Chapter Text
Dick was excited. He had taken the week off from police work so that he could hang out with his brothers. It had been a long time coming. He’d been stuck on a drug dealer’s case and hadn’t been able to visit Gotham or the Manor in a few weeks. Hopefully, he could scare Damian, as much as Damian could be scared, when he got home.
At least that was the plan.
He wasn’t expecting Damian to come home with a literal human strapped to his chest like a koala. She looked to be about the same age as Damian, yet somehow managed to be so much smaller.
“Uhh, whatcha got there, Lil’ D.” Damian froze in the middle of the foyer at the sound of his voice. Slowly he turned to look at Dick, he showed a little surprise at his presence but quickly covered it up with a look of annoyance.
“…Ice cream.” Dick looked down to see that he did in fact have two slowly melting ice cream cones in his hands. One of which no doubt belonged to the girl that had yet to extricate her face from his little brother’s neck.
Dick smirked at his brother’s obvious deflection of the question. “You gonna share?”
Damian glared at him. “No.”
“Then who’s the other ice cream for?” Damian glared harder. If he wasn’t used to years of exposure to such glares, Dick would have been intimidated. Instead, he just smiled innocently, knowing that his brother was going to have to introduce his guest.
Said guest groaned into Damian’s neck before slowly unwrapping herself from his chest. Once on her own two feet, she grabbed her ice cream cone from Damian's hand before turning to greet Dick.
“Hi!” She smiled. For a second he felt his heart stop. Her smile was so bright that even his cheery personality couldn’t rival it. She gave off puppy vibes and all Dick wanted to do was hug the living stuffing out of her and try to absorb some of the sunshine from her smile. “I’m Marinette.”
She was so small. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dick thought that she looked a lot like a younger Martha Wayne. Apparently, the like of Dark hair and blue eyes ran in the family.
Deciding to ponder it later, Dick greeted the girl with equal enthusiasm. “Hi, I’m Dick! This little demon’s brother.” he gave her an appraising look. “Damian never told me that he had a girlfriend.”
Remember when he said that he was used to being on the receiving end of glares? Apparently, he was wrong. Marinette’s sunshine smile was quickly replaced with a glare harder than Damain’s and the Bat’s.
“That’s cause he doesn’t.” she rolled her eyes and faced his brother. “Honestly, why does everyone who sees me with you assume that I’m your girlfriend?”
He shrugged. “Probably because you're the only female they’ve ever seen hug me without receiving a broken and/or sprained arm.”
Dick looked at the pair in shock. “Wait, you’ve hugged him without getting hurt or being threatened bodily harm?!”
Marinette rolled her eyes and gave her ice cream a quick lick before it could melt on her hands. “Duh. I mean, he can try to hurt me, but he won’t get very far with it.”
At that moment Dick came to two possible conclusions. Either A. his brother was under a spell or B. there was someone who was closer to his brother than he was. And he was kind of hoping for the former.
Damian rolled his eyes. “Ukht, you better introduce yourself before Grayson has an aneurysm.”
“What do you mean,” Dick asked. “She already told me her name.”
Marinette chuckled and gave Damian a light shove. If Dick wasn’t already in shock at his brother's gentle demeanor, that would have pushed him over the edge. “You ruin all my fun, shaqiq.” she turned back to Dick, straightening her back and adopting an aura that radiated power and authority. “It is a pleasure to meet you Richard Grayson. I am Marinette Al Ghul Dupain-Cheng. Though I guess I’m technically Wayne now.” she shrugged nonchalantly as if she hadn’t just dropped a huge bomb on Dick.
His brain was reeling. Al Ghul. She was an Al Ghul. But she couldn’t be older than Damian. Dick whipped his head towards his brother and received a curt nod in confirmation.
“She’s my twin sister.”
Oh. She’s his twin
Oh. She’s his twin.
Ohhhhhhhh. Shit.
Damian had a twin?! Oh, God. He had a twin. Has she been with League this whole time? Was she also starved of affection like Damian was? Had he really missed seventeen years of this girl’s life?
Seventeen years where he could have had a little sister (not including Cass of course. He loved her). A little sister he could have teased for crushes and taken out for ice cream and stayed up late watching Disney movies with.
Dick’s head was rushing trying to process all the information he had just received. He looked between the two teens thinking about how hurt and guarded Damian was when he first came to the Manor. He wondered if Marinette had been hurt in the same way if not worse than her brother.
“Dick?” Marinette called out to him, but her voice was murky. Were those spots always there? Why was the ground so close? Then everything went black.
The Al Ghul twins stared at their newly unconscious brother.
“Uhh,” Marinette turned to her brother. “Should we–”
“Leave him. He’ll wake up in due time. You’re ice cream’s going to melt soon.” Damian started walking out of the foyer and deeper into the Manor.
“Shoot! You’re right.” Marinette rushed to lick more of her ice cream off the cone as it was starting to melt, before rushing after her brother. “Hey, does this place have any coffee? Chloe cut me off from the hotel’s stash yesterday.”