”

Something about the voice compelled her to stop and turn. It easily could’ve been a trap and she was expecting one when she foolishly turned to face the source. Instead, she was caught off guard.

She didn’t expect a warm, welcoming smile. Suddenly, the breeze didn’t feel as cold.  

“I was just setting the bakery up for the day when I saw you walking by and…” The woman sheepishly held out her hand, a plain white towel sitting neatly on top. “Don’t worry, we have extra.”

The hair on Mari’s face clung wetly on her skin, as her baggy of clothing stayed close to her chest, protecting it from the rain.

The woman leaned closer as Mari stepped back. She continued to smile, hands still out. A katana could’ve cut cleanly through the middle of her arms as a surprised jolt ran through the woman making Mari back away even further. 

Instead of fear, the woman exclaimed, “I almost forgot! I have an umbrella in my pocket. It was supposed to be for my husband… but it’s way too small, so we never really used it.” The woman reached into her apron to produce an umbrella. “If you just met him, you’d see why.”

At Mari’s continued silence, the woman just shrugged.

“As for me, I already have one. You don’t need to take it if you don’t want to. And if you did, well, you don’t need to return anything. Like I said, we weren’t even using it anyway.” The woman shook her head, “promise, no catch. It’s just a towel, and an umbrella.”

Mari almost scoffed. There was always a catch. Nothing was ever as simple as it seemed, the League taught her that—practically drilled it into her skull. She remembers that last day. Her vision flashed with her brother’s expression, barely neutral. Eyes wide with shock, blood dribbling down the side of his neck.

She eyed the woman, a perfectly blank expression on her face. The woman couldn’t have seen any more than a twitch—if that.

“Sabine by the way.”

Cautiously, Mari took a single step forward. Faster than the blink of an eye, she snatched the towel and the umbrella from Sabine’s hand, taking three steps of separation just as fast. Sabine yelped in surprise, retracting her hands with wide eyes. “You’re quick!”

For a second, they just stood there, before Mari opened the umbrella above her head. “ Merci ,” she mumbled, meeting Sabine’s eyes for the briefest moment before looking away again.

“Come back anytime! We make the best bread in Paris!” Mari heard faintly, before she turned a corner out of view.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

She’d moved out of the basement. Whether subconscious or not, she moved into an empty, unfurnished attic, close enough to the bakery to be within eyeshot.

Before she knew it, she was standing in front of the bakery nearly two weeks later, against her better judgement. A part of her worried Sabine would have forgotten her at this point, or worse, thought she was an ungrateful street rat. She wondered if the woman would be suspicious of the money in her pockets, where she got it from.

She felt stupid. The picture she must’ve made, a 4-foot-nothing little girl, standing there for several minutes, a clean towel and a dry umbrella in her hands.

She took a deep breath. 

She was just going to return the towel, return the umbrella, buy one of those fresh pastries she could smell from blocks away, then leave. Then she could forget all about it and go on her merry way.  

She couldn’t help it. 

Instead of going inside like a normal person, she decided to examine the perimeter around the building, mapping the entire neighborhood out in her head. 

There were two other entrances to the bakery. One, a residential street entrance at the back. The other through the side street of the Place des Vosges through a large blue double door. With further observation, she discovered Sabine’s residence was likely the triplex occupying the top three floors of the bakery. 

Soon, she found herself standing at the entrance once again. Finally, she opened the doors despite how monumental the task seemed to be at the time. This is coming from a girl who’d slit men’s throats. 

To the left from the entrance was a collection of glass display cabinets, showcasing steaming hot treats on black platters. On top of the cabinets were small displays of baked bread, ready to sell. To the right were more displays, and further along was the register with peels hanging from the ceiling above, and a cast-iron oven in the background. Further back, where the walls turned from wood to brick, were the stairs up to the residence, and a rear exit.

Sabine nowhere to be found. 

Instead of a petite Asian woman in the cheongsam, a tall burly man stood behind the counter. The husband, maybe.

A large man, approximately 2m tall. Similar burns on his hands, a matching silver band around his ring finger. A baker. Likely has never dabbled in the sport, but has a weightlifter build. She could not take this man with brute force, but she wasn’t an assassin by brute force to begin with. She could slit his throat just as easily.

The man’s face lit up with recognition. “You must be that girl!”

Before Mari could ask, he continued, “My wife told me about you. Sabine, gorgeous woman. Are you here to return those?” He pointed to her hands.

“Yes,” Mari answered. Carefully, she placed them down on the counter for him to take, avoiding his arms.

“You’re looking for my wife?” 

Mari bobbed her head up and down.

He smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, she’s not here right now. There were some things she needed to go out for.”

Mari nodded again. 

Again she found herself just standing there, silent. Her eyes shot back to the bread on the display, her pockets felt especially full. Specifically, her eyes were drawn to the fresh and glistening croissants next to the pastel platter of macarons.

“How much for the croissant?” She asked.

“Free of charge, just for you,” the man grinned. 

Mari frowned. She wanted to refuse, but she didn’t survive this long without taking whatever she could get. She nodded, accepting the bag of treats when handed to her. 

“ Merci .” And she left, resolved she would never see them again.

It was just a day later that she saw Sabine. Mari was walking down a shadowy route after a day of optimal pickpocketing. The woman was on a stroll on the parallel sidewalk seemingly on another errand. 

It was to be expected, she’d picked a place relatively close by, so it was bound to happen at some point. She was only surprised it happened so soon.

She was debating going up to her when she decided against it. It was better to keep minimal interactions, she was meant to disappear, it was already a risk to have an innocuous couple recognize her face. 

She was just about to melt into the shadows, when she realized she was already too late.

“Oh, honey, hi!” Sabine crossed the street to meet her, bypassing the crosswalk. 

Mari frowned. “In Paris, jaywalking is prohibited with a 4€ fine. Jaywalking contributes to many pedestrian injuries and fatalities. It is inadvisable and unnecessarily risky when you only had to walk several more meters to gain access to a crosswalk.”

Sabine blinked. “Those are not the first set of sentences I expected out of your mouth. To be honest, I thought you didn’t know much French.”

Mari tilted her head. She didn’t think she said anything odd. She supposed she was too formal. “I am sorry. I do know French. I confess I didn’t realize I spoke out of turn.”

Sabine seemed to laugh at the expression on her face. Mari visibly bristled.

“Honey, no. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just- walk with me, if you don’t mind. I went out for a walk, I was just heading back to the bakery.” Mari debated following her back. It was clearly a bad idea. 

Mari fell in step beside Sabine as they headed to the bakery at a leisurely pace. 

“I wish you could’ve seen the look on your face. You looked so confused. I didn’t think you knew much French, you didn’t really talk last time, and Tom told me you didn’t really talk to him either. Guess I was wrong. I didn’t mean to laugh at you, so sorry.”

Mari nodded. Her line of logic made sense. “An easy assumption to make. An apology is unnecessary.”

Sabine chuckled. “For what it’s worth, your French is wonderful. It might be better than mine, honestly.”

“Your French is adequate.”

“I’m glad you think so. I had such a hard time learning the language, it’s just so different from Mandarin. I only moved here a few years ago, married Tom a few years after that. I can’t say I don’t miss China, but I do love Paris.”

For the second time that day, she tried to remind herself that this was a bad idea. Just walking with the woman out in the open put both of them at risk. 

“I was born in China,” Mari shared in perfect Mandarin. 

Sabine’s eyes widened in surprise. “Where in China?” She asked in Mandarin as well.

Mari should lie. 

“South,” she said truthfully. Nanda Parbat was high in the Himalayas, but the hidden city itself was in the Tibet region, considered part of China. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about why she was telling the truth.

Mari fidgeted anxiously in the silence as Sabine hummed comfortably. 

“Do you live nearby? I’ve lived here with Tom, my husband by the way, back at the bakery, for a few years now. I think I’d remember if I saw you.”

“I do not ‘live around here’, as you say. It is a temporary residence.”

Sabine frowned. “When are you leaving?”

“A week or so.”

“Oh,” Sabine said, a hint of disappointment in her tone. “Where are you staying? You’re staying with your parents?”

“Across from the Place des Vosges, in a residential.”

“So you’re with your family… Good. They just let you out here alone all the time?” Sabine asked with skepticism.

A dangerous line of thinking. Likely, Sabine was wondering why she’d never seen her with parental supervision. Mari couldn’t fault the woman for this, it was odd for a seven year old like herself  to be out and about alone in the city.

“On rare occasion,” Mari said simply.

Sabine was just about to ask another question when they found themselves in front of the bakery with Tom closing up shop. The sun was beginning to set in the horizon behind them, and it was beginning to get chilly with Mari in just her single coat.

“You’re back! And you found this little lady,” Tom teased. “A little late to be out. Do you want to come in? We have some pastries left over inside.”

“You’re welcome to come in if you want, just for a little bit. The bread’s probably cold by now, but it’s warmer than out here,” Sabine said in agreement. She seemed to think for a moment before following it up with, “We can call your family to come pick you up.”

Sabine smiled so brightly, so welcomingly down at her. It felt so different from smiles in her memory, double-edged, condescending, an agenda always hidden between the teeth. 

Tom came up behind his wife to happily grin, eyebrows raised in question. He was covered in a light dusting of flour but Sabine didn’t seem to mind as he embraced her from behind.

Mari watched as Sabine raised her hand, barely avoiding a flinch, as she let it land gently on her bony shoulder. Warmth blossomed under the touch, and she found herself leaning into it.

The image of a mother and a father beckoning their child back inside away from the cold came unbidden.

Mari froze in something like fear.

She was faced with a sudden realization. Mari was getting attached. She’s known for a while, but she’s never admitted it to herself. The baker couple were getting attached too. It was useless to deny it.

If she walked into those doors, there was no excuse to take her leave, not without risking being found. These people were not her family. She didn’t have one, not anymore. She couldn’t. Not now, not ever. It was a danger not only to herself, but to everyone around her.

Mari ducked her head apologetically, “I’m sorry. I need to go.”

She bolted in the other direction, taking care not to show her face. Faintly, she heard them yell out, “Stay safe!”  from Sabine, and “Come back any time!” from Tom.

It wasn’t even a few months later that she met them again. She had moved out of the attic just the week after and moved into a hole in the wall in a dirty back alley. It was a ways off from the bakery, several miles away, separate from any route the couple took on their day to day. It was basically at the opposite side of the city. She picked it for that very reason. 

A part of her knew it was at this point she should have left. Not just Paris, but the country altogether. 

They filed a police report when they didn’t see her after a week and found no other trace of the strange girl. From the start she knew they wouldn’t find her; they didn’t have a picture, let alone a name. She just watched them from afar as they went into a scramble with worry. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she stalked them… but there was definitely some unknowing surveillance going on. 

In the end, it all went up to chance. She didn’t want to say she was becoming complacent, but she was tired. She’d been running for so long. 

That’s the way she reasoned it to herself for how she didn’t immediately spot Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng making their way to her as she sat limply on a bench of what was supposed to be a secluded corner of a park. 

She resisted the urge to pull out a knife as she felt a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders. She looked up to find the couple, looking down at her with identical expressions of worry and compassion. 

She melted into the embrace as, embarrassingly, tears sprang to her eyes. A part of her suddenly felt like the seven-year-old she was instead of the trained killer she was made to be. 

She fought the urge to sob as she let them coddle her, stiffly accepting their words and touch. “Where have you been all this time? We’ve been looking for you.”

“Around,” Mari sniffled, avoiding their too-warm eyes.

“We’d like to know… but you don’t need to tell us.” Tom took the space beside her, sitting gently by her side. “What’s your name?”

“Mari…” She stopped herself, then thought about it for a second. “Marinette.” It sounded like a French enough name. 

“Marinette…” Tom repeated. “It suits you…” 

The married couple shared a look. Sabine chuckled nervously, taking the other seat beside her. “What about Marinette Dupain-Cheng?”

Mari turned to face her, looking blankly into Sabine’s eyes, concealing her shock. 

Sabine sighed, “we assumed… with you being out here, always out and about, alone. Do you have any family that can take you in?”

Mari almost reeled at the thought of family. 

Sabine quirked a brow. “I’m guessing that’s a no.”

Tom took a deep breath. “You might not know this, but we’ve already been looking to adopt. For a while.” He hesitated at the next words.

Sabine continued for him, “We’d like to adopt you, formally. We have papers we can show you. If you’d let us, that is. If not, we can show you resources, give you our support. It’s a tough world out there…” 

As if Mari didn’t know. She’d already seen the horrors the world had to offer. She’d lived it. She appreciated it wholly nonetheless, lowering her eyes to her lap.

“And you look like a good kid.”

That may have been what convinced Mari—no, Marinette. Mari wasn’t good, and she was barely a kid at all. She’s done things she will always regret, and turned a blind eye to things she’s seen. Horrible, horrible things. 

Hundreds of possibilities flashed before her eyes as she weighed the consequences of this one decision to her rest of her life. This was a chance. Mari was nothing good, but Marinette could have that chance.

It was like a sword ran through the heart of the little assassin girl, the weight of her blood-stained dagger pressing into the skin of her leg as she stabbed her once again to keep her forever down. 

She didn’t know why she fought so hard. There was nothing left for the wicked little Mark, if there was ever anything for her to have. Not a family, not a future, not a legacy she wanted to bear. 

Their faces lit up as an entirely new glimmer appeared in Mari’s eyes. It was Marinette that turned back to them, face lighter, eyes a little more dull.

“Can I see the papers?”

Chapter Text

Here's some quick art, as a treat.

Today, Marinette marked her seventh year since meeting the Dupain-Chengs, six years and five days after she was officially adopted, and fourteen years, three months, and six days after the day she was born. Not that she was counting, obviously. Marinette was known for being chronically bad at marking down dates.

That particular day, it was a clear and sunny morning. The sky was blue and cloudless. It was an absolutely perfect day that nothing could ruin. It was a stark contrast to the day she stumbled upon her new life and the wonderful couple she now called her Maman and her Papa. 

It barely took a year for her to call them Maman and Papa. She was so eager to jump into this new name, this new life. It only took several more for it to feel real. 

Unfortunately, the heroine was unable to entirely enjoy the perfect day as she peeled her eyes open, sore from a late night, to her alarm clock flashing the current time.

8:11AM. 

And she sleepily sighed, coming into a yawn. 

Then she processed the numbers. 

She shot up from her bed immediately rushing towards her closet. Kwami , she was going to be late. Again .

“Tikki!” She whined as she sorted through her numerous blouses, “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I tried, Marinette! I swear!” Tikki, her lovely, amazing, patient mini godly companion hovered above her head as she handed her a pair of socks. “You wouldn’t budge!”

Marinette outwardly sulked as she changed out of her pajamas and into her clothes for the day. She sprinted down the stairs trying to kick start her brain awake when she nearly tripped over her own two feet. 

Okay, so she needed to be quick… but not that quick . 

Klutz. It was better to be a klutz than have her be a little too nimble, too quick, too agile. She had to be innocuous, not draw any eyes to her. She had to unlearn so many things to pass for normal. Some things, like her sharp instinct and her speed, had to be force stopped. Hence, klutz.

“Careful on the stairs, dear!” Her Maman chimed, entirely used to her daily antics. They often joked that she got it from her Papa, who was almost as clumsy as her. 

Only she knew the real reason .

“I will!” She answered brightly. Marinette stepped into the kitchen skipping over to the couple planting a kiss on their cheeks each. 

“Good morning, Maman, Papa,” she greeted as she was handed a paper bag of baked goods. She smiled, bashful. “Thanks.”

“Cutting it a little close again, young lady,” Tom wagged a powdered finger. 

Sabine jumped, “The oven, Tom!” 

“Oh!” Tom yelped, scrambling towards the oven. Sabine cackled, and Marinette laughed for a second, relishing the moment. Every ticking second felt like a growing chasm in her chest.

Mari was never late. She was always perfectly on time, every second taken into account. Marinette was perpetually in a rush, trying not to be.

She was definitely going to be late.

She sprinted out of the shop with a croissant in her mouth, miraculously managing to not get hit by a car on the way to Collège Françoise Dupont. She sheepishly shimmied into her classroom, letting her feet thunk against the wooden floor.

She would’ve liked to say that she made it in the nick of time, but she was several minutes late and Mme. Bustier was already sitting at her desk at the front calling attendance.

A tall woman, slim. She had red hair and freckles, and had soft skin on her hands except for the calluses on her fingers she gained from writing, well manicured fingernails up to boot. The desk obstructed her feet, but she knew from previous knowledge that she was likely wearing white pumps, a disadvantage in combat but not the most impractical shoes she could have—no .

She was over this. 

Marinette sighed. 

“Marinette,” Mme. Bustier started.

“I am so sorry , Mme. Bustier. I just keep sleeping through my alarm!” Marinette said exasperated, and it was the truth.

Sleeping didn’t work. Alarms didn’t work. To have one, she’d have to sacrifice the other, and it was more… normal to choose sleep. Otherwise, she’d be sleeping so light she’d wake from a simple jostle of the wind.

The nightmares. God, the nightmares. They kept her up until sunrise unless she slept deep enough where she slept so deeply almost nothing could wake her.

“I’ll let you off this time,” said Mme. Bustier. “I’m not mad. I know you’re a good student, Marinette. Just, try not to do it again.”

“Thanks, I’ll try,” she muttered. She’d probably said it a hundred times.

Alya chuckled as she waved her over to their seat. “Again?” She whispered.

“Not by that much…”

The bespectacled girl leveled a look.

She yawned. “Fine, yeah.”

Damian would not have been late. Mari would have been punished for being even just several minutes off the allotted time. 

Marinette almost groaned. Why do so many things have to happen so early in the day?

Mme. Bustier handed out their scored test papers from the previous week. On the top of her paper wrote, 32/50. Alya peeked over her shoulder as Marinette looked at Alya’s paper. Alya got a little more than Marinette by a few points, but not by much.

Even at seven years old, Mari’s education had been rigorously disciplined. Alongside combat, they were taught everything from arithmetic to world history to molecular biology. There was no technical need for her to go to middle school. If she wanted to, she could ace every exam Collège Françoise Dupont had to offer. If she needed to learn something, she had eidetic memory anyhow.

Alya’s face scrunched, “We’ll do better next time.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Marinette giggled nervously. “I don’t think I need electromagnetism when I become a fashion designer, anyways. It’ll probably be fine.”

“Psh, yeah.”

Fashion was her dream. Marinette had a long list of things she wanted for the future, one of which is hamsters, and becoming a fashion designer was one of the top. Creating something new, revitalizing a garment, beautiful clothing for everyone to see. Dresses that made you feel like an entirely new person.

“Aw, Dudette, that’s more than I got,” Nino said, leaning into the space between her and Alya. He pointed an exasperated thumb at Adrien, sitting beside them. “Adrien got a perfect score.”

Alya groaned. “Of course he did.” Then she shot a smirk at Marinette who turned red. “Aren’t you going to congratulate him?”

Adrien bit his lip, withholding a smile. “Oh there’s no need. I’m sure you guys could too.”

Adrien, Adrien, Adrien. Adrien … Marinette sighed dreamily. He was just the perfect boy– Marinette was sure she loved him. He had golden hair, emerald eyes, everything about him made her go heart-eyes. 

Every other girl liked him, making him all the more perfect. 

Alya eyed Marinette as they made their way to the cafeteria for lunch. “Girl, are you good?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she waved off.  “You know me. I swear, I didn’t mean to stay up that late. I was just finishing some stitches, and the next thing I knew it was literally 3am!” She threw her hands up in exasperation. 

It was true enough, she really did stay up to finish some stitches. But she was done by half past ten, and in bed by eleven.

It was always the nightmares.

“Alright, if you’re sure…” Alya replied skeptically. “Oh, did you hear? I heard there was a new girl in school.”

“No,” Marinette said. “I don’t think so?”

“Yeah, I heard-”

The tell-tale click of heels sounded behind them. They barely dodged Chloe and Sabrina as they came barreling through, serving them nasty looks for somehow daring to walk in a hallway. 

“Whatever you heard is irrelevant. She can’t see. Did you hear?” Chloe snickered, her manicured hand sweetly covering her puckered lips. “Like, actually, legitimately, blind. She shouldn’t even be here in this school. She should be off with the other freaks like her. She’s even more pathetic than you, Marinette! I didn’t think it could be done. I just wanted you to know.” 

Now that was just comically villainous.

For good measure, Sabrina gave an indignant ‘ hmph! ’ as Chloe whipped her ponytail into Marinette's face, getting hair in her mouth.

Marinette spit the hair out, the unfortunate taste of rich girl hairspray lingering on her tastebuds. 

This was when, from the corner of her eye, Marinette spotted a figure around the corner, the end bit of what looked to be a cane peeking out from behind the wall.

Before Marinette could approach, the girl ducked away, almost stumbling into another person as she dashed across the hall and into an exit. Alya followed her gaze as Chloe raised an eyebrow at their non-reaction. 

Alya gasped. “That must be her!”

“Yeah. Poor girl.” 

A voice in her head told Marinette she should have chased, but she took a long enough pause, hesitating, to think that by the time she decided she should, the girl was out of sight.

She sighed as the blonde strutted away, Sabrina trailing behind her.

“I have a bad feeling about this…”

Alya nodded.

"Are you doing anything after school?” Marinette said, queasy. They started walking towards the cafeteria. “I was thinking we could study at my place for finals. Maman promised to bake cookies.”

“Hey!” Nino appeared behind them, Adrien walking beside them waving a polite hand. “I heard something about cookies?”

Alya playfully shoved him. “I swear, the only way to get you excited about studying is with food-related bribes.”

Nino playfully shoved her back. “As if you wouldn’t. We all know Mrs. Dupain-Cheng’s cookies are the best.”

“Hey, Nino.” Marinette’s heart started hammering in her chest. “H-hey, Adrien,” She stuttered, fidgeting with the ends of her jacket. 

“Hey,” Adrien greeted back, parting his lips to reveal a perfect smile.

“We’re invited too, right, Dudette?” Nino waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Yeah, yeah. Totally,” Marinette answered, distracted.

Alya and Nino exchanged a knowing look. Alya gave her a stupid grin before bursting into laughter.

Marinette turned to pout, but she only ended up bursting into a fit of giggles with Nino laughing alongside her. Adrien turned to stare at them oblivious, but laughed as well when they burst again into laughter upon seeing his expression.

They found a table in a corner of the room. For a second, Alya’s face turned blank. Marinette looked at her worriedly, when Alya turned back to her with a face full of recollection. 

Her eyes lit up, faced with Marinette. “Oh my God, isn’t today the day you met your parents?”

Adrien gasped. “It’s Marinette’s birthday?”

“Of course not!” Alya dismissed. “That’s in July.”

Something seemed to click in Adrien’s head as Marinette buried her face in her hands. 

Marinette as a rule told nobody about her adopted status, but her Maman had told Alya during a sleepover. She’s tried to tell Alya not to tell anyone else, but Alya couldn’t help but gush, asking for all of the details.

“Marinette is adopted?” Adrien asked, surprised.

“No way! I swear, Dudette looks just like her mom.” Nino’s eyes bounced rapidly from the top to the bottom of Marinette’s face.

“Yeah. I’m adopted,” Marinette confirmed with a sigh. Internally, she winced. She really didn’t want people to know, especially the kids at school. Being adopted… was out of the normal.

“We’ve never mentioned it before?” The bespectacled girl asked.

“Never,” Adrien tilted his head in thought. Nino bobbed his head in agreement.

“Well, this calls for a celebration!” Alya declared. Nino whooped. Adrien politely clapped.

Marinette shook her head, “No, no. It’s nearly finals. Maman’s already baking for us, and we need to study.”

“We’ll do absolutely fine,” Alya gestured blithely. “You can relax every once in a while.”

Marinette flushed, knitting her eyebrows together. Of course she was relaxed. Did she look like she wasn’t? Because of course she was.

“We can study.” Alya pouted, “but I’m still bringing ice cream.”

Marinette rolled her eyes.

“Well, I’m inviting myself and Adrien to this ice cream-cookie-study-Marinette met her parents-party,” Nino declared with his chest puffed out.

“Sorry, I can’t,” Adrien apologized, rubbing the back of his neck. “I have a photoshoot scheduled after school and Gorilla is picking me up.” 

Marinette reacted sadly as if this was a surprise to her. It was not. She fully knew what Adrien was scheduled to do from Monday morning to Sunday evening every week. She had a version of it up in her room. 

It was a guilty pleasure, an indulgement born from her unsavory past. It was stalkerish, she knew. She didn’t know how to stop. 

A part of her was terrified how close it felt to stalking a target, gathering mission intel. The reasoning was distinct, but it wasn’t so distinct that it moved a different part of her brain. It felt the same. She didn’t want it to.

Nino shrugged, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry, dude. It’s fine. Maybe we can do it next time.” He raised his chin, a goofy expression on his face. “Well, then, I’m inviting myself to this ice cream-cookie-study-party and nobody can stop me!”

Alya rolled her eyes, fighting a smile. “ Fine . Right Marinette?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Marinette giggled, her eyes soft. 

She had friends. She had, honest to God, friends. It felt good to have a circle of people who would laugh when you laughed. It felt so normal.

“But still, woah.” Nino said through a mouthful of pasta from his lunch tray. “Did not expect Dudette to be adopted. It’s totally fine, of course, but like…”

Adrien nodded in understanding. “It’s surprising. Is it okay to ask questions about it?”

Alya bobbed her head. “Actually, yeah, I didn’t get any real answers back when your mom told me. When did you meet? Did you live at an orphanage? What happened to your old parents? Were you born in Paris? Were you born in France at all? Do you know any family? Like, biological family-” She asked eagerly, rapid-fire.

Nino put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s a lot of questions at once.”

When’d they meet? They met seven years ago. 

Orphanages? Mari has been at several orphanages, but never as an orphan. 

Her old parents? Her mother likely was still at the League, raising her brother, commanding power and respect among the Assassins and their people. Her father, she didn’t know, but it was likely he was formidable. She knew several monikers from her mother, nothing but praise for the man responsible for half of her DNA. Nothing apart from that. She didn’t look into it at all, afraid of what would happen if she did.

Paris? France? No. Officially, she was born in a city in China. In reality, she was born in a League facility as her mother and her grandfather watched from behind a window glass panel. 

Do you know any family? As a matter of fact, yes. There’s a League base in France, one she’s dead set in avoiding at all costs. It’s highly likely someone who’s potentially “family” is there. 

Biologically? It's a possibility. All of her biological knowledge of her family start and end at Ra’s, Talia, then her brother. If she did have any more biological relatives, she wouldn’t know.

“I-I don’t think I got all that.” Marinette chuckled nervously, “R-repeat?” She said this knowing full well that she had no intention of answering any question.

Alya frowned. 

Some days, she loved the fact that she met her Maman and her Papa. She never would have been able to have this life, or go to school, or focus on things other than murder or survival.

Some days, she hated it. She hated the fact that this was never her life to begin with, that she was born a monster and not a baker’s daughter. That her hands dipped with the blood, innocent and not, and whatever she does now or in the future will never remove that stain. 

Marinette scratched the back of her neck. “Ha.. ha..” She laughed awkwardly.

Suddenly screams filled the cafeteria as a crowd of students ran in from the hallway coming in from the north side of the school. Wind blasted throughout the room as it was plunged into a stark darkness in an instant.

“Akuma!” Somebody screamed as her phone started beeping with notifications of news reports. Akuma alerts. 

With a single look back at her friend group, Marinette swiftly made her exit to the bathroom,as silent as a mouse. 

Marinette was normal. She was just a normal girl living a normal life, and that’s everything she was supposed to be. She did average in school, she had a crush on a perfect boy, she laughed with her friends.

Ladybug was different. Ladybug was extraordinary. She was older than the concept of a superhero herself, she was the embodiment of hope and goodness.

So her life wasn’t exactly normal, not with an Akuma showing up to destroy the city nearly every other day of the week. This didn’t fit into “Marinette”. It was something else entirely. She could be a perfect superheroine—the best she could be.

“Tikki, Spots On!”

Chapter Text

Marinette was already aware of the Miraculous, way before she had ever even seen the old man, who she much later learned was the guardian, Master Fu. 

Ra’s had been obsessed with obtaining them. Marinette at the time didn’t know much. She just knew that if her grandfather wanted it, then it must have been powerful.

When she met Tikki, she knew. Immediately. With the earrings and the explanation, somehow she, of all people, had been chosen to wield its incredible power. 

She tried so hard to refuse that call; she wasn't worthy. She knew she wasn’t worthy, the list of why she wasn’t worthy would reach all the way to hell. She was what she was no matter how much she tried to bury that part of herself in her mind. 

And then the Akuma happened, and then people were hurt. They died, and she watched them die at the hands of her classmate who became twisted, against his will, into a monster. It hit too close to home.

She had the skill, she had the reflexes, and she was given, just readily handed, the power to defeat that villain. She knew Chat Noir couldn’t on his own.

She became the leader. Chat Noir deferred to her once she settled into the role. She became the Paris superhero, the one people looked up to, the person people turned to when all hope was lost. 

There was no blood on Ladybug’s hands, and yet again Mari found herself with a face and a name who could be something else than who she used to be. Someone who could do good. She was a symbol.

As magic transformed her from Marinette to Ladybug, she opened her eyes to the darkened state of the cafeteria.

A mysterious figure draped in layers of translucent, shimmering fabric appeared through a thick fog near the far end of the room. The Akuma emerged through the shadows like a specter draped in a flowing, toga-like dress with silver accents. A blindingly white blindfold wrapped around its eyes.

( From her physique, she could determine that the akuma was lithe, small, likely a student. Familiar-  No. Not even Akumas. )

Screams could still be heard, but it was muffled by the echo of the haunting breeze.

“I am Reverie!” The akuma, Reverie, bellowed with a voice closer to a whisper than a scream. But like a scream, it echoed throughout the halls, bouncing back with a shrill shriek of a sound. 

“Hey there, purr -fect! D’You come here often?” Chat Noir purred, appearing from her right.

“Chaton,” Ladybug rolled her eyes. 

“Now wait just a meow-ment , M’lady. You might just be purr -right!” Chat smirked. 

She rolled her eyes again. “Don’t call me “my lady”.”

Suddenly, a chill ran down her spine. Ladybug acted fast. She would have tripped if it weren’t for… her training. Chat landed on his feet well enough as a long sweeping tendril of shadow swiped at their feet.

“As they say, cats always land on their feet!” He quipped. Ladybug would have bickered, if it weren’t for the fact that Reverie was creeping closer, floating inches above the ground.

“You have mocked me,” Reverie growled. “You have ridiculed me, you have endlessly teased me. Now you will see the world as I do!”

A grand pillar of shadow shot out from the Akuma’s back, creating a hole through the roof. Instead of light spilling in to illuminate the room, the darkness started leaking out into the sky, blanketing their overhead in a living, violent shadow. It plunged the entire room, the entire area in a blackness. Enough to see, but just barely. Most of Reverie’s power seemed to be channeling into the shadows streaming up into the sky.

Ladybug turned to Chat. His neon green eyes glowed in the darkness, the only bright thing in the room. The lights spread across the dining hall were dim, underpowered in the face of magic.

The circle of his irises formed a half moon. “This would be a really good time for a plan, Bugaboo. Maybe you have one?”

“Not yet, but I will. Get the students to safety,” she commanded, eyeing stray students still left in the room, scrambling in the dark. She leapt into action, swinging.

“Give me your Miraculous!” The akuma screamed, dodging Ladybug, swiveling to face the heroine sliding back onto her feet.

“Cute.” A toothy scowl spread across Reverie’s pale face. 

Reverie unsheathed a long, staff-like weapon from somewhere on her person. Silver, glinting in the light. A round, orb-like thing pulsated darkly at its tip, and Ladybug knew. That was the Akumatized object.

“Kwami!” Ladybug cursed as several tendrils shot out of Reverie’s staff, making a desperate grab at her person. She swung out of the way, but not fast enough to dodge the very last one, which sent her flying into a wall.

She barely had time to breathe as another tendril shot out toward her, and then another, and one after the other came more of the speedy attacks. Reverie gazed disinterestedly at the ground, head tilted, back facing Ladybug.

Seeing Ladybug slam into the wall, Chat Noir threw himself at Reverie with a yell, twisting out of the way of a shadow shooting itself at him. That is, until the shadow suddenly shot back, turning a sharp corner bodily back into his form. 

Ladybug catapulted herself up with her yoyo as she made the move to have it wrap around Reverie’s leg. Her yoyo whipped in the air and her feet sounded to leap as she aimed with almost pin-point accuracy. Yet again, one of the tendrils whacked her away.

She braced against impact as her eyes followed Chat. He flew into the wall beside her as she got up to dodge another long swipe of shadows. 

“ Cat -ch me next time, will you, Bugaboo?”

“Chaton!” Ladybug barely yelled out, as a dark and twisting mass grabbed him from the shoulders. Chat yelped at the force, and a tendril shot out to twist around his mouth as well, shutting him up. Normally, Ladybug would joke what a relief it was, but the moment she started to speak, a tendril identical to the one on Chat tried to twist around her.

Reverie laughed maniacally, the shrill sound grating against her ears. “You next, Ladybug!”

The tendrils that came at her were easy enough to dodge as she moved rapidly around the room, but every time her foot would land or her yoyo would thwip out for her to swing, Reverie’s shadows were there to greet her in less than a second. Every possible opening for Ladybug to steal Reverie’s staff shut as soon as she made the move to do it.

With no other choice, Ladybug was forced to retreat. She launched herself swiftly through the air and into the hallway she had walked through earlier. She slid across the floor, slipping into a corner, out of sight. 

A series of images flashed through Ladybug’s head. The staff. The cane. The blindfold. 

Maybe she was blind, because it was so clear to her in less than a moment, taking a breather in this corner where she and Alya were stopped earlier that day. It was the blind girl from earlier, the one who she.. Failed. Now that she realizes. Marinette–no, Ladybug failed her. 

Pushing away that thought for the moment, she took a deep breath. Her chest tightened. She’d deal with that later.

Ladybug didn’t need to look out of a window to know that it was dark out, darker than it was possible to become in Paris. The darkness was spreading, quickly. Rapidly. Out in the horizon, light blue permeated the darkness. Ladybug feared that it wouldn’t be for long. 

“Lucky Charm!” She called out.

“... A crowbar?”

“Now, what’s this?!” Alya yelled to her live from the top of a tall building a very short distance away from the cafeteria, stalking the scene from a nearby window. She crouched comically on the rooftop, dangling precariously on the edge. Anything for the best shot.

“... Aw, man. This lighting is horrible. I thought being out here would be better…” That’s when Ladybug retreated, leaving the dining hall, and Chat Noir with Reverie. Alya would have stayed, if not for the fact that it was beginning to grow so dark that the stream was beginning to just be black.

Alya sighed. “Now, nobody freak out. I’m going to be jumping from rooftop to rooftop to get closer to Ladybug. I probably won’t die. If I do, we all know it won’t be permanent. So don’t worry, I’ll be totally fin-”

A glowing white figure emerged through the dark. She immediately pointed her camera in its direction, realizing only in hindsight that maybe, just maybe, she should have run. 

The glass shattered, splintering in a hundred different pieces, as a staff pointed towards her. Reverie’s silhouette was framed by shadowy things that look almost like tentacles, flaring angrily out in every direction. “Shut. Up.”

Once, there was a time when Alya was a hero. If she were still Rena Rouge the answer would be simple for the question of what she would be doing now. She wouldn't have even been outside in the first place, she would have been working her Mirage in the battle itself.

Alya couldn’t believe it back then. It was too good to be true, and she relished in it. The only downside was that she couldn’t film, but Alya understood hero identities. Secret identities were important, and being a hero was dangerous. There used to be a roster of them. Rena Rouge, Carapace… and Queen Bee. Way to ruin it for everyone, Chloe.

Alya’s dark surroundings grew even darker as those tentacles swipe at Alya. The hits land, and the Ladyblogger clutched her phone tightly to her chest. She falls. 

Ladybug is there to catch her, swinging in with her yoyo like the superhero she was. It wasn’t to say Alya held a grudge, no it wasn’t that. She knew that Ladybug had her reasons even if Alya herself wasn’t privy to them. 

Ladybug did her job, and she did her job well. What other superhero in the world sported zero casualties? Especially on the level of her villains, with the frequency and the spontaneity of them. Of course, that wasn’t counting temporary death, but those don’t matter. Ladybug always saved the day. And Alya respected that. 

Yet something small bubbled in Alya’s chest, a feeling that kept all the while she looked up at Ladybug, swinging them to the safety of a further rooftop. As they landed, Alya already knew what Ladybug would say. 

“Alya, you can’t keep–”

“I know!”

Before anything further could be said, the darkness was right back at them. Not a second later, Ladybug leapt back into the dining hall, with a final look. 

The cafeteria was somehow darker than it had been before. Ladybug paid it no mind, because she had a plan. Earlier, she was given a crowbar. She could whack her, or break a window. Not very helpful, but only on the surface. 

She sprinted back into the dining hall with a thought in mind and crowbar in hand. She looked around. Her eyes landed on a locked vending machine near a wall outlet and Ladybug yelled in triumph. Reverie was already right on her heels, but she had enough of a lead that when Reverie’s shadow tendrils shot out to attack, she could easily dodge.

She jams the crowbar into the outlet behind the vending machine, wedging it between the exposed prongs of a plug and the outlet casing. Sparks exploded, the vending machine surged, making a horrible buzzing noise.

The underpowered light of the dining hall suddenly flickers violently to life. “Close your eyes!” Ladybug yelled to Chat Noir as the sudden brightness served like a flashbang, and Ladybug shut her eyes to avoid being blinded. 

Reverie had a goal. She wanted to blind the world with darkness, sourced from the powerful shadows coming out of her staff, the blind girl’s cane. But without those shadows–without those tendrils shooting at them with every move, Reverie’s power was lost.

She opened her eyes to the sight of a reeling Reverie. Where Reverie previously glowed, her ghastly aura seemed to dim, as her shadowy appendages blinked into non-existence, retreating back into the Akuma’s staff with a whimper. It was much brighter now in the room, and Chat Noir was finally freed.

He landed gracefully beside her. Their eyes met, and they nodded. 

In tandem, Ladybug swung her yoyo as Chat Noir bodily shot himself with his baton at Reverie. The Akuma had its back facing towards them, recuperating on the ground ahead, so the coast was entirely clear. Or so it seemed. 

In less than a moment, Reverie herself shot to her feet to meet Chat Noir head on. The Akuma moved with a feather-like weight to her, but she hit harder than a rock. Her staff met Chat Noir’s rapidly extending baton. He landed with a yelp, and before he could even stand, Reverie was there in his space winding her staff to hit him.

Ladybug ran with heavy steps as she wrapped her yoyo around Reverie’s staff. It was only for a second, because Reverie was winding to smack just as fast with her maniacal grin and inscrutable blindfold. Ladybug tried to swing back, but she was quickly met with a precise strike to her feet once again. 

Again and again, they were beat down by Reverie’s lightning fast reflexes. It was as if every single time they moved, the moment their feet would fall or they would gear up to grab at Reverie’s staff, she was there to meet them. 

Frustration started to bubble at Ladybug, but she didn’t know what to do. Reverie was blind! She expected Reverie’s power to be lost when her shadows disappeared, but it seemed as if yes, the lights were on, but they were still no match for her.

A beep. Several minutes had passed since she used her Lucky Charm. Ladybug was running out of time. 

“You thought that would be enough to stop me!?” Reverie laughed in utter delight. For a moment, they had enough time to breathe. An idea popped into Chat’s head.

“She can’t see us. But she can hear us! She has super hearing!” At this, Chat Noir had to dodge multiple times because the more he spoke, the better Reverie could gauge exactly where he was standing. 

She could end it all here. Reverie could be dead, defeated in a second. 

Ladybug was already perfectly aware that the Akuma’s strength wasn’t darkness but her sight through hearing. But Ladybug just knew she had to find another way– she couldn’t resort to that. No way would she resort to that. There was always another way.

“My Lady, where are you-”

She fled. 

Chapter Text

No cameras, out of view from windows, she notes.

Marinette let out a shaky breath as she felt the familiar tingle of detransformation run down her body. Tikki appeared in front of her, a worried look on her little face. “Marinette?”

“Yeah, yeah, Tikki. I’m fine.” She sighed, sliding down the wall of a nondescript classroom. Without waiting another second, the thoughts she was holding back came to the forefront of her mind unbidden. 

Marinette should have chased the blind girl down. It was no wonder she got Akumatized, after what she heard Chloe say. Guilt gnawed at the back of her head, and it continued to gnaw as she went through the motion of handing Tikki a cookie so she could recuperate. 

A plan , she needed a plan, she reminded herself. She was stupid. Dumb. She really thought they could overpower Reverie even with her super senses. She thought shorting out the lights was a solid plan– but seeing now as the lights were dim, practically faded, even that was beginning to not work. 

Ladybug always had a plan. Ladybug always saved the day. 

It would be so easy to defeat the Akuma. Mari… nette, already… No. 

Marinette didn’t know how to move that silently, she couldn’t have. Chat would fare well against an Akuma with super hearing, he was the cat Miraculous, and whoever he was underneath the mask had the quick, light footed training to back it up. Fencing, if she had to guess based on her watching Adrien.

Marinette… wasn’t supposed to know these things. Therefore Ladybug wasn’t supposed to, and there lay the problem. 

Her heart raced and her head spun. Plans.

She felt her nails scrape the side of her forearms and her teeth draw blood. Her throat tightened as her eyes started to go in and out of focus. Her other hand was curled into a painfully tight fist on her side, keeping her body propped up rather than a pathetic ball in the middle of a dirty school floor.

Her mouth felt really dry suddenly, despite the sharp metal taste. She tried to flex her throat, but it felt like swallowing sand. Her tongue distinctly tasted like the lingering taste of what was left of the… Croissants, that her Papa ( of course not her Father, who she’s never even met—would never want to meet her ) handed her before she left this morning. Did she even have anything during lunch? 

She couldn’t remember. 

She did.  

She was too busy being normal with her friends trying to forget the prior half everything she hated about herself came from. 

Mari was born with an eidetic memory. She remembered. 

She wanted what she thought was normal. Just a normal girl living a normal life, that was all she wanted to be. Apart from her other other   secret life. 

Ladybug was separate, separate but a part of Marinette. Ladybug was hope, not only for what she was but for what she symbolized to the people of Paris. Ladybug didn’t get intrusive thoughts. 

Lie.

Marinette’s mental state was perfectly normal for a teenage girl. She didn’t get intrusive thoughts.

Lie.

Good assassins don’t either, do they? Point blank focus on the mission. That’s what she was taught. 

She shouldn’t remember what they taught, she’d been trying to forget for seven goddamn years. Why couldn't she just forget? 

What if she couldn’t make a plan? What then? As much as she scolded Chat, as much as he was reckless, how he got distracted, how he had too much fun, he was good . Unequivocally, good. He didn't see the instincts and the reflexes she saw in herself.

Chat thought the world of her. The city thought the world of her. She couldn’t fail. 

But what if she did? What then?

Where was she again?

Suddenly, the lights flickered brightly against the dim light of the room, and darkness returned once again. She knew the plan she’d made was temporary, but she didn’t realize it was this temporary.

A smell hit her nostrils, and she realized, with a start, that it smelled like smoke. Consequences of your actions, Marinette. 

She took a deep breath.

“Bug?” Tikki laid a tiny hand on Marinette’s knee. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I messed up. But I need to help Chat.”

Ladybug needed a plan. Like a mantra.

She straightened her back, got up, opened her eyes, and smiled all too wide. She was totally and completely fine. She sorted through her purse, unfortunately probably squishing a few things along the way. 

While Tikki was, to say, “recharging”, she had another hero she could become. A back-up of sorts. Ladybug, she wasn’t meant for raw power in fights, and with very little time she just couldn’t overpower Reverie, at least without resorting to unsavory tactics. 

But.. there was another alias she could rely on for that. 

Not only that, but a theory formed in her head on how exactly to counteract Reverie’s super hearing.

She opened the miracle box to take out the necklace and Mullo zoomed out of the pendant with a bright ‘hello !’.

Back-ups, contingencies, that was the name of the game. She just had to rummage a little bit first, but– “Here, Mullo.” She handed him some emmental cheese she always had on her for these types of situations. 

Mullo didn’t need much time to eat the cheese– he was good to go. 

Through the tiniest crack in the door, fast movement caught Marinette’s attention. She opened the Ladyblog Live to confirm that, yes, it was Alya. She almost sighed, if it weren’t for the smoke she was expressly trying not to inhale much of.

“Get squeaky!” 

Alya wiped a bead of sweat away from her forehead as she finally, finally, arrived back into the cafeteria and in the action.

So, ha , take that Ladybug! Alya arrived here first. 

But she couldn’t be too happy.  It was a dire scene. A fire had emerged from a corner of the room with the vending machines, but the resulting glow was just dim enough that shadows were pouring back out of Reverie’s staff and into the environment around them. Fortunately for Alya, it was just enough light that her video feed wasn’t necessarily clear, but you could make out the happenings in front of her.

Chat Noir was getting beaten down. It wasn’t a total massacre the way it was pre Ladybug fleeing the scene, but as much as Chat Noir was quick, he was just outnumbered. No one would say it was one to one with how many tendrils of inky black shadow sprung on to his rapidly moving figure, but seemingly without a goal or a partner– it was plain as day that he was losing this fight.

Before Alya could make quick work of calling for Reverie’s attention, to distract her of course, she was quick to spot a quick figure moving at the bottom left of her screen, and she looked up to watch as Multimouse entered the foray. 

Chat could only take it for so long, alone against Reverie. He needed a plan. 

But he wasn’t the plan guy, Ladybug was. Except Ladybug wasn’t currently there to give him one, and even if she was, she never told him what the plans actually were. Which was fine, it worked for them. He trusted his Lady to an absolute, and so far it’d worked at least ninety percent of the time. 

Ladybug always knew what to do. If she told him to jump, he would, without question, even if the height may have seemed a little perilous.

It seemed today, however, was not a day for successful plan making, if the fire spreading through the hall and Reverie cackling madly with glee had anything to say for it.

The sound of heavy footsteps approached. Thank god . “My Lady!?”

At the same time, Reverie heard them too.

Multimouse grabbed him by the shoulders as she forcefully pulled him away from the incoming cohort of shadows. They twisted toward them, but she spun with him in her arms, out of harm’s way. They landed safely on a beam opposite of Reverie as she wailed, sending a powerful sound wave through their surroundings.

That definitely wasn’t Ladybug. “...Mouse?”

“Yes. ‘ Your Lady’ ,” Chat could practically hear the air quotes.  “Isn't available right now,” she answered succinctly.

“Did she tell you the plan?”

“No.” 

“How helpful.”

They dodged another torrent of tendrils.

“I have a plan,” Multimouse said. 

“Great! Can I hear it?”

Instead of answering, she told him, “Get Alya out of here!”

“Figures,” he grumbled to himself, before yelping when another tendril tried to trip him.

“Hey!” Multimouse called with rage, pushing him aside, putting both of her hands on either side of her cheek.

You know, he really loved Ladybug. Not so much Multimouse. Multimouse was… almost like everything that Ladybug wasn’t. Completely different for sure.

“Get squeaky!”

The mouse hero split into multiple smaller duplicates of herself, each honed in on Reverie herself. Multimouse was also very efficient, he thought, as he watched the multiple hers aggressively jump from one end, leaving tiny little divots where their feet were, and throw themselves at Reverie.

The little Mouses must have been too small for Reverie to hear them over the various sounds of the room, because a genuine struggle between the little Mouses and the Akuma formed. One Mouse, a more normal sized one emerged out of the fight as he was arguing with Alya to get out of there.

That Mouse turned back to him with a scant expression on her face. She looked like she was about to bark orders when things went to hell. Well, more hell than usual. 

That entire side of the cafeteria began to crumble as the short circuited vending machine exploded with the wall behind it. It could have been the fire reaching something it shouldn’t have, maybe something in the kitchen or chemistry labs, but there wasn’t any time to register any of this as the floor beneath their feet shuddered and gave way.

Fortunately, Alya was far back enough that she was able to fall to the floor that didnt crack, barely. But for Chat and Mouse, they fell with it. It was a long three floor fall. The cement and debris fell alongside them as Mouse merged back into herself at the threat of her tinier versions being squished. He could hear her scream, and he heard his scream as well. 

The dust was far from clearing, but Chat could tell that he was under something. And whatever that something was, it was heavy. 

His eyes were firmly shut. Broken shards of glass surrounded him, digging into his skin. If it weren’t for his indestructible suit, he could tell that by the amount of glass alone, he should’ve been dead. It was a struggle just to get his chest to breathe, let alone move an inch, and every single one felt sharp, like he was taking in something he shouldn’t. 

His mind flashed to Ladybug, but she was probably safe elsewhere. He couldn’t worry about her now, he needed to worry about himself. He was being crushed under the weight of a building on top of him. If not a whole building, then a significant chunk of one.

With only a second of thought, he made his best attempt of a yell. “Cataclysm!” And he was finally free.

However, Reverie was just as free, if not more free. She looked more… dishevelled in appearance but the shadows must have helped in excavating her out of the debris.

And on that line of thinking, Chat Noir made the realization that Multimouse was trapped under all of this wreckage. 

She didn’t have a magical way of extracting herself from the mountains of debris, having used her special power already– she could only dig herself out. He winced at the memory of only moments before. 

His eyes searched rapidly for any sign of her underneath the piles. His breathing must have been ragged enough that Reverie spared no more time in trying to steal his Miraculous. He jumped with a start as a tendril knocked him several feet to his back. 

As he struggled to get up, his eye caught on a long length of rope peeking out from between the debris. Multimouse!

The pile wasn’t massive, but it was concrete. Heavy. 

Chat Noir immediately rushed to her side. He started clawing through the rubble, when Reverie appeared behind him, a snarl on the tip of her tongue, as she laser focused on him.

He fended Reverie off as the merest sight of a limb started showing through the rubble. 

Inevitably, he couldn’t both help Multimouse and fight for his life at the same time. With a final look at Multimouse, he was left with no choice other than to let Mouse dig herself out all on her own.

It was dark. Still dark, but the fire that had spread throughout the school lit the surroundings in more ways than one. Chat Noir kept battling Reverie as he knew his time would soon be up, just hoping that Multimouse could dig herself out on his own. Black and the orange glow of the blazing heat reflected off of the debris. And Alya kept filming. 

The Ladyblogger had made her way down the steps of the school with major burns on her legs to show for it. Still, she pointed the camera at the fight with no regrets to be had, standing on her own two feet with commitment. 

The scene was mesmerizing. Cinematic.

A spot in the debris began to shake. She pointed her camera at it with interest, momentarily pulling away from the fight. It was Multimouse– Alya had been looking for her everywhere on the scene, abruptly worried that she may have left before Alya could arrive and stream her leaving. 

The Mouse hero looked frightened. Tired maybe, as the smaller parts of rubble cascaded off of her magically spandexed form. She dusted herself off, and by her stance, Alya could tell that she was ready to spring back into the fight.

When Mouse went rigid. Absolutely rigid, ramrod straight. For a moment, she looked ready to bolt. 

And then, a glow. Alya knew that glow very well.

Multimouse looked… smaller now out of the suit. She looked normal, like… a teenager. Her back was turned to Alya, but with dawning horror, familiarity bloomed in her mind. 

The Ladyblogger kept silent, enraptured, maybe frozen. 

Right before her eyes and the eyes of all of her viewers, a bright light went down the length of the heroine’s body as what she knew was a Kwami shot out of the light. Multimouse de-transformed into a too familiar-figure to the shock of the entirety of Paris, and the wider world.

This will make headlines across the globe. The video will go viral, and everyone will have seen it by the time Alya could even formulate that single thought. 

She watched as Reverie nearly pummeled Chat who had frozen at the sight.

A ray of sunlight had shone through the thick, magical fog, shining light on the figure. The shot was clear, amazingly framed. It was just a girl, back facing the camera and partially knelt down to one side after an unstable rocked sent her tumbling down. She was seemingly unharmed apart from her legs which were red with a deep gash from the stone.

Chat had seen her face, she realized with an audible gasp. Alya couldn’t muster any commentary for her blog, she could only take a breath.

She was startled as she watched Multimouse gradually stand up. And the world felt silent.

And… Alya could recognize that silhouette from anywhere. Those pigtails, that jacket. 

Marinette?!

Chapter Text

Marinette knew this feeling.

She remembered it well, as clearly as she could the breakfast she had yesterday morning. She knew the feeling of her legs starting to twitch, and her feet starting to roll. She knew the feeling of her eyes open, standing so far in the back of her own mind that it was as if she was only a spectator, trapped to her own instinct.

Mari Al Ghul stood up—not Marinette—, looking at Chat with blank eyes, glancing at Alya ( Auburn hair, relatively athletic, could slit her throa- ) who had her phone pointed directly at her.

It wasn’t Marinette when she viciously, silently struck a fight up with Reverie, and definitely wasn’t Marinette when she pulled the knife out of her purse that she painstakingly kept only for emergencies.

So this is who she was. There was no way around it.

Mari moved like a whisper, her movements swift and precise, her body simply an extension of something that was barely even her own will. She moved with the grace of a murmur, her steps soundless as she circled her clueless opponent. Her blade flickered in the light.

Remove everything, all of the years she put into becoming better, the friends she made, the lessons she learned as a supposedly normal girl … was it all for nothing? Leave nothing but instinct, and Mari turns into the cold-blooded assassin she was born to be.

She wasn’t normal. She wasn’t perfect. 

How could she salvage the image she created of herself when she knew that Alya was only a few feet away lighting the fire that will start the next chapter of her life? She wasn’t even sure Alya was aware she was still recording. The look of astonishment— betrayal? —on her face was unnervingly still. 

Everyone in Paris would know what she was, her face would be broadcasted all across the country. Not just that, most likely. Everyone would know who she was and what she was, and so would the people she’s hid so dutifully from for her entire new-life. Or was it one of her past lives now?

Her brother would know. The League would know. Her Maman and Papa would know, her poor Maman and Papa. Her friends, her classmates, her school. Perfect Adrien. Would he pity her? Avoid her forever in fear?

Chat had already snuck off before he de-transformed as well. It was just her against the pale faced, white robed, blindfolded ghoul puppeteering this teenage girl. Reverie.

It was a frostbitten pain in her chest, the only thing she could feel, as she watched herself tuck into a roll dodging confused tendrils floating in the air, gracefully tumbling into a leg-sweep. She was too silent to be heard.

The Akuma held no chance against her, Mari Al Ghul, daughter to a hidden empire, seasoned killer.

Reverie would hear nothing at all.

Mari would never be her idea of normal, she thought, as she watched herself get in reach enough to slit. her. throat. 

What?

A sudden sense of clarity washed over her. Her knees immediately gave in, and she fell onto the concrete in an ungraceful heap. She was going to be sick -

Her entire body shook as she threw herself bodily away before she could do something she would forever regret. She swiftly took Reverie’s staff and held it gingerly. She couldn’t purify it without activating her Ladybug Miraculous.

“M-Marinette-” It was Alya, who still had her goddamn phone pointed at her. The look in her eyes- the look in her eyes. It was haunting. As if she knew what Mari had almost done.

Alya’s seen death before hasn’t she? Akumas have killed a lot of people, more than even she has. But not like this, never like this, right? She didn’t even do it. She– she was so close to doing it, but she didn’t. She didn’t slit Reverie’s throat.

Don’t call me that , she wished she could scream. Her mouth could only open, and it did not make a single sound.

She needed to go. She needed to undo all of this.

She was Ladybug.

As soon as she ducked into a secluded corner, Tikki flew out of her bag with a frenzied squeak. “Snap out of it!”

Snap out of what? Snap out of what? This is who she was, like it or not. This is who she always has been. A killer. 

A killer. 

Killer. Killer. Killer. Killer. Killer—

This, this is what she needed to snap out of. Like a light through the fog, she felt herself start to breathe. Then her throat started to restrict again.

Flashback.

Mari had been six, and it was early in the morning when she was doing her academic tracks. It was before her physical training so she had time to herself which was rare.

A knock at her door. 

Instead of her tutor, an old man with wisdom and blood in his eyes who was supposed to come around this time, a nameless servant came out of the door, bowing deeply at her feet. 

“What is your business?” The little girl asked authoritatively. 

“Your Mother summons you,” the servant answered, their tone even. 

“To her chambers?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Is that all?” Mari asked the servant. The servant dipped their head deeply to show respectful confirmation, “Yes, my lady.”

“You may leave.” 

The servant backed out of the room. The door closed with a soft click.

Her brother would have pestered the servant for more information, but Mari was not nearly as petulant. The servant had likely had other things to do. She herself would not want to be pestered when she had things to do.

There were very few reasons why her Mother would call for her. 

One, which wasn’t uncommon, was for catch-ups. Talia still wanted to get to know her daughter, albeit sporadically and inconsistently. Two, is to spar with Damian. At this, dread started to pour in. 

She’d just met with her mother the other day for a catch-up, so it was likely to be the latter.

As she made her way to her mother’s hall, she quietly despaired about a spar with her brother. Her brother was stronger, faster, smarter, bigger and taller. Spars were pointless in reaffirming anything other than the fact that he was better than her in every single way.

She knew this. Her mother knew this. Her grandfather knew this. 

As she entered her Mother’s hall, her suspicions had been confirmed. Her brother sat beside Mother. He looked like he’d been there for a while, sat primly but comfortably in his seat beside her on their ornate table set and chairs. Her room was much farther than his, in an odd corner far from the important rooms of Nanda Parbat. 

“Daughter,” Talia greeted sharply.

She greeted both in turn although her brother had stayed silent. The siblings didn’t talk. Or in other words, her brother did not talk to her. 

She recalls moments when they were even younger. She rarely ever saw her brother even back then, but when she did, she always tried her best to start a conversation. She knew they were twins, but she grew up hearing about him like an older, more accomplished older brother. If not that, then she only ever heard about him when they were being compared. Never once did he acknowledge her other than with the occasional look of disdain.

“Will me and Damian be sparring today, Mother?” Mari asked plainly, not betraying her inner sense of dread. She was sure her mother saw anyway.

“How about some tea, Daughter?” Talia asked indulgently, offering her a seat at their table and a cup of hot tea. Her mouth quirked.

Mari quickly surveyed the area. It was odd enough that they were summoned to her mother’s hall and not the sparring arena, but her brother was wearing something new too. New clothes? Better equipment? She’d hedged her bets on the former. She didn’t recognize his current attire.

“How are you today, Daughter?” Talia took a quaint sip. Assam tea. The little assassin girl was not fond of black tea, but took a sip anyway.

“I am well. I have practiced my languages and done my arithmetic, but my tutor for world history did not come,” she informed the woman with a polite dip of the head.

“I told your tutor not to come. I summoned you, after all, and your teachers are busy people.” Talia smiled again. 

“Mother, what is the purpose of this meeting?” 

Mari turned, surprised, to Damian who had spoken for the first time in her presence in a very long time. Damian, in his part, looked quite pained to be doing so. 

Talia shook her head in silent laughter as if to say, ‘t hat’s my boy. ’ “You are seven, yes?”

“Yes. You would know, Mother.”

“What do you know about your Father?” Talia asked.

“What you have told me, of course,” said Damian.

Mari had not been told anything. To her mother’s defense, Mari never thought to ask. She’d thought there was no father to speak of, given the odd circumstances of their birth.

“You, Daughter. Do you know anything?” 

She’d said it merely to ask. Talia must’ve known her daughter knew nothing.

“No,” Mari answered.

“Your Father is known as the Batman,” Talia said, to Mari’s surprise. “He is a formidable warrior, a relentless detective, and an infuriatingly stubborn man. He moves through the shadows like a wraith, striking fear into those who would prey on the weak. His mind is as sharp as any blade, always thinking ten steps ahead. He is not a part of this world, but he knows it well. Beneath the mask, he remains my beloved—honorable, compassionate, and burdened by a past he refuses to let go. He denies his true potential, clinging to his rigid code, refusing the power that could be his. Foolish, perhaps. But that is what makes him who he is. That is why I… respect him. He is a good man, and he does not kill.”

Damian reacted as if this was old news. “I know this already, Mother. You’ve told me.”

Mari struggled to keep a straight face. She hadn’t even known she had a father for all this time, and now that she knew about him, all she wanted to do was learn more. Far be it from her to believe every word her mother says, but her mother described him as good . There’s ambiguity to the word, but Mother told them herself that he didn’t kill.

Mari had killed. She’d taken the lives of many men, watched the life leave their eyes as their lives flashed before them. There was a thrill there, a blood lust. A thrill she knew she was supposed to crave.

She didn’t like to kill.

It must have been from her father, because as she looked into the eyes of her mother, she couldn’t see how any remorse could form in those emerald eyes, eyes her brother was oh-so-proud of inheriting.

Talia only tilted her head back, and gestured. “But your sister does not. It wouldn’t be fair for you to know and her to not, yes?”

“I fought for this information.” He crossed his arms. “She is merely given the answers. She does not deserve them.”

The girl in question turned to him. “Why not? Have I not fought? Do I not deserve it too?” 

Her brother did not so much as look at her. But she saw it in his eyes, the contempt he felt for her even daring to ask.

“Of course she needs this information. You will be meeting your Father.”

Their heads snapped to Talia. 

“We will be?” She asked, taken by surprise. 

“No. I would have liked for both of you to meet him,” Damian shot her a dirty look like she shouldn’t have been considered at all, “but unfortunately, your Grandfather has not let me. Only one shall meet the Batman. Your Grandfather already had one of you in mind, but I talked him out of it.”

Talia then stood up, gently putting her tea down, beckoning them to do so as well. “Follow me. Your mats are in the throne room, and your grandfather will be watching. You shall fight to earn the right to live with your father.”

It was as if the floor had dropped from beneath her. All her hopes dashed in a few sentences. Not once had she ever won against her brother. They knew this. 

It was rigged from the start.

“The match will be simple,” Her mother started as they made their way through the winding halls, the twins following closely behind her. “It will not be like your ordinary spars. Your aim is not to subdue, but to make the other bleed first. You are allowed your weapons for this match.”

When they arrived at the Throne Room there were no mats in the room but their weapons were safely to the side. Ra’s was sitting on the throne with his head propped up on one hand. He grandly gestured as they met eyes with him.

“Welcome, Grandchildren. I’m sure you are aware of why you are here. Your Mother requested mats, but this is not a spar. You will fight here, on the floor. We will watch.”

From Talya’s face Marinette surmised that she didn’t like this, but her mother said nothing as she took her seat beside her Grandfather’s throne. 

She needed a plan. 

She needed a great plan to be able to defeat her brother who was larger, stronger, and more experienced. They may have been twins, but they were not born the same. Far from it, from the moment he was born a first and boy, and her second, a girl. 

Their steps didn’t echo. They were better than that.

Each movement was calculated, each breath measured. Immediately, she was at a disadvantage. While Damian had picked up the katana, she favored daggers, a shorter and less ranged weapon. Mari even had a shorter wingspan, another disadvantage.

Their eyes locked in a dance of anticipation, each calculating the other's first move. Mari, her dark hair framing her determined face, moved like a specter in the night, her steps inaudible against the marble floor. 

Her brother with an intensity burning in his eyes, readied himself for the clash.

"I'll enjoy watching you bleed," he taunted, his voice dripping with malice. These were the very first words he had ever said to her, ever. This time, she was the one who stayed silent.

With a swift movement, Mari lunged forward, the clash of steel ringing through the air as their blades met in a shower of sparks. Their dance was a deadly symphony, each move calculated, each strike aimed with fatal precision. They circled each other, a whirlwind of blades and shadows, locked in a deadly dance.

With a sudden burst of speed, her brother lunged forward, his fists a blur of calculated strikes. Mari countered with fluid grace, her movements matching his perfectly . He sidestepped her attack, her blade slicing through the air. 

He aimed a low, vicious strike towards her legs, intending to cripple her mobility. She leapt over the attack, a dance of avoidance that left her momentarily airborne, her own weapon descending in a deadly arc towards his exposed shoulder blades.

The brother rolled away just in time, feeling the wind of her blade pass by, a whisper away from his skin. He regained his footing, his eyes narrowing as he reassessed his opponent. 

She was more than just his feeble sister; she was a nemesis shaped in the same cruel crucible as he, he realized for the very first time.

With a lightning-quick movement, she darted right, her blade slicing through the sleeve of his shirt. Damian’s expression was stony, but a single twitch in his eye betrayed his shock. She has never put up this much of a fight before. But they have never fought with blades, so he wouldn’t know her adeptness. Neither were there stakes too.

They were nearly equal for the first time in their shared existence. Her brother nearly burst into rage; this was the sister who has never been able to defeat him. Where was this that last spar where she didn’t even last a single minute? Where was this when they sparred for the first time and she did not even last ten seconds?

She feinted to the left and then spun, her blade darting out like a serpent’s strike as she targeted his side. He twisted, evading blood by mere inches, and countered with a furious overhead swing aimed at splitting her skull.

The duel escalated, driven by years of festering resentment.  She ducked under the swing, coming up within his guard, her dagger thrusting towards his abdomen. He stepped back just in time, the tip of her dagger grazing the fabric of his clothing once again, perilously close to drawing the line that would end the fight.

With a growl of frustration, the boy launched a series of aggressive attacks, his blade a blur of steel that sought to finally earn his birthright. The sister retreated under his barrage, her mind coldly calculating. As he overextended on a single savage swing, she saw her moment.

Unfortunately, so did he. With a grunt of effort, he feigned a high swing; as she raised her dagger to block, he abruptly switched tactics, sweeping his katana low. Mari leapt high but failed to stick the landing.

Her back hit the earth with a thud, and immediately, Damian’s weight pinning her down, his blade hovering a whisper away from her throat. “Give up, Sister ,” Damian hissed. 

He needed to know for himself; he needed to know that his sister was weak , that she was frail, that she was unworthy of her title as even a spare heir. 

He needed to know that all these years of ignoring her, snobbing her, belittling her existence was deserved. She was a weakling, that is why he did not speak to her. She did not deserve his attention for even a second. 

Mari’s heart pounded, her limbs ached, her throat started to constrict with the thought of never being able to leave. She hated this place, and this place hated her. 

“Don’t worry, my grandson,” came the amused chuckle of their grandfather. “You are allowed to slit her throat if you please.”

It was these words that grew Mari’s resolve with a fierce twist of her hips, she loosened his hold, her hand snaking up to grasp his wrist. She twisted sharply, pain flaring between them. Damian grunted, his grip faltering, and in that sliver of opportunity, she shoved him off with a surprisingly powerful kick.

They grappled. Damian was aggressive, his swings wide and powerful, but Mari was a wraith, slipping past his defenses, a darting shadow that poked and prodded at his resolve.

Rolling to her feet, she pounced, the edge of her dagger pressing against the thin line of sweat at his neck. He froze, his sword falling to the ground with a dull thud. His chest heaved, eyes wide with the stark realization.

Damian’s arm tensed, preparing for the final strike. But as he brought his arm down, the little assassin rolled, pulling him by his arm into her momentum. The ground thudded beneath him, and suddenly, she was on top, her dagger at his throat, her chest heaving with ragged breaths.

It happened in an instant—the tip of her dagger drawing a thin line across his throat. Blood welled from the shallow cut, bright against the pallor of his skin. Her gaze met his, heavy with a victory that brought no joy, only the bitter confirmation of her win. 

She did not offer him her hand once she stood up. She gave him a mere look before she faced her mother and her grandfather who had sat up in shock at the turn of events. 

“This is a surprise. Not necessarily a bad one.” Ra’s stroked his chin, but he was frowning at the boy who was still lying on the ground. “Congratulations, my granddaughter. You get to stay at Nanda Parbat.”

Damian whipped his head to their grandfather as Mari choked a strangled “What?!” out of her sore throat. 

“Don’t look so surprised, Granddaughter. It is much better here than there. You have access to a well of tutors, servants, wealth. Is this not why you fought so hard?” By the expression on Ra’s face, he knew exactly why she fought so hard. He was amused.

She cried in outrage, “but you said-”

“I did not say anything about whether or not it was the victor who earned the right to live with your father. I’m sure your Mother did not either.” He actually seemed quite displeased. “We had an agreement. I follow through.

As Mari looked back through her memories of earlier in the day, she realized, they really hadn’t been told who exactly, victor or loser, would be sent to their father.. 

She crumpled onto the ground as her brother stood up. She looked up at her Mother for some sort of explanation, anything. 

“I did not think you would win,” her Mother revealed to her softly.

And her eyes blurred as the world seemed to close in.

As her pulse quickened at her temple, she felt her feet dart away from the room and past several servants waiting at the door. Faintly, she heard her Grandfather yell out, “get her!”.

She watched herself give chase to a full group of assassins, a good number of them appearing out of intersecting hallways. She knew this place like the back of her hand, and so did they. 

It did not matter. She escaped Nanda Parbat that same day.

For a moment, there was silence, the only sound the pounding of her own heart. When her consciousness came back to her, only then did she realize what she had done. 

She did not go back. 

She hopped on a train heading north and hoped never to see them again. It was only a few months before she arrived in Paris. 

Chapter Text

Damian Al Ghul lost all contact with his sister when she had left at seven years old. When he became Damian Wayne at ten, he stopped thinking about her altogether. 

Except that wasn’t true at all. He didn’t want to think about her, but the thought of her came unwillingly. Sometimes at the sight of other twins who were close, familial. Sometimes at the sight of daggers like the one that cut the skin of his throat that night. Usually at the thought of his brothers who he could finally admit were family despite not boasting any sort of blood connection.

He remembers that fateful day. He remembers the moment when the realization that she was not an invalid, as his Grandfather often implied, struck him. He remembers the rage, he remembers the righteous fury. 

He recalls the feeling of betrayal, that someone so small and weak, someone who had never bested him, could draw his blood in their first serious fight—and win.

She was sharp, as sharp as the blades she was beholden to holding. She was so, so fast. He felt like he could barely keep up when he knew now that he was the one with all of the genetic enhancements. He wondered how much taller he would be compared to her now, if he would still tower over her if she were alive.

But she wasn’t alive. She was killed by their grandfather’s assassins and deemed unworthy of revival in the pits. 

She was seven, and they were seasoned—older, faster, more experienced. She had no chance of surviving that chase. He never even saw her body. They didn’t hold a funeral. It was as if she never existed.

If only he could forget her existence. It had been seven years. He had barely known her.

After her death, he did everything he could to learn all about her. No one ever told him that she had done missions too—dozens of them—that she was a formidable assassin in her own right. That she was competent, smart. She knew twenty more languages than he did at that age, and her studies were so advanced. They never told him she wasn’t just another subordinate in the League.

That she was his sister.

Nobody told him what that meant, what it was supposed to mean. Especially between twins.

Did he regret it? He didn’t know. He was young, a child. Now he was fourteen, and a lifetime older than he had been back then. 

Did he resent her? Maybe. The answer to that question was even more shrouded in darkness. After she had won and she had left and died, his training regiment was essentially doubled. Not only was he haunted by his dead sister's memory, but also her achievements that had come very suddenly into light. 

Grandfather had been furious. He had never yelled or said anything malicious, but he felt the burdening aura that it left them with. 

He had not seen her often. 

But he had still seen her, in passing. In their mother’s chamber. During spars. That day.

When he never saw her again, it was as if a hole in his heart had been carved out. It was a space he’d never even realized he’d lent to her, his precious twin.

They shared a womb together. And yet the people he now calls his family are a ragtag group of adopted children and their Father who she will never meet, and who will never know of her existence.

“Looks like you’re thinking a little too hard there, kiddo.”

Damian scowled. “Richard, you do not think at all.”

Dick pouted, a hand landing on his chest, as if this was the most hurtful thing one could have said to him. Damian rolled his eyes, although he stifled the hint of a smile along the way.

Cassandra Cain observed him quizzically.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dick gave him an easy smile, patting the space beside him. Patrol had just ended for the night, but they sat there on the ledge of a building overlooking the city. Maybe just for a moment.

Damian sat beside him without another word, and Cass took to sitting beside Damian.

“Pennies are practically useless in this economy.”

“Yeah?” Dick chuckled. “A dollar for your thoughts, then.”

“My thoughts are worth far more than a dollar, I’ll have you know.” Damian sighed. “Although, I suppose you can get a family discount.”

Dick warmed at the mention of family, gently bumping elbows with the teenager.

Tim was running on two hours of sleep and fifteen shots of espresso. Why? Insomnia and a mountain of paperwork. He had a company to run, crimes to bust, cases to crack. When did he have time to sleep? Did anyone have time to sleep?

People sleep? Sounded fake.

He was red-eyed and heavily caffeinated when his phone rang. It was Babs. 

“Hey, O. What’s up?” he answered, sounding far more normal than he should after being awake for three days straight.

“...Have you slept at all?”

Dammit. She could tell immediately.

“Maybe. You tell me.”

Barabara sighed. “I’ll ignore it for now. But I’m forcing you to sleep later.”

“Psh. As if.”

“You know I can revoke your tech privileges. I will find a way.”

It was Babs, so the threat was very valid and very much something Tim should be afraid of.

“Fine,” Tim sighed dramatically. “Why’d you call, anyway?”

“There’s a situation in France,” Barbara’s tone turned grave. Tim already didn’t like this.

“We have European heroes in the League to deal with that,” he responded, but he knew that if Babs was bringing it to their attention, it was either world-ending, or somehow personal. Either way, it was important.

“It’s a… special situation. You’ll see,” she said as he received a ping on the Batcomputer. He opened it to find a live feed from someone’s phone. The video was somewhat blurred, likely due to the phone’s limitations and bitrate, but clear enough to see what was happening.

It definitely looked like a situation. In fact, ‘situation’ may have been an understatement. He checked his watch and, no, it definitely wasn’t supposed to be dark in France at that time of day. Plus, there was the fire. And the shadowy, white ghost looking girl beating up a cat boy.

Tim was well aware of the bigger strokes on the hero-villain situation in Paris. Magic was something Tim tried to avoid in general, and the local heroes were handling the situation as far as he knew so there wasn’t any reason for intervention. Plus, a few years back, they declared a no-hero rule on account of their villain’s skillset. So despite the current situation’s weirdness and apparent direness, he was sure that the heroes on that side of the world had it covered.

And then the camera panned over to a girl.

He squinted, leaning closer to the screen as he zoomed in until her face was somewhat clear. Another ping came, and he opened the message to find information on the girl, documentation, and clear photos. ‘Marinette Dupain-Cheng,’ the document read.

She was thirteen, adopted. The photo in the document looked fairly recent, showing an olive face with red cheeks and a hesitant smile. She wasn’t alone in the picture. She was with three other people, presumably her classmates or friends. One he recognized as a teen model and the son of a fashion mogul he’d met at a gala a few times.

He stared at the picture—maybe it was just the sleep deprivation. He furrowed his brows. “...She has Bruce’s eyes.”

“Yeah, she does,” Babs confirmed.

His eyes widened at the realization as his brain caught up to the statement. “Oh, hell no.”

“Oh, hell yes,” Barbara rebutted.

“No fucking way.”

“Rewind the feed to seven minutes earlier,” she sighed.

He watched as two heroes, a mouse heroine, and the black cat hero ( should- should Tim be worried Damian will find a black cat themed person as well? Was it genetic!? ) were caught in a fight against a villain. 

In another tab, he pulled up the blog the feed was from. The Ladyblog. The girl who ran it was the same as one of the people in the picture from earlier.

He winced as he watched the mouse hero get slammed into a pillar, and buried under the rubble. “They’re with the Justice League, right?”

“No, actually, but there have been attempts made to recruit them. They have Diana’s vouch, but they’re not officially part of it.”

He nodded, humming. They seemed somewhat young, but he felt the telltale fuzz in his head that signified magic. They likely had some sort of magic protecting their identities. 

“What type of magic are we looking at?”

“Miraculous. Very classified, apparently. Diana’s guarding the info.”

Out of the bright light, a detransformation of sorts, emerged a familiar face. Damian’s female look alike with Bruce’s eyes. “Ah. So that’s the situation.” 

Barbara audibly sighed in the affirmative. 

“Her civilian identity wasn’t known before this, was it?”

“Nope.”

“Do we have DNA samples?”

He took a sip of his coffee at the exact wrong moment, as ‘Marinette’ suddenly launched herself in an extremely familiar way. The stance, the walk, the attack style. It had the League of Assassins written all over it.

The girl, unmasked, unarmored, but not unarmed, very nearly slit the villain’s throat almost quicker than the camera could pick up. If he didn’t have a trained eye, he wouldn’t have noticed it as instantaneously as he did.

“Do we even need DNA samples?!” He said after a spit take. “This has Talia written all over it.”

“It does, but we still need them,” she responded with a tired lilt in her voice. “That, and we need to tell Bruce.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“Not yet.”

He was suddenly launched into a deeper thought. “Do you think Damian knows?”

“No clue.”

“If he doesn’t then I think we should be a little worried about his reaction.”

“A little?” Barbara chuckled.

“If he does, then that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.”

He was already standing to make his way into the Manor, having pinged the rest of the family. He even messaged Jason and Dick despite them not being in-house. He considered this important enough for a full family meeting. No, this definitely without a doubt warranted a family meeting. 

“Family meeting?” Barbara inquired, already knowing the answer.

“Family meeting.” He answered tiredly, pinching the space between his brows.

"See you there." She ended the call.

Chapter Text

Damian was doing his homework when he got the text from Tim. The entire available family was summoned to the Batcave for an urgent meeting. 

Steph wouldn’t be able to come as she was currently away on a mission, and Cass had come with her. Which meant it would be him, his father, Dick and Jason as well as Babs (who he’d like to add wasn’t even an official part of the family). But Babs was always listening in anyway.

(Would his twin sister be considered an official part of the family?)

As Damian stepped into the Batcave, he felt the weight of everyone’s gaze. An unusual tension hung in the air, amplifying his sense of foreboding that washed over him.

“Damian,” his Father greeted, the concern on his face betrayed by the line of his brow.

“Little D!” Dick smiled dopily. Damian scowled but let his oldest brother go in for a hug with little struggle.

“Okay, great!” Tim stood up, putting his hands together. “We’re all here.”

“ Okay, great! We’re all here ,” Jason repeated mockingly. “Some of us got shit to do, y’know,” he drawled. 

Drake rolled his eyes. “No one dragged you here, so stop complaining.” 

He cleared his throat before pulling up a video onto the Batcomputer's screen.

“I got news from Babs today. She sent me this video from just an hour ago which was a live from Paris streamed by the teenage blogger Alya Cesair, also known as the Ladyblogger.” He unpaused during a moment where two figures were clear in the shot: a mouse girl and a black cat themed individual engaged in a fight with someone off screen. Heroes, presumably.

“Is this something to do with Selina? Did she pull a Bruce with a French cat boy ?” Dick asked incredulously.

“No.” 

“ Phew .”

“It’s worse, actually.” 

Dick frowned.

“Just watch,” Drake told them as they sat in silence.

As the ex-assassin scrutinized the mouse girl’s movements, he recognized the telltale signs of LOA training—precise, lethal, yet oddly imperfect. It was as if she was intentionally sabotaging her own techniques. Why would someone with such elite training hold back? 

The duo were clearly losing due to this fact. They were also disorganized but it seemed more due to the situation than anything else.

Eventually, it had all come to a head with a cinematic explosion and a building collapse. They collectively winced at the sight, though breathed a sigh of relief when they appeared largely unharmed.

And then the screen flashed.

“Goddamn,” Jason swore. The mouse girl was engulfed with a bright light, revealing-

Tim kept a close eye on Damian, noting the growing tension in the room. 

In an instant, Damian had gone pale. He was frozen, and his fingernails started subtly digging into the fabric of his shirt. His eyes were wide, a rare expression of utter shock evident on his face. 

Tim could guess that he definitely knew at least something, probably more than just ‘something’. And he wasn’t the only person in the room to observe this. Bruce was… well, broody as he always was, but his broodiness pointed towards Damian when he eventually pulled his attention away from the girl on the screen.

“She looks... exactly like Damian,” Dick murmured, his eyes widening as the light faded to reveal the girl’s face on the screen. 

Barbara chose that exact moment to take a very loud sip of her matcha boba tea as Bruce’s shoulders went very stiff.

“ She is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, who has, as of one hour ago, been revealed as the Paris-based heroine Multimouse,” Tim prefaced, pulling up the same image Babs pulled on him earlier that day. “She’s thirteen according to documentation, and she was taken in by a husband and wife who own a patisserie. There’s nothing available on her actual birth other than what was stated upon adoption. The farthest any sort of documentation of her goes is seven years ago when she first appeared in Paris. Actually there were documents, but they all appear to be either forged or highly suspicious.”

Jason looked incredulously back and forth between the oldest bat and the picture of this Marinette girl. “No fucking way.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what Tim said,” Barbara smiled.

Tim huffed. “Yes, thank you, Babs.”

Bruce’s eyes softened over the screen. “She has my eyes,” he practically whispered.

“Do we know if she’s really…” Dick trailed off, tearing his eyes away from the uncharacteristically emotional display from his adoptive dad.

“We’re working on getting in contact. Babs has been monitoring her closely since the livestream but we’ve lost her a couple of times. It’s tricky with cameras, and it does seem like she’s LOA trained. We haven't been in official contact with her adoptive parents, but as far as we can tell they have, or had, no clue either.”

“Do we have a DNA sample at this current point?” Bruce asked, his voice thick, but the image of composure. Tim could tell he was very upset.

“No. There should be… when Marinette got out of the rubble, she was injured on the rocks. But Paris has a specific type of magic. Any damage done during fights is eventually reversed by the main heroine, Ladybug, who wasn’t present in the video.”

“So we have no way of really confirming if she’s really Bruce’s.” 

“I dunno, Dickie. Seems like evidence enough to me!” Jason gestured wildly at the screen. 

“We need to be sure,” Bruce voiced. A storm brewed in his eyes.

“Well, I’m pretty sure we have a way to be, actually,” Tim sighed. “Hey, Damian…”

Damian couldn’t breathe.

He would know that figure from anywhere. 

He would know it from his dreams, the ghost of a girl that he never got to know. He would know that face because it was his own that stared back at him in the mirror albeit softened and feminine, marked by different scars. 

She was older, wearing a dark gray blazer with rolled-up sleeves over top a white shirt with embroidered flowers. She was still short but she was taller than she was when they were kids. The video wasn’t of the highest quality, but he could tell that she was panting with exhaustion. Breathing.

He’d always considered the possibility that she was very much alive, but never to the extent that he’d allowed himself to believe it. 

It could be someone that only looked remarkably like her. It was a one in one-hundred-and-forty chance, but there were eight billion people currently alive on Earth, a doppelganger was entirely in the realm of possibility. 

The thought perished the same millisecond he recognized the flex of her feet, the fluid rigidity of her shoulders. The perfect demonstration of what he remembered of her stance before the fight.

This was his twin sister.

She was supposed to be dead.

“-amian? Chum?” Damian’s eyes refocused to the sight of his Father, and Grayson with a hand on his shoulder with almost identical looks of concern etched onto their faces.

“You know her,” Tim’s voice cut through the heavy air.

The accusation almost sent Damian back into whatever that state where he could barely breathe was, but he’d nipped it in the bud before further embarrassment. His eyes shot over to Drake, leaning knowingly against a chair, arms crossed, with an expression that he wanted to slice off of his face. 

He stayed silent. His mouth felt dry.

“Do you know her, Damian?” Father asked the question this time, practically looming over him.

He didn’t know what to say.

“Dami?” His oldest brother’s eyes are what broke him.

“No.”

“You don’t know her then,” Drake said, disbelieving, in a flat tone.

His voice wavered despite a stony expression never leaving his face. “I… never actually knew her.”

“So you know about her then. Marinette,” Grayson deduced. His eyes bore into him, searching for answers.

“It’s not Marinette,” Damian growled. “It’s just Mari .”

Bruce took a loud breath. “Mari Al Ghul?” 

Damian squeezed his eyes shut. It was his first time ever saying her name out loud, the first time hearing it back in literal years.

It was Jason’s turn to rattle him. “Hey, Demon Spawn, you should probably fess the fuck up.”

Fess up to what? Nobody had ever asked before this moment. There was nothing to ask. Supposed to be nothing to ask, at least. 

She was supposed to be dead.

“She was supposed to be what now?” Grayson asked. Damian thought he’d only said it in his head.

“Why is she supposed to be dead, Damian?” Drake looked hesitant, haunted. As if he was preparing for an answer he didn’t want to hear. A question and an accusation all at once.

“I didn’t kill her.” 

“Nobody said you did.”

There was a heavy pause where it seemed as if no one could move.

Damian was at a loss for words. He knew he should say something. At least enough to placate or reassure. There were so many things he could have said, so many things he should say at that moment. None of which came to him. 

“Mari Al Ghul,” he whispered, barely audible against the white noise of the cave. “And she’s not thirteen, she can’t be. We were born on the same day. She was– is my twin sister.”

Another heavy, meaningful pause.

“You have a sister that you never told us about,” Bruce said. His voice trembled with shock.

“They told me she died.”

“Clearly, she didn't,” Jason snarked.

“I can see clearly for myself,” Damian snarled.

“Not enough that you just up and decided not to tell anybody, now do you?”

“Boys.” They glanced over at Bruce, before their eyes landed back to each other.

Damian stared at his older brother, his eyes dark. "You wouldn’t understand," he spat, fists clenching at his sides.

Jason scoffed, his brow furrowed. "Try me."

The words were barely out of his mouth when Damian lunged, his movement a blur. The punch aimed at Jason’s jaw was swift and unexpected, but Jason’s reflexes were just as fast. He deflected the blow with his forearm, the impact reverberating up its muscled length.

"Damian, what the fuck?" Jason growled, ducking under a high kick and countering with a low sweep. Damian jumped, avoiding it, and aimed a kick at Jason’s chest. It connected despite their size difference, sending Jason stumbling back.

Jason’s eyes hardened. He straightened, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. 

“Stop! The both of you!” Grayson’s yell blended in with the sound of fists meeting flesh and the occasional grunt filling the air.

Jason caught Damian’s wrist mid-punch, twisting it and using the momentum to flip him onto the ground. Damian rolled with the fall, bouncing back up with a growl, launching himself at Jason again.

It was terribly familiar, grappling on the ground like this, even with no dagger or sword.

“ Boys !” Bruce’s voice cut through the tension like a knife, bringing both Damian and Jason to a halt. 

Jason yanked himself off of the ground with a scoff as he was left to flounder on the cold floor, flooded with memories of a fight just like this.

Barbara took another very audible sip of her matcha boba tea.

Tim turned to her, a flat look on his face. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”

“A-plus quality entertainment.”

Bruce had been devastated when Damian first appeared four years ago—a son he never knew existed. The shock of discovering a ten-year-old boy with familiar eyes and a shared frown, embodying a life he had missed, left him reeling.

His thoughts turned to the lost years, those precious moments of childhood that he would never get back. First steps, first words, even the first time he picked up the swords he cared for so dearly.

He saw himself in those eyes despite them being his mother’s, a mirror of his younger self, and it struck him just how much he had missed. He wanted to reach out, to pull his only blood son into an embrace, but he will never be able to bridge the gap of those ten years he should’ve been. 

He vowed that he would never let anything like it happen ever again.

And yet here he was. With a daughter on the other side of the world who had his eyes, and his son’s face. With a life he has never been a part of. With a name he learned just a few minutes ago who he has never actually met.

Bruce rubbed a tired hand over his face, trying to mask the storm of emotions churning within. “I have another daughter,” he whispered, the weight of those words pressing down on him. 

“Yup. A bio daughter. In Paris. A magical girl superhero,” Barbara added, helpfully. With jazz hands.

Chapter Text

Ladybug appeared behind Alya, swinging into the scene with perfect composure—if it weren’t for the fact that her hands were clenched on her side. Ladybug acknowledged her with a shallow nod but never met Alya’s eyes despite an apparent smile on the heroine’s face. 

“Are you okay?” Alya was asked. The question made her blood boil.

“No,” Alya spat. “Where were you? You were needed out there. What were you doing that was so important that you couldn’t help Chat and M-Multimouse? Do you even know what happened because you weren’t there?”

She shoved her camera into Ladybug’s face who just didn’t react. 

“End the stream, Alya.” Ladybug’s voice was hard. 

Alya didn’t argue. She couldn't bother with an outro, so she ended it with quivering fingers and a deep, shaking breath. 

Her best friend was a hero, Multimouse, the last of the roster of Paris heroes and she almost slit an Akuma’s throat.

She felt her knees weaken as she leant on a pillar for support. Alya would have collapsed otherwise. The atmosphere felt stale to Alya as Ladybug reversed the damage with an unsettlingly dark call of “Miraculous Ladybug” for the brightly spotted heroine.

Why wasn’t she there? Why didn’t she help Marinette, why wasn’t she there to save the day? 

Ladybug just left Chat Noir and Mutlimouse there to fail. Where was she?

The adrenaline was gradually starting to wear off even as Ladybug left the scene. Alya just felt drained. It was on autopilot that she pulled her phone up to her face and dialed a number, the first number she could think of.

“Alya? Is that you?” Nino’s voice came through the speakers. Alya stewed in silence.

“I’m with Adrien. I– I saw your live.”

“Yeah…” Her answer was less word and more shaky breath. 

“Marinette. Is she with you?”

Alya shook her head before realizing that she should answer with something he’d be able to hear on call. She answered no.

“Can you find her?”

Alya took a cursory glance around. “I don’t think so… She’s gone. I’m pretty sure she ran.”

“So I’m not dreaming then,” Alya whispered. Nino could hear the shock in her voice despite the technological barrier. Nino was similarly shocked, but being safely at home was different than being on-scene. Even if he’d watch it the whole way through. 

Adrien was going through it as well. Nino had no clue where Adrien was during the time they were separated, but as evidenced by the fact that he was lying listlessly on his bedroom’s sofa, it must have been a lot. Nino was fortunate enough to have just gone home. 

“Shared psychosis is an option,” he only half joked. He honestly wished it was shared psychosis.

“Not at this point…” A shaky breath went through the phone speakers. A pause. “How many views does it have– the live? I don’t think I can look at it right now.”

He squeezed his phone between his shoulder and his head as he looked it up on his laptop. “It’s at 900k.”

“That’s… great for the blog.”

There was a silence over the call as he listened to Alya take little hurried breaths. “Can I come over?” Alya asked in a small voice.

“Yeah, definitely." Nino said softly. "You can crash with Adrien, he’s behind me right now—hasn’t said a word.” Nino’s eyes snuck a glance at Adrien, the ordinarily sunny and composed model, slumped against the bean bag in his room, despondent with his eyes open against the ceiling, seemingly in deep thought. "I'm kind of worried, actually," he awkwardly chuckled.

Nino could feel for his friends—he felt it too. The thought that Marinette was one of the remaining heroes protecting the city was terrifying. Marinette had always been a badass. But this, he never would have expected.

Not to say the reveal didn’t change things, but it was still Marinette at the end of the day. He wasn’t in a position to judge—he was once Carapace. He might've lost his job to protect the city, but he promised he would protect his friends.

Marinette was his friend. As soon as everyone could properly breathe again, he’d bring them all to the bakery and they were all going to have cookies and ice cream like they said they would back during lunch time—before the whole debacle.

They would need to do it soon, he thought as he peeled curtains away to look at the sky through his window. The sun was about to set, and the day would end sooner than later. It was unfortunate, because the entire day had already been plunged in darkness.

When Mari was at the border of Kyrgyzstan, still on the run, she broke her precious dagger.

Only a foot in length, it was delicate, yet there was an unmistakable aura of lethal precision about it. The blade, forged from purest silver, shimmered like a moonbeam, sharp enough to cut bone.

The hilt was wrapped in black leather, fitting snugly in the palm, balancing perfectly between weight and grace—a tool designed for the deftest of hands. At its pommel, a single emerald gleamed like a drop from the Lazarus Pits, encased in a claw-like setting of twisted silver.

It had been the same one she used in her final moments in Nanda Parbat. One would barely be able to tell. There was no innocence to the blade, but it was clean of her brother’s blood, and she tried to maintain it every night before she slept. It was her only keepsake apart from the clothes she brought on her back.

She had it reforged by a blacksmith she found in a neighboring country, Uzbekistan, before she crossed the Kazakh border. She later sold the emerald formerly attached to it, earning her enough money to eat.

She didn’t know if he was a good man, but he was good to her in the week that it took to fix the dagger, turning it into a smaller knife, easier to conceal—barely the length of a hand.

He already knew too much by just knowing of her existence, and Mari hadn’t quite shaken the habit of no witnesses . He would be the last man she killed.

Now, Mari couldn’t kill everyone who knew too much, as the thought sprung to the forefront of her mind, knife in hand. There were too many people—a whole city, more than that if the footage went viral. Which it already probably had.

The thought left bile in her throat, but she couldn’t just shake the thought off. Maybe it was the fact that she’d almost slit a girl’s throat—however impermanent it would have been—just some odd thirty minutes ago.

As soon as she found herself alone, she couldn’t help but pull everything she could find out about Reverie’s real identity. Her name was Amelija, and she recently moved to Paris after being the victim of severe bullying from previous schools. 

“I thought it would be different here,” the blind girl had confessed to Ladybug, sobbing. She clung onto the superheroine. “Thank you, thank you! I-I promise I didn’t want to hurt anybody. You’re my hero!”

Ladybug could only think about Amelija’s scarless neck as she handed the girl to her parents, who came to pick her up.

She had fled before another detransformation could ruin her life, finding herself in the back end of a clothing store where she could disguise herself without being seen.

That she was revealed as Multimouse was already a disaster, it would be a complete catastrophe if people discovered she was Ladybug. 

There was no hiding from the League now that she was catapulted into the spotlight. She would have been a target regardless of her real identity– but the fact that she was born Mari Al Ghul only doubled the massive target on her back.

There was no doubt that not only did Ra’s know, but her brother would know as well. She couldn’t even fathom the thought of their mother and father. She doubted that Damian would have told the Dark Knight, or anyone for that matter.

Mari knew it was only a matter of time until the League sent assassins after her. Nobody was safe, now more so than ever. Not her adoptive parents, not her friends, not her classmates, not her crush. It dawned on her that she would never be able to go back to that life—Mari would never be able to be Marinette Dupain-Cheng again. 

She would never live to see her dreams come true. She would never have a normal life.

She felt like a ghost as she approached the patisserie, finding it surrounded by a crowd of rambunctious reporters, each yelling and circling the building like a flock of vultures.

She didn’t know if she could face her Maman and Papa. She knew she needed to, with the people who would hurt them to hurt her. But all she wanted to do was run while the little assassin girl in her head told her to just leave Paris and start a whole new life. She couldn’t.

It was very easy to slip back into old habits and worn habits. Mari crouched behind the trees bordering the building, as close as she could get without being spotted. The reporters were clustered mainly near the entrance, their cameras flashing sporadically as they yelled questions at the glass panels.

A quick scan confirmed that the reporters’ attention was elsewhere, giving her a momentary window of opportunity. She darted from her hiding spot, her footsteps silent on the pavement. As she neared the building, she pressed herself flat against the wall, hidden in the shadows cast by the setting sun.

She’d always been at home in the shadows, however much she denied it.

Mari moved along the side of the building, her fingers treading lightly against the brick surface until she found the spot she knew very well she could climb. A narrow maintenance ladder was bolted to the wall, partially hidden by an overgrown ivy trellis. She glanced around once more to ensure no one was watching before she began her ascent.

She hauled herself onto the rooftop balcony, not breaking a single sweat. She was positive no one had seen her, but it was always better to be cautious. She crouched low, staying in the shadows to avoid the single security camera perched near the corner of the building across the street.

Mari crept over to the hatch and examined the lock as she pulled out the key from her purse. She landed soundlessly inside. She crossed to the window and peered out through the curtains. Below, the reporters were still clustered, their attention fixed on the building's entrance. She smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

For the past six years, her room was the only real place where she felt a rare sense of peace. She let her eyes wander about the pink walls, her sewing machine, her dresser in the corner, the quaint little stairs that led down from her beautiful loft bed. She would have reminisced if it weren't for the fact that her home was already eerily silent.

She moved with practiced stealth, avoiding even the slightest sound that might betray her presence. Her frame was cloaked in darkness, blending seamlessly with the shadows that clung to the dimly lit staircase as her heart started to thud in her chest.

As she descended, Mari's mind raced. Her senses tingled with unease, feeling something amiss even before she reached the bottom. The air was thick with tension, a stark contrast to the warmth and safety she usually felt on these steps. Now, as she approached the ground floor, her worst fears were confirmed.

At the foot of the stairs, Mari stood frozen. Her adoptive parents, whom she loved dearly despite the layers upon layers of secrets she kept from them, were bound and gagged to their chairs, their eyes wide with fear and confusion.

Standing before them, like a specter from her haunted past, was a woman whose piercing gaze locked onto Mari's own. It was Mother, Talia al Ghul, the assassin herself. Her presence was both terrifying and surreal. She didn’t look any older than she did seven years ago—she looked exactly as she did in Mari’s memory.

Talia turned as Mari approached, despite the silence of her footsteps. Her expression softened into a genuine smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Mari,” she said softly, her voice tinged with a mix of longing and regret, “you look beautiful.”

Mari clenched her fists, torn. Talia's presence was a reminder of a life she had fled, but there was also a flicker of something deeper, buried beneath the layers of pain.

“What are you doing here, Talia?” Mari asked, her voice barely a whisper as she fought to keep her composure.

Talia’s smile faltered. “That's cold, daughter. You won’t even call me Mother.”

“What are you doing here, Mother ?” Mari reiterated, a growl in her cadence. Her heart pounded in her chest, a mix of anger and dread surging through her.

“I came to see you,” Mother replied, her eyes searching Mari’s face for any sign of understanding. “To make things right.”

Mari’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “Let my parents go, and then you can make things right, you asshole.”

Talia's gaze dropped. “They seem nice.” Her mother's eyes met her Maman's, which were wide. “Did these… plebs teach you that word? I sure did not.”

"This isn't a game, Talia," Mari spat, her voice trembling with rage. "Let them go. They have nothing to do with this."

"Oh, Mari," she chided, her tone mockingly maternal. "What happened to you?"

Mari's jaw tightened. "I chose a different path. One that doesn't involve killing innocent people."

Talia’s expression hardened, the concerned glint returning. "And look where that got you. I saw the video, you know.”

Mari flinched at the reminder.

“You know that I’ve never wanted to kill. You pitted me against Damian,” the name felt strange on her tongue. “You knew how much I wanted out. You rigged the game.”

Talia's expression softened for a fleeting moment, a hint of genuine remorse flickering in her eyes. "I thought it was best for you," she admitted, her voice tinged with regret. “If you would've just lost, you would be in America. I thought you’d be able to go to your father. Your real father,” Talia glanced in disdain at her Papa.

"But look at you now, so strong, so capable,” she continued.

Mari shook her head. "I'm not like you," she insisted, her voice firm.

"You have my blood running through your veins, Mari. You can't deny who you are."

In a swift motion, Mari moved toward her parents, intent on freeing them from their restraints. But Talia was faster. With a fluid grace that belied her lethal intent, she intercepted Mari, blocking her path with ease.

"You can't protect them from me," Talia whispered, her voice chillingly calm as she brandished a slender blade. “You are an al Ghul. Your blood does not lie here with common bakers.”

Mari's heart pounded in her chest as she faced the full weight of Talia's menace. Years of training and resilience surged within her, a fierce determination to protect the family she had chosen over the darkness that consumed her early life.

With a surge of adrenaline, Mari lunged at Talia, their bodies colliding in a chaotic struggle. The room filled with the clash of metal as mother and daughter unsheathed their blades. 

She knew she couldn't match Talia's strength head-on; instead, she relied on her speed and agility to find openings in her mother's defenses.

Mari darted forward, her dagger slashing through the air with a flurry of strikes aimed at Talia's throat. Talia parried each blow with calm precision, her strength evident in the way she effortlessly deflected Mari's attacks.

Mari was well aware that the fight was unmatched—she was rusty. It had been years since a proper spar. The clash of steel rang out, echoing in the confined space of the room.

Mari was Ladybug. Ladybug did not fight like this. 

Mari launched herself forward once more, her knife slashing toward Talia's exposed flank. Talia twisted aside, deflecting the blade with a swift movement of her sword. In the same fluid motion, she countered with a sweeping arc aimed at Mari's neck.

Time seemed to slow as Mari's instincts kicked into overdrive. She dropped low, narrowly avoiding the lethal edge of Talia's sword. But before she could react, Talia's boot connected with Mari's side, sending her crashing to the floor.

"You're fast, Mari," Talia remarked quietly, her voice tinged with a hint of admiration amidst the tension. "But you still have much to learn." She knelt down, looming over her daughter. “You know, you never completed your training.”

Talia's expression remained impassive, her sword pressing against Mari's throat with dangerous insistence. It was all too familiar.

Mari gritted her teeth. "I won't be like you," she vowed, her voice trembling. “You told me Father doesn’t kill. The Dark Knight’s blood runs through my veins too.”

“Guess we don’t need that DNA test, Dickiebird.”

Their heads whipped to the side as a figure clad in a leather jacket with a red helmet emerged from the window, brandishing several guns on his hip. Another figure approached from behind him in tight black spandex and blue bird motifs.

“Jason, Richard, how nice of you to join us,” Talia drawled, but there was a genuine warmth layered in with the sarcasm. “Is my beloved here?”

Mari shoved her mother off of her as she carefully maneuvered her way out of arm’s reach of Talia’s blade.

“Hey, Talia. Funny meeting you here.”

Chapter Text

Damian had opted out of the mission to make contact with his sister (refused to speak and then locked himself in his room). They didn’t have time to coax more of an answer from him, they needed to go.

Tim had been gearing up too, but ‘decided’ to take a nap at Barbara’s ‘request’.

“Hey, Talia. Funny meeting you here,” Red Hood snarkily remarked as he leaned against the Dupain-Chengs’ windowsill, a hip cocked out.

They came as soon as they could with what little time they had to prepare. They were used to it, being vigilantes and all. Even still, the sun had begun to set on the city as the Bats arrived in Paris via Zeta. 

Oracle managed to inform them that Talia had made it to the bakery first, but they didn’t need the intel to know that; their perch on a neighboring rooftop overlooked the Dupain-Cheng household. The mother-daughter duo was visible from the window. And what a duo they were. 

Talia, all of her lethal aura and long lines, loomed over Jason’s new little sister with a sword against her neck, a sliver of light reflecting off of its steel surface and onto her hard blue eyes. To her credit, she didn’t waver as she glared up at Talia. 

“And it’s Red Hood to you,” He added after a moment, pulling his eyes away from the girl.

Up close, she wasn’t very tall or much like Damian, though in the video, you could almost mistake one for the other. In reality, while you could tell they were identical twins the difference was apparent.

“Marinette'' was quite shorter than her twin brother, more than his concurrent growth spurt accounted for. They were both tan, but she was much scrawnier, looked a little younger even. Her face was a little rounder at the cheeks.

Damian’s hair was firmly black, with maybe a little bit of brown if the sunlight hit it just right. Marinette’s was almost blue even in the dark and obviously much longer.

Hood sighed as Nightwing jumped in after him with a somersault. “In regards to your ‘beloved’...”

As if right on cue, the door slammed open to reveal the Batman. His intimidating silhouette enveloped the room with a long black shadow, illuminated with the warm light of the hallway behind him flickering on. His cape fluttered lightly behind him as he stepped into the room with a heavy foot.

“Dramatic ass…” Hood voiced prompting Nightwing to snicker.

Talia purred, allowing the girl beneath her to maneuver herself free as the woman made long, sensual strides toward the Detective. “Beloved, it’s been far too long,” she said silkily.

“Talia,” Batman replied with a grunt. 

Talia gave him a single look as she took their daughter into her arms and away from untying the bound couple in the middle of the room. Which, yeah. He and Wing should be getting on untying them.

The girl halfheartedly thrashed, never once tearing her eyes away from the hardwood floor. She didn't want to see the man who'd just entered the room. She’d spent all this time, avoiding any mention or news of him. 

It was a futile attempt. She gave in as she at last saw her father for the very first time. 

Well, more like she looked up at him through her lashes, and furrowed brows. Her forehead creased slightly, her mouth in a thin line. It was such a Bruce expression that the brothers were beginning to seriously doubt why they ever thought they’d need the paternity test.

There was a pause as the room seemed to take a breath.

“I thought you’d be shorter,” she said, almost breathless.

Silence.

Nightwing squawked as Hood guffawed.

 Mari turned to them a scowl on her face. “Is this funny to you?”

“The resemblance is truly uncanny,” Dick said as the ropes slid off of the bakers.

Honestly, Mari truly could have figured out her father’s identity with only a little bit of looking.

But time and time again, she reminded herself. The past was the past, and she never needed to go back. She staunchly refused to look into the Bat clan. She already knew Batman, and the other two that entered from the window. Notorious former crime lord the Red Hood and Bludhaven vigilante Nightwing.

She’d heard all about the Gotham vigilantes from Alya. Her best friend was positively obsessed with heroes. Everything Mari knew about her father was from her, and for years she deluded herself into thinking her curiosity was nothing more than that. Not a burning urge to learn all that there was to know about that unknowable figment of her life.

She was an idiot. Look at her now, face to face with her biological father, being held by Mother who she once swore she would never see again.

She went through about a million different things she could have done differently, a million different things she could have done to prepare for this certain circumstance in her head. She had a million different contingencies locked and loaded and yet somehow none of them seemed to encompass this situation.

How had her life burned so quickly where seven years suddenly seemed to amount to nothing?

As she stared up at Batman, she couldn’t help but take note of him. Knowing her mother’s exceeding height, she expected to have gotten her stature from him. Looking at her father now, she could refuse the notion. 

This man was almost as wide as he was tall, and he seemed to be nearly double her height. He had the sort of air floating around him that could strike fear into even the most ferocious of men. 

He was stiff, but looked relatively lax in an upright position—except she could tell in her bones that his were chock full with power. Even like this, he could spring into a fight with barely a moment's notice. There wasn't a way she could slit his throat. If she sprung on him now, she would be completely overpowered, and she didn't even know what kind of weapons or gadgetry he had hidden on his person. She didn't stand a chance.

“Doesn’t she have the most beautiful eyes?” Her mother purred once again.

“You didn’t tell me I had a daughter.” The Dark Knight never once glanced down at her. She’d tracked his eyes the moment he appeared in the room. This man was her father, and yet he couldn’t even look at her.

Go figure. Not even a minute of knowing her, he was already put off.

“It seems your son did not either.”

“You never told me about him, before he just appeared already ten years old.” Even barely knowing the man, she could decipher the upset in his tone.

“Oh. it must have slipped my mind,” Talia said lightly. Mari didn’t realize her father wasn’t even aware they existed. 

“Slipped. Your mind.” Batman repeated, voice gruff.

Mari felt a shift in Talia around her. She really needed to get out of her grasp. Her mother’s arms were cold, but she could almost imagine herself slinking into them as a daughter should. Mari perished the thought.

“I would have told you if I could. It wasn’t my idea. You know, Mari was supposed to be with you, not… here.” Mari bristled, but Mother’s tone didn’t feel patronizing or cold. Surprisingly, it sounded admonishing of herself. 

“And what of Damian,” said Father. It didn’t exactly sound like a question, but it was clearly intended to be. Damian , she almost laughed. It always circled back to him, even if she was right there in front of him. He still hadn’t looked at her.

“Damian and Mari, they never got along. They are twins, but they were not born the same.”

Only because of the League, Mari thought ruefully. “Of course we never got along,” she muttered. “You know Damian. And you always pit us against each other.”

“And I have regretted it ever since.”

Mari scoffed. “You know his first words to me? ‘I'll enjoy watching you bleed’.”

Something flashed in Batman’s eyes. Talia saw it as well. “She was supposed to go with you," Talia hurried to explain. "Damian thrived in the League. Ra’s favored him. He was the heir,” she revealed. 

“So I would know her instead of him, then. He would have become a killer.”

We were both killers, Mari didn't dare exclaim. 

“You would have met him eventually,” Talia replied.

“Eventually.” Batman growled.

Before he could formulate a response, Mari chuckled darkly. It silenced the rest of the room.

“It’s always about Damian, isn’t it?” She huffed. “It’s fine, just let me go, and I can disappear. You don’t need to see me ever again, and you can go back to pretending I don’t exist.” She directly addressed her mother.

She tried to writhe away from Talia, but her mother’s arms held tight. She was surprised to catch a quick glimpse of hurt in the woman’s eyes.

“Just let me go,” Mari snarled.

“I can’t,” Talia refuted stiffly. “I cannot let you go.”

“Yes you can. You don’t need me. That world doesn't need me.”

Talia smiled. “You think I want to return you to the League?”

Mari blinked. “... You don’t?” Talia finally let her shake free from her grasp. She landed squarely beside her Father who was as stiff as a board letting the interaction go forward.

“No. I’ve done all that I can to prolong their arrival to Paris, but I suspect your Grandfather’s people will be here any minute now. You’re lucky I was alerted first, because he'll do anything to take you back.”

The look on her face was enough for Talia to answer. “He sees your potential. You beat Damian, and you escaped Nanda Parbat. He's already surrendered your precious brother to my beloved. He wants you as heir.”

Without missing a beat, Mari bared her teeth. “He won’t get me.”

At the same time, Batman answered. “We can protect her.”

“I don’t need protecting.” Her head whipped to him so fast that he didn't have the opportunity to look away. After a beat, he turned to look at several picture frames on the wall but Mari knew he looked, even if just for a second. 

"Look at me," she demanded. She didn't care that he was intimidating, she didn't care that he was strong or that he was massive, that he could take her with barely a fight. All that she saw in him now was the man half responsible for her existence, the masked father who didn't raise her and never knew. When he still wouldn't look, she demanded again this time louder with more fury in her voice.  

"Look at me."  

She could see the quiver in his eyes. They moved, agonizingly slow, but eventually, the made it to her face. She refused to admit how the look almost made her step back.

“I can protect myself,” she glared, and  her voice came off as far more stable than she felt. 

“We can protect you,” he repeated, almost in a growl.

Mari’s gaze hardened, and her fists clenched. “I should leave,” she said, barely above a whisper. She glanced at the ‘family’ with a steely look, “If he’s looking for me, he will find me. But he’ll be looking for me here, and they-” She glanced at her maman and papa, “don’t deserve to get caught in the crossfire.” 

She glared again at Talia who didn't even have the decency to look even slightly admonished.

There was a beat of silence before a curt, “Let's go,” from Batman.

She felt another wave of emotion go through her, and despite herself, she turned around to face her father. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t need you to protect me.”

What Bruce saw in his daughter's ( his blood daughter ) eyes were a stubborn reflection of his own headstrong determination. What he saw in her was the same steel he saw in himself all those years ago in the mirror as a young man. He wouldn't wish those years on anyone, let alone on someone he already knew he would go to hell for and back. He only had to hear his daughter's voice to know that one look would make his resolve come crumbling down.

With only a glimpse, all that he wanted to do was whisk her into his arms and back into Gotham with his horde of other children. 

“I am your father,” he said in a low voice.

“Only in blood,” she growled, and he saw Damian in her as well.

Behind them, Nightwing and Hood finally fully untied the baker couple, ungagging them as well. Nightwing tried to quietly shuffle them out through the window. Unfortunately, they just would not budge. 

For being such a small woman, Sabine Dupain-Cheng was a firecracker of a woman with soft eyes and a determined jaw.

She, bravely, started marching over to the assassin, her daughter, and Batman with her head held surprisingly high. The sound of her footsteps of course alerted all three, and they turned to her instead of each other. 

Talia raised a single plucked brow while father and daughter wore identical masks of utter composition.

Tom nervously trailed behind her, but the two heroes stopped him, which was a task. Tom was a very large man, even larger than Batman. As much as he seemed like a soft guy, they weren’t trying to incapacitate him, they were just trying to wrangle him back.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the small Chinese woman pulls out a firearm from a hidden compartment in the wall. “Marinette, Hon, come over here.”

Sabine squared up to Talia, a little fearful but hiding it well for a civilian woman. “I don’t know who you are, Madame, but you dare come into our home and tie us up, acting like we’re the barbarians for raising our daughter. I’m not entirely sure just what is going on, thank you Sirs for untying us, but this is our home. Please leave.” 

Before anyone could even react, several heads popped into the doorway, pulling the attention away from her, and revealing three teenagers and a bucket of ice cream.

Alya gaped at the scene before them.

It took Nino a little bit, but he finally snapped her out of her blank stared stupor, and she was ready to go to hell for Marinette. Adrien hadn’t said much, but it was obvious to her that he wanted to show his support as well.

Nino tried to talk her into deleting the stream’s VOD, but she refused on the basis of journalistic integrity. It didn’t matter whether or not she took it off of her blog, people had clipped the stream into viral segments and posted them independently online. Everyone knew by now even if she deleted the video. At least this way, she could get the publicity. 

Nino was reluctant, but let it go, in no mood to argue.

So they left Nino’s house to buy a bucket of ice cream and took a cab to the Dupain-Cheng’s. When they arrived, there were a few reporters, but it seemed to her as if the night had come, and most had already left. 

Despite that, the few that were still there jumped at the opportunity to shoot questions at them as soon as they came into the line of sight. 

“Ladyblogger! Did you know your friend Marinette Dupain-Cheng was Multimouse?!”

“Mr. Agreste, are you friends with Ms. Dupain-Cheng?!”

“Ladyblogger, Ladyblogger! Are you here to see Marinette?!”

They ran to the door.

Unfortunately, the door was locked. Marinette wasn’t answering her phone, and her parents weren’t either. 

“Ladyblogger! Would you give an interview?! Can you talk Marinette into giving us an interview?!”

“Maybe next time!” Alya yelled as they ran far, far away. All three of them were, thankfully, quite athletic.

“Maybe we should come back tomorrow,” Nino panted, once they escaped the pushy reporters. Adrien agreed, but Alya wasn’t having it as they quietly circled back.

“Look,” she said, starting over to a small maintenance ladder she found that she’d spotted before while visiting the bakery. “We can climb this.” She gestured.

Nino sighed. “Alya, I think maybe we should let Marinette have space. As much as I want us to be there for her, if she’s not answering our calls or letting us in, I don’t think she wants to see us right now.”

Alya whipped her head to him. “You’re the one who convinced us to come over.”

“Not if she doesn’t want us here.”

“Well, I’m not giving up.” She turned her glare from him to the ladder, as she approached it with caution. She tested the ladder with a single heavy stomp, and it didn’t topple over. Good enough, she thought.

It was finally dark out as she made cautious steps climbing up the small, slippery ladder. She had only the moon to illuminate her way up but she was once a literal superhero. She could climb up a straight ladder.

She didn’t know if the other two could climb it, but it was their choice to follow her.

When she reached the top, she finally glanced behind her and down. Hesitantly, the boys followed her up. They looked at least stable.

There were several footprints leading up the same path that came before her, and she could surmise that Marinette had to come up this way too. 

“This feels kind of illegal,” Adrien murmured as he reached the last step. 

“She’s here,” Alya informed them. “Look, footprints.” She pointed to the ground beneath them.

Nino nodded silently.

She opened the latch and entered Marinette’s bedroom. Empty, and it didn’t seem too messy or out of the ordinary. It was exactly as it always was.

“Maybe she’s not actually home,” Nino suggested uncertainly. 

Alya hummed. “Maybe she’s downstairs.” 

She led them carefully down the dark staircase when the murmur of voices started to transmit through the walls. She froze, and behind her the other two seemed to hear the same thing. They looked at each other in alarm. “Do you hear that?”

They paused on the steps behind her, tilting their heads. The teenagers held a collective breath as they kept their ears peeled. Adrien nodded, the first to move. “Voices,” he confirmed, a little panic in his eyes.

They descended quietly as they listened to the several different voices. “Do you recognize them?” Nino hurriedly whispered.

“I can’t tell,” Adrien answered in an equally hushed voice. Alya shook her head.

Finally they came upon the doorway. All three of them tried to peek in an orderly, stealthy manner, but what ended up happening instead was Alya rushed to peek first, but Nino had been walking in front of her, ready to lean slightly for the view. Adrien was behind them, but was swept off his feet when Alya started toppling over. 

They gaped, as they barely even processed what they were seeing. And the room looked back at them in confusion.

Gotham vigilante Batman was standing by the door. Near the window, the literal ex-crime lord the Red Hood, and Nightwing the Bludhaven vigilante was holding Mr. Dupain-Cheng by the arms. In the middle of the room where there were two very inconspicuous chairs clearly stolen from the dining room with ropes scattered around them, Mrs. Dupain-Cheng was pointing a gun at an unknown woman casually holding a literal sword. 

Marinette was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

Flashback.

Sabine had only known her daughter, somewhat newly dubbed Marinette Dupain-Cheng, for a few months. She and Tom had always wanted a kid. Marinette was like a drop from heaven for them—the kid of their dreams literally walked in through the front door.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, but they never expected it to be. What they didn’t expect was what, exactly, didn’t sail so smoothly.

Marinette wasn’t an emotional child. Normally, this would have been a good thing. Maybe they expected to take in a troubled child, maybe an afflicted or disabled one. 

There were glimpses here and there of the child behind the poker face. Mostly she was a perfect doll. Too perfect. It broke Sabine’s heart each and every time her mind wandered to her daughter’s origins, which they knew practically nothing about. Except that both her parents were both dead, at least according to Marinette.

She wasn’t stand-offish or shy. Instead, she was reserved, and didn't say much when not spoken to. You would be damned to find her taken off guard because she was always on guard, regardless of the time, day, or company. 

There was one time. Once, when the cracks were the most apparent, and it was on an innocuous night she and Tom tucked her in. 

It was the first and only panic attack she or Tom had witnessed, but they suspected she’d had many more they just never saw. Something set her off that night… and it was ugly and violent. 

Never has Sabine been more thankful for her husband’s enormous size than that night where he had to hold Marinette down on the bed as she thrashed in his arms, shrieking in his ears, trying to claw his eyes out, reaching for something. They didn’t know the full extent of how lucky they were to have been able to do that at all in hindsight.

After what felt like hours, Marinette finally went silent, limp and tangled in the covers. They stayed like that for a while, taking a breath. 

“I apologize,” Marinette said thickly, cutting through the tension like a jagged, old knife. 

“Marinette…”

“I apologize.” Her eyes welled with emotion, something new the couple had never seen, tears on the verge of spilling onto her cheek. 

Sabine took a step back. Protective emotion surged as she immediately swooped into an embrace, but Marinette flinched away just as fast, if not faster.

“Don’t.”

“Marinette, we’re not going to hurt you…” 

“I don’t…” Marinette’s eyes blurred into a far wall as her breath re-started to pick up. “la 'urid aleawdat - la tadaeuhum yakhudhunani maratan 'ukhraa, la 'urid dhalik,” she mumbled more to herself.

Without even realizing it, Sabine’s hand started to reach for Marinette’s own, only to have the girl further recoil into the covers, walls up, and the colorless look back in her eyes. Marinette’s eyes were such a beautiful blue, they didn’t deserve to go dead like that.

Second of all, the flinches, the averseness to touch. Of course, they somewhat expected it from even before they seriously considered adoption, but never to this extent. 

Even months after taking her in, the closest they ever got to physical touch were these nights where their kid allowed them to tuck her in. She liked to think Marinette enjoyed these moments, but they were never certain. 

Flashback over.

There was a second, just a sliver of a moment where every single person in the room’s attention landed squarely off of her. And in that second, she fled. The window was already open, the curtains fluttering in the wind, and there was a clear line where she could leave without obstruction, with no fear of being held back.

She took it. She took the chance and fled, not a plan in mind nor a weapon on her person. All she had was a location, and thoughts filling her head.

It was over, well and truly. It was obvious to her then on the dreaded walk (home), and now it was real. 

Mari Al Ghul. Marinette Al Ghul? Mari Dupain-Cheng? Marinette Dupain Cheng—She scoffed. Never again. She couldn’t even call herself that in her head now, she didn’t deserve it.

The moon was full and bright against the deep blue of the night sky, a small speckle of stars up above in congruence with the lights of the city. Mari was but a small speck against the image of Paris on a perfect evening.

The girl was perched up high on the Eiffel Tower, Marinette’s signature gray jacket slung over a shoulder, two feet dangling off the edge. It was windy and cold, but the cold has never bothered her.

“Marinette…”

Tikki appeared before her, a worried look on her face. Marinette smiled, because Mari never smiled like that.

“I don’t know about that, Tikki.” She quietly chuckled, fending off a cringe.

“I mean, that was… crazy! Was that your mom?! She’s crazy! And your dad is Batman?! You never told me about any of this!” Then the Kwami frowned. “Wait.. what do you mean? What don’t you know?”

Mari smiled at the stars.

Flashback.

The scars. 

Sabine cried for several nights in a row after that day. The day Marinette approached her, so casually, with a question that would change everything, at least for her.

“What do you need the money for?” Sabine had asked, her tone light but curious, setting aside the basket of freshly baked goods she’d been carrying.

“Can I just have the money?” Marinette’s voice was flat, emotionless.

Sabine smiled softly, though her heart gave a small tug. "I trust you, Marinette. I love you. But I still need to know what it's for, just in case.”

Marinette’s expression barely shifted, the faintest frown pulling at her lips. “I need new clothes.”

Sabine raised a brow. “Already?”

“The sleeves,” Marinette replied evenly, "are not long enough on the new clothes."

Sabine blinked, confused. "But we got the long-sleeved ones, like you asked. They should fit."

She looked at her daughter, really looked, noticing for the first time how Marinette’s hands were tucked behind her back, hidden by the sleeves of her black cardigan—the same one they’d picked out together just a week or so ago.

“They’re still not long enough. They reach only an inch down from my elbows,” Marinette paused, as if weighing her next words. “Something in her tone made Sabine’s stomach drop. Don’t be alarmed.”

Marinette stepped forward, bringing her hands in front of her, offering them up as though presenting something factual and secret. Sabine’s breath caught in her throat as Marinette began to peel back the sleeve of her cardigan, exposing her bare arms.

For the first time, Sabine saw the scars. Dozens of them. Thin, long, angry marks, etched deep into Marinette’s skin, like old wounds that had never healed properly. Some were faint, pink and faded with time, others fresher, darker, more jagged. They climbed up her arms, disappearing under the fabric of her sleeves. Sabine’s mind raced, trying to piece together how she had never noticed before—how Marinette had kept this hidden for so long.

Marinette was seven, nearly eight. Some of those scars looked far older.

Sabine’s chest tightened, her heart pounding in her ears as she stared at her daughter’s marred skin. "Marinette..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "I... I—"

“I told you not to be alarmed,” Marinette said calmly, her eyes steady, as if this was a simple fact of life.

Sabine swallowed hard, trying to keep her composure. “W–should I be worried?”

Marinette’s expression didn’t waver. "Not at all. They’re not after you."

They ? Sabine’s blood ran cold. 

They? There was a they?

“Who’s after you?” Sabine’s voice trembled with barely contained fear, her hands clenching the basket of baked goods, knuckles white.

Marinette blinked, as if realizing she had said too much. “No one is after me,” she said, a little too quickly.

Sabine stared at her daughter, mouth agape, torn between disbelief and hysteria. Marinette was seven—seven-year-olds had wild imaginations, they made things up all the time. But Marinette was different. She didn’t lie, she didn’t invent stories. She had the scars.

And that made this all the more terrifying.

Sabine took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She had no idea who "they" were, but a sense of urgency filled her. She’d need to protect her family, somehow, if this "they" ever became more than just a shadow hanging over them. No matter the cost.

But for now, she chose her words carefully. “Okay... we’ll get you some new clothes, ones with longer sleeves, if that’s what you need.” She forced a smile, though her heart still raced. “We can pick them out together this time. Whatever you like. But Marinette…” her voice softened, “I want to hear more about this ‘they,’ okay?”

Marinette said nothing, just watched her mother with her unreadable eyes.

Sabine exhaled shakily, realizing in that moment she couldn’t wait any longer. She signed Marinette up for therapy the next day.

Flashback over.

Tikki continued, unbidden. “Really, that was… whoa. The woman put a sword! To your throat ! I always thought it was weird you kept a knife, and it’s a very cool knife, but you were awesome, Marinette! Where’d you learn to do that?!”

The name hit her like a punch. Marinette .

“...Marinette?”

“That’s not my name,” she murmured with a breathless laugh, running a shaky hand through her hair. Her fingers brushed against the hair ties still holding up her pigtails. She laughed again, this time bitterly, and pulled them out, letting her hair fall loose. Too long, far too long. Mari would never keep her hair this long.

Tikki frowned, her excitement fading into confusion. “...What?”

“I must look crazy, don’t I? Maybe I am crazy.” Her voice rose with manic energy as she threw her head back, letting out a wild, hollow cackle that echoed into the sky.

“What’s wrong?” Tikki asked, her worry unmistakable as she floated in front of her, trying to meet her gaze.

Everything, she wanted to scream. Everything is wrong. Her life felt like it had spiraled out of control, like she was slipping through her own fingers. I shouldn’t be able to scale the Eiffel Tower. I should be normal. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be? ‘Just a normal girl with a normal life’—that was the line, wasn’t it?

But instead of saying all that, she simply whispered, “I miss Maman,” with a rueful smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

And Mari just left her there. As well as Papa, and what she was pretty sure was her friends from the barest glimpse she caught of the newcomers in the doorway.

Alya, Nino… Adrien . 

Adrien. Marinette had liked him. He was sweet, quiet but thoughtful, kind in that way that felt genuine. His soft blonde hair, his perfect eyes, his perfect smile—he was the kind of boy you dreamed about. Marinette was supposed to have the perfect life, and Adrien had fit into that vision perfectly.

But did Mari like him?

She clutched her gray jacket a little closer.

Flashback.

It was one of those rare snow days in Paris, where the city felt like a dreamscape, the sky a soft, perfect blue that blended seamlessly with the blanket of snow covering the iconic Haussmann-style architecture the city was known for. The kind of day that came once every few years, turning the bustling streets into a winter wonderland.

Sabine still didn’t know much about her new daughter, but she had quickly realized one thing—Marinette wasn’t like other kids her age when it came to the cold. On a day like this, most children would be bundled up in layers of jackets and scarves, their faces barely visible behind woolen hats. But Marinette? Seven years old and barely 40 pounds soaking wet, seemed almost unfazed by the chill in the air.

Sabine called out, tightening her oversized puffer jacket as she hurried to catch up with her daughter, who was already halfway down the sidewalk. “Sweetie!”

Marinette stopped, turning to face her with that same blank expression she so often wore. Her simple shirt and fleece jacket fluttered in the breeze as she turned, utterly unbothered by the biting cold.

“It’s freezing, ma chérie.” She tutted, as she held out a pink puffer jacket out to the girl. 

“I’m wearing a jacket,” Marinette replied matter-of-factly, glancing down at her thin layers.

Sabine shook her head, suppressing a small sigh. “Hon, you’re 40 pounds soaking wet. I’m freezing out here, and I’m wearing triple what you are. I didn’t buy you this for decoration—wear it.”

Without a word, Marinette let Sabine slip the pink puffer over her arms, raising her hands to fit into the sleeves without protest.

“Thank you,” Marinette said, nodding as though it was a routine exchange.

Sabine smiled softly, brushing a strand of hair from her own face. “Have a good day at school.”

“I will.” Marinette’s voice was steady, her expression unchanged as she turned to leave.

Sabine watched her for a moment, her heart heavy with a familiar concern. Most parents might be proud of how responsible and obedient their child was. But Sabine could see the cracks—the places where Marinette didn’t quite know how to cover up.

“Marinette!” she called out before the girl could get too far.

Marinette paused again, turning back with a questioning look.

Sabine’s grin softened as she stepped forward, leaning down to plant a gentle kiss on Marinette’s cheek. To her surprise, the girl stood rigid, almost bracing herself, but didn’t pull away. “Love you, sweetie,” Sabine whispered, kissing both of her cheeks.

Marinette nodded, her face still composed, as if processing something she didn’t fully understand. She turned to leave but hesitated, glancing back over her shoulder. “Yes. Love... you,” she echoed, her voice careful and uncertain.

Sabine huffed softly, waving her off with a smile. “You don’t have to say it back, sweetie. Bye!”

With a final, decisive nod, Marinette walked away, her pink puffer jacket standing out brightly against the snow as she disappeared down the street.

 Flashback over.

An assassin, three vigilantes, and three teenagers break into a French bakery—it sounded like the setup for an absurdist joke.

Living it, however, was the real punchline, thought Sabine, her grip tightening on the firearm she never thought she’d have to use, let alone in her own home.

And yet, here she was.

"Hello, children. I believe I promised cookies, but it seems we have guests," she said, her voice deceptively calm. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

Behind her, someone let out a quiet laugh. Sabine ignored it, keeping her focus on the strange woman before her, the one who dared to invade her home and threaten her loved ones.

The room was tense, a heavy silence hanging between them. The only movement came from the woman, who twirled her sword before sliding it back into its sheath. Talia—her name was Talia.

“It seems the star of the show has made her escape,” Talia said, glancing toward the man in the bat suit. “Shall we race to find her?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Sabine growled, her voice sharp with resolve.

Talia flashed a too-wide smile. “You haven’t held that in a while, have you?” she asked, her tone like a veiled threat.

The three teenagers held frozen in the doorway finally toppled over themselves, drawing the attention of the room. 

They gaped, wide-eyed, frozen by the surreal scene unfolding before them. Alya motioned to raise her hand, then dropped it, too stunned to speak. Nino gestured frantically.

"Batman!" Alya blurted, pointing several accusatory fingers. "Nightwing! Red Hood!"

“Yeah, hi,” said one of the men. Alya flailed her arms in disbelief.

Batman pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Oracle found her," he said to his team, ignoring the chaos around him.

Alya gasped. "Oracle! The hacker vigilante!"

"Yeah," one of the men replied dryly. Another voice muttered, “A super fan. Great.”

Batman sighed again, unbothered by the gun still pointed at Talia. “I’ll find her,” he declared, as if it were just another day at work. It probably was, going by his get-up.

“No one’s going anywhere!” Sabine shouted, cocking the gun.

Talia didn’t flinch. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said nonchalantly. “You do not want to face the consequences.”

Sabine’s jaw clenched. “What I want is an explanation! This is my home. That’s my daughter—” something dark flashed in Talia’s eyes “—you tried to kill! And now you’re telling me you’re her mother?”

The room seemed to brace for an explosion. Talia’s smile twisted as she mouthed, “Your daughter,” her eyes glinting with a hint of madness. “I was not trying to do anything of the sort. I was merely testing her abilities. Sharp as ever, I suppose.”

Sensing blood in the water, Batman stepped between them, cutting off her line of sight. “I apologize for your involvement in these… current affairs, Madame,” he said, slowly approaching Sabine. Without warning, he snatched the gun from her hands, disassembling it with swift precision. She stood there, speechless, her arms still raised.

Batman approached her slowly. “But let go of the gun,” he growled, snatching it out of her hands before she even got the notion of him taking it from her. He disassembled the firearm right then and there as she stood, arms still raised, speechless. 

Tom appeared at her side, wrapping his arms around her, and only then did she realize how quickly her breathing had become. She turned to face him. "Marinette is our daughter," she whispered, her voice shaking.

“She is,” Tom reassured her.

A figure crouched down to her level—the man in the domino mask, his face expressionless behind the white lenses. “We can’t explain everything right now,” he said softly.

Behind him, a large shadow moved, and Sabine caught a glimpse of Batman fleeing through the window, disappearing into the snowy night. The man in the black and blue suit held her gaze. “But rest assured, Marinette will be safe. We’re not here to hurt her, or you.”

Sabine’s expression hardened. “We’ve already been hurt plenty,” she muttered, rubbing the rope burns on her arms.

Talia shoved the man aside with a smirk, but Tom stood protectively in front of Sabine. “They want an explanation, don’t they?” Talia said sweetly.

“Talia. Don’t you even try to pull anything.” The man in the red helmet growled.

Alya, eager for answers, butted into the conversation. “Do explain! We’d love to know.”

The man in the domino mask eyed her skeptically. "Why are there even teenagers here?"

“We broke in through the roof,” Alya said, pulling out her phone. “And you’re the Red Hood! Notorious ex-crime lord, infamous vigila—"

“Nuh uh, Little Miss reporter,” Red Hood chided, snatching her phone.

Alya gasped. “You know me? So, I’m the Ladyblogger—”

“Not leaking this to the press,” he mocked, holding the phone out of her reach.

“The public has the right to know!” Alya protested, making a futile grab for the phone.

Red Hood held it higher. 

“The public have the right to know what? That your friend is in danger, not even accounting her identity getting leaked by you?”

Alya deflated. “You’re… you’re right,” she mumbled softly.

“Ah, right. That girl,” the other man eyed the teenager. “Are you sure you’re her friend?”

Alya sputtered indignantly, but Nino quietly placed a hand on her shoulder, calming her down. “We are her friends,” he said softly. “At least we try to be.”

Sabine felt for them, really. “Kids, just go home. Okay?”

Alya, nonplussed, started to eye the window instead. Was she… debating following Batman?

Adrien chose to prop himself up from beside the two teenagers. His voice was steady, especially for the circumstances. In fact, it may have had more power than usual. 

His movements were smooth as he stepped in front of the other teens. The expression on his face was calm and confident. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dupain-Cheng. Alya means well… and I know that it’s not our business. But Marinette is our friend, and she’s one of the protectors of this city. We owe her. We want to know if she’s in danger as well.”

Talia wiped an invisible tear off her cheek. “This is so touching. I’m so glad my -” she gave Sabine the side-eye “-daughter has such good friends. Unfortunately, your friend is always in danger.” 

Sabine took a steadying breath.

“Talia, let’s take this somewhere else. These are civilians,” the man in the domino mask said. He was hesitant as he gestured.

Talia flicked her eyes back to Sabine. “Yes, civilians… and yet here you are with a gun. How suspicious.” She fluttered her eyelashes, then turned to the vigilantes. “And to think, my darling son didn’t tell you anything.”

“That’s definitely one way to call him,” Red Hood muttered under his breath.

Alya butted in.  “Wait, wait, wait. Who are you, first of all? Of course, I know these two,” Alya gestured. “They’re vigilantes. Red Hood, Nightwing. And Batman’s out there probably looking for Marinette, or whatever her name is. But you…” She eyed the woman, blissfully obtuse to the deadly threat in front of her. 

The atmosphere shifted as Talia smirked, contemplating her response.

“Of course, I can tell you… But then I’d have to kill you.” A chill went down Sabine’s spine as the woman’s smile dropped. She could tell that she wasn’t the only one. “Although… My daughter’s friends are my friends as well.” 

“...Daughter?” Nino whispered.

The woman tittered, a smile back on her face. “I am Talia Al Ghul. And I am Mari Al Ghul’s real mother.”

“Of course… not only does Marinette—or whatever her name really is—turn out to be Multimouse-” She muttered under her breath. “Wish she could’ve just told us.”

“This really isn’t the time for introductions,” Nightwing pointed out. “I can not emphasize this enough.”

Alya continued. “-But she also turns out to be, what? A mercenary’s daughter?” Alya looked the woman up and down.

Talia corrected her. “Close. Assassin.”

Sabine sighed heavily. “Alya, Adrien, Nino—"

Talia cut her off. “Ah, so those are their names.” Sabine had the distinct feeling she knew that already. 

“I love you all, and I love to see that you care so much for Marinette, but please. I don’t want to be responsible for putting you kids in danger.”

“First of all, we’re not kids-” Alya said before getting cut off. 

“What she means to say,” Adrien said, giving her a look. “Is that we’re already here. We’re already involved, through no fault of yours. It’s our fault for breaking in.”

“Adrien-” Sabine started.

It was Talia’s turn to let out a sigh. “Yes, yes. The power of friendship and all that. Want to hear the real story?”

“Hey, anybody else get that notification? Hot League assassins in your area! We should all be fucking scramming,” Red Hood voiced. 

“They’ll be here any minute now,” Dick confirmed.

“Yeah we should—I’m sorry assassins?” Adrien seconded. 

Talia scoffed. “There is time to speak. I should know.”

“Wait, why should you know?” Nino asked cautiously.

“Mari Al Ghul is my daughter,” Talia said with an air of finality, her tone sharp and full of pride.

Sabine’s heart lurched at the woman’s words. 

"Your daughter?" Adrien repeated, his voice barely above a whisper. "But Marinette's..."

Talia’s eyes flickered with something unrecognizable. "Mari Al Ghul is my daughter," she repeated slowly, "but the girl you know, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, is not."

Sabine took a deep breath, trying to still the whirlwind in her mind. This woman, who had broken into her home and threatened her child, was calmly speaking of Marinette as if she were someone else entirely. Someone they didn’t know.

"But Marinette is still our daughter," Sabine interrupted, stepping forward with conviction. "And she’s not some assassin. She’s just a kid!"

Talia’s lips curled into a humorless smile. "A child trained in the arts of war and survival. You truly believe that after what you’ve seen?"

Sabine opened her mouth to argue, but the words caught in her throat. She thought of Marinette’s scars, of the night her daughter had broken down in their arms, thrashing and screaming. She remembered the panic attacks, the flinches, the refusal to be touched, the mysterious "they" Marinette had spoken of in the dark. All of it began to fit into a chilling puzzle.

And there she was, thinking all this time it was something to do with the mob.

Adrien’s voice cut through the heavy silence. "So what? She’s your daughter, but you’re here, breaking into her home, threatening her family?" His voice grew more steady, more sure. "You’re not acting like a mother."

Talia’s smile widened. "I am exactly what a mother should be. Protective. Merciless. And willing to do whatever it takes to bring her child back."

Sabine felt a chill run through her. “She’s not going back with you.”

“You have no choice in the matter,” Talia replied coldly. “Neither does she. Mari is my blood.”

“She’s not Mari,” Sabine snapped, her voice rising despite herself. “She’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng now, and she belongs here, with us!”

For a moment, Talia’s eyes darkened, her expression hardening. Then, just as quickly, she softened again, a sly smirk curling her lips. “Is that what she told you? That she belongs here?”

Sabine clenched her fists. “She doesn’t need to say it. We know.”

“You see, Mari left one day from our home in Tibet.”

“ Tibet? ” Sabine heard one of the teenagers whisper, baffled.

“Yes, I’m sure my daughter never told you any of that. She’s so much like her brother, you see.” 

“Brother?” Sabine mouthed.

Talia scoffed. “Oh, I suppose no one in your organization deigned to tell you that. And why would they?” 

Sabine shook her head incredulously. “We’re not even in an organization.”

Talia sighed, “Likely story.”

“Anyway, yes. Tibet, and yes brother. Her twin brother in fact. Due to circumstances, she decided to run away. We looked for her for months with the best… let’s just say bounty hunters in the world.”

“Maybe, she had good reasons to run away,” Sabine insisted, her mind flashing to her daughter’s numerous scars from early childhood. 

“Her name is Mari . She was taken from us. Now, pray tell, how could a seven year old, even a seven year old like Mari somehow traverse a full continent, end up in Paris, while somehow evading world-class bounty hunters with decades of experience, alone? As a seven-year-old?”

Alya eagerly raised a hand, as if answering a teacher’s question. “With help?”

“Ding, ding, ding! Exactly. With help.” Talia scowled. “We thought the Order was defunct. Extinct. Dead. But somehow, under our noses, they have taken my daughter, working for this… Ladybug figure, making her Multimouse with incomplete training, and in the care of these mundane, middle-class bakers who barely even know how to handle a gun, let alone someone of Mari’s caliber.” 

She glared at the married couple. Sabine felt cowed at the sight of her murderous gaze. She steeled her resolve. 

“We’ve done no such thing, and we work for no one. She chose us.” Sabine took a deep, shuddering breath. “And I’ve seen her scars.”

“Everybody has scars.”

“Woman, the scars on my child-” Talia audibly snarled at the mention of Marinette being her child, “-are not normal.”

“Talia, Marinette was a kid,” Nightwing took to her side. “So was D.”

“That is simply the way of the League. Damian understands. Mari would too, if she was not taken from us.” Talia gritted her teeth. 

She bared her teeth at Sabine specifically, brandishing her blade. “You and your husband will pay for this, and so will the Order backing you. You will suffer the consequences for taking an Al Ghul child. I just wanted my daughter alone, before the League came for you. I will not protect you from my father’s wrath.”

Nightwing stepped forward now, his voice calm but firm. “Enough of this. We don’t have time for games, Talia."

Talia regarded him coldly. “Don’t you worry your handsome little head. The bat brigade can have Mari. I came merely to warn you and her.”

At that moment, masked assailants burst through the door, weapons drawn, as Talia disappeared out the window.

“Ah, fuck,” Red Hood cursed, grabbing the teenagers and thrusting them behind him, Nightwing mirrored the movement, preparing for a fight.

Flashback.

Mari was eight, and she hated therapy. Nothing irked her more in this new life than being required to stay in a strange room with a complete stranger noting down everything about her for hours every week. Not only that, but she was supposed to be talking the entire time? What, bearing her entire insides out to this strange new person?

Hell no.

She’d had three sessions with her new therapist, and two each for three separate ones in past weeks which she rejected.

She could tell her new adoptive parents were on their last thread about it. 

“Marinette,” Tom started. “We can’t put you on another therapist, I’m sorry.”

“Honey, this is the last therapist available in our area,” Sabine added, her arms crossed as she sat across from her at the table. “We can’t justify sending you to someone several hours away just because you don’t like any of them.”

“I told you,” Mari replied, her voice flat, “I don’t want to go to therapy.”

“Therapy will be good for you,” Tom told her.

Mari did believe that, ordinarily, therapy would be good for a perceived nearly nine year old orphan. Except she wasn’t an orphan, and she couldn’t freely talk about anything without threat of being discovered.

“Perhaps,” she replied curtly. “Though not for me.”

Sabine sighed deeply. “Marinette, sweetheart…”

Mari’s glare was enough to startle them. She rarely displayed any emotion, and her current intensity was clearly unexpected. “I do not want to go to therapy,” she reiterated.

“Marinette,” Sabine continued, her tone softening, "if you’re not ready to talk about your past to us, or to anybody, it’s fine. But you can at least open up to a licensed professional about how you feel. She won’t tell us anything you talk about,” Sabine explained. 

Mari was fully aware. She just didn’t think it was necessary for her, and may even be dangerous for all involved. Instead of a reply, she stayed silent. She stared listlessly up at the couple who then shared a worried look with each other.

“That’s it?” Tom asked, his voice tinged with disbelief.

Mari’s silence persisted. She knew any response would only prolong the conversation.

Sabine’s face reflected heartache. “You can argue with us if you need to. We won’t hurt you for it. Feel free to tell us anything you want to.”

Marinette tilted her head. Is that what the woman thought about Marinette’s past? It was a good excuse. Not that being thought of as abused was a good thing, per se, but it was better than further speculation.

For some reason, her eyes began to water. 

“Oh, sweetie.” 

Mari found it mortifying. She tried to brush away the tears, but they came in earnest. A sob shook her small frame, and for the first time since infancy, she was crying.

“What… why…” she murmured to herself, her words lost in the incoherence of her sobs.

The world was silent through her ears as she let out almost a decade of frustrations and pain.

Sabine quickly slid out of her seat to pull her into an embrace, and her skin didn’t prickle at the sensation of human contact. The sensation of human contact, instead of feeling invasive, was oddly soothing. Tom was quickly beside her, offering support with a gentle hand on her back.

Flashback over.

Mari felt him before she saw or heard him. Like a prickle at the back of her neck, she knew the moment her Father’s eyes landed on her, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. He landed with a soft thud on the metal beside her as Tikki nestled into her pocket.

“Hello, Father,” she said, her voice steady despite the fluttering in her chest. “Are you here to fetch me? I feel like I should be running right about now. I could,” she tilted her head slightly.

She could run, but what then? Even if she had Kaalki, she still had a duty to protect the city. She needed to come back at some point. She needed to end Hawkmoth’s reign of terror, to protect her loved ones, to protect her citizens. She couldn’t stay away from Paris forever.

She would just be leaving everyone she’s ever cared about in the seven years she’d been Marinette to the wolves.

Part of her was relieved Batman had come. Maybe all she needed was a break from it all.

Batman stayed silent, sitting down beside her. Her mouth quirked upwards. “What? Are you tired of swinging around on your grappling hook?”

“You’re in danger,” he said, softer than you would expect from his outward appearance.

“Story of my life,” she scoffed. “But really, what do you want with me? You have Damian. You don’t need me.”

“It’s true, I don’t.”

Mari sputtered. “Say it like it is, then, why don’t you?”

“We don’t need you… but we want you there.” Batman’s chuckle was gravelly, a surprising sound. “I wanted to get to know you. My family. I can’t speak for Damian—” Mari’s breath hitched. “—but you’re family to us as well, Marinette.”

She flinched at the name.

“Mari, then?”

“I’ll get back to you when I figure that out for myself, thanks.”

“It’s your name, isn’t it? It should be straightforward.”

She shot him a look. “Yeah. Should be.”

“I don’t mean to be condescending.” They both watched a lone bird drift past against the night sky.

“Yeah,” she sighed. Something inside of her loosened, and Marinette shone through the fog. “It’s just- I don’t know. I was named Mari at birth, but I’ve been Marinette for years at this point. Except, I don’t feel like Marinette. I’ve changed a lot since then. For god’s sake, it’s been seven years. Everyone’s different at fourteen compared to when they were seven. It’s just… looking back, so much was a facade. ‘Marinette’ was almost as much of a mask as my hero counterpart. Not to say that she wasn’t real, it’s just. You know, one day I just decided to be Marinette, and I think I tried to kill the part of me that- and- sorry.”

She let out a huff of embarrassment. “I’m rambling. You’re not even the right person to be ranting to- you don’t even know me. Damn, why didn’t I want to go to therapy? You’re not a therapist.”

Batman just grunted. Somehow, the sound was comforting.

“You’re kind of like my Papa,” she said, a hint of a smile breaking through. “Big man like you, though clumsy like me. Well—clumsy was ‘Marinette’. I don’t know if Mari is clumsy as well. He doesn’t say much, but he’s there, you know?” She laughed softly.

“Dumb comparison. You’re ‘Father’, aren’t you?” She said, the word 'father' heavy on her tongue.

For a few moments, the only sound was the distant hum of the city below. Everything felt so far from up so high.

Mari nearly jumped when Batman broke the silence. “You know what Damian said to me when I first met him?”

Her face soured at the mention of her twin’s name. Damian. Again, she thought. Batman noticed, but said nothing.

“The first thing he said was almost exactly like what you said to me today.”

Mari recalled the night’s events, the chaos of the day swirling in her mind. Man, today was a shitfest. “‘I thought you’d be shorter’, That’s what he said? Sorry for saying that by the way.”

“‘I thought you’d be taller,’” Batman echoed.

Of course.

“Sometimes I forget we’re twins,” she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice.

Another silence stretched between them as the vigilante observed her.  “You’re tired of hearing about him.”

She scoffed, though a smile tugged at her lips. “I should get used to your type. Quiet, brooding, and extraordinarily observant. There’ll be more of you, I know. I’m rusty,” she said, steeling her features. “I’ll have to learn again, to protect my family and my friends.”

He regarded her again silently. “You don’t have to protect them alone.”

This time, she eyed him. She squinted at his face as if in close scrutiny. “I suppose you’re offering?”

Batman’s posture suddenly stiffened as he tilted his head, his attention diverted. At first, Mari thought she’d said something wrong, immediately scanning through every single word she’d uttered in his presence, when his hand went to something in his ear as he listened in. Relief washed over her as she realized it was an earpiece.

He seemed as if he was about to leap away, when suddenly he remembered the girl next to him. He was in thought for about a second, casting a brief glance in her direction. “There are League assassins in your home. Stay here, don't follow me,” he ordered.

Mari bristled. “Stay?! I can’t stay—didn’t you hear me?! I said I would protect them. To hell with that—I’m coming with you.”

Batman glared at her. Suddenly, Mari understood the rumors about the Bat glare. His glare was threatening, intimidating, a laser focus. Ladybug’s glare could rival his, if not as famous. Mari was the only one who knew they were related. 

Mari glared back as a glimmer of surprise appeared in his eyes for less than a second.

“You’re not as rusty as you think,” he said, his glare softening into his usual hard gaze.

She stood up, mirroring his rigid posture. “Then let me protect my family.”

“We are more than enough.”

“I want to protect my family. It’s my fault, and it’s my responsibility,” she emphasized, leaning closer as she gritted her teeth. 

“I don’t care,” Batman replied, his own teeth clenched.

“I care, you—” Batman suddenly launched from their perch. Mari gaped as he left her standing alone on a beam hundreds of feet in the air on one of the most iconic landmarks in the world. “—Asshole.”

Flashback.

Mari was eight when ‘Marinette’ would come to full fruition the same night she embarrassingly cried in the arms of the couple who adopted her. 

She observed her room as she locked the door behind her after bolting out of the kitchen and away from the teary display.

Her room was mostly barren. There was a bed with white sheets, and a desk for her school work. She had mismatched curtains to cover her windows, and a cold, white lamp on top of the nightstand where she hid food, just in case. 

Sabine and Tom had tried to get her to decorate, she just always refused. After all, she had everything she needed. 

It felt different now, for some odd reason. Like there was a vast emptiness encompassing the space. Her eyes flickered to the pink puffer jacket neatly splayed out on her chair, bright in contrast to its sterile surroundings.

Something clicked.

She went to bed early that night with a head full of thoughts and ideas. 

Mari would die. Mari was already dead, Marinette killed her. The world killed her.

That morning, Marinette would rise from her bed spread, hair in her mouth. She would tie her hair up into twin tails and wear pink flats she had dismissed before. Marinette would open the climb down her bedroom with a smile, boisterous skipping echoing down the hall, the only indication to her ‘Maman’ and ‘Papa’ that something had changed.

They didn’t know quite yet when they called her into the kitchen, apologetic expressions on their faces. They summoned her to the table where they sat, perturbed at the seemingly open expression on their adoptive daughter’s face.

The fact that they heard her come in was just as surprising.

"Sweetie," Sabine began, her voice gentle but firm, "we wanted to talk to you about last night.”

Marinette looked up, her wide eyes reflecting a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. An oddly open, and expression fueled look. Her voice was brighter, higher-pitched. "What is it?" 

The couple shared a worried look between them. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

Tom cleared his throat, then leaned forward slightly, trying to match Marinette’s eye level. "You know how we talked about therapy last night?”

Marinette tilted her head, feigning confusion. Her brow furrowed slightly, but not enough to reveal her thoughts.

Sabine reached out, resting a hand gently on Marinette's knee. "We won’t make you go anymore if you don’t want to. We didn’t realize how much it bothered you."

Her skin prickled, but she endured. A frown threatened to pull at her open expression as her eyes shifted between her parents, her thoughts clearly racing.

Marinette’s smile widened, but there was something off about it. Too bright. Too sharp. Too many teeth. Anyone else would have said it was normal, but they’d known her for long enough to know it wasn’t. "It doesn’t bother me," she insisted, her tone firm.

Her parents exchanged another look, their worry deepening. Something was wrong, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on it.

“Is something wrong, kiddo? You don’t have to tell us but…” Tom hesitated.

“I’ll call you Maman and Papa from now on,” she grinned a bit too widely.

Sabine blinked, taken aback. "You don’t have to do that if you’re not ready. It’s your choice. Yesterday-"

"I want to," Marinette cut in quickly, her voice rising slightly.

Sabine eyed her skeptically, then her eyes flickered to Tom and she leaned back against the chair, placing a supporting hand on his arm.

Tom—her Papa, didn’t usually say much. He was a gentle giant who let his wife do most of the talking. Marinette wasn’t necessarily surprised when he talked, but it struck a chord with her that he chose that moment to do so. 

What shifted in her started to quiver, but she made her decision. She would be Marinette, and she would forget her past life—Mari Al Ghul was dead.

“Marinette… we don’t know what you’re doing. If this is how you want to be from now on, go for it. If it makes you happy, content- me and your… Maman won’t stop you. What we do know is that you shouldn’t force yourself for anybody. Not even us. It will hurt you in the long run, and if it ever does hurt you… never be afraid to go to us, okay? We love you. You don’t need to say it back.” Tom told her, with all of the warmth and depth within his eyes.

Sabine held her hand. “We love you, Marinette. Just be yourself.” 

Chapter Text

Mari was just about ready to fling herself back home when she froze on the beam, a scream lodged in her throat. She didn’t have the time or the mental capacity to process that interaction, she knew she just needed to act.

It was Damian on the tip of another person’s tongue once again, her father this time. Then again, what did she expect? He was Damian’s father first, like Damian was always first.

Well. It was a positive interaction at the least. He didn’t insult her. She had a moment however brief to gain some brevity, even if everything’s come crashing back down.

“Marinette! What are you going to do now?” 

“I don’t know, Tikki.” Her tone was firm despite the waver in her resolve. 

She needed to go back. That was all she knew for sure.

She leapt off the tower with grace as she called upon Mullo midway through her fall. It was dark enough that no one would have seen the blur plummeting to the ground, but she supposed it didn’t matter now. Everyone knew, whether she liked it or not. 

She flung herself up with her downwards momentum as she became one with the stars from the view below. She landed elegantly on a rooftop and for the very first time she ran with silence, not trying to fill her footfall with sound. 

It was freeing, in a way that totally and completely surprised her. It was like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, and she didn’t know how to deal with the fact that she liked how she was, silent, and running. 

She arrived at the scene only a few paces behind Batman, having caught up with the advantage of familiarity in the landscape. She could see him in the distance entering through the hatch into her room. More importantly to her, were the smaller figures visible though the window being swarmed by what must’ve been a dozen assassins now.

A crisp breeze blew past her, and she was suddenly face to face with her mother, looking at her with sharp but fond eyes, a slight smile pulling the corner of her red lips.

“I will see you soon, daughter. I need to make an appointment with this… Fu of yours.” The expression turned rapidly into a sneer as the assassin woman took a cursory glance at her hero get-up.

Mari grabbed her mother as she turned around, and she glared at her as the woman dodged to the side.

She chuckled. “You are not as intimidating as you think you are, what with the adorable mouse mask and the space buns, Multimouse. ” 

“Shut up, Talia . You won’t find Fu.”

Her mother let out an amused huff, craning her neck to meet Mari’s glare. “You think we won’t find him?”

“You won’t find him because he’s gone ,” Mari stated matter-of-factly.

Talia paused. “You mean he’s dead.”

“I mean that he’s gone. The Master Fu who gave me my miraculous is gone, and he was all that was left of The Order.”

“If that’s what they told you then they lied. They are hiding the miracle box just as The Order took you, and hid your very existence from us.”

She glared daggers at her mother. “Master Fu didn’t do shit. The Order didn’t do shit. I hid my existence, I was the one who left. There isn’t a they in the equation. It was all me.”

Mari scoffed. “After all this time, you still think I’m weak. That I can’t do things by myself. I love the people here. I love my Maman, my Papa, my friends. You think you’re doing me this huge favor, warning me, acting like I have a choice. I know you think I’ll go with you of my own volition, but I won’t. If that’s the reason you’re here, then it’s better for you to just leave.”

Talia sighed. “I understand your sentimentality, you may be mine, but you are your father’s daughter after all. I simply do not want to tell you ‘I told you so’ when it comes out that those… buffoons you consider parents lied.”

Before Mari could make a retort, her mother turned her back to her as she disappeared into the night.

Mari took a deep, shuddering breath.

She made her way to the bakery, spotting the escaping figures running out through the front door.

Alya, in particular, felt quite useless at the moment. After her short stint as a magical superheroine you would think she wouldn’t be so utterly like a damsel in a situation with honest-to-god assassins, but here she was and here they were. 

She could tell that Nino was feeling much the same as they watched agape at the whirlwind of movement and swords. For a while they just found themselves trapped in a corner of the room being protected by the two vigilantes who’d come with Batman.

Surprisingly, it was Adrien who moved first, grabbing the both of them by the arms as he inched them closer and closer to the window where she didn’t know at all what they would do when they reached it. 

Alya at least knew she could land safely from that height, but could the others? Not to mention Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng.

There was an assassin at the window, blocking their escape. A loud clang rang from behind her as she turned to find Adrien himself having grabbed a broom, fending the surprise assailant off.

He parried the sharp end of the blade where the broom flared at the base, cutting it off and leaving a metal pole resembling a baton.

She quickly searched for something to grab as well when she turned too fast, sending a vase plummeting to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces, and sending water across the hardwood floor. Nino, startled at the sudden noise, instinctively took a step back bumping into Adrien who slipped at the water under his feet.

Nino barely dodged out of the way from the incoming blade, nearly slicing his head clean off. What he received in return wasn’t good either, as the blade missed his neck but cut a straight and bloody line through the flesh of his arms.

A shot rang out as the assassin crumbled to the floor. Her head whipped to Red Hood with two arms outstretched, both holding guns.

She couldn’t bear to look at the prone black-clad bodies at the floor. 

“Rubber bullets. They’re not dead.” Red Hood leveled her a look. “I sure fucking wish they were,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hood! Your six!” Nightwing warned.

Alya’s eyes were wide as a figure appeared from behind him, the glint of a sword moving lightning fast in an arc. The Batman was suddenly there, like a wraith out of the shadows, or like a bat out of hell.

An insanely brief look Alya barely caught was exchanged between the three crime fighters as the man took Hood’s place, intercepting the blade. 

Sooner than she thought possible given the amount of people attacking them, they were ushered out of the building without further injury. Other than Nino, who clutched at his arm trying his best not to groan in pain. 

Alya did her best not to jostle him as they headed down the stairs and eventually reached the main part of the bakery itself. That was when she felt Adrien stiffen beside her and her gaze shot to the direction he was looking, through the large windows at the front of the shop. 

She squinted at the window, adjusting her glasses. She had no idea how he’d seen them, it was so dark now that it was well into the night but there was no mistaking that silhouette. It was Multimouse, and a taller woman who Alya confidently guessed was her real mother, the assassin woman.

The assassin woman left shortly thereafter, and they finally crossed the door out. Her eyes followed Multimouse- Marinette as she split into multiple smaller versions of herself, half entering through the window upstairs. The other half appeared before them, falling into step beside Hood. 

“Why, hello there Mousies,” he said. “Plural, tiny. That’s a neat power.”

It was approaching midnight when the masked assailants commenced their tactical retreat, fleeing into the night carrying their unconscious brethren with them. The heroes let them. 

There was a collective sigh of relief as the group watched with tentative hope that the action for the night was over. 

Fortunately, it was. But the night wasn’t over just yet.

That’s how they found themselves awkwardly sitting around the Dupain-Cheng dinner table, neither one of them speaking a word. Mari sat central to every person in the room, forgoing the chairs and sitting on the table itself, her back hunched, sat down precariously on the edge. The big Bat dressed Nino’s wound as Adrien worriedly floated around the pair. The rest of them seemed too nervous to even breathe.

Nino hissed in pain. Somehow that was the catalyst that started the talking.

“Marinette, was that-”

“So now that we’re all her-”

“Father’s probably looking for-”

“Young lady, honey-”

“Why didn’t you tell us-”

A pause. A long silence ensued. The tension was thick enough to slice.

Mari abruptly stood up, letting the eyes in the room fall on her. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words got stuck in her throat. “I’m sorry,” is all she mustered up the courage to say. She didn’t know where to start.

Her apology hung in the air for another silent moment.

“You can’t stay here,” Batman broke the silence, finishing Nino’s bandages up with a clean wrap. He stood alongside her, figure ever imposing.

“You’re not taking our daughter!” Sabine protested.

“She can not stay here.” Batman’s voice was a low cadence, deep. It reverberated through the wood furniture where Mari held on for support. She forgot precisely why she chose to sit like this. It felt different to how he sounded just earlier. He growled.

“B, you can’t just growl at people and expect them to like you. Use your big boy words. Agent A raised you better than this,” Nightwing chided. 

“Yeah, old man. Big boy words,” Red Hood said condescendingly.

Batman shot them a leveling look. He let out an aggravated sigh, but his rigid posture softened at the edges. His eyes scanned over at Marinette where it lingered for a second. He turned to face Mr. and Mrs. Dupain Cheng.

“You’re not taking her from us,” Sabine whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t care that you’re her sperm donor or whatever, Marinette is our kid.”

“We are not here to take her.”

“Like hell you’re not taking her. If she can’t stay here, then where will she go, other than with you?” Sabine glared.

Another silence rang. 

“They’ll come back for her,” Dick said. “Ra’s… Marinette’s grandfather will send people until they catch her.”

Sabine rubbed a tired hand over her husband’s arm. “Who even are these people?”

Red Hood replied, “it’s better for you all if you didn’t know.”

This time, it was Alya who spoke. “We already know too much. Wouldn’t it be better if we knew enough so that we could protect ourselves?”

“No. There’s not enough knowledge in the world that can protect you from them.” Mari, who had been silent, answered. “It’s better… it’s better if you were all in the dark on this. Those people, they’re dangerous. More dangerous than you probably think.”

“We’ve already seen how dangerous it–”

“You really haven’t.” Mari let out a single barking laugh.

“Then tell us how dangerous it is! You haven’t told us anything .”

“Because it’s dangerous, Alya,” Mari said, pleading. “You don’t want to know.”

“We do want to know,” Mari heard Adrien say, quietly and mostly to himself.

Before Alya could respond with likely another set of objections, Sabine started to walk towards Mari. Whatever Alya would have said died down in her throat at Mari’s expression.

Eventually, she was close enough to put a hand on Mari’s shoulder. She might have hated that gesture before, but now it took all of her willpower not to melt into the touch. Sabine just looked at her with such tenderness.

“Marinette…”

She flinched away. Sabine frowned. 

“Whatever it is you’d like us to call you,” Sabine amended, to which Mari offered a small smile. “I’d like to talk? Alone, if we can? Me, you, and Tom.”

“Yeah. I think I’d like to talk too, Maman.” Mari put her hand on top of Sabine’s.

Sabine eyed their American company, as if daring them to say something. They stayed silent, giving a wide berth to the three retreating into the next room. 

So the three teenagers and three vigilantes remained together awkwardly circling around the dinner table, now alone without Mari, the full reason they were there at all. The atmosphere was decidedly tense.

Alya plowed on. “We’re already involved, just give us something to go off of.”

Nino pulled her back as she started to inch closer to the side of the table where Batman was.

“We are not giving you information for you to conduct your own research,” Batman said in a tone Red Hood and Nightwing found very familiar. 

“B, you know they’re not going to stop until they learn more,” Nightwing said with a sigh. “And they’re going to get hurt trying to learn it. I think they should know the stakes, before they do something they regret. Like something we’d have done at that age.” He gestured to himself and Hood. Red Hood huffed to himself.

Batman grunted. “That’s different.”

Red Hood leapt to his feet to stride over to the three teenagers who sat together on one end. They cowered back, wary of the intimidating figure now looming over, his head tilted to one side. They felt his eyes on them despite the red helmet being in the way of his face. All they had to go off of were the white glowing holes where the eyes would go on his faux expression of anger etched into his head piece.

After a moment of scrutiny, he relented, cocking a hip out and leaning against the table in a casual manner. “The pipsqueak has got a heck of a friend group. Yeah, no, B. I don’t think keeping ‘em in the dark will do them any good.”

To Nino’s own surprise, he felt his mouth move as he spoke. “We’re not… vigilantes or superheroes or anything, and we don’t have the resources you have access to. But we’d figure it out eventually whether or not you tell us everything. We care about Marinette, and we’re going to try our best to support her. No matter what. And we need to know what’s happening to do that.”

“I’m siding on the kids with this,” Nightwing shrugged. “But to be honest, I think they already have enough to go off of. Too much, maybe.”

“Well, actually…” Alya started contemplating. Nino’s words echoed back at her. At this point, she’d stopped daring to hope that Ladybug would call upon her again one day to be Rena Rouge. If it could help her now… “I was a superhero.”

All heads turned to her. “For a few months at least. Rena Rouge.”

Nino’s eyes widened a comical amount. He himself was Carapace, but he never thought for a second to divulge that to anyone, let alone members of the Justice League. Adrien looked at her in complete and utter shock as well.

“So you were.” Even Alya had heard the doubt in Batman’s voice.

“I was! And I can tell you about the Miraculous. About Kwamis. I know things about Ladybug.” The name lit a fire in Alya’s heart. She couldn’t blame Ladybug for all of this… but why wasn’t she there? When they needed her the most?

“We’ll ask you. Later,” Batman said.

Suddenly, a phone rang. They all looked for the source of the sound, eventually landing on Adrien, who fumbled with the device in his pocket, grasping it firmly in his hands. They watched as he grew pale in the face upon seeing the content on his screen, and he glanced around the room as if he would have offered to excuse himself to pick it up, but the room beside it was already occupied.

“Would it be okay if I…?” He made a gesture towards the phone.

When several people shrugged and nodded in response, Adrien turned his back to them to have at least some false pretense of privacy. He hunched in a far corner.

“Adrien!” A harsh voice came through the speakers, loud enough to be heard by the rest.

“Father…”

“What are you doing out so late? Where are you? Gorilla reported that you haven’t called to be picked up.” 

Adrien rushed to explain. “I just got lost when the Akuma appeared, and then I crashed at Nino’s place for a while–” He was swiftly cut off.

“Actually, just tell me when you get here.” The voice on the other end of the line sighed. “Where are you? Who are you with.”

“I- I’m at the Dupain-Cheng Bakery. With… my friends.”

“You’re not stuffing yourself, are you? Fortunately, the shoot scheduled today was cancelled, but it’s been rescheduled for tomorrow and you need to be ready for it. You know what pastries will do to you. I always knew those friends of yours were bad influences.” He let out another sigh. 

Adrien could easily have imagined his Father with that familiar displeased expression on his face. Without missing another beat, the man continued, “Gorilla will come pick you up. In the meanwhile, just stay put .”

Before Adrien could muster up an answer, the call ended abruptly. “Love you…” he whispered after.

For a few moments, there was ear-ringing silence.

“That was just sad,” Red Hood remarked, now leaned back on a chair with both of his feet on the table. 

Nightwing hit him in the shoulder. “Rude, Jaybird.”

“ Names , Nightwing,” Batman said.

“I was just thinking about that, actually,” Nightwing commented. “We’re going to take her in… she can’t actually stay here, I don’t think. And I don’t know when, but eventually she’s going to have to be made public, right?”

Alya scoffed. “She’s already public.”

“And whose fault is that?” Red Hood drawled.

Batman stewed in deep thought. Nightwing continued, “they already know that she’s your kid. When your civilian identity eventually claims ownership of her…”

Nino whispered incredulously to himself, “I can’t believe we just basically glossed over that fact.”

“That’s not something we will be doing,” Batman replied sternly.

“Then why would she be staying with you?” Nightwing asked.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng flees the country to America to escape the situation in Paris. Perhaps spin a story where I and the Dupain-Chengs are already familiar. As a charitable man, I take her under my wing acting as her benefactor in America.”

“There’s going to be speculation,” Nightwing pressed.

“There’s always speculation,” Batman dismissed.

“This time it wouldn’t be refutable. She’s in the limelight now. Journalists are bound to dig up her past, and it’s only a matter of time until they find out she’s adopted. If they haven’t already,” Nightwing crossed his arms. “You know she looks almost exactly like you-know-who. She even has your eyes. And with your reputation…”

Batman closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“So Batman’s secret identity is actually famous. Got it.” Alya noted with hilarity.

“Alya,” Nino chided.

“We’ll tell you more about the organization behind the attack tonight, so long as you agree not to divulge anything you learn now or in the future,” Batman told them with a straight face.

Alya promised, “Never. Even if I am a journalist.”

Nino and Adrien nodded. “Would never even dream of it,” Nino stated.

Before Batman could say a word in response, Red Hood took his heavy boots off of the table, letting them land roughly on the floor. “Welp, we’ve warned you.”

“The League of Assassins,” Batman’s voice went deep, deeper than the teenagers thought possible. They waited in bated breath for whatever he said next.

A pregnant pause. The teens waited some more. Another moment of silence, waiting maybe for an explanation, or context. And nothing. “Is there more to that or…?” Alya trailed off.

“Classic. I used to hate when you’d do that.” Red Hood chuckled. 

Nightwing chuckled with him, starting with a brief explanation on just what the League of Assassins was.

Chapter Text

Mari and her parents retreated into their living room, and Mari sank into the couch with a soft sigh of relieved tension. Before the tension came back tenfold when she was reminded of her current circumstance.

She felt a dip in the space beside her, and she forced her eyes to open, to see her Maman and her Papa looking at her with those eyes. As if they were craving for something, likely some answers, but were holding back to give her space.

For the many-eth time that day, Mari found no words and yet so much that she had to say. The conflict was evident in her eyes, but Sabine's compulsion to push lost over her compulsion to be her mother.

“I know that it’s hard to say, and if we could, we’d give you the space to tell us in your own time…” Sabine took a deep and stabilizing breath. “Even if we wished you’d been able to tell us, frankly, any of this before. Honestly, I had an idea that maybe you came from a severely abusive household or were involved in the mob or something like that. Those scars…” Sabine shook the thought away.

She continued, “but this is a lot more than I could’ve ever expected, and we can’t wait any longer.”

Tom wrapped his arms around his wife, a man of not so many words. But his presence held firm, which was as many words as any. Sabine took another long breath, this time shakier. “Except… I can understand why you didn’t, or still don’t want to tell us. And if you never want to tell us… then that’s fine too. I like to think we’ve done a fine job at raising you these past seven years, even if maybe that was all a lie, but…”

Emotions swelled within Mari and in a single motion, faster than she would be able to regret, she wrapped her Maman and Papa up in a tight embrace. Her vision blurred with tears, but she stayed silent, burrowing her face in the space between her adoptive mother’s shoulders.

(Quick sketch of this scene)

Sabine continued regardless, her voice cracking. “... But you’re always going to be my little girl, alright? Nothing will ever take that away from us. Not that insane lady with the sword, or Batman for some God forsaken reason.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be a little girl– ” her voice wobbled. “I just can’t think of myself that way. But you’re always going to be my Maman.”

Sabine laughed wetly. “I was going to ask if you wanted to stay with us, here, in the bakery, but I don’t think that’s an option–”

Mari pleaded, “I wish I could stay, I want to stay, I just–”

“Sweetheart, I know. I love you. But for you to be safe you need to go with them.”

“– I’ll tell you everything, I swear. I’m sorry that I put you in so much danger, I never wanted to from the start. And I knew I was putting you in danger but–” The words spilled out of Mari like water pouring from a cup.

“Honey, I know. I know.” Sabine shook her from the shoulders lightly, pulling her from the embrace. “Just don’t let this be goodbye, okay?” She wiped the tears from Mari’s face one by one as Tom tucked a stray hair behind her ear that had fallen into disarray.

After a few moments, Sabine’s face hardened. “Do you trust those men?”

Mari bit her lip. “Not with my life, but I don’t think they’d hurt me.”

“I guess that’s as good as we can get,” Sabine nodded resolutely.

There was silence for several moments. The murmur of conversation transmitted throughout the halls as Mari wondered what they could have been about. She needed to say something, an explanation.

“The League of Assassins, that’s what they’re called,” she blurted out.

“Honey…”

“They created me and my twin brother from the woman you saw, Talia, and Batman’s DNA. It was with an artificial womb, not just C-section. The entire womb was artificial, Talia hadn’t needed to labor for a single second for our birth. We, or at least my twin brother, were created for a purpose, and that was to be the perfect heir. I was… a defect at least, and a parasite at worst, at least according to them. I was still trained, sent on missions. I– I killed, you know. It’s not a very pretty picture, and we were always pitted against each other, me and him. Some things happened, and I escaped. I ended up here eventually. I never planned on meeting either of you, or even staying in this country at all! …It just happened that way.” Mari finished quickly, out of breath.

“I for one am glad it did,” Tom said. His voice was so warm. “And you’re not a defect, or a parasite. You’re a person, and you’re our daughter. If those people couldn’t see that, then it was never on you. It was always on them.”

Sabine kissed her husband briefly on the cheek, before pressing a kiss on her daughter’s cheek as well. Mari didn’t have the words.

“I’m so lucky,” Mari smiled through the tears. “I can’t believe I was lucky enough to have you both as my parents.”

“We’re lucky to have you,” Sabine pressed a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. “Before we head back, what do you want us to call you? Marinette doesn’t work anymore?”

“Just… Mari for now, I think. Can I still be Mari and a Dupain-Cheng?”

“Of course.”

The Dupain-Chengs re-entered the dining room with decidedly more tear streaks than before, but closer as a family than ever. It was cathartic to say the least, when they knew it was close to becoming goodbye, at least for the moment

Immediately, the teenagers left in the room noticed the stark change in their friend. She was different, and she walked differently. The way she held herself was changed as well, more stiff, and yet more fluid and smooth. 

Even the quirk of her mouth was changed, the line firmer, and less like the permanent upturn there was before. At the same time, it seemed as if a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, and she seemed simultaneously younger and much, much older at the same time.

Marinette had always had a tendency to announce herself with her feet, flats clacking away at the floor beneath them. Except this time, not a sound could be heard as she made her way close to the table. 

Mari frowned. “Where’s Adrien?”

The seat where Adrien had previously sat was now unoccupied, leaving an empty space between Alya and Nino who looked at her with wide eyes. 

Nino answered first. “Gorilla picked him up. You know how his dad is.”

Alya sprung up from her chair to stand face to face with Mari, who stepped back in caution. “ Assassins? The League of Assassins? That’s insane! Your life is insane!” Alya wildly gesticulated.

“Yeah. I know. It’s my life,” Mari smiled bitterly. Then she frowned. “You told them?”

She turned to face the cohort of vigilantes with a scalding expression on her face. “What happened to ‘It’s better if you all didn’t know?’. It’s still too dangerous, why would you tell them?”

Red Hood put his hands up. “Don’t look at me. Blame that guy.” He shoved a gloved finger at Batman who gave a grunt.

“It was a collective decision,” Nightwing added.

 Batman said after a moment, “they would have figured it out eventually.”

“We don’t know that,” Mari argued.

“We totally would have!” Alya threw at her.

“Alya, I’m sorry, but if these guys didn’t come out here tonight, you’d all be dead. And that’s the fact of the matter. You could get killed for this information. You could get killed because of me. ” 

“So what!” Alya threw her hands up. “We get killed all the time.”

“It’s not the same,” Marinette shook her head from side to side. “Alya, it’s not the same. If you die now, without an Akuma attack, you’re not coming back.”

“You’re our friend. We care about you. We want you to be safe,” Alya stated matter-of-factly. “And it’s Ladybug at fault here. She should have been there .”

Mari cringed at the mention of her alter ego. “I’m sure Ladybug had a very good reason for not being there.”

“Then I should have been there! As Rena Rouge.” Alya scoffed, “If only she didn’t take away my Miraculous.”

Mari turned to her sharply, a look of shock spread across her features. 

“It doesn’t matter now,” Alya said, reading her expression. “I’m never going to be Rena Rouge again. I see that. And don’t be too shocked. You’re literally Multimouse.”

Mari scanned the faces in the room. Not one of them looked surprised at the revelation of an ex-hero there with them. “You told them,” she said slowly, enunciating each syllable with clear intention. “You told them about Rena Rouge.”

Alya paused, recognising that look. “You knew?”

“Have you told anyone else about Rena Rouge?” Mari asked with urgency.

“Of course not!” Alya vehemently refused. “And Ladybug told you? Did she tell you why she took away the rest of us? ”

For a second, Mari pondered how to respond to the accusations. “That’s for you to ask her,” Mari said, a migraine already forming at the headache she just gave herself future self.

“Does Ladybug have a tendency to pick tweens as her hero partners?” Batman asked practically out of nowhere, momentarily startling the two.

Mari scoffed, eyeing him up and down. “That’s honestly rich coming from you. How’s Robin by the way?”

Nightwing and Red Hood both snickered. The resulting identical glares that came from the father-daughter duo only enhanced their snickering.

Batman sighed. “That is a problem for later. Marinette–”

“Just Mari now.”

“–Mari. Pack your belongings. Say your goodbyes. You’re coming with us.”

Mari felt a hand land on her shoulder. She looked up to see Nino, a tender expression dancing on his face. “Marinette– I mean, Mari.”

“Nino,” she smiled at him. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“We will be seeing each other again, right? Adrien didn’t even get to see you before he had to go.”

“Of course. I won’t just be disappearing,” she wrapped him in a one armed hug. “You’re like a brother to me. And Adrien… I guess I’ll just be seeing him when we see each other again. Whenever that is.”

“I hope it’s soon,” Nino said in response.

Mari turned to face Alya, who had her arms crossed but tears so clearly gleaming in her eyes. “Alya…”

Alya sniffled. Mari wrapped her best friend in a warm hug. Alya let her shoulders sag as she held her tightly. “You’re my best friend. Okay?”

“Yeah. You're mine too.”

Mari found herself upstairs in Marinette’s bedroom alone. She was surprised the Bat crew trusted her not to take off as soon as no more eyes were on her. Not that she would ever have thought it. 

… Marinette’s bedroom. 

That’s how she thought of it– not Mari’s. As she gathered a duffel bag and several items of clothing she noted the familiar space’s new and strange unfamiliarity. It was altogether new and old at the same time, she thought as she levied her gaze across the room. 

Marinette had loved pink, and Mari found herself fond of the color that covered the walls as well.

Mari found herself hesitating at her sewing machine, unfinished pieces and fabrics and strings strewn about. She debated taking them with her, but that was Marinette’s dream, right? 

Fashion. That was what Marinette had wanted to do and yet– she hesitated. 

Did Mari want that too?

She spent a prolonged moment just contemplating. One of her current projects was a gift for Jagged Stone, a sequin jacket with metal embellishments, and she had promised to give it to him for his next tour. She felt conflicted about leaving the piece so close to finishing.

Marinette had loved fashion. She supposed Mari could learn to love it too. 

In the end, she had packed a startlingly little amount of things. Mari felt herself falling back on old habits, making a mental list of all the things she needed for light travel. Apart from the Jagged Stone’s jacket. The items she held dearly to her heart were all best left hidden in cabinets or drawers. She only needed to bring the important things– practical clothing, some items for that jacket, and personal hygiene products. 

Her purse had already held the things she absolutely needed to bring with her– Miraculous jewelry. Several of them, the ones she used the most. 

The Miracle Box itself was too large to bring with her, she would have to use Kaalki to retrieve it and bring it with her to presumably Gotham, her Father’s home city. It was safely stored in Master Fu’s massage shop with magical protections in place, unbeknownst to the now oblivious and amnesia ridden old man.

However now that the League of Assassins were on him, despite his memory loss, it was on the top of her list of priorities once everything settled down at least a bit. 

She found herself wrapped in a tight embrace between her Maman and Papa who smiled down at her with glassy eyes. She hugged Nino and Alya with a friendly smile. 

Mari glanced outside the windows and then to a wall clock hanging above them. She glanced back at Alya who smiled quizzically.

“Isn’t it late? Shouldn’t your mom be calling you home?” Mari asked. She turned to Nino as well. “You too.”

Nino replied first, “honestly, I think I’m going to be in big trouble.”

“I told my mom I’d be sleeping over, it was the only excuse I could think of,” Alya rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-Cheng.”

Sabine sighed fondly. “That’s fine. You can stay in Mari’s room. Is that alright?”

Mari nodded along with Alya.

“We should go,” said the big Bat himself, motioning to leave from the window. Sabine rolled her eyes.

“You hero types. Just leave through the front door,” she said, gesturing to the staircase heading downstairs.

Batman shook his head as Nightwing, who was peeking his head out of that same window already outside, said, “we can’t. The full first floor is being monitored as of right now by the paps. We got them to leave for a little bit during the whole commotion, but we can’t stave them off forever.”

Mari sighed. “If that’s all, then should I be transforming too? If we’re going rooftop hopping.”

“If you prefer,” Batman replied.

Sabine frowned at the mention of ‘rooftop hopping’ but otherwise stayed silent at the matter of her daughter’s safety. Midnight parkour, after the day she had, seemed like the least of her worries and something Mari was perfectly used to doing. 

Mari noticed her Maman’s worrying. She placed a comforting hand on her adoptive mother's arm. “I’ll be fine.”

She took a deep breath, removing her hand as she reached into her collar to pull out her hidden necklace. Mullo popped out of her purse as she rummaged through it to find some cheese. Sabine slowly waved at the floating mouse thing as it enthusiastically waved back. 

“So that’s the Mouse Miraculous,” Alya said breathlessly.

Mari didn’t answer as she held her Miraculous in hand, yelling, “Get squeaky!” 

A bright light filled the room as once again, Mari found herself as her Mouse hero persona. She looked down at her body and noticed that the suit had slightly changed. Among the Miraculous suits, the Mouse Miraculous had already been one of the sleeker of them. It was darker now, and less reflective though the pink accent color had stayed. 

She met eyes with Batman, nodding. The tell-tale sound of a grappling hook sounded behind her, and she took a final look back.

She leapt.

Chapter Text

“So you’re still not going to talk about her,” Tim crossed his arms together, glaring at Damian. Tim had spent six very good hours in deep sleep, but now he was entirely awake with at least two cups of coffee already thoroughly chugged down.

He had made his way down to the Batcave, half-expecting total chaos with a Damian look-alike wreaking havoc and the rest of the bats already home trying to keep peace. Instead, he descended down the staircase into the cave to total silence, apart from the familiar whirring noises made by the tech. 

He didn’t need to look very hard to find Damian, sitting on the Batcomputer chair with his hands interlocked covering his face with an expression of deep thought laden in his eyes.

Damian glared back. “There is nothing to talk about, Drake,” he responded.

Tim hummed. “I beg to differ.”

As Damian eyed him with contempt, he started working the Batcomputer standing up. Damian let him, still sitting in the chair, but not without expressing just how much he detested the arrangement by kicking him in the shin. 

Tim, nonplussed and not even hurt by the act, only gave him a look. “Real mature.”

Damian hissed. 

Tim started to look through the history of Marinette’s life, at least all recorded evidence. Adopted at seven, went to several therapists though never stayed for long…

Marinette was part of the dubbed ‘Akuma class’, and was also classmates with Chloe Bourgeois, the mayor’s daughter. According to several records, and several records that were eventually revoked likely due to some mayoral meddling, it seemed as if there were several instances of bullying from the girl.

With no searching at all, he found that apparently Marinette was an aspiring fashion designer. He was surprised to learn she had big names such as Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste backing her. Rockstar Jagged Stone, a friend of Brucie’s, was another one of her backers too.

He let his eyes wander to Damian for a moment.

Tim could tell Damian was fighting the urge to take a look at the screen as Tim sorted through anything he could find of his sister online. From what Tim could gleam, there was no evidence of Marinette having any kind criminal record, past, or violent tendencies. In fact, through everything he could find, she was just shaping up to be a promising young woman. 

The curiosity must have burned at Damian, eyes still avoiding the screen, because he began to say, “Mari Al Ghul. That was her name…” in a tone that suggested he was being forced, but would continue to speak more on the subject despite that.

Tim rolled his eyes. “You can look without telling me, you know,” he said exasperated. 

“Do you want to know or not?” Damian said through gritted teeth.

Tim motioned with a go ahead as Damian averted his eyes. However, instead of continuing he snarled. Damian took Tim’s meant-to-be innocuous movement as a mocking gesture. “Simply continue your professional stalking, Drake. See if I care.”

“Well, clearly you do,” Tim deadpanned.

“I do not,” Damian refused.

Tim rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

Damian furrowed his brows in a laughably similar Bruce expression. “I do not care to be mocked on matters you do not understand nor which I know you do not care about.”

Instead of denying the alleged mockery and uncaringness, Tim merely turned his back to Damian, eyes set on a faceless instagram account under the pseudonym and online fashion boutique simply calling itself MD. It had only taken several seconds to confirm that the anonymous account was being run by Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“Do not ignore me!” Damian demanded petulantly after several moments.

Tim contemplated for a second on whether or not it was worth it to annoy the fourteen year old. After running several calculations in his head, he decided that it was never not worth it to annoy him.

“Or what?” He scoffed, purposefully donning a smile of mockery. “You’ll try to kill me again? Cut my grappling hook rope a few more times?”

Damian reeled back. 

Tim frowned as he noticed that the atmosphere had suddenly plunged as he watched Damian’s face contort into several conflicting emotions. Tim didn’t expect that statement to hit a nerve but now he was too committed to take it back.

Only seconds later Damian had corralled his composure back and Tim breathed a sigh of relief. Tim may have been committed, but he did not feel up to a fight so soon after waking up.

“Maybe I will, Drake,” Damian said, turning his nose up at him.

“You don’t have the balls.”

Damian sputtered, “H-how unbecoming!”

Tim flashed his teeth, “What’ll you do? Clutch your pearls?”

“I will clutch your teeth as soon as I pull them from your skull in your sleep,” Damian threatened. 

“Yeah sure,” Tim huffed. “Good luck on catching me doing that.”

They leapt from rooftop to rooftop as Multimouse followed the bats’ leads. She did so without a word, however she was curious as to where she was actually being led to. She’d half expected to be led to an airport, and find herself in a private jet. What she didn’t expect was for them to land on a seemingly innocuous building on the outskirts of the city, in a somewhat densely populated area, but far from any of the international airports. 

They landed behind it in an alley where a suspicious door led to a hallway inside. Multimouse blinked. 

“You have to know how suspicious this is. I thought we were going back to your city? Gotham, in America?”

Batman had already gone in. Red Hood sauntered meanderingly with his hands in his leather jacket towards the hallway, following him. Nightwing turned to her, the last of the three. “We are,” he said.

She followed them in, hesitant. 

“It’s a Wayne owned building,” Nightwing explained. 

“Who’s Wayne?” She asked, although the name was familiar.

“Bruce Wayne. Lives in our city. He’s very rich and is very much tied to the Justice League.”

Eventually, they came across a door, several of them, but the door in question that Batman had opened was completely metal in material and held several locks. The main lock of which was a high tech looking number pad that made a beeping sound when opened.

Stepping into the room, it was less like a room and more like a cylindrical tunnel with a bright light at the end. Before Multimouse could ask, they’d already anticipated the question.

“It’s called the Zeta Tube. It’s like teleportation of sorts. It’ll bring you up to the Watchtower, that's our headquarters, then we can teleport down to the Cave,” Nightwing explained.

“The Batcave, correct?”

Before anyone could answer her, Batman had the tube activated, and a bright, blindingly white light flashed ahead of her in an instant. She closed her eyes in a blink, and when she opened them again, she found herself in an entirely unfamiliar room. Building, it seemed like.

The strange cylindrical room was now gone, replaced with a grand hall with tall walls and a massive window. To Multimouse’s shock, it showed the night sky with brightly shining dots of light. That, and the entirety of the Earth. If Mari were to guess, and her guesses were usually very good, she found herself on something now floating in the vacuum of space.

“Recognized: Batman-02, Recognized…” A speaker somewhere in the room started speaking as she found herself preoccupied with looking at space. 

She turned to her companions, “So this is the Justice League’s base.” She hummed.

Just as Batman was about to teleport them down to the Cave, the clack of heels sounded, and he recognized Diana’s dawning footsteps in their direction. They all turned to the sound as Multimouse came face to face with Wonder Woman herself in full regalia.

“Hello, Multimouse,” she was greeted with warmth. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Multimouse was left gaping for a second. “And it’s nice to meet you.”

In reality, she had already met Wonder Woman. When the Themysciran woman had heard whispers of a new Miraculous Ladybug holder, she had come immediately to offer her help. Help which wasn’t wanted, although Ladybug let her spend the better part of a week with her telling stories of old, and some advice that did turn out to be helpful. 

Wonder Woman’s mother had been a Ladybug holder as well. Ladybug had appreciated the welcoming, but politely refused Justice League support. At the time Mari had justified it to herself that heroes were dangerous to have within the confines of the city, which was largely true. But to be honest, she just didn’t want to garner attention from any of the big leagues.

And yet there she was, in the big league headquarters.

“I was going to come down to help, but I was informed that the situation was handled,” Wonder Woman eyed the vigilantes. Then she eyed Multimouse. “I see the resemblance,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

“I’d like to talk with you at a later date. If that’s alright?” Wonder Woman asked. Then, she offered her a hand. “Diana Prince.”

Multimouse shook the hand with a firm grasp, even in surprise. Wonder Woman let out a small laugh, sensing the emotion from her. 

“I thought it was only fair, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Multimouse didn’t feel the need to correct her as Diana turned to take her leave. She turned back to her companions with a slightly perplexed look on her face.

Red Hood sighed dreamily. “Isn’t she so cool?”

Nightwing shoved him playfully. Red Hood shrugged, “I’m not wrong.”

The Zeta Tube activated. When it cleared, she opened her eyes to what could only have been described as the Batcave. Dark, echoing, vast. It was filled with high tech gadgetry, and a massive computer system was apparent on one end of the cave. It was also a literal cave, to Mari’s surprise.

She detransformed. Mari was about to make an idle comment when the words died down in her throat. 

There stood Damian. 

Or sat more like, on the swivel chair in front of the massive computer. 

It seemed as if he had been squabbling with the teenager standing directly opposite to him before they arrived. Mari could tell that he had definitely noticed their arrival although his back was turned to her.

His back was frigid, and the line of his shoulders stiff as a board. He didn’t seem to breathe as she knew he felt her eyes on him.

He was taller now, was her first thought. Mari didn’t know why that surprised her.

He had always been taller than her when they were kids, but he was taller now and his hair slightly longer, enough that if there was wind in the cave, it would have swayed with it. It was strange seeing him. Up to that point she’d only ever imagined him as how he looked like those last moments they were together– blood on his neck and expression of shock on his face. 

In Damian’s head he was running through the thought of not wanting to turn around to face her. Mari Al Ghul had been the specter that haunted his dreams, the ghost of his past. Of course he had seen her already– the pictures were right up on the screen.

She was smiling with her hair tied into pigtails. He’d barely recognized that girl.

It was different to have her actually there in the flesh. It had been one thing to see her living, it was another to witness– to know with his own eyes that she was alive and not dead.

Damian Al Ghul was no coward. And yet he had to fight every urge to flee. 

Mari was feeling much the same as he’d abruptly spun around to see her face-to-face. Mari took a step back but Damian was relentless as he took long strides to meet her at the Cave’s Zeta Tube entrance, only the merest stutter in his step.

This girl Damian could recognize. Her hair loose and flowing, those eyes deep, and so close to the look on her face when they realized she should have lost.

Mari wasn’t surprised when he loomed over her, a stormy expression on his face, as she felt her expression morph into what must have been an identical look of stony resolve. 

For a moment, neither of them spoke, meanwhile the rest of the Cave’s inhabitants held their breaths. 

“Were you revived? Were you dipped into the Pits?” Damian asked with force. “Did grandfather hide you from me?”

Mari felt a bubble of laughter leave her throat. “Is it really so hard to believe that I could do it myself? Really, you and Talia both.”

“I find it hard to believe a seven year old could have escaped Nanda Parbat and lived, largely unbothered for all this time.”

“Well I could. And I did,” Mari said with emphasis. He took a deep breath. 

“Then I suppose you had the last laugh in the end. Fooling me, all of us, pretending you were incompetent all that time.” He said as if the very notion still offended him, “You beat me.”

“ Seriously?” Marinette expressed, throwing her hands up in the air. “If I could have beaten you every single time I would’ve.”

“You still won,” Damian replied, his fists clenched.

“That was one fight.”

“The only fight that ever mattered between us.”

They were quiet for a moment with only the sound of their thundering heartbeats to fill the silence. The tension was palpable. 

“I didn’t even know I’d win,” Mari said, cutting through the tension, barely above a whisper before picking up. “I should have lost! You’re talking about the last laugh, but all I see is that you’ve gotten everything you ever wanted and everything I fought for. It didn’t even matter that I won. I didn’t win anything .”

“You won grandfather’s favor. His approval.”

“If you think I care about that anymore then you’re full of shit.”

Damian physically reeled back at her choice of words. Apologies had lingered on the tip of his tongue. Damian knew he’d felt regret in regards to his actions in the past, he’d stewed and he’d stewed at the thought of his twin sister, of her skewed memory that lingered in his head. 

But none of those thoughts came back to him as he bared his teeth at her, utterly unremorseful, as if the moment she stepped foot in the Batcave his brain was instantly transported back to those final moments when he saw her last and with everything he felt back then still as fresh as a gaping wound.

Something must have shown in his eyes, something like violence, because in less than a moment, their father stood between them, a dark barrier cutting off their line of sight.

Damian stiffened, his anger quelled, but thoughts still a jumbled mess in his head.

“I think we’d like to hear about this fight of yours, Damian, Mari. But first, I think we should make some proper introductions,” Batman said, stepping back, before pulling off his cowl in one swift motion to reveal the chiseled face of a handsome man which Mari did not recognize.

“I don’t know your face, or really who you are, but I already made the connection that you were Bruce Wayne,” she admitted. “Just a few minutes ago, actually, when Nightwing brought the name up. Apparently, you own a few buildings, are very rich, and donate money to the Justice League.”

“And that’s all you know,” said the teenager grasping the comically large mug of coffee behind them, his voice laced with amusement. “ To be fair, Brucie probably doesn’t make headlines in France. That’s refreshing actually.”

Bruce sighed. “Yes, thank you, Tim.”

Tim strode over to them with his hands in the pocket of his sweatpants. He took a hand out to hand it to Mari, who shook it firmly, her second handshake of the night. “I don’t know about what actually went down between you and him, but if that conversation was anything to go by, I think you and I have a lot in common.”

Despite being slightly perplexed by the statement, Mari let herself nod as she let go of his hand. 

Nightwing came over pulling his mask off. Mari was half expecting another offer for a handshake when she was pulled into a hug by the now unmasked vigilante with the gymnastic build. “Welcome to the family, little sis. You can call me Dick.”

Mari recoiled, “what?” Mari’s first language may not have been English, but she was very adept at languages.

“It’s short for Richard. My parents were old-timey like that,” Dick explained, shrugging.

“It still seems rude,” Mari replied, recalling that fact. “And you’re adopted?”

“We’re all adopted, Pipsqueak,” Red Hood remarked, coming up from beside them, now fully out of his Red Hood suit and in civilian clothing which he had managed to somehow change into in that short period of time. “Apart from you and the brat.”

“This one,” he shoved a thumb at Bruce’s direction, “hoards orphans. Particularly of the black-haired, blue-eyed kind. The second one’s optional though. Jason, by the way.” He introduced, landing a maybe heavy-handed but friendly pat on her back.

Damian was still standing there, fists clenched to his sides, stewing. He’d moved maybe an inch, but that was it.

“We should move this upstairs,” Dick commented. “Get comfy.”

Chapter Text

They ascended the stairs to an exit that led out to a grand looking hallway. Mari looked in mild surprise as she scanned the walls and the floors around her. It screamed of generational wealth, and she turned to them to ask, “you live on top of the Batcave. In a mansion.”

“We call it a manor,” Dick replied casually. Mari nodded to herself. Talia had said her father was wealthy back then, she thought.

Mari felt awkward ignoring Damian in step with her, but if he was ignoring her, then she found nothing wrong with ignoring him back.

They’d started walking when they came upon an old man with silver hair who couldn’t have been anything but a butler pulled straight from the nineteenth century. Mari wondered if the Waynes had more butlers, and how pretentious they were for having butlers in the first place.

(Pale, silver hair, she would have called the old man frail if it weren’t for the youth with which he held himself, and his surprisingly muscled build. Harmless at first glance, though her intuition told her to be wary of all those pockets. Could likely slit his—)

She felt the butler’s eyes on her, and she looked back at him with a neutral expression on her face. She was reeling at the thought, and her mind immediately flashed back to her knife so close to slitting Reverie’s throat. That murderous intent, that feeling of blood welling up in her throat, the scent of the hunt.

His expression was warm, and his mouth turned up into a welcoming smile. He greeted, “welcome, Miss Marinette.”

“It’s just Mari,” she said in clear repulsion. Mari noted his English accent.

“Very well, Miss Mari,” he said with a dip of the head. “My name is Alfred Pennyworth and I am the Wayne family butler.”

“Are there more butlers?” Mari asked in curiosity.

“No, Miss Mari, just me.”

“This place seems really big for just one man running it,” Mari said suspiciously.

Beside her, Jason shrugged. “That’s the magic of Alfie. He just won’t retire no matter how many times we’ve told him he can.”

Alfred shook his head with a dignified grace. “I cared for Master Bruce growing up, I cared for his parents before him, and so long as I have four fully functional limbs I shall care for more Waynes yet.”

“Alfie’s more like a grandfather to us, honestly,” Dick said, fond.

Mari felt her heart flutter as Alfred turned his intense but warm and endearing look towards her. “You’re family now, my girl.”

And without a moment’s notice, that intense look turned stern as he eyed the men beside her. “And to the rest of you, I know I raised you all better than this. This is no way to treat a newly discovered member of the family, and I implore you all to let her rest the night, as it would be very late now in Paris.”

Bruce, to Mari’s surprise, did look chastised. Though it shouldn’t have been a surprise after knowing Alfred had apparently raised the man. It was just a strange sight, seeing the fearsome Batman quelled by a fragile looking old man in a suit.

“You should all thank Miss Barbara,” Alfred continued, “as she felt the need, as you all should have, to properly inform me of our new member. As it is, I’ve made the proper arrangements for a matter such as this.”

Alfred’s expression turned soft once again as he directed it to her. “Your room is ready. Decorate or rearrange it to your need. I have left sleepwear on the mattress and hygiene products in the room’s personal bathroom. If you need assistance, do not hesitate to call me.”

Mari smiled, “Thank you, Alfred.”

So Mari was left to her own devices, alone in her room, with just her thoughts, her things, and her feelings. She felt the impending doom of a nearing total mental collapse stirring in her head. It was… startling how fast her heart rate could pick up in a single moment, and yet with all her might, she shoved it away with surprising effectiveness. 

There were things needed to be done and dealt with. The world wouldn’t stop for her. She knew that well and truly.

She went through everything she had brought, doing the job of unpacking and reorganizing. After that, she collapsed into the plush mattress of her new bed, mentally, physically, and wholly exhausted, knowing full well she had more work to do, a Miracle Box to safely retrieve, and not a minute she was keen to spare.

As it would turn out, Batman shared this last particular thought.

Adrien arrived home in the backseat of one of his father’s cars. The radio wasn’t playing—Gorilla wasn’t fond of the kind of music that played on the stations, or music at all as far as Adrien knew— so it was silent apart from the idle sounds of the road.

Adrien didn’t like the silence. He never liked the silence, in the car, in his head, in the home he grew up in with his distant father that he knew cared but just was never really there. It was always silent for as long as he could remember since his mother passed away. 

Gabriel Agreste had always been the intense kind of man with tall ambitions and a rigorous work ethic. He had high standards for himself and the people around him. He was a fashion designer with a world-famous fashion brand.

However, alongside that, he had once been a loving father and a doting husband. They were happy once, a life full of joy, laughter, color. His mother had been vibrant, and his father glowed when she was with him.

Adrien could tell, even back then, that he had loved her more than anything. More than even him, because as soon as she was gone, Adrien’s father had retreated into the locked door of his office in mourning. He doesn’t think his father ever stopped.

At times like this, Adrien yearned for something to fill the silence. As it was, he had nothing but his thoughts to occupy him. And he didn’t know what to think. 

No, that was a lie. There were burning thoughts on hot embers in his head, he just didn’t want to think them right before going to greet his father.

They arrived at the Agreste mansion, to no surprise, silence. There was only the echoing sound of their footsteps to fill the air that bounced around in their empty home.

The walk to his office was long enough, though, because by the time they’d come into the interior of the house, his mind had been racing for a long while. 

Marinette had a whole secret life she just didn’t tell anyone, not even her family, about. And no one knew about it. A life of assassins? And American superheroes? And ninjas?? Adrien was still very confused about all of that.

But at the surface, he just couldn’t reconcile the image he had of Multimouse with the image he had of Marinette, someone he considered one of his closest friends.

Multimouse, who was loud, rash, often times aggressive and pushy. Marinette, who was always red-faced, stuttering, and a total klutz.

A part of Adrien wanted to say that it didn’t make any sense. That Multimouse and Marinette shared nothing in common, but that would have been a disservice to either one of their personalities.

Both Multimouse and Marinette were badass, kind and competent. They always pulled through and never went back on promises. He could see clearly how one could be the other, and it wasn’t too surprising that they turned out to be one and the same, at least in hindsight.

And he wasn’t one to talk. No one in Paris would say that Chat and Adrien could possibly be the same person. 

Adrien knew exactly who he was and wasn’t supposed to be. It felt stifling being himself sometimes, soft spoken Adrien with the perfect smile, and the perfect hair, and the perfect model body, with the perfect grades and the perfectly docile personality.

It wasn’t even that all those things weren’t Adrien either—he did have a great smile, and great hair, and a body fit for teen vogue. He was his mother’s son . He was smart and he got good grades— he liked getting them! –- and he did like being on the mellow side of the personality spectrum.

It was that he couldn’t be anything else. And he didn’t know how to be anything other than what portrayed himself as. He didn’t know if he was allowed to. 

Chat didn’t have to be any of those things. Chat had a duty to protect the citizens of Paris, but he was also free to be whatever he liked outside of that. So he decided he was going to be a flirty cat boy who made cheesy puns wherever and whenever he could conceive of one. And godammit was he proud!

He got to be himself without any of the expectations and restrictions associated with actually being himself. He knew what his father wanted. He knew what other people thought of him, he wasn’t that oblivious . 

When he was Chat Noir, he was free. 

Sometimes he wondered if the real him was more Chat Noir or Adrien Agreste, but most days he was just content with splitting his personality in the middle. There were times for one, and there were times for the other. And that was just fine.

He knew it was stupid, complaining over all of it. There he was, sulking over the fact that he was handsome, and smart, and a world-famous model, when he knew there were people out there actually having a hard time. 

For God’s sake, Marinette was out there being hunted down by assassins, with her civilian identity just there for the world to know.

Sure, his father was a little distant, but that was fine. He was fine.

Adrien wasn’t sure if he was ready when he felt himself knock at the door of his father’s office, hands clammy, his head filling with reasons, excuses. He had never, ever before stayed so late out. At least not without Gorilla or his father himself to accompany him.

He opened his door to a familiar sight. His father, at the helm of his office, adjusting his glasses in front of the blindingly white screen. The garish black and white tiles covering the whole floor. The portrait of his mother, looking down at both of them with her unmoving eyes.

His father’s eyes were the kind of cold Adrien was used to, and he neither flinched nor squirmed when they landed on him.

He waited to be addressed. After several nerve wracking seconds, his father finally spoke. 

“Adrien. Welcome home. Sit,” he gestured to the chair across from him.

Adrien did as he waited with baited breath for the next words out of his father’s mouth. Something like a scolding, or a series of questions as to what he was doing out.

Instead, what he got was, “That friend of yours, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” Adrien stared in confusion. “You were with her.”

It wasn’t a question, but Adrien could tell he was expected to answer. “Y-yes. She’s one of my friends.”

His father hummed. “Tell me about her.”

He was fully expecting a scolding, so this was new. Adrien blinked, but uncertainly proceeded to tell his father, “she’s my classmate? We’ve been friends for a year or so–”

He was cut off. “Yes, that. But what’s she like, as a person? Why do you think Ladybug would choose her to be Multimouse?”

“I– well, she’s kind? She’s smart, she was kind of a klutz sometimes, but I like to think she’s got a good heart,” Adrien answered in shock.

“Yes, but why exactly would Ladybug choose her? That is, in all of Paris, why her?”

Adrien wouldn’t even know how to begin answering that question. His father was asking probably the best person to ask in Paris, Chat Noir and a close friend of Marinette’s, but most days, he thought, he couldn’t possibly know the going-ons in Ladybug's head. And Adrien would never doubt her.

Evidently, it showed on his face, because his father sighed. “Why would I even ask you…” He muttered to himself.

Adrien was used to disappointment. 

“And you were with her today?”

“Yes. More or less,” Adrien confirmed. 

“Don’t.” 

The word was harsh out of his father’s mouth, but profound confusion won over as he let out a, “Huh?”

“Don’t be near Ms. Dupain-Cheng any longer. You’re not allowed.”

Adrien rose to his feet. “ What? ”

His father didn’t comment on his outburst, just answering, “You know I can’t just let you continue on being close friends with Ms. Dupain-Cheng. After all of this? Adrien, it’s dangerous.”

“You let me be friends with Chloe! She was Queen Bee all those months ago! She was revealed first!”

“This is different.”

“But why? ” Adrien pleaded.

“ Because I say so ,” Gabriel said with double the intensity. “And I know things about Ms. Dupain-Cheng you do not want to know.”

“But-”

“ Adrien. ”

Adrien stayed silent. 

But what did his father know?

“Adrien, this is more than you or I. I don’t want to see you getting hurt— more than what Ladybug can undo,” His father sighed. “I don’t want you in any more danger than you have to be.”

Adrien stayed silent once again, but his mind started racing. Did he know about the League of Assassins? How?

Adrien literally just learned about them earlier that night. How on Earth would his father know that? Why would he know that? What could he possibly know that for?

His father let out another sigh, rubbing his forehead between his fingertips. “Retire for the night, Adrien. It’s getting late, and you have that shoot tomorrow before school. Good night. I love you.”

It was Adrien’s turn to not answer, as he turned his back towards his father, and made a prompt exit for his bedroom so he could start patrolling the streets of Paris before it was too late out. 

Before that, however, as soon as he closed the doors shut, a phone inside the office rang. 

And with his keen sense of hearing, he just managed to make out his father answering the phone.

“Lila…”

Chapter Text

Batman leapt across the rooftops in Paris once again, now with Red Robin in place of Nightwing and the Red Hood. The two that had come with him earlier that night were designated towards patrol work as Red Robin volunteered himself to go. Something about not being able to go earlier.

Oracle had compiled a substantial dossier on Ladybug. There was plenty to read, but very little to use . Her civilian identity remained sealed tighter than most government files, with a suspect list that was either fabricated, outdated, or nonexistent.

Batman would have speculated she had no strictly human identity at all in a manner similar to Diana, but Diana herself refuted this with her own evidence. Batman held several doubts, but was inclined to believe his colleague. He also suspected magic to be in play.

He’d considered pressing Mari about it. She was close to the situation—too close—but she already had enough on her shoulders. Tonight was about following leads, not breaking trust.

They had two potential sources of intel, and he suspected they’d cross paths with a third before the night was out.

He and Red Robin touched down silently atop the Bourgeois hotel, eyes scanning for the right window. They found it quickly enough. Batman hung back, choosing to secure the perimeter. This was Red Robin’s interrogation.

Chloe Bourgeois. Mari’s former classmate, her apparent bully, repeated Akuma instigator, and the teenager allegedly responsible for the dismantling of the former group of heroes Ladybug tasked with protecting Paris from the villain Hawkmoth. 

There were several more heroes in the ex-roster, some being Ryuuko, and Viperion. However, some were more permanent at the time, showing up more than once or twice. Namely Carapace and Rena Rouge. 

The first of the two’s identity had never been revealed, retiring quietly with the rest of the hero appearances, who had all gone apart from Multimouse. 

But first, there was the former Queen Bee Red Robin had to worry about.

Chloe Bourgeois was asleep just as they had anticipated. Red Robin threw her window open, the force of which made a loud banging noise against the wall on purpose.

Chloe woke with a startle, clutching the covers of her bed close to her chest as her eyes fell on the menacing figure, cape fluttering with the curtains in the breeze of the window, lit only by the moonlight on his back.

Because dramatics wasn’t inherited by blood but by bat-related antics, Red Robin stood there for a second, letting himself bask in the very mysterious vigilante atmosphere, moving but an inch.

“Who are you?! Why are you in my room?!” Chloé shrieked, grabbing a feathery pen from her nightstand and hurling it at him. Red Robin caught it midair without breaking stride and tossed it aside as he approached.

“Stay back!” she snapped, flinging the next object within reach—a thick-paged journal. It bounced harmlessly off his chest.

“Decent aim, Queen Bee,” he said dryly, brushing the spot it hit like she’d scuffed his suit.

Chloe’s eyes widened, vaguely recognizing the figure looming above her. “You’re one of those– those American heroes!”

“We prefer ‘vigilante’,” He ssaid with a shrug. “I’ve got questions. Might be about today’s events. Might not.”

They talked about it back in the cave. There just wasn't enough information on Ladybug outside of recorded fights and a miniscule amount of real interviews. Chloe, against their current and not so stellar judgement of her, had never actually gone into any real detail about the Miraculous and its users. 

Specifically, the public didn’t know much of what had gone down between the users that led to the groups dissipation. Chloe had given several interviews, but anyone with functional logic would know that those were for the most part, if not wholly, an obfuscation.  Lies to nurse the teenager’s wounded pride.

Chloe just sat there for a second, staring at him blankly. “You couldn’t have done this in the daytime?!” She took a deep gasp before hollering, “DADDY-KINS–”

His hand shot to her mouth, covering it with the palm of his thankfully gloved hand. “Shhhh!” He whispered in a rush. She thrashed, muffling a string of colorful curses under his palm.

As Chloe started thrashing against his hold, he told her, “It’s just questions, Chloe, no need to get your father involved. Also, I’m not letting go of you until I know you’re not just going to start screaming.”

Against his hand, Red Robin felt Chloe curse some more, which eventually started dying down. After a moment of silence, Red Robin slowly took his hand off of her mouth. It barely took a second more for Chloe to start screaming again. His hand returned in half a second.

“Seriously,” he deadpanned, “questions.”

“What makes you think I’ll answer?” she snapped when he finally let go again.

He didn’t exactly want to threaten a teenager, but there was a part of him that did enjoy the act. Especially doing it to someone who had been horrible to many people, including Mari. 

“We have evidence of your father, the mayor of this city, bribing several top government officials during and post this past election. And not just that, but physical proof of him specifically meddling with your school records regarding both your behavior and your grades.” He smirked, “And we both know you didn’t get that A in history last semester, Chloe.”

Her eyes went comically wide. “No, no… you can’t know that. You’re lying!”

“Are you so sure about that?” Red Robin taunted, producing a piece of paper with written correspondence from the mayor from behind his back. 

What was even better was that the so-called “evidence” he brought up was forged.

Mayor Bourgeois was surprisingly spotless for a politician. Most politicians did very shady things from time to time, Bourgeois included, but not to the level of most others, and definitely not to the level of public outcry. At least not to the level where he would get impeached.

Most out of order things related to Bourgeois were related to his daughter. Pulling his weight around in her school, maybe a little bit of embezzlement for something absurdly expensive she wanted here and there. Barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

Chloe snatched the paper out of his hand, scanning it over with her eyes, growing pale. “I-is this true?”

Red Robin made a blasé gesture. “It would be really bad if this managed to get out…”

Chloe shot up. “I’ll answer! I’ll answer your questions!”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page here, Chloe, I was afraid I would have had to resort to drastic measures,” he told her.

Chloe paled even further, but let her covers crumple down on her lap as she sat up with a huff. “Utterly ridiculous,” she muttered to herself.

“First things first,” he started, crossing his arms together. “Just to confirm, of course. You were Queen Bee, yes?”

Chloe smiled bitterly. “Yeah. Duh.”

Red Robin knew it was a long shot, but he still asked, “Did you know Mari was Multimouse?”

“Mari– you mean Dupain-Cheng!? No! Of course not! If I knew she was, I wouldn’t have…” Chloe trailed off, a conflicted expression spread across her face.

“Wouldn’t have what?” Red Robin raised a brow under his mask. Chloe could hear the brow raise from his tone alone.

“If that’s everything you wanted to ask me, then you could have come in the morning. I hate interruptions on my beauty sleep,” Chloe grumbled.

“Second question,” Red Robin continued. “What went down, at least from your perspective, that led to the dissolution of the hero group of Miraculous holders?”

Chloe grew suddenly rigid at the question. Her hands started to quiver as they clutched the covers on her lap, clenching them tightly. Red Robin noted this all with a veneer of interested passivity.

Chloe stuttered. “I– I already answered that question, in– in interviews. They’re free to watch on YouTube.”

Red Robin hummed. “I don’t buy what you told them for a second. You expect us to actually believe that story? Even the people online don’t believe it. I’m sure you know.”

“It’s totally believable!” Chloe shot back in defense.

“Yeah, sure, Ladybug just decided that you were so good as a hero that clearly none of the other heroes could possibly compare, and when you got Akumatized, she fired them all. Totally tracks,” Red Robin scoffed. 

It didn’t—not fully. But they couldn’t rule it out.  As far as they knew, it could have had a sliver of some kind of truth. They were beginning to have their own doubts about Ladybug, and the only concrete thing they knew about her was that she had a propensity for giving powerful magical artifacts to children.

And so far the three whose identities they knew for sure were 1. A potentially (definitely) unwell former child assassin, 2. A maladjusted tween throwing herself in the face of danger in the name of journalism, and 3. The spoiled nepo baby bully who blew the entire operation.

To Red Robin’s surprise, Chloe didn’t make a retort. For about a minute, he just waited for a response. Instead, he started hearing sniffles.

Chloe blew into a tissue from a box on her nightstand. “Fine. You caught me. I lied, okay? I’ll answer a-as long as that evidence you showed me never sees the light of day.” She added quickly, “And no one else hears about this.”

“I can promise the first thing,” Tim said easily.

She glared. He lifted the forged paper again. Her glare faded.

Red Robin raised his hands in mock surrender. “It’s either my way, or, well,” he waved the piece of paper back in his hand. Chloe was surprised to just realize it was out of hers.

“I already said fine! I– I just, I’ve never actually told anyone, okay?” Chloe took a deep breath. “There used to be more heroes, more than just Ladybug, Chat, and Multi– Marinette I mean, that we have now. And I don’t know why out of everyone in Paris, Ladybug chose me back then. I mean, I do! Because why wouldn’t she?”

Tim would have rolled his eyes, but the way she said it was almost depressing. Like a deep kind of denial clawing to the surface. 

Chloe took another deep breath. “Except I know I’m a horrible person. I don’t particularly care anymore, but back then I think I almost did. Being Queen Bee... it mattered. Ladybug would come to me. With Pollen. She needed me. And for the first time, I thought maybe I could be good at something. It gave me a purpose, I think,” she said, with a longing twinge in her voice. “I’ve never really had much of that. It made me want to be a better person. But…”

She wrapped her arms around her chest, ducking her head slightly. “Slowly but surely, Ladybug stopped coming by. At first it was only a few days. She had Rena and the rest of the crew, so I wasn’t really all that worried. And then it became weeks. Then a few months. Then I started thinking she would never come again, and that’s when I got Akumatized.”

She looked away. “And after that... she pulled away from everyone. Paranoid. Except Multimouse, of course. Somehow she stayed.”

Bitterness dripped off the name.

“I think because I was compromised, it changed how she viewed all the other heroes. She became a lot more paranoid, which I find weird because she let Dupain-Cheng ,” Chloe said with clear disdain, “stay on. Which is ridiculous . Utterly ridiculous. She picked Marinette of all people over me !”

Her sniffles grew tearful as her voice warbled with emotion. “I just wanted to be Queen Bee.”

Tim didn’t speak. Her version aligned with his theory. Ladybug wasn’t careless—she was paranoid . A tactician. Strategic. Probably brilliant.

But Tim knew the type. Ladybug was paranoid. That was evident in the fact that very little could be actually learned about her. So she was smart, techy, probably full of contingencies like a certain other person he knew, but he wasn’t one to talk. She reminded him of B, which sounded crazy—she was a bright red daytime hero with pigtails, for Christ’s sake—, but it kind of made sense. 

She reminded him of him . Or worse, Bruce .

Except Ladybug armed children without a Batcave of support.

Children, who Ladybug clearly didn’t give the proper support after taking away their hero roles. Even Chloe here, Miss Mayor’s daughter, was clearly messed up by it. Alya was messed up by it. Not to even mention Mari. 

Tim was beginning to seriously dislike Ladybug.

Red Robin stayed for a little bit to ask more questions, and Chloe answered through hiccups. He didn’t learn anything more substantial, but it was helpful nonetheless. If anything, he became more certain of his uneasy stance on Ladybug. But he would reserve his judgement for when they got an explanation out of her.

So he and Batman left for their next destination, Oracle in their ear spouting her own findings and theories. 

The Césaire home—far less conspicuous than their last location—sat atop a tan apartment complex, its façade lined with weather-worn brown bricks. Not exactly secure, but perfect for a quiet entry.

Fortunately, Alya’s room had a generously sized window. Alya was still awake to their surprise, hunched over her laptop, perched on top of her covers haphazardly splayed on top of her bed. The look she gave them as they entered was not one of surprise, but one of smug satisfaction. 

“I figured you’d show up,” she said, pushing up her glasses and glancing between them. “I have a few questions for you.”

“That’s our line,” Batman told her flatly.

“I know,” Alya said breezily. “I’ve been doing some research. Cross-referencing what you told me with a few things I already had. I want to help. I’ll tell you anything, if you answer my questions in return.”

Batman and Red Robin exchanged a glance. Silent agreement passed easily between them. “I don’t see why not,” Red Robin answered.

Alya inhaled to launch into something, but Batman shut it down with a hand raised.

“We ask first.”

Alya huffed, crossing her arms. “Fine.”

Tim had expected Alya would be more cooperative than Chloé. She had more experience, more access, and according to the articles and interviews—not to mention the sheer volume of her online content—she’d once been Ladybug’s most trusted ally. Second only to Chat Noir.

But after just a few questions, Tim realized that getting usable intel from Alya was like trying to mine gold out of a podcast.

She talked —enthusiastically, breathlessly, endlessly. Every question they asked became a tangent, every story another anecdote about Ladybug: a disagreement, a questionable decision, a moment where trust hadn’t been earned or shared.

None of it was particularly damning, but it painted a pattern. And if the shift in tone was anything to go by, something had changed between her and Ladybug— recently . As recently as today , judging by the clear fracture in her tone. Alya was angry, defensive, and still oddly loyal to Mari, though not necessarily to Ladybug.

She blamed Ladybug for something. And Tim was starting to think she might have a point.

Both Alya and Chloé’s accounts shared the same undercurrent: Ladybug called the shots. Everyone else—Multimouse, Rena, Carapace, Queen Bee—were summoned like pieces on a board. No briefing, no warning, no real structure. Just dropped in when needed and left to their own devices otherwise.

Ladybug had always been the face of the team, the strategist, the composed leader. But if that leader disappeared, and the team had no foundation beneath her… what remained?

And, more importantly—where had Ladybug been when Mari needed her?

Tim was starting to see it clearly now. The bright-eyed, publicly beloved heroine was a carefully constructed persona. And beneath it? A deeply private individual with serious trust issues. Sounded familiar.

He and Batman decided to end the questioning there. Alya was emotional, and the last thing they needed was a passionate teen saying too much to the wrong audience. Maybe they’d even have someone from Wayne Industries follow up about free therapy resources—strictly anonymous, of course.

As promised, they let her ask her questions.

At first, it was harmless. Where do you train? What’s Gotham really like?

Then they started veering uncomfortably close to things she shouldn’t know.

“How connected is Bruce Wayne really to the Justice League?” she asked, raising a brow that made Tim tense.

They gave her the standard line. “He’s one of the League’s most vocal public supporters and one of its biggest donors.”

And when she pressed further, they deflected with vague professionalism.

She didn’t catch every dodge, but she was sharp enough to sense the evasion. Tim noted that. He didn’t trust her, not fully—but she wasn’t a threat either. Not yet.

Still, the visit paid off.

They got what they needed: a likely patrol route. Enough to start narrowing down Ladybug’s movements and fill in the gaps around her recent absences.

So they slipped back out into the Parisian night, Alya’s window left quietly ajar behind them, and set off toward their third target—who, conveniently, wasn’t far away. And this time, they didn’t have to go looking for long.

Chat Noir was clearly not having a good day. Though not a stranger to showing off to the occasional camera, he was much more out of the limelight than Rena was during her height of hero-ing. There was not a single one-on-one interview with the hero anywhere, as far as they could find. Which meant there was likely none at all.

In fact, contrary to his persona, Chat Noir seemed largely averse to media attention. Like he was running from it almost.

So of course, at nearly three in the morning, there he was—alone on a rooftop, west of the city, scanning for trouble. Ladybug hadn’t shown up to finish patrol, and he was covering for her.

That’s when two shadows landed behind him, nearly silent save for the rustle of a cape and the glint of a bird-shaped emblem.

Chat startled, nearly tripping over his own tail. “Batman! What a surprise...” he laughed, nerves bleeding into his voice as his eyes flicked between the towering figure and the one beside him—shorter, slimmer, but just as imposing. Somehow.

“We want to talk,” said Batman.

Adrien was panicking terribly on the inside. Internally, he was screaming . These were the people who could take down trained assassins barehanded. They didn’t even have magic . Just discipline, strategy, and an uncomfortable number of weapons.

But the part of him that was Chat Noir—the hero—was more wary than terrified. He could hold his own, technically. But he never had to. Not with Ladybug at his side. Paris was their turf. But he didn’t feel like he could stand up to the vigilante like Ladybug could. He was really missing her.

He took a step back as he took a steadying breath. He let a care-free smile onto his face, and surprisingly, it didn’t feel forced. “Sorry if I’m off my game. I’m just feline a little bat -ty—haven’t seen M’Lady all night. So if you're here looking for her, that might be a purr-oblem ,” he said with a tired smirk. 

He really did want to find her. Patrol felt empty without her by his side.

Chat almost audibly laughed when he saw their faces scrunch up in pain. “What? I know I’m real paw- sitive about my puns, but I’m always just winging it out here so don’t find me too hu- meow -rus. I hear there’s a fellow Cat like meow -t there in your city, so I don’t think I’m all that bat .”

Red Robin visibly cringed. “We just want to talk. And also, please—for the love of Gotham—stop.”

Chat widened his grin. “Aww, come on, bird boy. Don’t be so craven. You sound like you’ve got a robin headache! But fine, I’ll try to wing it without ruffling too many pun-feathers.”

He took a leisurely step closer, tail flicking behind him. “Besides, you bats could use a little comic re-leaf. I mean, you hang upside-down in caves all day—how do you even get the blood to your brains? Oh wait… maybe that explains the brooding. ”

Red Robin groaned into his palm. “I am begging you.”

“Guess I’m just the cat-alyst for chaos,” Chat said with a dramatic bow. “But don’t worry—I’ll paws the puns. Wouldn’t want anyone to hiss-terically explode —”

“ Be serious. ”

Batman’s voice cut through the air like a whip.

Chat froze.

The tone—low, firm, fatherly in the worst way—hit something deep in his chest. He clammed up instantly.

Silence fell across the rooftop, heavy and awkward. The Bats made a mental note of his reaction. Red Robin especially.

“What can you tell us about Ladybug?” Red Robin asked him a few minutes later. 

Chat’s jaw tightened. “Nothing. Not without her.”

He wasn’t lying. Not because he was protecting her—though he was —but because, truthfully, he didn’t know anything. Not really. He didn’t understand why she let Marinette stay as Multimouse when everyone else had been pushed out. He didn’t understand why she was gone when Mari needed her.

He didn’t even know if Ladybug knew . But if she did… he was scared of the answer.

“Then call her,” Red Robin said carefully. “Let’s talk to her. Together.”

“I can’t,” Chat said quietly, gaze slipping away. “And I feel like you already know why.”

Red Robin nodded. He did know. That was the problem.

Batman tried again. “Then answer some questions. Just a few.”

Chat didn’t want to. Every instinct told him to stay silent. But he was tired. Tired of the secrets. Tired of the silence.

This was when something whizzed past them in the distance, just a red speck in contrast against the night sky. Immediately, they recognized her. Ladybug .

Without a single word uttered between the three of them, they leapt to their feet in that exact direction. While Chat wasn’t used to running with the bats, it was surprisingly easy to blend in with their movement toward Ladybug’s direction.

They followed the red speck  just in time to see Ladybug slipping into what looked like an ordinary massage shop. No fanfare. No flashy entrance. She moved like a shadow—quick, calculated, precise. Chat slowed, eyes narrowing. She picked the lock without hesitation, crouched low, and disappeared inside. It was methodical. Trained. Like she’d done it a dozen times before.

He’d joked before about Ladybug being sneaky, but this—this wasn’t a joke. This was infiltration. And for the first time, seeing it with his own eyes, he was starting to doubt what he knew about Ladybug. He’d joked before about Ladybug being sneaky, but this—this wasn’t a joke.

Ladybug had always been bold, loud in presence if not in sound. She was the one on the front lines, center stage. She didn’t slink. She didn’t sneak.

And yet... here she was.

Something was off. He could feel it in his gut.

The three of them reached the same window she’d used. From the shadows, they watched. Her shoulders tensed—she knew they were there. Somehow. Even with her back turned, even in silence. She knew.

That only unsettled him more.