Chapter 2! It’s almost like I was working on this one long chapter, but felt that it was too long, and cut it into two separate chapters.... Maybe I did.
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He groans, lying on his side among the scattered boxes and what look like welding tools. Glancing back at the door, he sees the kid glance through the loading bay they were in before walking over with something in their hand. They offer it to Drack, and he takes it, looking it over. It was a “PULL” handle with an open end, implying that it was meant to be pulled out of its socket, and a little tag with the text “Emergency Door Release” on it. He stares at it, silently, for a moment before starting to stand up, with a chuckle. After he stands up, he gently pats the top of the Quarian’s visor, saying, “Good job kid. Let’s—Uh… not mention this to anyone, alright?” He grunts as he stretches his back, letting out a relieved groan as a couple of popping sounds shake through him.
He tosses the release handle to the side and offers his hand back to the kid, who takes it right away, this time, and he leads them to his shuttle. With the kid securely seated and strapped into the copilot’s chair, Drack kneels in front of the dashboard and powers up the communicator. After a moment of static and not so much as an idle tone, he turns it off and back on again. After a short hum, he glances at the kid, who is staring, rather intently, at the debris detection system, which was claiming that unidentified space debris was hurtling towards them from behind, despite the radar not showing any activity and the fact that they’re still in a shielded hangar.
Drack double checks the alert and peeks out of the shuttle just as a beam of light, barely skims the side of the shuttle. “Shit!” comes out before he can react in any other way, and the Quarian jumps into action, starting up the shuttle, sealing the hatch, and taking off. Just before they pass through the hangar shields the shuttle is shaken by an abrupt boarding; a Geth machine had managed to jump onto the top of the ship and was climbing to the cockpit, priming another laser to use against the small pilot. Seeing their immediate demise, they shut off the forward thrusters and set the reverse thrusters to full power, throwing the Geth off the shuttle and causing its laser to fire off into the distance, and before the Geth can recover and start priming again, the shuttle is set to full forward thrust, bringing it to violently collide with the Geth’s eye, rendering it useless as it drifts off into space.
Recovering from the laser fire and being treated like a pinball in his own shuttle, Drack slowly makes his way to the Pilot’s seat and takes control. He glances at a rear-view monitor to watch the Geth blindly drift off into the dark reaches of space. Sparing a quick glance at his ever-silent, new passenger, who is currently blankly staring at the dashboard, he clears his throat and at least attempts a conversation, “So… Uh. Got a name there, squirt?” after a moment of silence, “What are, or were, you called?” The Quarian, beside him, seems to hesitate for a moment.
“Called…” they respond, simply. Though it wasn’t said in the form of a question, it’s clear that they didn’t understand the question.
“Yeah kid, what’d they refer to you, as? Either the humans or whoever else? Did they have you do something on there?” Drack starts up again, glad that the kid wasn’t deaf or mute.
Another moment of silence before the kid responds, “Engineer…. Repair and maintenance.”
Drack let out a gravely sigh, thinking that this method of communication would get old quick, especially with the kid’s monotonous voice. He powers through, asking, “Did they have you fixing up the space station? I doubt humans would go out of their way to hire someone of another species for that…”
“Geth,” was their response, which was followed by a suddenly tense silence, or, at least, Drack thought it was tense.
“Did your family teach you how to do that? Repair Geth?” He asks and then clarifies.
“Family…” there they go again with the vague one-word question.
“Yeah kid, family. It’s who you’re raised with, or who you can be most comfortable around… Uh, they’re usually there for you from the beginning? I dunno’ I guess it’s complicated to explain. Do you have anything like that? Did they call you anything?”
“No…. I… am alone.”
“Did you lose them?”
“Destroyed... Betrayed.” They were quick to answer, drawing Drack’s eyes away from the empty space ahead of them as the shuttle continues to fly by.
“Was it Cerberus that did it?”
The kid notices his attention and glances up at him, stating, “Humans,” before returning their attention to the dashboard.
Drack glanced forward, subconsciously accelerating the shuttle to hasten his return and bring the tense flight to a quicker end. Tightly gripping the controls to prevent himself from saying another curse in front of them. To distract himself, he returns to another past topic. “You got a name, though? Does anything come to mind? You can make one up at this point, or if there was someone with a specific name that was significant, that’d work.”
“Significant…” They glance at their hands for a moment, staring at them as if they’ve never seen them before. Drack assumes this is another question, but before he’s able to clarify, they speak up again, saying, “Nazara… Nazara is significant.”
Drack relaxes, the closest he can have to a smile gracing his face, as he confirms, “Alright… Nazara. I’ll call you that, then. My name’s Drack, Nakmor Drack,” He nods, and with a newfound excitement; as if he were a kid that finally got a stray dog to sniff his hand, but he doesn’t show it, because then the dog would run away again, and he’d lose all his progress; he notices that they were coming up to their destination: a series of construction zones in space, where they were building five massive ships, four of relatively equal size and one that was comparable to a Ward of the Citadel.
“Well, Nazara, I’ve just gotta’ report in, and then we’ll see about getting you back to your people,” Drack offers directing his shuttle into one of many hangars. After seeing an inquisitive look from the corner of his eye, before they can ask, he continues, “The Quarian fleet should be within comms range. We could get you ba-”
“No. I will not go there,” Nazara cuts him off looking to the side, towards the shuttle’s hatch, a small window giving them a view of the Nexus being prepped for launch.
Drack looks at them for a few seconds before nodding, confirming, “Alright kid… No sending you to the Quarian fleet.” He pauses, a thought coming to mind as he follows Nazara’s gaze, thinking out loud he says, “You’re an engineer… and at least a half-decent pilot…. Ever thought of going to the Andromeda galaxy? I know someone who might be able to squeeze in another seat. A completely new start in another galaxy.” As he finishes the landing process and powers the shuttle down, Drack casually opens the main door and helps them out of their seat, but before he lets them off, he quietly mumbles, “Best to save the hand-holding thing until after we get to her office. Wouldn’t want to make people think I’m dragging you along, against your will. That’d be a bad look for me.”
Though the stares were expected, Drack felt that it may be a bit much for Nazara to be receiving so many questioning and curious stares as the little Quarian was being led by an old behemoth of a Krogan. After a while, it seemed that Nazara wasn’t troubled by it though, as they unblinkingly stared right back at everyone, switching to meet the eyes of each onlooker that catches their attention. They eventually get to a private office, where Drack, stops in the doorway, with an indisputably confused “Huh?”
There, standing next to his granddaughter, was the same Turian he met before, presenting the same haul that he was after, to said granddaughter. Unfortunately for his pride, the noise he made got their attention. They turn from their conversation and look straight at him. “Oh, hey! Drack right? What a coincidence, seeing you, here. Since you are here, have you met my employer?” the Turian starts, making a show of gesturing with both hands towards Kesh, with a straight face. Kesh on the other hand, doesn’t hold back her laughter as she watches the old Krogan stare at them with an expression that could only be described as “a drowning fish”.
Kesh quickly regains her composure and responds for him, “So you’ve met on the field, then? Save’s me the time of being part of your first meeting. So, how was it?”
Vetra chuckles, answering first, “The big guy tried to intimidate me out of the haul, but it’s hard to do that with a little Quarrian boy in tow. He got here earlier than I expected him to, was finding him a way back to his people that quick?”
At Kesh’s inquisitive look and the mention of the child, Drack snaps out of it, “Oh, speaking of the kid, I had a question. I was wondering if we could get Nazara, here…” He glances behind himself and is stunned to find that there was no Quarrian, making sure to double and triple check that the kid wasn’t messing with him before quickly asking, “Where’d e’ go?”
“You brought him, here?” Vetra couldn’t contain her surprise as she walked past Drack, to the door, to look for any sign of the kid.
“He didn’t exactly have a home to go back to… and how did you know he was a ‘he’?” Drack walks past Vetra, out the door to look out at where Nazara may have gone. Behind them, Kesh groans and rests her hand on her headplate.
So, here we are again. Me, with a completely different and completely new story that I may or may not finish or continue, and you, someone who I, somehow, managed to sucker into reading this nonsense.
Anyways.... When you reach into your local Cerberus facility you may find a boy and friend.
A Cerberus base. It just has to be a Cerberus base, because when it comes to barely legal technology and AI development and containment, look to the humans to ignore the rules. Of course, now that there’s a whole, multi-species, multi-billion credit project being set up that’s reliant on a handful of AIs to lead the way, there’s now a need for computers and tech specifically designed to maintain and manage AI and their processes. And now, here Drack is, stalking through a recently plasma-burned hallway, in the middle of a Cerberus lab, trying not to trip on the occasional human carcass strewn across the floor.
He grunts and is glad that they haven’t developed a smell, yet, but that means whoever did it, is still nearby. He stalks through the halls, towards where he assumed was the main lab, judging by where the signs, which were now blasted beyond recognition, were pointed. He pauses as he hears unfamiliar weapon fire coming from one of the halls. He increases his pace taking a position in a slightly curved hallway with a chokepoint on either side. The shots have been growing closer, and from where the sound has been coming, he realizes that the two ends of the hallway are connected to each other, through others. He grunts and curses to himself.
He sees the light of a plasma bolt and turns towards that entrance, his shotgun at the ready. He takes a knee in the hall, bracing for an onslaught, when, he hears a quick tapping approaching him from behind. From behind him, a small body comes sprinting through the hallway. They are glancing back at their pursuers as they enter the hallway, colliding into his back with an audible crack. He turns as they fall to the ground, about to shout something at, what he now sees is a young Quarian, when a bit more than a handful of Geth, in varying states of repair, or more disrepair, flood into the hallway, calling his attention away.
Thirteen shots, and the last Geth hits the ground, unmoving. Drack turns towards what hit him, about to either berate or threaten them, only to see a large crack across the Quarian kid’s visor. His first words to him shifts from some upset rant about watching where he was going to a quickly panicked, “Shit! Hold on!” as he bends down over them and brings up his omni-tool tapping at it a few times before bringing it over their visor.
The kid’s reaction was… less than calm. After laying on the ground, just staring at the crack on their visor while the shooting stopped, seeing the large hand and omni-tool come over their face brought them back to reality. They start lashing out, scooting themselves away and trying to push and slap his hands away. It took a bit of effort, but Drack managed to pin one of their wrists over their opposite shoulder as he brought his omni-tool to their visor, a nozzle-like beam touches the crack with a hiss, slowly closing the crack up.
To Drack’s relief, the kid stops struggling, watching the crack seal away until it looked as if it wasn’t there to begin with. He slowly lifts his arms away, waiting until they look up at him with their softly glowing eyes. Even with that glow, he sees nothing in the kid’s face, in their eyes. Not fear, not hope, not the faintest bit of curiosity, or confusion, just a blank stare. He reaches down and gently helps them to their feet before giving him a once-over. No signs of harm, and his suit, mostly white, with blood on his boots, gloves, and legs, but no noticeable punctures and no thin splashes or sprays of blood, implying that he simply walked through and over the mess of bodies without witnessing them die up close.
He hums thoughtfully and rights himself up with a groan and the audible popping of his old joints. He glances around, regaining his bearings and listening closely for any further threats. As he gives himself the all-clear, he hooks his shotgun to his back and turns, saying, “Stay close, kid. I don’t know if there’s any more of those things, but I’ll find you somewhere safe to hide out until we can get out of here.” He offers a free hand to the little Quarian, who simply stares at it. After what felt like an hour, but was really closer to a few seconds, of awkward silence and motionlessness, Drack leans down and takes the kid’s hand in his before beginning his return trip to his shuttle.
The return to his shuttle is a bit quicker than his trek into the facility, but it is interrupted, near the docking bays, when they come across exactly the computers and hardware Drack is there for, being carted away by some Turian. With a firm and frustrated growl, he picks up his pace and slips his hand out of the kid’s, you can’t be intimidating with a child on your arm. He squares his shoulders, or does as close as a Krogan can, and marches up to her with another growl, continuing in his gruff voice, “Now, where do you think you’re going with that tech?” This causes her pause, but her demeanor remains calm as she turns to face him.
She looks him up and down and tilts her weight casually towards her cart. She glances at the shotgun on his back before starting, “So, all that noise, just a minute ago, was you, huh? I don’t suppose the rest of it was, too?” She gestures vaguely towards the rest of the space station, referring to the humans, strewn about.
Drack turns his head slightly, glancing at the hallway that leads to the rest of the station, before returning his attention to her, replying simply, “Geth… a small group of ‘em. By the looks of it, I’d say that these Cerberus eggheads were trying to experiment on them and accidentally powered them back on,” he pauses and places one of his own hands on the cart, “Now look, AI can be a risky business, and this kind of tech could put a lot of unwanted attention on your head from a lot of unsavory people. What do you say, I do you a favor and lighten some of this load off your hands?”
“Now that is a very tempting offer… Uh…”
“Drack. Clan Nakmor.”
“Vetra,” she briefly gestures to herself, “That’s a tempting offer, Drack, but I’m going to have to decline. Besides, I’d say you have your hands pretty full already,” she leans to the side of his free hand to look behind him a bit, bringing his own attention to the kid, who, while he was talking, managed to slip their hand back into his own, and was staring at it. Drack, as he looks down, sees the kid draw his attention away from their hands, and up to him. He feels the cart being pulled from under his hand as the Turian concludes, “Well, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of time to get the kid back to wherever he belongs, so I’ll let you get back to it.” She quickly pulls the cart away and runs it through a door before he has a chance to stop her. As she exits into the loading bay, she shoots the door’s control panel, causing it to close and lock behind her.
Drack lets out a harrumph and looks around the corridor, as the kid simply stares after her. After glancing at the signs and familiar hall. He sighs and steps to the door’s control panel, “My shuttle is on the other side of this door…” He taps it a few times but shakes his head and leads the kid next to the panel, motioning for him to wait, “Hold here, kid. I’m going to try something.” He walks over to the other side of the hall as the kid idly taps at the control panel. After doing a few stretches, he braces himself up and breaks into a sprint towards the door, fully intending to ram himself straight through it. Once he gets to it, however, his head crashes through nothing as he passes straight through an open door. With his current momentum and disorientation, he continues before tripping on some loose cabling and stumbling right into a stack of crates.
A bunch of the Justice League’s villains work together to capture the league and when someone asks where Captain Marvel is, his villains point over at Billy Batson, a scrawny underfed 10 year old child, and so everyone is like, “Bro what the fuck that is very clearly not Captain Marvel” and his villains are like, “Trust me it is” and then try to get Billy to show everyone but Billy starts panicking because he doesn’t know what to do in this situation and ends up just doing what any 10 year old would do when they’ve been kidnapped by their arch-nemeses and can’t fight them off without revealing that they’re a child to their superhero coworkers, and bursts out into tears while trying to act like a completely normal 10 year old and so now everyone is just glaring at his villains like, “What the fuck guys" while they’re desperately trying to get Billy to Shazam
I think some of you guys are reading this as “Billy being a devious little shit and playing the Small Child™ Card to make his villains look bad”, which is amazing and we do need more of that, but what I actually meant was “Billy is a 10 year old child and just bursts out into actual tears and then decides to just roll with it and stick to the defenseless small child act” all while his villains (take your pick for which ones) are just like, “No dude trust me, just… just trust it’s him-do the thing, fucking do the thing! I promise it’s really him! He’s just… he’s just shy! Ok I promise not to attack the city for three weeks just please magic up you’re making me look bad!” and everyone else is just, “Stop yelling at that poor child! He’s very clearly not Captain Marvel!”
Captain Boomerang looks at his phone and starts giggling. Of course everyone wants to know what he’s laughing about, so he shows them what the Trickster just sent him.
Are we absolutely sure that Mirabel doesn’t have a gift that lets her see into people’s heads or memories?
I’m just saying we have at least three instances in the movie where she appears to literally be physically present in someone else’s headspace where she by all counts should not be and reacting to the things that are going on in there that she technically should not be able to see.
It sounds like one of those things, where she sees all those things, but people still go along saying that she doesn't have a gift and she things what she sees is normal and one day she recognizes something or someone that she's only seen in someone else's thoughts and everyone's like "How did you know about that thing?" and she's just like, "Well we talked about it/them and that gave me a good look at what it/they looked like.” And they’re like “what do you mean it gave you a ‘good look’?” and she’s like “Oh come on! You know, that thing, when you get really deep into a conversation and you just sorta meld and are able to perfectly visualize what they’re talking about together in the way they remember it/them, and it’s usually accompanying a musical number?” which is followed by a deafening silence.
She then follows it up with something like: “Come on, you’re messing with me!” or “You know, what I’m talking about, right? You’ve seen it too; you must have!”
Which is followed by another brief silence which is interrupted by a sudden shou-
SCENE CHANGE to the person dragging her back to the family to tell everyone that she’s had a power to sort of enter peoples minds as she’s talking to them, the whole time and the only thing she never actually got was a door and she’s still in denial because she thought it was normal.
· Clark denies it, but Damian will insist that Clark opened the door like that on purpose. (Clark did do it on purpose. He just didn’t want to be the only one to awkwardly know about the two making out, so he decided to embarrass them as much as he was embarrassed to witness that.)
· After an embarrassing series of back-to-back shovel talks
o They sit on the couch, in the living room while everyone else were standing around them.
o Jon gives it to both, first. “That’s my best friend. He doesn’t have many friends, and as his first serious relationship. Please don’t hurt him; he’s making so much progress.” “And that’s my cousin. I’ve known her for my entire life. If you hurt her—and I know that you think I’m going to threaten you, which I’m not—but if you hurt her… She’ll hurt you. This is a warning, not a threat.” “And I love you two so much. If you two separate, I’ll never be able to choose between you.”
o Then Marinette is excused to idly stand in the kitchen and watch as everyone, one by one, tries to intimidate Damian.
o He repeatedly glances at her and she just gives a somber smile.
· The next day, the Kents announce that they’re staying for the week, spontaneously.
· Lois flies in right away and Clark takes her to a few romantic spots.
· When Nino, Alya, and Adrien meet up with Marinette and Damian at the bakery they meet the Kents.
· Alya fangirls over Clark and Lois, mostly Lois.
· Damian and Marinette announce their relationship status.
· Alya and Nino celebrate, Adrien congratulates them, a cheeky smile on his face as he pretty much already knows this.
· Adrien awkwardly stands to the side as he’s the only one who isn’t paired up.
o Alya and Nino are talking to the Kents,
o Marinette and Damian are standing to the side whispering inside jokes to each other,
o Adrien finds himself standing with Jon in silence.
· Adrien and John exchange the #awkward-friend-of-a-friend convos.
· The youths take a trip around town and hang out, couples stick together with Jon and Adrien hanging out between them as the fifth and sixth wheels.
· The six of them run into a specific pair of a tiny blonde and her hair-dyed girlfriend.
· They decide for a quadruple date group hangout, arcades, park, lunch together, going back to Dupain-Cheng’s place to hang out and play video games and bringing the day down to a close.
· For the next few days, Daminette is the hot topic, not only throughout the halls of the school, but throughout the more youthful members of the JL and the superhero community.
· It starts when Jon gets back and, meaning to text just the Titans and then the Waynes, he accidentally sends a message to the entire Justice League message board, (which is totally a thing, you can’t convince me otherwise)
o “DAMIAN AND MARINETTE KISSED!!!!!!1!!!”
· He manages to delete it after a moment of clarity to realize what he just did, but it circulated for just long enough for just the wrong people to find out.
· Fortunately for Jon, the one who spreads the news to the Batfam isn’t himself or any of the more youthful heroes, but Diana.
· “For the longest time, I was concerned, Bruce,” Diana comments, pulling the bag from her tea in The Watchtower, “Your sons’ close relationships with Kryptonians held a risk leaving you with only Dick to grant you grandchildren, but I’m glad to see your youngest find a loophole with young Marinette. At that age, the first kiss must feel special.”
· Unlike Diana, Bruce was a bit sleep deprived and, instead of calmly sipping some tea, he was actively chugging his second cup of coffee, only half listening until he heard the phrase, “first kiss”.
· That day was marked as Batman’s first spit-take in Justice league history.
o Diana won $1,325 from the “Genuinely Surprise Batman for the First Time” betting pool, which was started by Dick, when he first met the League as Robin.
o She also won the right to shave off Oliver’s hideous Goatee.
· The rest of the Batfam figure that something important must’ve happened between Marinette and Damian, when they see Bruce reading parent-help books and asking Alfred if he thinks Damian already got “The Talk” from Talia.
o Titles of these books include, but are not limited to, the following:
Father’s Guide to Giving “The Talk” to Your Son
Your Child’s First Crush and Dating
True Love’s Kiss or Miss? How to Lower Your Daughter’s Expectations
· Dick, Cassandra, and Stephanie come to the correct conclusion that Damian’s finally did as that one Little Mermaid song told and “Kissed the Girl”.
· Jason reads a bit too far into it and thinks that, not only has Damian and Marinette been kissing, but they’ve been experimenting.
· Tim (who hasn’t come out just yet) thinks that Bruce is onto his developing relationship with Bernard and path to self-discovery, and his plans to come out.
· Much to Damian’s chagrin, he receives numerous texts from the fam: congratulations from Dick, Cassandra, and Stephanie; a somewhat inappropriate congrats from Jason regarding a third base; and a panicked text from Tim asking if anyone knows a certain fact about him.
· He sends a simple “thanks” to everyone except Jason, who he simply ignores, and Tim, to whom he sends a “Everyone knows you’re bi, but that’s not why everyone is freaking out.”
It’s come to my attention for the six thousandth time in the past two years that I may never finish any of my works that are longer than a one-shot.
On an unrelated note...
Picture this: Asgardian/FrostGiant!Marinette with, not bioDad!Loki, but bioMom!Loki instead.
A mid-to-late-twenties Tom Dupain, after having left his kinda-bigoted (read the subtext of that one episode fr) father’s bakery tries to start up a bakery for himself or goes to culinary school or something. On his way to a class or to work or the farmers market or whatever, he meets, who else, but a difficult to miss woman in a long, green dress, with long, black hair, a woolen shawl, unrelentingly cold eyes, and a rather peculiar golden hairpiece that gently rests on her forehead.
They lock eyes and he nervously clutches a box of his own pastries to his chest, in a way that makes it open in front of her. She takes it as an invitation and nabs one, eating it in front of him. Long-story-short, it’s passion on first encounter.
They meet up often, and things lead to things and eventually, somehow, it leads to a baby, but Tom doesn’t figure this out, because Loki ghosts him for about a year, until of course he finds a much more masculine Loki, in his kitchen, in full Asgardian garb. More importantly he’s clutching a baby to his chest.
Things get serious as Loki has been away from Asgard for too long and he’s sure that his brother would come looking for him at some point. It’s vital that Marinette can’t fall into Odin’s hands like the rest of his stolen children.
So Loki leaves, though not before spilling his guts out to a very understanding Tom.
Life moves on, eventually, though not without happy little interruptions. A random gift here and there, wrapped in lovely green and gold ribbons, a note of encouragement or well-wishes on what appears to be sheets of golden paper, and the occasional brief moments of watching from not so far away (Loki sends a cheeky little note of approval of Sabine, who takes over as a mother figure).
On top of that, even without Loki’s knowledge, Marinette finds herself often dreaming of an old witch who teaches/trains her in the ways of magic and Asgardian traditions, though they don’t meet in person until Marinette is around 12 and that’s when the first Thor movie takes place, after Loki falls off the bifrost. Freya shows up (magicked herself over) to personally deliver the bad news, though that’s another story.
So Marinette grows up, much like her usual kind self, though quite a bit more mischievous as well as a bit more fluid in the gender spectrum. On top of that, her mastery of magic, illusion and otherwise (thanks to her dear witchy godgrandmother), her design career takes off quicker and more prominently in the story. She also turns her entire class into one massive polycule (Loki would be proud, and when he hears about it, after his return, he doesn’t hesitate to confirm it).
Also, if he returns to Tom, he’s not only welcomed back as Marinette’s parent, but also as a lover as Sabine is totally into it.
Feel free to add more in a reblog or reply or even write something based on this.
Just tag me so I can read it tho.
I’ve been watching videos on youtube about a certain BBC show that I used to watch a lot but stopped because I forgot my parent’s netflix password. But my brain hates me so much that I’ve started thinking up a story about an Original Timelord, I’ll call him “The Witness”, who fled the time war right before The Moment would’ve been triggered, so he believes that the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey and all the Timelords and Daleks together.
He escapes by taking his Tardis and breaking through the time vortex to get into the void and passes into another universe entirely, crash-landing in the Mass Effect universe. Hijinks with a Timelord that starts off angsty and ends up less so. Like, basically a backwards Doctor.
So here’s a think while I wait for the melatonin to kick in
I know I’m technically in the middle of writing two things that are basically completely unrelated to any of my previous works, but I just had a thought.
Biodad!Wolverine and Cat!Marinette. Can you imagine?
It starts off with Marinette being a bit of a wild child. Loves animals and being free, temperamental as hell, completely willing to bite and scratch at a moments notice, very sensitive senses (causing aviophobia[because planes are loud and go into the air and that’s not where ground animals go] and astraphobia [because loud thunder go boom and a loud boom is not good]), and a super quick healer.
She doesn’t realize she’s got claws or such an advanced healing factor until she saves an old man from a crosswalk and finds a black ring on her desk. The first time she transforms, her suit is black leather, like Lady Noire, but with her black hers a bit more like wolverine’s classic mask (with the pointy bits being the ears). It also has a little slot between her index and middle knuckles and ring and pinky knuckles on each hand and another pair on each foot (matching Laura, but with two claws on each foot because that’s cool).
So she flexes her fist for a moment and doubles over in blinding pain as her claws come out for the first time. They look more like Cat claws when she’s transformed, but they’re closer to Wolverine’s bone claws when not transformed.
After she transforms back, after the first fight, she asks Plagg about it.
Marinette: “Are the claws going to hurt when they come out like that, every time?”
Plagg confused: “Did they not hurt before?”
Marinette: “What?”
Plagg: “What?”
Neither get a chance to clarify that neither have any idea what the claws are about so Marinette decides that it’s for emergencies only.
We can explain Lila’s obvious lies away because she’s a mutant who has pheromones that make people gullible or trusting or whatever.
So, the claws, never really come out again until the final fight, where Adrien, the bug… boy.. beetle, something. whatever his hero name is, gets stabbed and detransforms. Everyone is shook. Mayura and Hawkmoob are like “Whaaaat?” and Adrien’s like “Omg I’m bleeding and I’m on the floor, helpless” I guess whoever else is there is also like “Whaaaaaat?” and Cat!Marinette just toggles and goes full baby wolverine and just sees red and goes on the total offensive.
Scene change, Adrien wakes up in the hospital to see Marinette asleep on the chair beside him and was holding his hand while she slept, classic trope, and he looks up to the news and sees that his father was arrested and has a whole bunch of slashes and is missing a whole ass arm and Nathalie was Mayura and she’s in the hospital, in critical condition because of broken miraculous also Mari poked her in the not nice way with her pointy claws.
And of course the X-Men were keeping their ears to the ground regarding the fight and they see Chat Noire’s claws and they’re like holy crap it’s a tiny girl Logan (I’ll have this set long before old man logan, but like really early? I’m thinking around X-Men 2). And they’re like we have to go see for ourselves and stuff and they meet and there’s the part where Mari unsheathes her claws to protect her family from the weirdos that somehow figured out her identity really easily and Logan unsheathes his claws and they’re like, “Oh shit!” and compare claws and stuff. Anyways.
Why I like that, maybe Grandpa!Logan instead? Imagine Gina being around for her granddaughter and Logan comes around and when she returns to see this scene and start hitting him with a bag for showing up out of the blue after he left her.
Okay! okay! okay! I taste what you’re serving here, but get this. Tom and Sabine are managing the shop when the x-men burst into Marinette’s life, like they are knocking on their home door and Marinette meets them and she smells a whole bunch of people and they’ve got excited and a little bit nervous pheromones and stuff because animal sense of smell can do that I guess? So she opens the door to, let’s say Beast, Professor X, of course Logan, and for the heck of it, Cyclops. Prof. X is like “Hello Ladybug.” right away so she has to let them in because they’re now a threat to her identity and all that.
One awkward waiting-for-a-mechanical-wheelchair-to-slowly-climb-a-set-of-stairs scene later and everyone’s in the living room and Marinette is standing while everyone else is on the couch and she’s like, “Who’re you?!” and while the professor Xavier was probably coming up with a very calm and rational way to explain their situation, Logan’s explanation comes out first with unsheathing his claws. It startles Marinette and she jumps back, knocking something over and unsheathing her own, out of reflex. They compare claws and Marinette asks what’s happening.
Before they get a chance to guess that Logan may be her father, Tom steps in and asks Marinette if she’s alright. He sees Logan and Marinette comparing claws before he steels himself and walks intimidatingly at everyone there. He’s a real big guy, even beast audibly gulps. He glares at Logan is like “Who are you?”
And Logan is confused as hell, because he was barely following what was going on and now he thinks he has a kid? He tries to let the guy down gently, and starts with something along the lines of, “Look buddy, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you and you’re wife have got a con-” He isn’t able to finish when Tom raises his own fists and claws of his own come out. They’re not as long as Wolverine’s or Marinette’s, but they’re thick. They’re like bear claws. “Ah.”
Suddenly the three sheathe all their claws as they hear another person approaching the door. Marinette whisper-shouts “Nonna!” as she can already smell the perfume, before none other than Gina decides to burst in for a surprise visit. When she sees that they have guests, she apologizes for interrupting before remarking about how Logan looks exactly like someone she used to date the first time she and Tom’s father separated. She even goes as far as grabbing him by the face and squeezing it for comparison. Everyone else is internally like “Oh shit” and Gina’s like “Oh well” before she shrugs it off and leaves to say hi to Sabine. After she leaves is about the point where Xavier points out that Logan is likely a lot older than he looks. And logan is even more confused because this is well before the time he lost his memories. and all that so yeah.
So here’s a think while I wait for the melatonin to kick in
I know I’m technically in the middle of writing two things that are basically completely unrelated to any of my previous works, but I just had a thought.
Biodad!Wolverine and Cat!Marinette. Can you imagine?
It starts off with Marinette being a bit of a wild child. Loves animals and being free, temperamental as hell, completely willing to bite and scratch at a moments notice, very sensitive senses (causing aviophobia[because planes are loud and go into the air and that’s not where ground animals go] and astraphobia [because loud thunder go boom and a loud boom is not good]), and a super quick healer.
She doesn’t realize she’s got claws or such an advanced healing factor until she saves an old man from a crosswalk and finds a black ring on her desk. The first time she transforms, her suit is black leather, like Lady Noire, but with her black hers a bit more like wolverine’s classic mask (with the pointy bits being the ears). It also has a little slot between her index and middle knuckles and ring and pinky knuckles on each hand and another pair on each foot (matching Laura, but with two claws on each foot because that’s cool).
So she flexes her fist for a moment and doubles over in blinding pain as her claws come out for the first time. They look more like Cat claws when she’s transformed, but they’re closer to Wolverine’s bone claws when not transformed.
After she transforms back, after the first fight, she asks Plagg about it.
Marinette: “Are the claws going to hurt when they come out like that, every time?”
Plagg confused: “Did they not hurt before?”
Marinette: “What?”
Plagg: “What?”
Neither get a chance to clarify that neither have any idea what the claws are about so Marinette decides that it’s for emergencies only.
We can explain Lila’s obvious lies away because she’s a mutant who has pheromones that make people gullible or trusting or whatever.
So, the claws, never really come out again until the final fight, where Adrien, the bug... boy.. beetle, something. whatever his hero name is, gets stabbed and detransforms. Everyone is shook. Mayura and Hawkmoob are like “Whaaaat?” and Adrien’s like “Omg I’m bleeding and I’m on the floor, helpless” I guess whoever else is there is also like “Whaaaaaat?” and Cat!Marinette just toggles and goes full baby wolverine and just sees red and goes on the total offensive.
Scene change, Adrien wakes up in the hospital to see Marinette asleep on the chair beside him and was holding his hand while she slept, classic trope, and he looks up to the news and sees that his father was arrested and has a whole bunch of slashes and is missing a whole ass arm and Nathalie was Mayura and she’s in the hospital, in critical condition because of broken miraculous also Mari poked her in the not nice way with her pointy claws.
And of course the X-Men were keeping their ears to the ground regarding the fight and they see Chat Noire’s claws and they’re like holy crap it’s a tiny girl Logan (I’ll have this set long before old man logan, but like really early? I’m thinking around X-Men 2). And they’re like we have to go see for ourselves and stuff and they meet and there’s the part where Mari unsheathes her claws to protect her family from the weirdos that somehow figured out her identity really easily and Logan unsheathes his claws and they’re like, “Oh shit!” and compare claws and stuff. Anyways.
Good morning, or whatever time it is for you when you’re reading this.
Been working on this for a little while, but I’ve hit a block and if I don’t post it, I’ll never be able to move on to the next chapter or WIP or anything, so here it goes. Inspired by [this art] I saw a long time ago, by @myvividreams
The dripping of water and gently whistling draft echo through the caves and break through the silence. Marii had spent the prior three hours roaming the caves, trying to keep focused and calm, but her hope was failing. She feels no call to the force, here; no song or harmony, drawing her to the crystals around her; no amount of warmth in these cold crystal caves. Eventually, she could feel their impatience from outside the cave and sighed, rising to her feet and turning towards the entrance. She steels herself before walking out, making sure that her face doesn’t betray her disappointment as she steps out of the cave, empty-handed, again. Her eyes cannot meet her master’s or the other Jedi waiting for her, as she stares at a particularly interesting mound on the ground behind them.
“Empty handed, again, you come out. Simply, not your time to find a crystal, it seems to be. Nothing against you, this means.” A green hand gently takes hers and Marii’s eyes are drawn to her master, Yaddle’s. Her gentle smile is blurred by the tears Marii didn’t know she was holding back. She tries to blink them away, but a few leak through and warm her cold cheeks.
She musters her ability to speak again after a shaky breath, “But what if I don’t ever get a crystal? What if I can’t ever become a jedi?” Marii starts to shake a bit as if her body were only now recognizing the cold air around them.
Yaddle simply tuts and pulls her into a hug. Gently rubbing into her back, she begins her lecture, “More than our weapons, Jedi are. Our hearts, our actions, we are. Understand?” She waits until she feels the girl nod, before continuing, “Besides…. Mastered your training saber, you have. Completed all your trials, you have. Something special in mind, The Force must have.” As soon as she’s finished, Yaddle hears a soft growl from her padawan’s stomach. “Ohoho! Back to the ship, we must get. A disturbance in the force, you must feel.” This brightens Marii’s spirits as they both laugh and start toward the shuttle. The Jedi accompanying them trade glances before following, as well.
As their shuttle returns to their escort ship, Marii is greeted with an entire crew’s worth of nearly identical faces, almost all filled with some form of hope or excitement. She shyly looks down, unable to face them as she disappoints them again. She feels as their excitement is replaced with disappointment and pity. Before she has the chance to push past them, and hide away in her cot, Yaddle gently takes her by the hand, “Remember, Padawan. Have a meeting on a far planet, we have. Safe with the stormtroopers, you will be.” Marii simply nods before gently pushing past the clones and returning to her room on the ship.
That evening, after Yaddle stops by to say their goodbyes, Marii falls into a deep sleep and finds herself in an extraordinarily vivid dream.
Marii sits in the pilot’s seat of an old republic fighter, unpowered and drifting around in space. In her lap, was a little, red lizard, laying on its side and looking up at her with five of its ten legs raised and exposing its belly to her, as if asking her for something. She gently strokes its stomach back and forth and it eventually coughs up a little red insect with spots on its back. The insect flies onto her hand and sits there, tickling her fingers. The lizard scurries away and climbs onto the dashboard.
The ship suddenly whirrs into life as some of the lights weakly blink on, illuminating the inside of the ship and bringing her attention to a familiar shape. It looks like a lightsaber handle, built into a lever. She takes it by the hand and pushes it forwards. The old fighter’s engine grinds itself to life, leaving Marii to gaze forward as the light from the stars begin to distort as if she were going into warp, but instead of passing forward, through the stars, the stars seem to be passing by her, or more accurately, she seemed to be flying backwards.
If there were five things that Coast disliked more than anything, it was Jedi, boring trips through space, failures, children, and most of all, protection detail. Now, here he is, watching a child, a failure of a Jedi Padawan, furiously grind away at a workbench, in the armory. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, on this ship, than protect her. He swears that the order was punishing him for something; once he finds out what, he’ll surely be able to make an appeal and get assigned someplace more exciting, or perhaps even tropical. Until then, he’s stuck here, with her.
He doesn’t notice the footsteps coming up beside him to say, “You’re brooding at her again.” Coast jumps in surprise and silently curses as he turns to face the other storm trooper. Unfazed by Coast’s startlement, he continues, “You know she can feel your emotions, right? If she weren’t so absorbed in… whatever she’s doing, this time, she’d either apologize or snap at you.” The trooper lifts his helmet off and sits at a nearby bench and begins to clean his armor.
He holds back his retort when he notices something about what he said. Coast leans against the bench and peers at him. “’This time’? She’s done…” He gestures to her as she carves into a cylindrical, metal pipe with a laser filing tool, half-way through carving the lizard’s head from her dream, onto the edge of the pipe so that it looks like its mouth is wide open. Her face was lax and expressionless and, she seemed to be in a sort of a trance as she worked. If he could see her eyes behind those tinted goggles of hers, he assumes that they’d be glossed over. “… that, before? Does it happen often?”
At this the other trooper nods and grabs a buffer cloth and begins to polish his shoulder pads, responding, “Yeah. The first time I saw this happen, she brought along a broken hyperdrive chassis, for no reason, and fully repaired it into working order. Guess what happened during our trip back to the Jedi temple.” Coast is about to guess, but he is interrupted, “Our hyperdrive forcibly ejected itself into the engine room, when its chassis melted and warped. If it weren’t for her, we’d still probably be lost in space a thousand times over.”
This earns a scoff from Coast as he crosses his arms over his chest. “So, not only can she read my mind without permission, but she can also see into the future. Just fantastic.” The sarcasm dripped from his lips like venom, as he checks again at her work.
She had just finished carving and polishing the head and is now starting to assemble the pieces together. As she finishes, what she assembles look like a pair of lightsaber handles. The first seems rather standard in appearance, if a bit fancier with the choice black and reflective bronze materials and unusually shaped pommel. The other is very unusual, peculiarly designed as if it were a pipe that has been cut diagonally, and a lizard, made from a dyed-red metal, had decided to sit along the opening and finish the pipe, gripping onto the edges with its ten little claws and opening its mouth wide to finish the end. The lizard’s tail wraps around the hollow pommel and it clicks in Coast’s mind, why the pommels are so unusually shaped, when she pushes the two pommels together and gently twists. At the click she lets go of one side and spins the handles, now one handle, in her hands.
She admires her work for a little while before cleaning up after herself and stepping out, headed back for her room, paying the two troopers watching her no mind. The two troopers pause, for a moment before the sitting trooper looks up at Coast, “Looks like she’s getting her lightsabers soon. Emphasis on the ‘s’, because there’s two of them.” He chuckles for a second before returning to his cleaning.
Coast shivers from a chill going up his spine, unnoticed by his squad mate, he responds simply, “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
He shakes the chill off and puts his helmet back on, opting to return to his post in the ship’s dormitories, slowly walking around, finding particular interest a stain on the floor that seemed to be coming from a maintenance panel, next to Marii’s door. He unlatches the panel and pulls it open to inspect it, mumbling to himself, “Thermal circulator’s leaking again. Going to have to replace the pump at our next stop.” He hears shuffling in the distance and feels the ship begin to jostle, he grabs the panel to keep it from swinging around.
Almost immediately afterwards, Marii’s door slides open and he can hear her shout as she sprints through the door and takes a turn once in the hall, “Call a red alert! Fuel the escape pods! We have to make a hyperju—” It is at that point that she slams, face first, into the panel, being held out by Coast’s hand, with a clang of hard metal. He can’t decide whether to fall into hysterical laughter or bury his face in his hands and then fall into hysterical laughter as her fall is broken by a large bag, strapped to her back. Just his luck, he doesn’t have a chance as the lights turn red and alarm sirens start going off.
On a roll this week. Let’s see if I can keep it going enough for my other fics.
Precautions made and the “Miraculous Team of Europe” begin
• Hawkmoth is left to metaphorically lick his literal wounds
• In that time of temporary peace, a strange, new office building is erected in Paris, not far from the school and bakery.
• Despite its bland appearance, it really is quite the HQ
o it has a fully decked out gym and showers,
o dormitories for hiding out in case of an identity crisis, including spare rooms for persons of interest and loved ones to hide out in as well,
o a very large kitchen with all amenities,
o several meeting rooms for tactics, team building, what have you,
o a special, reinforced training chamber for advanced power containment (sparring room with several-layer thick metal walls and special equipment meant to suppress Kryptonian abilities enough for more balanced physical training/sparring),
o several discreet entrances,
o an advanced infirmary,
o a workshop/armory for them to store their special/magical weapons and batarangs as well as develop *cough*design*cough* armor, suits, and tools for special occasions
o and, of course, a trophy room/storage room
• about two months after the building is complete, one nightly patrol, Robin and Calliope don’t show up, instead the two receive a call from Robin to meet on top of the office building.
• They arrive and don’t find anyone there, though they do find a wide-open door, practically begging them to come in,
• They’re cautious, but enter, fully prepared for a trap, they follow the lit hallways towards a large steel door, opened enough for them to see Damian and Marinette, tangled together on a large cushioned mat, under clear LED lights with what appear to be soft green neon lights as well (think about the supergirl series)
• As they get closer, they hear Damian gently instructing Marinette along in how to escape from their position and Marinette slowly follows along as he instructs her.
• Pixie and Chat walk into the room and do a quick visual sweep of it before stepping in,
o No cameras
o No obvious traps,
o It looks like some of the panels in the walls can be opened but that may just be storage or design,
• Chat clears his throat and draws Damian’s attention, but in his distraction, Marinette turns the tables and flips over him pulling him into an armbar.
• He lets out a breathy laugh before easily pulling himself out and coming to a stance above her.
• he then helps her up and they turn to face the newcomers, giving Chat and Pixie a chance to notice their athletic wear,
• Marinette was wearing a fitted crop top and a pair of shorts of her hero persona’s colors, she seemed physically drained, which Rose didn’t notice was unusual until she realized that, Marinette is literally never tired.
• Damian was wearing a simple red tank top with a pair of green gym shorts, and while he may not have seemed as worn out as Marinette was, unlike her, his skin had a particular sheen, and his shirt was damp in a few places as if he were working out.
• The blonde pair take a second of awkwardly staring at the two before they gasp simultaneously.
• This is about when Damian turns the green light off, and Marinette immediately starts to look energized.
• Marinette assures them that they don’t need to reveal themselves, she’d already spoken with Fu about how important the Miraculous secrets are.
• They’re both excited to have their own base of operations and training center and everything.
• Marinette gives them a tour and even shows them their own rooms, while Damian hits the showers
o While they’re separated, Pixie can’t help but ask about Damian and Marinette’s relationship
o Marinette is caught off-guard and is too flustered to answer
o Rose will drill her for information in class, later
• Unsatisfied with this answer, when they all meet back up on the roof, Pixie asks Damian about it
• He says one of those things that is simple yet kinda profound?
o Marinette.exe has stopped responding
• They decide that patrol can be put to rest that night and Pixie and Chat head home, excited about their new base and knowing that their friends are also their partners in heroism,
• Damian walks Marinette back to her place, and they have one of those short talks that people have in front of the door, because they want to spend a few more minutes together.
• They talk about training and classes and homework, and while Damian, very briefly, looks away, she strikes, leaning in close to plant a kiss on his cheek.
• Fortunately for both of them, Damian’s distraction ended as she started leaning in.
• As he turns his head back to her, her lips make contact with the corner of his own.
• She pulls away surprised that he turned, and they stare at each other, both increasingly red-faced
• A switch in Damian’s head switches to ‘Screw it’ and he takes her hand, gently pulling her a bit closer,
o “For a girl with superhuman sight and reflexes, you have terrible aim.”
o They kiss for real.
• The moment is ruined when Clark opens the door to leave and catches them, with Jon still hugging Sabine and Tom, goodbye, right behind him,
o “Oh, there you are!” ~Clark
o “I knew it!” ~Jon and Tom
o *Already planning ways to spoil her grandchildren* ~Sabine
How to Scare Your Sort-of-Boyfriend-but-You-Haven’t-Taken-the-Time-to-Talk-With-Him-About-Your-Casually-Developing-and-Very-Serious-Closeness-and-What-it-May-Mean-to-the-Two-of-You Half-to-Death
Sorry about, everything I suppose. I’m still working through a few things and I have absolutely zero inspiration for the bioDad!Bruce prompts, so I decided to fall into something familiar. Calliope strikes again, and this time Hawkmoth can strike back... until Robin gets his hands on him of course. Maribat by @ozmav
· Heroes day happens and, instead of seeing Ladybug (Pixiebug) killing Chat Noir, Vulpina shows an illusion of an akumatized Calliope laying waste to the rest of the team (I’ll be honest, it’s at about this moment that I started to get tired of the lack of development and stopped watching the show in earnest and it kinda slipped from mind ).
o It gets, for a lack of a better word, messy. I mean, Chat is forced to Cataclysm Pixie by Calli-kuma, he is then pummeled to the ground and Robin has his cape torn off and is thrown into the sky with no way to slow his descent.
· Skarletmoth shows up and akumatizes everyone as usual and builds his army and the four heroes bring forth some backup, a mouse Juleka (I’ll think of a name, eventually) and a Vipereon.
o Because Marinette has less of a say on who gets chosen, I’m aiming more towards Rose’s closer friend-group.
o Pixie has openly flirted with Jules at some point prior, who responds, “I’m flattered, but I have a girlfriend.”
o Rose is very happy and affectionate after she meets her again later.
· Vipereon recognizes his sister almost right away and they get red-butterflied in a similar way to Heroes Day DJWifi
· Callieope primarily takes on most of the air fighters and such, blowing away the butterflies and keeping the perimeter while Pixie and Chat deal with the active akumatized victims
· They make a lot more noticeable headway with the battle than in cannon, and Scarletmoth (how’s that even spelled?)
· Everyone is preoccupied when he arrives and Pixie calls Callie over their communications device to send their strongest team member to face him.
· Lo and behold, Gabby figures out Callieope’s ties to Superman. By figures it out he “simply guesses and gets lucky”
· As she rushes to face him, she hovers over him with her angry eyes and he pulls his cane sword on her.
· She blocks it and it cuts through her suit but not her arm, in no time she has him knocked to the ground when he holds a hand up to surrender.
· She breaks his cane, and he transforms back into regular hawkmoth
· At this point, Robin has grappled over and was making his way over, zip-tie cuffs in hand, the others aren’t far behind him.
· Hawkmoth makes his play, and pulls a shard of synthetic kryptonite on her, stabbing her with it
· Marinette barely has time to register the pain in her side before hawkmoth lands a punch to the side of her head, disorienting her and giving him an opening to make space between them, by kicking her off to the side.
· Hawkmoth doesn’t have time to catch his breath as Robin is on him in a moment, slashing and hacking away as hawky only has half a cane to try to block his attacks
· He can shrug off most of the sword strikes, but notices that Robin’s sword is special as it’s making almost skin-deep cuts in his supposedly indestructible suit (Atlantean steel mixed with unbridled and unyielding rage, baby).
· Viperion, Pixie bug, and Mousika run over to Calliope and check on her, trying to stop the bleeding and deal with the kryptonite knife.
· Chat was watching in stunned silence as Robin was very clearly not going to let him live afterward.
· Near the end of the fight, the heroes with Marinette figure to pull the shard from her. Chat cataclysms it to cancel out the radiation, and they carry her into the sunlight to help her heal.
· By the time she’s strong enough to stand again, Hawkmoth was holding Robin’s sword, by the blade, trying to keep it out of his throat with Robin pushing all his weight down on the pommel.
· This was when Nathalie intervened as Mayura, bringing about the giant moth monster It flaps its wings and sends everyone, but Callie flying.
· Callie uses her denser body to stick to the ground as she sends her heat vision at it to try to trim its wings or something,
· Mayura lets the monster dissolve like in the show, and Gabriel gets away, with more than a few bruises and cuts. luckily for him, it’s nothing that his normal suit wouldn’t cover.
· He gets back to the mansion and the similar scene that you would expect, except with lasting development
· After the ladybugs cure the damage, Marinette finds that her stab wound hadn’t quite healed yet, not that she tells anyone about it.
· She checks herself with x-ray vision and doesn’t see any pieces of the shard in her, but as soon as she gets home, she spends some quality time with her star in a box.
o Damian, may or may not have arrived at her place in such a rush, he almost arrives as she does
o He bursts in and climbs up to her room, Sabine and Tom were already worried and had come up to join her.
o He demands to see her wound and she complies, letting him examine it.
o It takes him sighing from relief from seeing her advanced healing leaving her with barely a scar, for him to notice that he’s got one hand on her waist and another on her upper thigh.
o He hops back, raising his hands to the air with a bright red face.
o Sabine giggles at him and Tom crosses his arms over his chest, huffing intimidatingly.
· Luckily for Marinette, the school decided to give the students the rest of the day off as well as the following day to recover from the events that transpired.
· Inspired by Marinette’s recent injury, once he’s sure that Marinette will do fine without him, Damian makes a call to his father.
Taglist (sorry if I missed you, it’s been hard after my computer died out):
