Chapter Text
Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne sighed heavily as he filled his sixth cup of coffee for the day. Maybe. He wasn’t sure anymore. Only the glaring date of his latest appointment reminder on his phone let him know what day it was. It had to be at least two days since he had had even a cat nap.
Alfred might know how long it had been.
He did know that he hadn’t left the office since he last slept. Did a day count from sleep to sleep or just a 24-hour period?
Alfred would probably know that too. He knew everything about everything. Alfred was the greatest detective in the world. Screw Batman - Alfred was the scary one. He showed up just when he’s needed even if no one asked. He must be magic or something. Or a really good stalker. Maybe he just watched them on the security cameras all day… Nah. The guy was magic. He, like, never aged.
And now he was talking like a 90’s girl. In his head. To himself.
He really needed to sleep.
Still… it was better than nightmares. Sleep meant nightmares. Sleep meant facing reality consciously. Consciousness meant feelings.
Couldn’t have that.
90’s girl talk it was then. Sleep later.
As if.
Cher would be, like, so proud. He was definitely forcing Damian to watch Clueless on the next movie night. He should, like, totally go skateboarding while playing ‘Rollin with my homies.’
Oou, skateboarding. He missed boarding. He should go do that now.
He raised his head up. He was in his office. At some point he had sat down and had been staring at his cup. It was empty.
Why was he here when he could go boarding?
His phone beeped for a reminder. Oh, right, useless board meeting to appease investors that don’t actually care about the company. Bruce was scheduled to come to the meeting, but he wouldn’t show up. He was probably sleeping from a late patrol.
Huh. Patrol.
When was the last time he went on patrol? Four days? Five? More?
He recalled setting up a drug bust… but the others took care of it so he could stay at Wayne Enterprises to work. He really should have gone.
A knock on the door brought him out of his caffeine-enhanced haze.
Oh. The meeting.
He unplugged his laptop and followed his assistant. The room was full of stuffy old men who just wanted to argue about cutting costs that would just cost more in the long run with repairs, rather than just producing quality products to begin with. So, after letting them ramble as he drank coffee number seven brought over by his assistant, he set them straight, then let the tech department in charge of production take over.
His stomach churned, and Tim vaguely thought that maybe all the coffee was making him sick… nah. He looked down at his once again empty cup. There was a croissant beside it.
Food? When had he last eaten? He was running on coffee, and that was fine, but maybe he should eat it…
He half-listened as he absently chewed on the croissant and went over a police report of activity over by one of the schools. He flagged it as something Damian should check out as he was nearest and would look the least suspicious if caught in the area.
The meeting drew to a close, and he headed back to his office. The sun was glaring through the windows, making his tired eyes wish he had closed the blinds, but if he did, he would likely fall asleep. He didn’t have time for that.
There on the desk was a stack of papers for Bruce to review and sign. Once again, he was required to forge his adoptive father’s signature and do his work. Another sigh left him, and he reviewed one as he waited for his next cup of coffee to finish filling. The work was something a low-level assistant could have vetted and just handed to Bruce to sign. He skimmed the rest of the pile. Most of these could be handled by assistants or department heads. Why did these even land on his desk? They were a complete waste of his time. Was this really all Bruce was expected to do at work? Why did Bruce not just do it himself?
He looked down again at the pile. They were all due today. That’s why he got them. How long had they been sitting in Bruce’s office before some panicked assistant put them on his desk? There was no way he would get through them all by the end of the day.
Ugh. He did not want to do this. He would rather get punched in the face by some random drug dealer.
He whipped out his phone and sent everyone a message that he would not be going on patrol tonight. Again. He sent the details about the case for Damian to look into, then returned to the problem in front of him.
Poking his head out of his office, he flagged down the two executive assistants nearby. “I need you to review these reports before the end of the day so that I can sign them. Pull whoever you need to get it done. Tomorrow we will need to have a meeting about delegation to proper departments. Please set aside some time in the calendar for it.”
He dumped the stack on the first desk, and the two paled at the giant work load they were just handed, nodding weakly. “Thank you, Ms. Kelly, Mrs. Lurdem. If you or anyone else you pull in to help end up staying late, please charge any meals or expenses to the company, including safe rides home.”
He returned to his office and looked at his own stack of work. It was massive.
Could one die from paperwork overload? Could it happen now so he didn’t have to deal with the stack?
How much of this could actually be done by an assistant or another department? Rather than returning to another police report like he had planned, once again putting his vigilante duties aside for Wayne Enterprises maintenance, he reviewed the emails he had received. Hundreds of unopened emails. Many items with due dates in the next two to three days.
When had he fallen so far behind? How did he have this much work? Drake Industries barely had to bother him with anything. Just the annual board meeting and more important contract to sign.
There was no way Wayne Enterprises was more poorly managed than his own Drake Industries, right? He needed to fix this now.
He pinched his nose in irritation before diving into the stack. Instead of actually reviewing them, he began to scan through them, marking which department should have taken over the review process. How many should have just been a signature after a brief note saying it was approved by the department heads?
After four more hours, he discovered only a handful of items he actually needed to pay attention to. Great. None of them were due any time soon.
He knew why it began. He would always get it done, even last-minute things put on his desk. Everyone knew it. They depended on it. Departments claimed they didn’t have the time or resources, so he would ‘help’ until he finally took it over. No time? Young Mr. Wayne will do it! But at that time, everything had been urgent and important. It slowly turned into any paperwork that took any significant amount of time, or was annoying.
Finally, he was left with this mess. It was likely almost all the WE paperwork went through him now. He should have put a stop to it ages ago.
His head hurt. Lack of caffeine? Too much? Annoyance? No, he didn’t have time for emotions.
Next problem. When did all of this begin? When did he start having to sign Bruce’s papers?
He scanned through his emails. There was such a mass of emails every day that it became tiresome. He wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Maybe he wasn’t looking back far enough. He skipped back to last year, when he was only with the company for about six months, when his phone beeped.
Damian had sent confirmation that he would check out the case. No comment about him missing patrol again. They were all really picky about everyone sticking to their assigned patrols – why was no one hassling him? Didn’t they normally bug him about it? Dick usually said something and fussed over him not sleeping and working too hard.
But no other messages came.
When had this become normal? When did they stop bugging him about patrols?
Huh. He actually missed his family harassing him about missing patrols?
When did they stop caring? Did they care about him?
He sighed once again and began to dig through his messages. He didn’t have time to wallow or wonder about his adoptive family and their general inability to talk about emotions, but curiosity got the better of him. Six months after he started at WE he started missing patrols. Bruce never sent more than a confirmation text. Damian would send an annoyed message and Jason had teased him about ‘all work and no play’ on occasion. Dick fussed with every one of his messages.
Until three months of it, when the reply messages dwindled. Then stopped. Even Dick hadn’t responded to the five most recent cancellations. The only messages he appeared to receive were requests to research something and confirmation of places to investigate.
They didn’t care.
Would they notice when he died of paperwork overload? Maybe the paperwork would be merciful and it would be swift. Now would be good.
They didn’t notice he was gone anyway. He missed Dick checking on him.
No… He missed them?
That didn’t make sense. Maybe it was caffeine withdrawal. He needed another cup.
His family had become so used to him bailing on patrol that they expected it. This really needed to change.
He didn’t join Bruce to sit at WE all day. He joined to set Batman straight. To be a Robin. He joined to help people. To help Batman save the city.
He hadn’t been out in ages. He just drowned in paperwork every day. He frowned at the thought that he had lost his way at some point.
Time to get back on track.
~~~~
He never left the office.
But there it was, morning again according to the sun coming through his office window. He had a plan now. Set up a system to review and delegate the work that could easily be handled by assistants. Hire two more assistants to skim through the files and be in charge of the delegation process to streamline it.
The meeting itself went well. He had to pull in the legal department and finance departments to ensure that all reports went to them to review as well. Minor contracts and spending would be filtered through department heads, finance and legal, and finally to his executive assistants to ensure they maintained WE standards and missions. Only the completed, signed contracts would reach his desk in case he wanted to override the decision. Large accounts would be sent to him or Bruce to review like normal.
They were resistant at the extra workload, but accepted it as well within their purview if they had an extra hand or two hired. He showed everyone the stack of papers the executive assistants had gone through that never should have even seen his desk for more than a signature that belonged to Bruce. Then he pulled out the even larger stack of his own. He had divided them up by department review priority.
In the end, everyone was content; they were getting additional support in their offices to take up the extra workload, so no department would be overwhelmed. And Tim could possibly sleep for once.
He left the meeting with the five reports he actually needed to review and sat down to coffee number… shit. Did he count from last sleep? He lost count. If he only counted from sunrise, he was on coffee number two. That wasn’t too bad. Right?
He looked at his meetings for the day. Most looked like something he could sleep through and not be missed. Ugh. Maybe that was next on the delegation list.
He completed his remaining reports as he sat in the meetings, not paying attention. Come 5PM he was actually done all of his work for the day. He checked in with his assistants, and they appeared to be finishing up as well. Odd. Everyone was ready to leave on time. Maybe he was having a caffeine- and lack of sleep-induced hallucination again.
He returned to the manor, and actually went to bed after a quick meal with Alfred. In his haze of exhaustion, he forgot to text everyone to mention that he was going to crash for a while before joining them on patrol.
~~~~
Ladybug groaned as her back slammed into a nearby wall. She stumbled back to her feet, watching as Chat Noir knocked back the akuma, stealing the arm band and tearing it apart. She whipped out her yoyo and cleansed the damn butterfly.
It had been the second attack that day. She was tired. They met up for their usual post-akuma fist bump and took off, Chat promising to return the citizen this time, since he hadn’t used his Cataclysm.
Ladybug fell through the open skylight, and a half-asleep Marinette Dupain-Cheng collapsed onto her bed. She pulled the closest pillow towards her head, eager to get some sleep. Tikki zoomed off to grab a cookie from the stash in her desk drawer. She felt two other kwami pull her blanket up over her, and she mumbled a thank you.
She hummed her contentment at finally being able to sleep. The akuma had taken hours. A 2AM akuma was not a fun way to be woken up. The Ladybug miraculous cure had taken care of her injuries, but she was still a bit sore just from general exertion, being overworked and just plain tired. She shifted her position, and was just about out cold when suddenly her alarm blared.
No.
No. It couldn’t be time to get up already!
She felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes as she forced them to open. She checked the clock. It really was time to go to school. Damnit. The kwami saw her slowly lift herself out of bed, and turned off the alarm for her. Several of them had sad looks on their faces. She knew they felt bad for her, and would help if there was anything they could do.
She groaned as she changed into her usual school clothes automatically. Looked like there was no sleep for the superhero today.
She stumbled downstairs to see her parents up in the bakery. They gave her a sympathetic look. They would have heard the akuma battle while they were baking bread. Surely most of the school would be tired from lack of sleep from the noise. She wouldn’t stand out. Her mother came up to her with a cup.
“Coffee sweetie?”
She looked at her maman with mild surprise. They had discouraged her drinking any before now. Sure, she was almost 17 now, and most of the other kids in her class had started drinking it long before her, but her mother providing it was not something she had predicted.
She took a sip, cringing at the bitter, dry taste. Her mom let out a small laugh, handing her some cream and sugar.
“Try two spoonfuls of sugar. It’s a bit of an acquired taste,” she said. Her maman poured in a small amount of creamer to the take the drink to the top of the cup.
Marinette looked warily at the drink, but tried another sip. Much better. This she could drink. She watched as her mother poured herself a cup of black coffee. She was sure she would be drinking it like her maman soon enough.
She gave her a hug before heading out the door, a croissant in one hand, the coffee in the other. She sipped on it as she walked the very short distance to her school.
She took a seat in the back of the classroom. She was too tired to fight with Lila over the seating arrangements today. Alya would be happy either way, and this way she could zone out without Mme. Bustier calling on her too much. She sat and started doodling absentmindedly. Class came to a start before she knew it. She thought that maybe Alya and Nino had tried to greet her when they came in, but she was just too tired to care.
At the end of their first lesson, Marinette realised that she had not even paid attention to what subject it was. She looked down to see what she had made while she had sipped on her coffee. An asymmetrical dress with bold triangle shapes. A few were cut-outs, while others were jeweled. It would be perfect for one of Clara Nightingale’s next music videos. This one was supposed to be edgy and a bit more outside of Clara’s normal style, and she wanted an edgy outfit to go with it. Marinette was sure that this would fit the bill. Still very Clara, with the bright colours and large shapes, but with a very Jagged Stone feel to the rest. She quickly added some extra crystals to the shoulder, and created a hairclip, bracelet, and knee-high boots to match.
After a few minutes, Marinette realised that Mme. Bustier was attempting to get the students’ attention back.
“Class, a reminder that we will be going on our trip to America next week as part of the French-American friendship week, much like we did with our New York trip a few years ago. Adrien, could you pass around packets please?” She held out the packets and paused for a few moments as he started handing them out. “Everyone, you’ll notice that once again, the packet contains the permission slips and the recommended packing lists, as well as a list of precautions and safety protocols recommended for each city with known supervillains. This shouldn’t be much different than the New York packet on our previous trip.”
Adrien came up to her last, and gave her a big smile. “Here, Mari. This one is yours,” he said quietly, their fingers brushing as she grabbed the stack of papers from him. “You’re coming on the trip, right?”
She nodded, unable to help the small smile she gave him in return.
Adrien had not stuck up for her or been there for her over the years as he had hinted he would be back when Lila first appeared. It had slowly killed her obsessive crush on him to where she could now see how unhealthy her obsession had been.
She did still like Adrien, but she had come to realise that all he wanted was to be ‘just friends,’ no matter what she thought of him. She was content if that was all they could ever be. She could only be rejected and called a friend so many times. She liked to think that her feelings towards him had matured beyond 13-year-old her’s obsessive crush to something more manageable. More realistic. She could see Adrien for what he was now. Good and kind (and gorgeous), but non-confrontational and unwilling to stand up for himself or others in social situations. He seemed to be pretty dependable during akuma attacks, helping others to escape and showing no fear.
On days when Lila was worse and Adrien still didn’t stick up for her, she wasn’t sure if even the friends title fit. He would always apologize later, but Marinette wasn’t really sure if it mattered anymore if he was sorry. She understood the pressure he was under from his father to be nice to her, but she could only take so much. She really did get it. She didn’t blame him for his situation, and tried not to take it personally when he turned away from a situation.
She had attempted to date Luka at one point, but she had never really felt more than a small attraction and friendship with him. They had broken up before they even reached their third date, and they had all ended early due to akuma attacks. She felt bad about it, but knew it was better to just cut out relationship issues early. After a very awkward period, they had returned to being friends. Adrien had dated Kagami for a while, which helped her move on quite a bit, but they had broken up around the same time she and Luka had.
Neither Marinette nor Adrien had entered a relationship since.
However, Adrien did act somewhat passive-aggressive towards Luka on occasion when the three of them were together for Kitty Section practice. She never could determine a reason why, and neither of them wanted to talk to her about it.
Marinette glanced at the packet, seeing absolutely nothing concerning or new. They would be visiting Metropolis, home of the Daily Planet, which Alya was excited to visit, and the Supers. They would then be touring Gotham, home of the Bats. They would make a quick stop in New York to visit the friends they had made on their previous trip after that. She looked forward to catching up with Jess and Aeon in person. It was also the home of the Justice Society of America and the United HeroeZ, the local branch of the Justice Society. She looked down at the rest of the cities. All were home to some major superhero (and villains…) or another. The Flashes in Central City, San Francisco where the Teen Titans had their main base of operations these days, and Star City, home of the Arrows. She was looking forward to the history and differences from both sides of the country. The Star Labs tour would be cool, but they were also the cause of a huge majority of the meta villains and problems. Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries would also be useful and worth the tour, even if not very interesting.
The packing list just had basics. She spent the rest of the time that the class rambled on about what they were looking forward to making a list of things she really needed – like which kwami would be best for each main type of villain present, just in case they were caught in an attack. Trixx was a must regardless of who they were against because she could use her to alter her appearance enough that she wouldn’t look like a miraculous user.
Another note to get gear related to each villain for an attack if she was stuck as a civilian, if possible. Gas masks for Joker’s laughing gas or Scarecrow’s fear gas. A quick search on her phone made her realise that the big ones used by the military would not be realistic for her to carry around, but the mouth covering ones used by doctors should be enough to keep out the particles, they were smaller, and much more affordable.
Non-conductive material for lightning- or electricity-based villains like Dr. Light. Heated outfits for ice-based ones like Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, or Killer Frost. Kevlar or some other bulletproof and knife resistant cloth. It was… a bit much.
She started looking up all the different bullet-proof materials costs that were light enough to not be obvious while still providing protection. It turned out that bulletproof outfits weren’t all that expensive. Apparently, there were tons of Kevlar alternatives, known as aramid fibers.
She quickly fell down the rabbit hole of her searches. It would make a great market to dive into, considering Jagged and most of his referrals were more likely to get into situations where they would need protection. She marked that down for later.
In the end, she decided that an aramid fiber and rubber lined coat that had a heating element that she could take out of an electric blanket would be ideal to market. An all-in-one thing that could kept in a backpack to pull out if needed.
It was unrealistic for the trip – she didn’t have a portable power source, and didn’t have time to find contacts that could make her one. Bulletproofing would likely be all she could pull off in time, but it was definitely marketable in the future.
She was the guardian now. She could not afford to die on a school trip. She thought for a bit that she was maybe overdoing it, or that maybe it was her anxiety kicking into overthinking mode again, but if nothing else, she could use it as a prototype jacket to market to Gotham in the future. Kwami knew they had enough attacks, she could easily make it in mass marketing there. It made her wonder why Gotham, in particular, was so bad for hostage situations and villains. It was smaller than Paris. She would have thought the crime rate would be lower, or at least proportional to the size of the city.
Her list done, Marinette tuned back into the class’s conversation. Lila, being herself, was quick to say that she knew famous people from each city from her mother’s work as an ambassador. If Marinette’s luck ran as it normally did, they would be attacked in every city because of Lila.
Marinette sighed.
It would be a long trip.