Chapter Text
It takes roughly twenty minutes for Signal to wake up.
She’s in the middle of pacing, mind running through about eight different versions of the goodbye speech she’ll have to give to everyone she knows, when Signal groans. She’s at his side in the next second, helping him sit back up and fluttering her hands around his shoulders in her nervousness.
“Easy,” she cautions. “You might be a little woozy for a while yet. I put too much force behind it.”
“Shit,” Signal says with feeling, turning his head to her only a little dazedly. “Did you punch me?”
“No!” she says a bit too loud, making him wince at the volume. She lowers her voice but is no less intense. “No. No punching. I just, uh- just knocked you out with magic?” She winces again. “Kwami, I am so sorry.”
There’s a long moment of silence, where Marinette is politely letting Signal get his bearings and trying very hard not to vibrate out of her skin with nerves. She can feel Tikki and Nooroo offering silent comfort from where they’re curled into the hollow of her throat, hidden by the giant scarf she’s wearing.
Eventually, Signal speaks.
“So… you’re Marinette.”
If she’d been in a more stable frame of mind, she might’ve joked about stating the obvious since she wasn’t even wearing her mask anymore, but she’s not so she doesn't. Instead, she nods, not trusting her voice, and Signal lets out a low, drawn-out whistle.
“Well… I can honestly say I never saw that one coming.”
She laughs, high and reedy and just a touch hysterical, but you know what? She thinks it’s deserved at this point. “That is kind of the point, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” he agrees distractedly, “but how did none of us notice? How did I not notice? This is like, super embarrassing.”
She opens her mouth only to close it. “Embarrassing?”
“Well, yeah. A collection of the greatest detectives on Earth and we couldn’t figure out your identity even when it was right under our noses? Batman couldn’t figure it out?” Signal blows a large gust of air from his lungs, shaking his head. “Damn, B really is losing his touch.”
“Is… he going to be mad?” she asks tentatively.
“Who? Batman?” he asks. “I mean, I don’t think so? B ain’t too big of a fan of magic, but I don’t think he’s holding any grudges. Mostly I think he’s frustrated cause you’re an unknown and he can’t really figure you out. But you’ve been neutral and haven’t caused problems so he’s not real worried about you. Or, well, no more worried than he is about anything else.”
“So… he’s not going to make me leave?”
Signal jerks back, and she imagines that, behind his visor, he’s giving her a look of utter incredulity. “Make you leave? Why the hell would he do that?”
Marinette shifts, uncomfortable under the attention even though it’s just Signal. “Because he doesn't like me or want me in his city? And now that he knows who I am he can get rid of me?”
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “Ignoring how that makes us sound like a mafia family, why would Batman know who you are?”
Now it’s her turn to look incredulous. “Cause you’re going to tell him?”
Signal leans back a bit, surprised. “Do you want me to tell Batman?”
“Well- no. But-”
“Okay,” he interrupts, “then I’m not going to tell him.”
But of course things are never that simple, not when Marinette and anxiety are involved. She had twenty minutes to think of worst-case scenarios, and while this one hadn’t crossed her mind, her brain was already rocketing into overdrive to come up with completely new ones, this time focused on Signal.
She is silent for all of three seconds before she starts speaking faster than the speed of light.
“You can’t just not tell Batman. He’s Batman. You’d be withholding important information from your leader, from your whole team actually! You can’t just do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s your team,” she near-screeches. “I’m a foreign hero you met a few months ago! Why in the world would you protect my identity at the cost of keeping your team in the dark? Of being punished somehow? Because surely keeping this kind of secret would result in you getting in trouble at best or in some horrible fall out between you and the rest of the bats at worst. I’m not worth that-”
“Mari.”
“-of risk. You said it yourself: I’m an unknown! And everyone who’s anyone knows how much Batman doesn’t do not knowing things. How can you pass up learning more about a potential-”
“Mari.”
“-like that? Not to mention the magic. How has Batman not showed up threatening me for that alone, honestly? It doesn’t-”
“Mari!” Signal shouts, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “I don’t care about the consequences.”
“But-!”
“No!” he interrupts. “No buts! You’re my friend. And friends don’t go blabbing about secret IDs the moment they learn about them. That’d be a shitty thing to do to anybody.” He sighs, running a hand over the top of his helmet.
“And I- Look. Let's get one thing straight, LB: I trust you. And that’s a damn hard thing for a bat to admit, much less do—but I trust you. If I could, I’d tell you right now who I am and make us even but I can’t because if I did, you’d figure out everyone else and that- that’s not my call to make, okay? But you can damn well believe that, if you don’t want me to, I won’t ever tell anyone who you are. Not Batman. Not Red Robin. Not anyone. I know it doesn’t put us on equal footing or anything but-”
She hiccups, and Signal freezes, just now realizing that Marinette is crying. He panics for a second before she flings herself at him, squeezing him in a bone-crushing hug. “No,” she manages to get out through her tears. “That means everything. Thank you, Signal. Thank you.”
He hugs her back, pressing a kiss to her forehead that makes something warm bloom in her chest. “Anytime, LB,” he promises and something in Marinette settles, just a bit. Happy and warm and safe.
***
Marinette comes back to find her apartment transformed into a war room.
No kwami zip over to her for their customary greetings as the door opens, which is the first thing she notices. And there’s none, as she looks out into the greater chaos of her apartment, that are flying about the room at all. All the kwami without Miraculi in use are absent, and Marinette can only assume they’ve been tucked back into the miracle box for safekeeping.
Viperion, Chat, and Ambrosia are all bent over the Grimoire and holding what may as well be a war council at her kitchen island as they argue over plans and contingencies. Ryuko and Bunnyx are on the floor in the living room, all the furniture pushed to the walls and the rug shoved out of the way. Each of them wields a stick of chalk in their hand and are drawing out a complicated magic circle Marinette can only kinda sort of follow.
By the combination of grounding agents and placement of circles and lines, it is meant to be a binding circle? But there are also elements of compulsion to it and Felix—who is only half-dressed as Sparrow with his mask on and hood not pulled up, the Horse Miraculous perched atop his head—is furiously doing calculations and directing the two girls in the finer detailed work.
(Those three together means that whatever is being drawn onto her floor is likely experimental and untested—possibly even being come up with on the spot. Kwami, Marinette hopes they don’t end up putting a hole in the floor again.)
Nino is untransformed but pulling at the wards at the windows with Wayzz, strengthening them and doing something that twists at the very air and makes her feel safe and calm. Reynard Ombre is in the darkest corner of Luka’s apartment, flute at his lips and playing a subtle melody that spreads out across the place, protecting them and all their actions from prying eyes and listening ears.
Everyone looks up the moment she steps in the room, and as Marinette stares into the eyes of eight odd masked and unmasked versions of her friends, she realizes she probably should have followed up her initial coded message with some form of reassurance.
For a moment, nobody moves. Then: “Where the hell have you been?!”
Ambrosia breaks away from her task first, heading right for Marinette with a thunderous look in her eye and - oh, fuck, is she in trouble.
***
It takes much longer for her friends to tire of yelling at her this time.
Which makes sense she supposes. Telling them her identity’s been compromised and then going radio silent for over half an hour is understandably worse than, you know, going against Two-Face on a train.
Not that it makes Marinette pout any less as she watches her friends work out a schedule for what is basically just babysitting duty.
“This is stupid. I can take care of myself just fine,” she grumbles under her breath.
Adrien scoffs from where he’s been draped over her shoulders since she came back. She pinches his side hard enough to make him yelp and fall over.
***
Two days later, Marinette is invited to the manor. None of the Waynes are at home, currently, but she’s not there to see them anyway, so.
Apparently, the entire brood had gone on some urgent business trip to Asia. Jason had been kind of vague about it in his text, and when she asked Tim, cause he’s better at explaining things, he’d been suspiciously tight-lipped.
She doesn’t actually believe the business trip angle, of course, but the boys could try to be better at lying to her at least. Truly, the likelihood of Jason going anywhere with all of his family without some sort of incentive is extremely low.
Her current theory was that they all absconded to another country—probably not Asia—for some kind of vacation. Monsieur Wayne probably just wanted to spend time with all of his children and lady love. (Perhaps he’s planning to finally put that ring they all know he’s been carrying around to good use?)
It was still odd to be in the manor while it was so empty, but Monsieur Alfred made it a point to invite her to tea whenever the lot of them were gone.
She remembers the first time Alfred invited her. It was far into her acquaintance with the Waynes, but it had taken time to secure a moment with her alone, she assumes.
The manor had been empty then, too, but only for a few hours rather than days. Alfred had greeted her at the door with a gentlemanly bow and a pleasant “Ladybug,” that startled her into speechlessness. “Or shall I use your proper title, Grand Guardian?”
Marinette had long suspected Alfred knew who and what she was. She had asked the kwami about him and his odd potentiality soon after meeting him and was told that it was not Potential she’d sensed on him, but Realization.
Alfred was a Holder once upon a time. And according to Duusu, a damn good one at that. (It wasn’t as much of a shock as she thinks it should have been.)
Which, she supposes, is the reason she wasn’t as freaked by Alfred’s knowledge as she was Signal’s.
Alfred was bound tightly to his Miraculous—the same way Marinette is, the way all her Court is. Even with his decades of inactivity, a bond like that doesn’t fade. Not in any of the ways that matter.
He would recognize the aura around her just as easily as he could his own, but there was no chance of him saying a word. Regardless of Alfred’s loyalties, unless Marinette wills it so, the magic of the Miraculi ensures that none can speak of a Guardian’s identity nor of the Miraculi and their Wielders.
Eventually, Marinette had shaken off the ambush and smiled wryly at the older man. “Oh, that’s a rotten trick, Monsieur,” Marinette scolds lightly. “And hardly fair when I can’t return the same courtesy.”
Alfred’s lips twitched, his eyebrow rising high on his forehead.
He never did tell her what he had called himself, but he didn’t call her Ladybug or Guardian either, so she hasn’t pressed him for his secrets.
Today, while the Waynes were not home, the manor was far from empty.
Marinette had decided that, rather than just bringing Duusu along, she’d take out all the inactive kwami for the opportunity to stretch their legs. A few, she knows, had been going stir crazy with only the apartments to run around in and Alfred had seemed delighted when she’d suggested it.
Now, with Duusu perched on his shoulder as she was wont to do, he watched with something like amused indulgence as the kwami flit about the drawing-room and beyond. Kaalki, in particular, was inordinately pleased with the manor and its various furnishings. The glee in her voice as she found more and more expensive things to fawn over was making it hard for Marinette not to start giggling.
“This is the happiest I’ve ever seen her,” she tells Alfred quietly, eyes trained on the kwami, making sure she didn’t try to actually take any of the decorations.
“Well,” Alfred remarks drily and Duusu giggles, “at least someone appreciates my decorating.”
Marinette hides her smile in her cup of tea, while Tikki giggles freely from where she’s devouring half the snack table. After a moment longer of watching the kwami cause minor havoc, Marinette sets her cup down and turns to Alfred.
“Thank you,” she tells him, apropos of nothing. “I’ve been… stressed lately and this - your company helped a lot. So, thank you.”
Alfred blinks at her, not quite looking surprised, but something close. He sets his cup down as well. “Of course, miss. We all need a moment to relax and I greatly enjoy your company as well. It’s unfortunate that none of the children seem to enjoy teatime as much as you do.”
Marinette smiles, thinking of how chaotically hyperactive all the Waynes were. Cass is quiet, but she’s rarely still and while Jason likes Alfred enough to spend time with him, he can only ever sit still if there’s a book in his hand. Damian could probably do it—and would, if she’s being honest—but she knows that he only ever drinks eastern green tea which no doubt offends Alfred and his traditional English tea service, so.
“Of course,” she says, smiling. “How could I ever pass up your world-class scones?”
He returns the smile back at her, and they sit there in silence for a long moment, listening to the excited chattering of the kwami. It’s a comfortable sort of silence, the kind born of understanding and trust.
“If I may be so bold, Miss Marinette,” Alfred begins slowly, breaking the quiet. “A word of advice to hopefully help with your… stress. One shouldn’t force themselves to make a decision about certain things, especially when those things are matters of the heart.”
Her mouth opens and closes like that of a fish, struggling to formulate a response to that.
She can’t just… do nothing, can she? This is a problem isn’t it? She’s supposed to solve problems. That’s what she does, but - she trusts Alfred, at least. And his advice hasn’t steered her wrong yet, his advice hasn’t steered anyone wrong, as far as she can tell.
Finally, she finds her voice. “I… Right. I’ll - I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Alfred.”
He inclines his head to her, in something that wasn’t quite a bow, but was certainly close. “Of course, Miss. Anytime.”
***
It’s nearly four days before she sees Signal again.
Four days of worrying and soothing her anxious friends, and the first words out of his mouth the moment he lands is not ‘hi’ or ‘how are you’ or anything pleasant. No; instead, the first words out of his mouth are “So… Damian Wayne and Robin, huh?”
“Salut, Signal,” she says, pointedly ignoring his question. “How nice to see that Black Mask hasn’t killed you.”
He scoffs, plopping down on her left to study the matrix she’s using today. “Like he could.” She hums neutrally, making him sigh dramatically. “Hi, Ladybug. Hello! Lovely weather we’re having, aren’t we? Can you answer my question now?”
She lets the matrix fizzle out in front of her. She has a feeling this is going to need more of her attention. “Do you need an answer? You already know it. It’s kinda the whole thing that gave me away in the first place.”
“Well, no, I know. But it hadn’t really clicked at the time. I was preoccupied by other revelations!” he answers easily. “Now I’m prepared to tackle this one.”
The look she gives him could curdle milk but he continues on unfazed. Which makes sense she supposes. He’s had to have been on the receiving end of Robin’s glares before, and hers just don’t stand a chance against that.
“So! You like Damian Wayne, son of billionaire Brucie Wayne and Ice Prince of Gotham-” she scowls at the reminder of the media and its perception of Damian, “and Robin, moonlight vigilante and quite possibly the most annoying partner Batman’s trained. You like both of these people?”
“Are you being rude and judgmental on purpose?" she asks archly. "Because neither of them are actually that bad.”
Signal makes an exaggerated motion towards the sky. “If you launch into a speech about how there’s actually a heart of gold underneath all the insults and brooding looks, I’m going to scream and hope a rogue attacks us.”
Ladybug tuts. “Didn't take you for a cynic.”
“I’m not,” he denies. “But I’d rather not risk the cavities you’re bound to give me.” She sticks her tongue out at him, which he mirrors not a second later. “Also, you’re still avoiding the question.”
Making a pained noise in the back of her throat, she answers. “Yes, okay? I like both of those guys and it’s… well. It’s kinda nice for now, but not feasible in the long term. Which is why I asked for your help, not your teasing. I get enough of that from my friends, thank you.”
“Hey! I’m your friend!” he protests, mostly in jest.
“Civilian friends. Obviously, you’re my friend too, don’t go fishing for compliments,” she scolds, waving him off. “But you can see the problem, right?”
Signal hums, but she can see the corners of his lips twitching just barely. “Not really. Seems to me the only problem is your horrible taste in men.”
Ladybug glares at him and doesn’t even feel a little bit sorry for punching his arm with enough miraculous strength to dent the shoulder piece.
***
So Marinette calms down in the wake of her almost-disaster.
(Almost losing everything you’ve built will do that to you, she’s heard.)
She walks into work on Monday morning to find a knife sitting on her desk, beautiful and deadly in equal parts. She smiles, and admires it, and doesn’t allow herself to overanalyze the implications of the gift past the fact that he wants her safe (whichever ‘he’ that he may be).
Her only-sort-of-secret admirer is remaining anonymous for a reason, she assumes, and she’s not about to push the issue. Kwami know she understands wanting to keep something secret.
She’s never been very good with the whole ‘waiting’ and ‘what will be, will be’ kinda thing—she’s more of a lady of action, if she says so herself—but she can be patient for this. Who knows? Maybe letting someone else set the pace for once will be fun.
Luka smiles, just on the edge of laughing when she explains her thoughts to him. “Time will pass as it must, Melody.” His hands tap and strum the rhythms for patience and affection in alternating intervals, making her heart warm. “There’s no rush on love.”
***
Of course, ‘calming down’ doesn't make Marinette any less of a spaz with a crush.
She’s not as bad as what she was with Adrien—she’s older and wiser and far too familiar with both Robin and Damian to ever be that much of a disaster around either man—but that doesn’t make her new, adult version of nervous wreck any more comfortable to wear.
She blushes far more than is probably healthy and jumps when Damian and Robin move quietly enough to just appear right next to her. But her tongue, at least, doesn’t betray her as much as it had in her teen years. It still happens, and Robin stares at her a little oddly when she swaps words around or stumbles over mundane sentences because his hand accidentally brushed hers or something, but she can handle that, she supposes.
She can handle it if it means they get to keep sharing tea on her balcony, and if Robin keeps coming to her when he gets any superficial cuts or bruises because he knows she always laughs and patches him up and ‘kisses his boo-boos better’.
She can handle it if it means she gets to see Robin go utterly still when she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair because it’s the first time in forever that he’s visited her without that ridiculous cowl and she’s missed seeing how spiky and wild it was.
She can handle it, as long as she gets to keep doing all the things she knows Robin never lets anyone else get close enough to do.
She can handle it, as long as she gets to keep him.
***
It was a slow day.
The kind of slow that meant none of Marinette’s projects were turning out right and she’s struggling to find even the barest pieces of inspiration and creativity. She’s frustrated and irritable and already planning on scraping the whole day when Damian shows up during lunch with take-out from that amazing Thai place three streets over.
He’d already been there that morning. She wasn’t expecting to see him again.
But there he was: pulling her from her desk only to bully her onto the fainting couch, shoving Pad Thai into her hands, and distracting her from work with talk of his own. He sat on the floor next to the couch, leaning against it with his long legs stretched out in front of him and a lap desk sat atop his thighs.
He looked… comfortable. Relaxed. Sitting there sketching out the Gotham skyline while he talked to her about half-important nothings.
Half the things falling from his mouth were insulting or disparaging about some person or another, but even so, the scene made something warm and happy bubble up in her chest.
(This, she thinks, is something she never wants to have the chance to miss.)
***
Marinette has met a lot of people in very strange ways over the course of her life. Normal is something one stops expecting after a few years of heroing under your belt, after all.
So when a man falls out of a tree at the park and nearly lands on top of her—well… she can’t say it phases her all that much. In fact, her first thought is less, ‘what the fuck’ and more, “Oh my Kwami, are you okay?” as she reaches to help the man up.
He bounces to her feet before she can even touch him and she reels back at the sudden movement. “Fine! A-Okay, stranger, thanks for asking!”
Marinette blinks as the man—who’s not so much as scratched—gives her a thumbs up. He’s tall and broad-shouldered and looks somewhere around her age but with the same childish innocence she’d see in Nino’s little brother. His floppy black hair is a bit disheveled from his fall, and his chunky, black glasses sit askew on his face.
He quickly fixes the glasses and grins even wider at her, if that’s possible. His eyes crinkle at the corners, and Marinette can’t help but notice how incredibly blue they are. Almost inhumanly so, in fact.
She tilts her head back to look up into the branches. He must’ve dropped at least ten feet, she thinks. And, looking at the snapped branches barely clinging onto the tree, he definitely hit a few things on the way down.
Before she can say anything about it though, he sticks out his hand and introduces himself. “I’m Jon Kent, by the way. It’s real nice to meet ya!”
She takes his hand hesitantly. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng and… likewise. Do you often fall out of trees?”
“Not generally, no.” Jon grins wider, if that’s possible. “Only when I get too excited.”
Her lips quirk, “I can understand that. I get clumsy when I’m excited, too.”
Jon gets a suddenly thoughtful look on his face, almost exaggerated with how he squints at her. “Hey… your name seems familiar. Any relation to the Waynes? Damian Wayne, maybe?”
Marinette frowns, hand moving to rest on her purse. Three deliberate taps against the side and Tikki contacts the team with an SOS—a precaution her team insisted on implementing after the whole Two-Face fiasco.
There’s something… off about this guy and Marinette doesn’t like it.
Warily, she answers. “And if I am?”
Immediately, Jon backs up, hands raised in surrender. “Ah! Sorry, sorry! It’s just, I’ve heard a lot about you! I was excited to meet you.”
“Heard about me from where?” she asks, getting even tenser around this guy. Who even is he?
Jon rolls his eyes, looking just barely fond. “Well I should have heard about you from Damian—considering I’m supposed to be his best friend and all—but I had to hear about you from Kon instead! Who had to hear it from Tim! I mean really-”
“Oh.” Marinette relaxes almost immediately. “Kent. Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t realize. Damian talks about you all the time.”
Jon perks up, not unlike a puppy waiting for a treat. “He does?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, ‘all the time’ for Damian, anyway. But he rarely insults you when he brings you up and that’s the important part, I think. The worst he’s called you is a ‘gullible brute’—which is practically high praise considering the things I’ve heard him call Dick, who I know is his favorite brother.”
Jon snorts. “That sounds like Damian alright. Can’t take it too personally. I mean, who doesn’t he insult?”
“His animals,” she answers simply, smiling as she shares in the joke. “But that’s understandable, I think.”
“You’re nicer than I expected,” Jon says smiling. “You’re actually a lot different than I expected.”
Marinette chooses to take that as a compliment. “Well,” she starts, “Jason’s theory is something about ‘opposites attract’ and ‘sunshine incarnate’ or something equally ridiculous. Mostly, I think Damian just lets us get close cause we’re nice enough to forgive him for the shit he pulls, but firm enough to not let him get away with it twice. At least, that’s my experience with him.”
And Robin—which she doesn’t say, but he’s the same way now that she thinks about it. Really, what happened to her type being ridiculously charming sweethearts?
Jon blinks at her, a little stunned before he grins, showing off all his perfect, white teeth. “You know, I think you’re right.”
She scoffs, and pretends to flip her hair like Chloé does. She can't, obviously, because her hair is in a bun, but it’s about the joke anyways, so.
“Of course, I am,” she says, nose in the air and fighting off a smile, “I’m always right.”
“Hah!” Jon laughs. “I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”
He offers his arm out to her, much like Damian does but also different in a way she can’t quite put her finger on. “Mind if I join you for the rest of your walk?”
She decides not to think about it, instead taking Jon’s arm with a smile. “Not at all.”
***
Marinette was meant to attend the monthly Wayne family dinner at the Manor after her walk. And, since Jon has yet to actually tell the Waynes he’s in town, she invited him to tag along. It seemed like a great idea. The Kents are practically family anyway and have known the Waynes for far longer than she has.
Only, when she walks through the door with Jon at her side, Damian goes still and silent in that way that makes the danger-sense in the back of her mind go positively cuckoo.
“Er, you’ll never believe who I ran into at the park,” she jokes, in an effort to break the tension.
But no sooner are the words out of her mouth that Damian grabs Jon and drags him down the hall. Marinette stares after them before turning to her Waynes. They look more bemused than worried, but still she asks.
“Um… is he going to be okay?”
The trio look at each other.
“He’ll be fine,” Jason assures while Cass walks up to loop her arm with hers.
“Yeah,” Duke agrees, looping her arm on her other side. “There ain’t much Jon can’t handle. And if any of us can survive a pissed-off Damian, it’s him.”
She sends one last look down the hallway they disappeared down. “If you say so…”
***
“What were you thinking?” Damian hisses at Jon who looks unusually calm for someone on the wrong end of a Wayne’s ire. Particularly this Wayne’s ire.
“I was thinking that my best friend didn’t tell me about his new friend slash crush and it’s my job as said best friend to make sure she’s good enough for you.”
The look Damian gives him could curdle milk. Jon just looks back at him, brow raised and completely unfazed by the death glare.
“And you thought that, what? Following her around just so you could coincidentally bump into her was the way to go?”
“Well if you’d just introduced me I wouldn’t have needed to do that, now would I?” Jon argues back.
Damian growls, storming out of the room before he does something stupid like try to punch him and end up with his hand broken… again.
***
Damian doesn’t speak to Jon for the rest of the night.
It ends up being more of a punishment for him instead of Jon because of course Jon just hangs around Marinette the whole time, which means Damian can’t unless he wants to lose this battle of wills.
He hates it when Jon actually acts as smart as Damian’s always known him to be.
***
She’s not quite sure how it happened, but by some unholy force, all the people Marinette has claimed as hers are stuffed into one of the Wayne’s theatre rooms watching old Scooby Doo cartoons. Her Court likes to make fun of the villains and compare them to akumas, while the Waynes all throw popcorn at the screen whenever the show displays some particularly offensive detective work.
(“What?” Jason says innocently, when she and her Court all look at them. “We like crime documentaries!”
“Plus,” Duke adds reasonably. “Chief Gordon is an old family friend. You pick up a few things over the years. Especially when living in Gotham.”)
She hadn’t even known her Waynes and Court were friends.
But here she is, squashed into a loveseat with Damian and Cass on either side and Adrien pressed against her legs in front of her, Nino lying half on top of him.
Chloé, Kagami, Tim, and Felix are all on a nearby couch, bickering amongst themselves about something unrelated to the cartoons, while Alix, Nath, Jason, Duke and Luka are all sprawled across the floor in a makeshift nest of blankets. Alix and Jason seem to be having some sort of feud over a pillow that Luka and Nath have given up on trying to mediate. Which: good call.
In Marinette’s opinion, they were more likely to lose a hand than succeed at stopping them.
“Oh!” Adrien exclaims, mostly from nowhere, drawing near everyone’s attention. He has his phone in his hand, looking at something. “Amusement Mile is doing a Bat Family Appreciation thing next weekend. It’s supposed to be themed and people with costumes get discounts. We should go! Support our heroes and whatnot.”
Nath hums, ignoring the common ‘vigilantes’ correction from the Waynes. “Amusement Mile is that amusement park by the water, right? I don’t think any of us have been there yet.”
“Do they have any cool roller coasters?” Alix asks, mostly to Jason. “Tilt-a-whirls? Anything that’ll make me throw up, really.”
Jason frowns, thinking about it. “There’s always a dead body found behind the funhouse on the last day, if that works?”
It probably says a lot about their collective life experiences that that observation isn’t all that alarming.
“No,” Alix waves off frustratingly. “I haven’t puked at the sight of a body since I was fourteen.”
“Why don’t we all go?” Duke offers. “We normally make a habit of attending appreciations around Gotham. And you got to try Amusement Mile at least once. You’re not a true Gothamite until you do.”
Nino wrinkles his nose. “I thought you weren’t a true Gothamite until you started using ‘riddle me this’ in conversations unironically.”
“The two are not mutually exclusive,” Tim points out without looking up from his phone.
Marinette leans down to peer over Adrien’s shoulder, who helpfully tilts his head and raises his phone so she can see better. She runs her fingers through his hair a few times as thanks. “Do they have to be actual costumes or can we wear, like, my fashion line? Casual things. I feel like actual cosplay level stuff would be dangerous in Gotham.”
Adrien scrolls for a bit. “I think your clothes should be fine. Just anything recognizable as Batman and co.”
She smiles, doing a little bounce. “Great! Next weekend right? We should go Saturday, maybe around one?” She turns to Damien, who she expects to have to convince a bit to come along. Amusement parks don’t really seem like his thing after all.
But to her surprise, he’s thumbing through his calendar and adding the time so he won’t forget. “I’m agreeable to one, Starling.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jason make a face at Duke, and by the way Damian’s eyes flick behind her, Cass is probably communicating something as well.
She chooses to ignore it. “Are we meeting there?”
“Well unless we wanted to take the limo, we’d have to,” Chloé points out.
Luka tilts his head. “I’m not sure we’d even fit in that actually.”
They talk for a little longer, planning and joking around and calling dibs on which of the birds they get to be. (“Well we can’t all go as Black Bat! Some of us have to be someone else!”)
It’s a good night—a great night actually—and Marinette falls asleep listening to the sound of all her friends in one place. She’s excited about their planned outing, ideas and half formed daydreams flooding her mind so much she doesn’t even realize she’s falling asleep on Damian’s shoulder.
***
Everyone else noticed, of course.
Adrien doesn't shut up about it for the next three days.
***
Being Ladybug during the day has had certain consequences. Signal, being the first which has led to most of the others—including but not limited to: unintentionally revealing her identity and being mistaken as a new bat by more of Gotham’s populace each day.
The newest consequence though, has nothing to do with Signal. Surprisingly.
It was only a matter of time, she supposed, when she would have to step off the concrete roofs and hide amongst the trees of Robinson Park.
Of course, now that Ladybug isn’t some random tourist and has lived in Gotham for quite some time now, she knows that Robinson Park is claimed territory. It’s risky to walk through wearing a mask, and even riskier to stay there for hours on end. But her grid pattern cuts right through the park, and even if it didn’t, Ladybug would have to visit anyway.
The energy is unstable there. A lot of bad things happen here, but it’s also a place for nature to flourish, which causes intense opposing forces. Atrocities committed on natural, beloved land are always more scarring to the earth and the spirit of the place.
The luck surrounding the park is a pendulum, swinging wildly between two extremes.
She spends longer there than she normally would, trying to wrangle the miasma into something manageable. She’s finished her spell nexus to change bad luck into good, but it won’t work with something as unstable as Robinson Park so she has to do it all by hand.
She’s about halfway through, and going to call it a day when the branch beneath her moves. She doesn’t even have a chance to react before she’s hanging upside down, staring at two of the Sirens.
She does have a moment to mentally punch herself in the face though because how could she have forgotten? The trees are no hiding place for those with the Gift, and whose Gift is more powerful than Poison Ivy herself?
“Oh, look, Red! You caught a fairy flitting about the forest!” Harley giggles as she drapes herself over Ivy’s shoulders. “Her wings are so pretty aren’t they? Oh! Oh! Oh! Can we keep 'em? Pretty please? They’d look so nice above the mantle, wouldn’t they?”
“We don’t have a mantle, Harley.”
“Uh, Bonjour Doctor Isley, Doctor Quinnzel.”
Harley gasps, and leans further over Ivy’s shoulder. “Aw, well ain't you polite? That’s sweet. Not enough people mind their manners these days, yaknow?”
Poison Ivy narrows her eyes. It’s hard to read her expression from upside down. “You’re not one of Batman’s little brats.” Poison Ivy doesn’t ask, but rather says.
Ladybug, who is upside down, alone, and has few options for escape, nods. “I’m not. He’s not too keen on me anyway. I use too much magic for his tastes.”
Poison Ivy raises a brow. “Is that so? And the Bat just lets a rogue hero run around his city?”
“I’m not a hero. I used to be, back in Paris. But I don’t fight crime anymore.”
“That’s what they all say,” Harley tsks. “Once a hero, always a hero, sweetheart. You don’t leave the business unless you’re dead.”
She shifts uncomfortably in her branch cocoon. “Look,” she tries to reason. “I’m not here to cause problems or start a fight. I’m just trying to-”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Bluebell,” Ivy cuts her off. “The whole forest is talking about it, about the little guardian come to fix what’s broken.” Ivy reaches up to caress a low hanging branch and, all at once, Ladybug is flipped over and dropped to the ground.
She’s disoriented enough from the sudden twist that she lands in a heap on the grass instead of her feet. She is very out of practice, it seems.
The moment her hands touch the earth, flowers begin to sprout and blossom outwards from her like a wave. She hadn’t been able to dispel her magic properly, too surprised by Ivy’s appearance, and she still has creation bursting from her fingertips.
Harley oohs and ahhs at the display while Ivy just looks… pleased? Satisfied? Something non-murderous, at least.
“It’s not often I meet another with the Gift.”
She pulls her hands back from the newly grown meadow, flexing her now sore hands. Ugh, she’s going to be so tired later.
“It’s not- I don’t have the Gift. Not really.”
Ivy hums, pointedly looking at the flowers happily swaying all around them. Harley, who was bent over a cluster of chrysanthemums clumsily digging them out by the roots rather than picking them, snorts. “This is some magic trick then, fairy lady. But I think ya skipped a step. Cause I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to make ‘em disappear before bringing ‘em back.”
“My domain includes nature, but it’s not the focal point. I don’t have the true Gift. I create, but I don’t command.” She glances at Ivy. “Not as you do.”
Ladybug isn’t sure what she expects from Ivy—she doesn't know enough about the woman to guess—but whatever it would be, it certainly isn’t laughter. She chuckles, and the trees sway, curving down as if to reach her, while the flowers turn to her like the sun.
It reminds Ladybug of something she can’t quite remember.
Ivy sighs when she finishes, but her bright red lips stay quirked with something almost amused. “Look around you, child. Does this look like control to you?”
No, Ladybug thinks. Even before she’d spawned a mess of blooms, the meadow had been flourishing and green and wild. And now, even as the wind sweeps through the tall grass, she can still see the way they reach and strain for Ivy. It’s familiar, the way plants seek her out like sunlight. The same thing happens to Chloé and, as Ladybug looks down at the small cluster of blooms gathered around her knees, the same thing happens to her.
Smiling, she reaches out to a geranium and watches it grow bigger and brighter at her touch.
“Mother Nature does not love often, and certainly not kindly,” Ivy tells her, “But that does not make Her love any less of a gift.”
Ladybug blinks, and knows she’s going to be thinking about the implications of that a lot later and will probably end up pestering the kwami with questions for the next few weeks.
Before she can say anything in the moment though, Harley stumbles into Ivy, dirt somehow in her hair and with an armful of flowers still clinging to dirt clumps by their roots. She shoves the whole ridiculous bouquet beneath Ivy’s nose and practically shouts, “Red! Look at these new additions for the greenhouse! Won’t they just look swell? And I even pulled them out by the roots like ya told me too!”
“They’re beautiful, Harls,” Ivy says, pressing a kiss to Harley’s forehead and doing something with the roots to keep them from losing any more dirt.
The look Harley gives Ivy makes Ladybug’s cheeks go red. She suddenly feels like she’s intruding on a very private moment.
Ladybug coughs. “Um… I’m sorry about trespassing in your garden. I- well I’m not actually finished here yet, so would you mind, Doctor Isley, if I came back in a few days?”
Ivy’s eyes flick to hers and sharpen from where they’d been softly gazing at Harley. “Fellow gardeners are always welcome here, even ones with masks. Just don’t insult me by believing you can enter without my knowing about it, Bluebell.”
“Of course, Doctor Isley. Thank you.”
With that, Ladybug beats a hasty retreat before either woman changes their mind. She’s officially on the Siren’s radar now, which means the rest of the Rogues aren’t far behind.
She’s going to have to be more careful in the future.
***
(Which, of course, is exactly the moment Ladybug gets taken off guard; so worried about the Rogues, that she forgot to watch out for Vikki Vale.)
***
For a group of various, fairly important people who need to be on time for things on a regular basis, it takes nearly an hour for all of them to show up. The first of them to arrive at Amusement Mile—a small group consisting of Marinette, Nino, Alix, Luka, and Nathaniel—don’t even get there until fifteen minutes after the intended meet up time when they finally decided to cut their losses and let the Glamour Trio (plus Kagami) make their way over when they’re ready instead of waiting another half hour.
Eventually though, everyone arrives, laughing and smiling and ribbing each other for the horrific time management they all seem to share. They’re all wearing her Gotham line, except for Chloé who’s in a Harley Quinn themed outfit that Marinette designed but hadn’t been included in the official line.
She’s planning to do a Siren line soon though, since she’s gotten so many requests for it. (Never let it be said that the Sirens’ don’t have a fan club.)
Of course, since they’re such a large group and all of them are some form of famous, they split up almost as soon as they joined together. Smaller factions break away only to reunite and shuffle around before splitting up once again. It’s a special kind of chaos with these ridiculous group dynamics that come and go with head spinning speed.
Her first ride is on the spinning teacups. She somehow ends up shoved into a circular bench with Tim, Alix and Duke while Nathaniel, Jason, and Adrien are all shoved in one on the opposite side of the ride.
Alix and Duke team up to spin their cup so fast that Marinette seriously worries they're going to fly off the ride. She can hear Nath screaming from where Nino and Jason are no doubt doing the exact same thing.
Tim, unsettlingly, closes his eyes within moments of starting the ride and keeps them closed until it stops. She thinks he fainted from the g-forces or something right up until he casually blinks his eyes back open and yawns like he just woke up from a nap.
After, Jason drags her to the hall of mirrors where they find Luka and Cass seemingly having a conversation without ever actually speaking.
(Marinette just knew they'd get along.)
Jason spends most of his time making short jokes about her instead of looking at his equally ridiculous reflections. Cass eventually punches him in the arm just to get him to stop.
The rest of her night continues in a similarly chaotic vein.
Marinette doesn’t think she’s laughed this much in ages.
***
It’s starting to get dark, and all the bright, colored lights on the game booths and rides are beginning to turn on. The ferris wheel stands like a beacon against the dark pink sky.
Marinette is hovering next to a ring toss game, watching the trio of Kagami, Chloé, and Damian all stubbornly refuse to admit defeat to the rigged game. They’ve been at it for more than fifteen minutes and spent far more money than one should reasonably spend trying to win the cheap, vigilant themed stuffies, but it’s not like they don’t have the money to burn, so.
Marinette had won a Robin plush to go with her Robin themed outfit after only five throws, much to her friends’ chagrin. It’s a side effect of the whole ‘bound to the incarnation of good luck’ thing. Kagami and Chloé had both shot sour looks at her prize, but it’s not like she can turn it off. And both of them know that after more than a decade of friendship, so they don’t actually hold it against her or anything.
(Though, it has been a Court rule ever since they were teenagers that she’s not allowed to play much of anything on group game nights besides twister or charades. Since only Adrien can compete against her in luck games, and she’s practically unmatched for strategy ones, it’s a wholly unfair advantage and she mostly just cheers her friends on from the sidelines.)
“Boo!”
Marinette jumps, and only barely stops herself from slamming her elbow into the solar plexus of the man behind her. Then she registers the man is Jason, and she elbows him anyway.
“Ass,” she scolds, turning around to find Cass and Duke with him as well. “What trouble were you guys getting up to?”
“Roller Coaster.” Cass hands her one of the sticks of cotton candy she was holding. “Then snacks.”
Duke offers some of the funnel cake he’s eating while Jason pointedly holds his corn dogs out of her reach—which, of course, means she’s going to steal one the moment he stops paying attention. She’s not even that big a fan of corn dogs, but it’s the principle of the thing, really.
“We were going to head down by the water, there’s some booths down there doing face paintings and temporary tattoos,” Duke tells her. “Want to come?”
She pops a piece of cotton candy in her mouth and slides her gaze to Jason.
“I'm not sitting still for a full henna sleeve."
Jason immediately begins pouting. Ever since she dyed her hair, Jason and Alix have been pushing her to get some piercings or tattoos. Marinette’s pretty sure they like the idea of ‘corrupting’ her girl next door look.
"Killjoy," he grumbles.
Marinette rolls her eyes.
“Sure,” she agrees, looping her arm through Duke’s. “Lead the way.”
Jason leads the way, actually, and he cuts through the crowd so quickly that Marinette doesn’t even notice the slightly sour look Damian shoots at her new group. She’s too busy laughingly trying to keep up with Jason’s ridiculously long legs.
***
They don’t make it to the henna station.
Before they even get there, disaster strikes in the form of Jason running his mouth.
“So we heard you been roped into goin on a date with the she-devil next weekend,” Jason says, throwing an arm around her shoulder.
Marinette blinks. "Who?"
"Vikki Vale," Cass helpfully explains. But now Marinette’s confusion is laced with the slightest hints of panic.
“Yeah! So what shady shit did you get into that Vale is suddenly sniffing around?”
"What? Nothing," Marinette dismisses. "Who told you I was meeting with Vale?"
"Duke did," Jason tells her, looking at her strange now. "Said you seemed stressed about it and might want company."
Said Wayne, who’d been on the other side of Jason, looks suddenly panicked and stops walking entirely.
"Duke?" Marinette questions, stopping too. She's confused and worried and - what? She never told Duke about the interview; how would he even know?
For obvious reasons, she only told her Court—who wouldn’t have said anything to anyone—and also mentioned it kind of offhandedly to-
(Marinette is clever. Cleverer than she wants to be most days and as the realization dawns, her mind spinning and whirling, she already wants to take it back. It's not her secret to know.
But the disjointed pieces click into place without care for her wants, nearly too fast to keep up with and- oh. Oh.)
She twists out from under Jason’s arm so she can stare incredulously at Duke’s face.
He at least has the decency to not feign ignorance, only giving her a sheepish smile that looks caught between wariness and resignation.
“You!” she shouts, poking a finger at his chest.
Duke doesn't flinch, even when she absolutely pokes him harder than any normal human should be able to. “Me,” he agrees, grimacing.
Her mouth opens and closes for a long moment, words lost, before she grabs his shoulders and shakes him back and forth. Duke, agreeably, lets her manhandle him despite how she must look like a lunatic.
“Holy shit. Holy shit. Are you serious?” Her voice has taken on a distinctly hysterical quality now, several octaves higher than her normal register.
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Well there you go then,” he says and she shakes him harder for joking when she's in the middle of a crisis.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Jason pipes up and Marinette whirls to pin him with her intense stare. His hands fly up in surrender, though by his expression, she doesn’t think he knows, exactly, why he’s surrendering.
Her eyes flick over his shoulders, to his waist, to how tall he is and fuck. No wonder he always wears a helmet. That white streak is pretty damn distinct.
“I’m an idiot,” she says flatly.
“Uh…?”
“Kwami, how didn’t I notice?” she asks herself frantically. “I'm around you all the time! You don't even have any glamors!"
“Mari, what the hell are you talking about?”
She ignores Jason in favor of rounding back on Duke, who is also Signal, apparently. "This is your fault! Why did you tell them? What happened to being friends—twice over, apparently!—and keeping my secrets?"
Duke looks vaguely offended for a moment. “How was I supposed to know it was a secret?”
“Because I'm not doing the interview as Marinette, you shrimp-eyed, asshole!” she hisses.
Duke opens his mouth before closing it quickly. “Well you didn’t say that,” he says petulantly.
“What the fuck are you two talking about?” Jason interjects, patience worn too thin by this point. He’s got that slant to his lips that belays how annoyed he is with being left out of the loop. But before Marinette can figure out how to organize her erratic thoughts into coherency, Cass steps in for her.
“Masks and bats,” she says, regarding her calmly with her head tilted. "Marinette knows.”
“Huh?” Jason blinks. Then: “Oh, shit, really? Fucking- how? Did you realize it just now?”
“Yes!” she exclaims. “Obviously! Why else would I be having a crisis right now?”
She shouldn’t have asked. She shouldn’t have asked. The question was rhetorical, but that doesn’t stop the universe from answering anyway.
No sooner have the words left her mouth, do the lights in Amusement Mile go dark and the speaker system crackles to life. “Now this,” a voice echoes all across the park, “is exactly the kind of sample size I needed for my newest experiment. Thank you all in advance for participating in this revolutionary study.”
Scarecrow is attacking the park.
***
Staring at the screaming crowd of civilians, half out of their minds with fear, Marinette feels an almost overwhelming sense of deja vu.
Civilian, once again, near helpless in the face of a Rogue terrorizing citizens right before her eyes. Only this time, the Rogue is not one who fights on her turf. This isn’t Two-Face who deals in luck and chance which she can bend to her will.
This is Scarecrow, a man who breeds fear and panic. Already Marinette can feel her hands shake and heart pound despite being at the farthest edge of the gas cloud and holding her shirt firmly over her mouth. Her Waynes look grim at her sides, eyes flicking all around as they lead the way around the edge of the park.
She can’t imagine they like the situation any better than she does.
“Plan?” she shouts to her companions over the din, deferring to their greater experience. (Which is still insane to think about, what the fuck.)
“Batman will be here soon,” Jason relays. “But if we can get to the car, then we can-”
Jason stops in his tracks, so fast that Marinette just barely stops from slamming into his back. They’re close to the entrance, running along the fence’s edge, which of course means they run into trouble.
In front of them are a group of Scarecrows thugs, burlap masks smiling wide and terrifying at the four of them. There’s only seven in front of them right now, probably in charge of crowd control and making sure no one escapes before the ‘experiment’ is over.
Four against seven is good odds for them, but they’re civilians right now. Pampered rich folk who are only supposed to know the broad strokes of self-defense. Well, actually - Jason grew up on the streets, and it’s no secret to Gotham that Cass knows martial arts, but Marinette’s not willing to risk it. Not unless one of her Waynes gives the okay.
“Well, well!” one of the thugs laughs. “Ain’t we the lucky ones boys? Looks like we caught ourselves some Wayne brats.”
Jason places himself more solidly in front of her and Duke as the group starts toward them. His feet are planted and fists clenched at his side and Marinette is abruptly reminded that ‘fight’ is just as common a reaction to fear as ‘flight’ is.
She reaches forward to grab his jacket sleeve right as Cass hisses, “Hold,” at all of them.
“The boss is always looking for more funding,” a different thug says. “I’m sure ol’ Brucie will cough up a pretty penny to get em back, yeah?”
Duke presses up against her side, free hand wrapping around her back to grab at Cass. The four of them are tangled together, pressed as close as they can get, and probably look the perfect picture of scared, soon-to-be hostages.
For Marinette, at least, it’s only partly an act. They’ve all been breathing in the toxin for far longer than can be healthy, and each moment they stand there, it only gets worse.
“Plan?” she asks again, because getting themselves captured cannot be it.
A thug chucks something at their feet before Cass can answer, and Marinette is moving before it even comes to a stop. She’s jumpy and halfway to terrified and the moment the canister gets close enough, her foot is already mid-swing to kick it back towards where it came from.
It slams into the face of the thug who threw it with a loud crunch. He goes down like a bag of bricks.
The thugs stop in their tracks, staring at their fallen member, and her Waynes stop to stare at her.
For a moment, nobody moves. Then, “Nice shot,” Jason compliments, right as the canister gives a weak hiss. The nozzle must have flattened on impact, compromising the gas flow.
There’s a clever joke about luck in there somewhere, but Marinette can’t really think about it right now.
“Praise me later,” she says, shoving at Duke and Jason to get them to move. “Run now.”
The four of them take off like Hell is nipping at their heels, but it doesn’t take long for the thugs to get with the memo. They have a head start, but it’s hard to lose a tail when the paths are so wide and they can only stay on the fringes of the park or risk the effects of fear gas.
Running this much is already a risk. They’re breathing too much. Under normal circumstances, they could easily outlast their pursuers. But they don’t have the gas masks Scarecrow and his thugs do.
Eventually, she and her Waynes will succumb to the toxin. Eventually, they’ll be easy pickings.
Her Waynes must be thinking the same thing, cause when they come across yet another fork in the path, Cass tells them to scatter.
There’re six guys now, if they split up, at least two of them will have a reasonable chance of taking down their single pursuer and getting away to the entrance.
Marinette ends up with two of them. Which is good and bad. Good, because that means there’s two extra vigilantes on the way, instead of just one. But bad because she has to keep running.
Her heart is pounding and her ears are ringing and she has to focus so hard to ignore the terrifying things she keeps seeing in the corner of her eyes. She nearly jumps out of her own skin when Tikki flies out of her purse to float next to her face, easily keeping pace.
“Loop back around, Marinette!” Tikki shouts. “The masks! You can take one from the criminal you knocked out!”
Marinette’s mind is so addled, she hadn’t thought about that. Thank the Powers That Be for Tikki and her immunities to human ailments. She cuts through an abandoned booth, making a wide loop around just to be safe, before heading back the way she came.
When the sprawled body comes into view, Tikki shoots forward and starts tugging at the mask. There’s buckles and straps and she only just barely gets the thing off enough for Marinette to lean down and snatch it off the thugs face while running past.
She can see the entrance, she could escape. It’s right there.
But one of her Waynes is heading for it, or perhaps already at the car, moments away from actually being able to do something, to help. She can’t risk that.
So instead she makes a sharp turn in the opposite direction and ducks into a large bush. She ignores the sting of branches scratching at her skin and coaxes the bush into growing thicker, shrouding her completely. She presses the burlap to her face, muffling her breaths and Tikki is there, curled into the crook of her neck. Reassuring and steady.
The thugs run right past her, cursing and huffing for breath. Marinette wants to sob with relief.
But Tikki keeps her on task. “The mask, Marinette. Quickly.”
She fumbles with it, unable to see properly and jumping at every rustle of leaves she makes. She eventually gets it over her nose and mouth and her first breath of clean air is sharp relief. Tikki secures the thing around her head, tugging at straps and buckles while Marinette just breathes.
Slowly, her heartbeat steadies. Her hands still shake—there’s too much left-over adrenaline coursing through her for them not to—but it's manageable now.
Marinette begins to calm.
Tikki sighs, nuzzling against her temple. “You’re okay now,” she promises. “You’re safe.”
Marinette pushes back against her, gently, eyes fluttering closed. She feels suddenly exhausted, like she could sleep for a year.
But she can’t. Not yet.
“Roll call?” she asks and appreciates that Tikki doesn’t need her to elaborate. Quickly, her kwami swoops down to her purse and plucks out the phone.
“Nathaniel, Felix, and Tim were riding the ferris wheel when the gas went off. They’re still up there now,” Tikki reports. “Our rabbit was fast enough to outrun the cloud and picked up a few stragglers along the way. Luka hasn’t checked in yet. Adrien and Nino are searching for him. And…”
Marinette tilts her head. “What is it, Tikki?”
“Chloé was affected by the toxin. Kagami got them both to safety, but… they don’t know where Damian is.”
Marinette jolts. “What?”
“He disappeared as soon as the lights went off.” Tikki sounds almost apologetic when she says, “They had no hope of finding him in the ensuing panic.”
She panics for all of a second before her brain click-click-clicks and Marinette is instead flung into the realm of furious and bruised. The Waynes are all vigilantes and there’s only one vigilante Damian could be, only one that makes sense.
He’s Robin—has been Robin this whole time.
She’d been distracted before, too busy to think about it much but now she has and it makes something in her chest rattle hard enough to ache.
“That bastard!” she hisses, fists clenched at her sides. Oh she is going to give him an earful when she finds him.
The branches part for her as Marinette steps out of the bush, and close seamlessly over her hiding spot behind her. Tikki flutters nervously at her shoulder, but she must’ve come to the same conclusion Marinette had because she doesn’t say anything when Marinette reaches out and twists the luck in the air so that when she starts walking in a seemingly random direction, it’s precisely the path that will lead her to Damian.
She’s tracking him down because she’s pissed and confused and wants answers, but he’s also missing and could be hurt. It’s near certain that he slipped away to become Robin, but he also could have easily succumbed to the fear gas before he got there. All of the carnival games weren’t set up far from the middle of the park.
Robin - Damian - is capable and highly trained. He’s probably fine.
But Marinette isn’t going to risk probably. If she finds him, and he’s fine, then great! She’ll get to yell at him sooner. But if he isn’t, if he needs her… then she’ll be there.
***
The screams have quieted and she can hear sirens in the near distance. The wind from the pier is dispersing the gas enough that it will probably be clear enough to walk without a mask in half an hour. She doesn’t know how long she’d been hiding in her bush, letting her fear fade, but she gets the feeling that the fight is over or is at least near it.
She’s proven right when, after about ten minutes of walking without coming across another person—evacuated most likely, a good sign—she finds Robin slamming the hilt of his sword into a thug’s head, knocking him out hard enough that he’ll probably have a concussion. Not that Marinette has much room to talk tonight.
There’re still two more up and fighting, but quite a few unconscious men lying about the area. Rounding them up, probably, so that he can take them all out at once.
What a showoff.
She waits at the fringes for him to finish, watching him twist and lunge and dance around his opponents. It’s quick work taking them down, and she’s not surprised that he immediately turns to her when he’s finished. He probably knew she was there the whole time.
She is surprised that he turns to her sword first and she ducks beneath his swing. She kicks herself mentally, she’s wearing a gasmask while he was just fighting Scarecrow’s goons.
“Robin!” she shouts hands raised in a vain effort to protect herself.
He stops himself just short of slicing her shoulder open, eyes wide behind the mask as he stares at her. “Wha- Marinette?”
His sword drops quickly, disappearing back into its sheath. His eyes flick over her, lightning quick as he steps closer. “You’re unharmed,” he says pointing out the obvious—which he hates when people do—and as he looks at her, she can see something like relief in the slant of his shoulders.
The softness, which would normally melt her insides and send her into stuttering fits, instead makes that thing in her chest rattle angrily.
“Don’t,” she snaps.
Robin frowns. His hand reaches out for her, worried. “Marinette? Are you alright?”
“No,” she swats his hand away. “No, I’m not alright. I’m angry at you.”
He looks at her, incredulous. “For what? Attacking you? If so, my sincerest apologies but I hadn’t known-”
She cuts him off. “No, that isn’t it.”
“Then what?” he asks. “What have I done?”
“I don’t know, Damian. What could I possibly be upset about?”
Robin goes utterly still. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” she snaps and hits him in the chest. It helps a little and he’s wearing high grade armour so she does it again. “What was the point? Befriending me twice, giving me gifts. I just- why? Were you trying to confuse me on purpose?”
“No!” he exclaims as if affronted by the thought. “Of course not!”
He tries to stop her onslaught but she’s stronger than him and the last thing he wants to do is hurt her by using the holds for super individuals. It’s an advantage she has no qualms about abusing at that moment.
“Do you even realize how conflicted I’ve been for months? Ever since the gifts started showing up and I couldn’t figure out which of you was leaving them and then I had a crisis about which of you I liked that way and of course the answer was both and - ugh!” She hits him again. “You were just the same person the whole time?!”
Quite off topic and utterly missing the point, Robin smirks. “So you admit you like me ‘that way’?”
She glares at him. “I’m going to punch you.”
He takes advantage of her stillness to grab her wrists, pulling them close to his chest and her with them. “I wasn’t trying to trick you,” he tells her softly. “Truly.”
She huffs. “Sure feels like it.”
“No, I-” he sighs roughly, then sweeps his gaze over the bodies and the park around them.
Out of nowhere, he releases her wrists and instead pulls her in by her waist. She’s about to protest and begin hitting him again when he whips out his grappling hook and then suddenly they’re swinging through the air.
The sensation is odd, and a bit more nerve wracking when she’s not the one in control of trajectories and destinations.
Her arms come up around his neck like lightning to keep herself from falling. His grip on her is tight, and she doesn’t really think he’d let her fall, but that’s not the point.
They land on a nearby roof after no time at all, and he sets her down on her feet gently. But he doesn’t let her get far before he reaches behind her head to release the gasmask, his eyes flicking over her now exposed face hungrily. His follows not soon after, and they both end up on the ground at their feet.
The moment is oddly intimate and she’s so caught off guard and wrong footed that when he speaks again it takes her a second to reorient her mind on the conversation at hand.
“The gifts were meant to be clues.”
Marinette eyes him suspiciously. “Clues?”
“Yes, Starling,” he confirms, running a hand through his hair while Marinette very pointedly ignores the way her heart still flutters at the endearment. “I didn’t want to start courting you without you fully knowing who I am, otherwise, it just felt… dishonest. Hiding our identities is necessary, but here it merely felt despicable. I wanted you to know, but it is not my place to tell you when it would mean revealing the rest of my family as well.”
She frowns. “So you were trying to tell me… without telling me?”
“Starling, you are exceedingly clever and observant and I hold your wit in a higher regard than anyone I know,” he tells her, earnest and simple. A blush rises on her cheeks despite her best attempts for it to stop. “I believed giving you the tools to make your own way to the truth would be my best course of action.”
She worries her lip between her teeth, running the thought over in her head before saying something. “Intentionally being transparent still sounds like you telling me. Wouldn’t your family get upset?”
He shrugs with a sort of carelessness she’s rarely ever seen from him. “I am honor bound to my family and our shared duty but I’ve also been told over and over again that I cannot let it consume me.” He pauses, lips twisting as his shoulders hunch just a bit.
If she didn’t know better she’d say he looked… bashful.
“And, well.” He clears his throat. “As Grayson is so fond of telling me, sometimes the loyalties of the heart weigh heavier than those of blood.”
Well now Marinette is really blushing.
“Oh,” she says eloquently and Robin nods stiffly in response. “Well that’s…” she clears her own throat too. Then, with a spark of courage, she reaches out to grab his hand and holds it between both of hers. She stares down at it, smiling as her heart tap dances away in her chest. “I’ve found that often to be the case as well. Dick seems to know what he’s talking about.”
“Yes,” he agrees wryly. “I suppose this time he had.”
She huffs a soft laugh, barely audible over the distant sirens on the streets below. They’re quiet for a long moment, absorbing the things that had just been said.
“Marinette, I…” he starts abruptly and she looks up to meet his eyes.
He’s serious and intense and so achingly earnest in a way he so rarely is that she squeezes the hand she’s holding reassuringly. “Yes?”
His hand twists between her own, moving to grip her back tightly. Like if he’s not holding her she’ll disappear. “It wasn’t my intention to cause you distress. I don’t ever mean to cause you distress, now or in the future, but I fear I will continue to do so unintentionally. I’m not… good at this, at people. But I hope you’ll forgive me, even when I’m an ass and insist I’ve done nothing that needs forgiving, because I- Because you’re-” he stops, opens and closes his mouth. Then, almost desperately, “Well you must know.”
She can’t see his eyes behind the mask, but she knows him. Knows him twice over, learned and relearned his quirks and habits and nuances. His eyes are wide and bright and filled with an emotion she hadn't known what to name until this very moment.
She steps closer to him, until there is barely any space between them, until she feels more than hears the breath catch in his chest. She can’t imagine she’s much better, with the way her heart pounds against her ribcage hard enough that there’s no way he can’t hear it.
“Of course I know,” she assures, soft and quiet into the space between them, slipping her hand out of his so she can cup his cheek and curl the tips of her fingers around the back of his neck. “And do you?”
He almost seems to sway towards her, like he can’t physically stop himself, like he doesn’t want to, and something so unbearably warm and fond burns to life in her chest.
“Yes,” he says, like a promise, like a plea. “Can I…?”
Their lips are barely a hair’s breadth from one another, she can feel the ghost of warmth on her lips and-
“Oh, are we interrupting something?” a voice says, too loud, shattering the moment into a thousand, itty-bitty pieces. Marinette jumps and knocks her head against Robin’s, making them both yelp.
She whips around to find Red Hood and Orphan—Jason and Cass—standing on the edge of the roof, looking at them both with gleeful amusement. Or she assumes, since both of them have their faces completely covered.
Grumpily, she rubs at her forehead and glares. “What are you doing here?”
“The Demon Spawn wasn’t responding to comms,” Jason—Red Hood?—says, tapping the side of his helmet. “Considering he’s supposed to be on roundup duty, B got a little worried.”
Cass pulls off her mask to grin toothily at them. “Playing hooky, little bird?”
“I was… distracted,” Robin says gruffly, crossing his arms. Then his eyes flick to Marinette, and something about his posture softens, just the smallest amount. “A more important matter required my attention.”
Marinette smiles at him, red staining her cheeks.
“Cute,” Hood says but in a way that he actually just means ‘gross’.
Cass hits him in the arm so Marinette doesn't have to walk over there and do it herself. “We’re happy for you.”
“Ecstatic,” Hood intones. “Can’t wait to give Tim the twenty bucks I owe him now.”
Cass tilts her head. “Alfred didn’t win?”
“Only because he didn’t bet,” Hood explains. “Also I’m not stupid. I learned years ago not to bet against Alfred. The man never loses.”
He likely wouldn’t, Marinette thinks, not with his affinity for truths. Alfred’s ability to just know things is on par with Alix—better even, since he’s had longer to hone it than her.
Then the conversation catches up with her. “Wait,” she says, pointing at Hood, “Did you bet against us?”
He has the audacity to shrug. “Not really. Just thought you two would pine after each other for at least another month.”
She opens her mouth to say something to that but her phone, which had been intermittently vibrating in her purse for the past few minutes, begins to play Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. Quickly, she pulls it out.
“Did you find Luka?”
“Huh?” Adrien stalls from the other end. “Oh, yeah. We updated the chat ages ago, he’s being treated now. Him and Chloé will probably need a cuddle pile tonight, but they’ll be fine.”
Marinette sighs in relief. “That’s good.” She’s heard stories of people going mad from Scarecrow’s toxin and, if she’s being honest, Luka has a lot more reasons to go mad than anyone in her Court. He doesn’t talk much about the things he’s seen in the timelines that don’t exist anymore, but she knows that it haunts him sometimes.
“Yeah, it’s great,” Adrien says dismissively, but not unkindly. “That’s not actually why I called.”
Marinette’s brows furrow. “Then why did you-”
“NETTIE!” she flinches away from the sound of Nino shouting directly into her ear. The three vigilantes around her look mildly startled. “I cannot believe you chose the bird! I was rooting for the rich kid! Do you know how much money I had riding on him being your pick?”
Marinette blinks, but before she can form a response, there’s the brief sound of a scuffle, and then Adrien is talking again. “Don’t listen to him, Bugaboo. We’re happy with whoever makes you happy.”
In the background of the call she hears Nino again. “You’re only saying that ‘cause you put fifty on Robin!”
“Hold up,” Marinette interrupts, pinching the bridge of her nose and pointedly ignoring how many of her friends have been betting on love life. “How do you guys even know that I-” Well, not that she finally picked because she didn’t really, which is something she’ll have to figure out how to explain later—but that’s a problem for Future-Marinette. “About me and Robin?”
“Felix, Nath, and Tim are still stuck on the ferris wheel,” Adrien relays and she turns around to face it incredulously. It’s at least five blocks away. “Tim brought one of his fancy photographer cameras to take pictures with and it has a miraculous zoom distance on it.”
Right as he says that, she catches the glint of what must be Tim’s camera lens.
Damn snitches. She flips them off.
Not a moment later, the sky above the ferris wheel shifts just enough for her to see the stars now read ‘R+M forever’ surrounded by a heart. She presses the phone between her ear and shoulder so she can flip them off with both hands, even as she knows that a photo of her doing so will inevitably end up framed somewhere in her apartment.
“I hate all of you.”
“You love us~” both Adrien and Nino singsong over the phone. She hangs up when Nino starts actually singing Kissing in a Tree while Adrien makes accompanying kissy noises. Focusing back in on the three vigilantes in front of her, she finds Jason’s taken off his helmet while Robin looks at her expectantly.
“What was that all about?”
She huffs as she shoves her phone back into her purse. “Tim’s been spying on us with his camera and told all my friends about it. So that cat’s out of the bag.”
“Pixie-pop,” Jason says, falsely sympathetic. “The cat was already out of the bag.”
“Well, I was at least hoping to figure out how to explain all of this,” she waves her hand, hoping to encompass the whole situation, “without spilling all your secrets, so.” She groans. “This is going to be such a mess.”
“Perhaps,” Robin agrees, grabbing her hand to hold tenderly in his own and smiles. “But I’m quite happy with how things turned out.”
The smile she gives him is wry, but no less happy. “This is mostly your fault, you know. You should at least help me clean it up.”
“Of course,” he agrees easily. “And every mess after that, too, for as long as you’ll have me.”
It’s such a romantic notion, with an edge of devotion that she hadn’t quite expected to come so plainly from his mouth, not when he hides everything so close to his chest. So Marinette does the only thing she can in the face of something like that.
She grabs the sides of Robin's—Damian's—hood and finally pulls him into a kiss.
He's surprised for all of a second before his hands are on her hips and his mouth is moving against hers, intense and warm and adoring. She pulls away, aware that they have an audience and very much not wanting to give them a free show. Damian sways after her, chasing her lips for another peck before stopping to press his forehead against hers.
Jason is gagging while Cass claps excitedly. Someone, distantly, yells ‘fucking finally!’ over the rooftops while Nathaniel makes fireworks explode soundlessly in the air above them, the unsubtly bastard.
"Yeah," she says, into the night air surrounded by people she loves and is loved by in return, with even more scattered but near enough for her to be content. She can't see Damian's eyes through his mask, but she doesn't need to. "I think I like the sound of that."