Chapter Text
The old safe house smelled faintly of dust and metal, the kind of scent that clung to places left in standby too long. Damian sat next to her with the stillness of someone who had learned to make silence into armor. Marinette’s fingers remained over his for another beat before she let them fall away, tucking her hands into her lap.
It wasn’t rejection. It was a mutual retreat, like they’d both stepped to the edge of something and needed to see if the ground would hold.
Her eyes wandered the dim space. “This place feels like it belongs to someone who’s waiting for something to happen.”
Damian’s gaze followed hers. “It belongs to no one. Which is precisely the point. If it were mine, it would be a weakness.”
She tilted her head. “And here I thought you Bats made weaknesses into weapons.”
“That works for other people’s weaknesses,” he replied. “Your own are harder to sharpen.”
The rain against the roof softened further, becoming the faint hiss of a shower on distant pavement. She leaned back, the couch springs sighing under her weight, and let herself study him. Not the way she usually did on missions— scanning for tells, noting movement patterns— but in the way you look at someone when you want to know what sits beneath the surface.
“You said earlier that you were made into who you are,” she began. “That your name, your path… all of it was decided for you.”
His jaw shifted, a muscle tightening. “Yes.”
“Then when do you start deciding for yourself?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he rose and walked to the small kitchenette, pulling a glass from the shelf and filling it at the tap. The metallic rush of water was loud in the quiet.
“I don’t know that I can,” he said finally. “Some structures are not meant to be dismantled. They are… foundational.”
Marinette followed him with her gaze. “And if the foundation is cracked?”
He set the glass on the counter, his fingers curling loosely around it. “Then you reinforce it. You don’t tear it down.”
Her brow furrowed. “But what if the crack isn’t weakness? What if it’s a door?”
Damian turned toward her, and for a moment, the hard line of his mouth softened — not in a smile, but in something quieter, something that almost looked like uncertainty.
“You think like a designer,” he said. “You see flaws and call them openings.”
“And you think like a soldier,” she countered. “You see flaws and call them vulnerabilities.”
A faint huff of air left him — not quite a laugh, but a close cousin. He returned to the couch, setting the glass on the coffee table.
“Do you want to know what I remember most from my childhood?” he asked suddenly.
She nodded.
“The sound of footsteps in training halls,” he said. “Every step measured, every pause intentional. I knew which instructors approached by the way their heels struck the floor. I knew how long I had before they reached me. I learned early that time is not measured in minutes, but in the space between your breath and your next mistake.”
Her chest tightened. “That’s not a childhood. That’s a prison.”
He met her eyes steadily. “And yours?”
She hesitated, her gaze falling to her hands. “Mine was… busy. Full. My parents loved me, but they didn’t know everything I was carrying. I wore the good daughter mask so well that they never saw the cracks. They didn’t see when I started… losing myself in the role. Being perfect is exhausting. You start wondering if the people who love you… only love the version of you that never falls apart.”
The words felt heavier than she expected once they were out.
Damian didn’t try to offer comfort. He didn’t rush to tell her she was wrong. Instead, he simply sat there, letting the truth settle between them without flinching.
“Do you think they would still love you if they saw you without the mask?” he asked.
She swallowed. “I want to say yes. But I’ve seen people change their minds when they see the real you. And I…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I can’t take that gamble with them.”
The safe house felt smaller suddenly, the shadows closer.
“You’re afraid of being left,” he said.
She nodded once, barely perceptible.
“I am afraid,” Damian admitted quietly, “of being known. One leads to the other. And if they know me and choose to leave… then it confirms everything I’ve been told about what I am.”
Her gaze met his, steady now. “What if they stay?”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer. Then, “Then I won’t know what to do with that.”
They sat in the hum of the old refrigerator, rain muttering against the roof. At some point, Marinette reached for the glass of water and took a slow sip before offering it to him. He accepted it without hesitation, their fingers brushing again.
It was strange, how those small touches felt more dangerous than any mission.
“Do you think we’ll ever figure it out?” she asked.
“What?”
“Who we are. Without the masks, without the missions.”
He considered her for a long time. “Perhaps. But I don’t think it’s something you figure out all at once. It’s… built. Choice by choice.”
Her lips quirked faintly. “Then maybe tonight is one of those choices.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Perhaps it is.”
They didn’t speak for a while after that. The silence wasn’t sharp anymore — it had softened, stretched into something almost comfortable.
When the rain finally stopped, the air in the safe house felt different, lighter somehow. Marinette stood, stretching, and crossed to the window. The sky was just beginning to pale at the edges, the promise of morning curling over the rooftops.
“You know,” she said, “in Paris, the best part of dawn is the smell. The bakeries start early. You wake up to warm bread, sugar, coffee… The air feels full of possibility.”
He joined her at the window, close enough that she could feel the steady heat of him at her shoulder. “In Gotham, dawn smells like wet asphalt and exhaust.”
She smiled faintly. “Not as poetic.”
“No,” he agreed. “But it’s honest.”
They watched the city wake together. It wasn’t an answer, not to the question that had started the night, but it was something. A beginning.
As they turned toward the door, Marinette glanced at him. “So… who are we really?”
Damian didn’t hesitate this time. “Two people who have decided to find out.”
And for now, it was enough.