Archaeologist, Political hack (hated Capitol Hill), animal lover, mama bear, Miraculous Ladybug Fan, Marichat, Felinette, and Maribat superfan, thank you to all content providers - I love you all.
“She's doing it on purpose,” Jason declared, narrowing his eyes at Marinette from across the Kent house into the Kent’s kitchen. He watched her intently, suspiciously, eyes following each lap of her tongue as she languidly licked a dollop of brownie batter off her thumb moaning in appreciation once the batter hit her tongue. A pained sound squeezed out of his body when she followed it up by sucking her thumb into her mouth, her eyes closing in enjoyment.
“She's not doing it on purpose,” Tim answered without bothering to look up from his phone.
“Who's doing what on purpose?” Adrien asked. He tried to rise up high enough to peek over Jason’s shoulder to follow his line of sight into the kitchen.
“Marinette,” Kon snickered. His eyes flicked from the Royals game to Adrien just long enough to shoot him a smirk.
“Ah,” Adrien nodded sagely. “She's definitely doing it on purpose.”
“See!” Jason exclaimed. He gestured inelegantly to his savior from the morass of doubts in which the others were miring him.
“Absolutely” Adrien agreed and took a long drink of his lemonade looking around the room mildly. “And what's she doing on purpose?”
Jason glared at him. Heroes fall so fast.
“He thinks she's baiting him,” Tim explained, still not looking up from his phone. “Trying to mess with him.”
Adrien snorted at the comment. “Oh yeah. Without a doubt,” he acquiesced instantly.
“Yes!” Jason exclaimed. He pointed at Adrien again and clapped him on the shoulder. His brother in arms.
“Right,” Adrien conceded. He looked up at Jason with only a small glint in his eyes. “How's she doing that exactly?”
The hand that had been on his shoulder in comradery now shoved him away. The deepest cuts are always from the ones you trust the most. Jason decidedly ignored Tim’s snort. “Can you not hear the noises she’s making?” he beseeched.
Kon shrugged, giving Jason his attention during a commercial break. “I mean… I’ve heard her make a lot of noises. These all seem like pretty average noises.”
Jason’s head whipped toward him eyes narrowed. “What noises have you heard her make?” he demanded.
The change in his tone was so sharp and the hostility so cold, Kon’s eyes widened in surprise… and a little bit of fear that he would never admit to. “I… noises. Just… like normal… noises. You know… not sexual noises! Just…” his eyes darted to Tim and Adrien desperately, both deftly avoiding his eyes, “…noises you would hear a friend make,” he finished uncertainly.
“Smooth,” Tim chuckled so quietly only Kon could her him.
Jason continued to watch him for a few more seconds, eyes still narrowed but finally gave a small nod and turned his attention back to Marinette. “Those are not friendly noises,” he huffed. “She’s making those noises and dressing that way to get my attention. I mean, look at that!” he exclaimed and motioned toward her.
Adrien squinted and quirked his head to the side to get a new angle for her clothes, then quirked his head to the other side to try a different perspective. “You mean her slutty, slutty apron?” he asked, not bothering to hide his humor.
“She is not slutty!” Jason hissed lowly, turning his glare onto Adrien.
“No. Right. Of course not,” Adrien backed down instantly, hands raised in supplication. “Just her apron is.”
Jason slowly turned his attention back to Marinette leaning on the passageway again and taking a long drink. “Right,” he nodded.
“The one she borrowed from Pa Kent?” Adrien pointed out hesitantly.
Jason spared a glance at him to shoot him an annoyed glare but instantly returned to Marinette like he was afraid of missing anything. “Licking her fingers like that,” he grumbled and took another drink, this time much more aggressively. He narrowed his eyes as he watched her slowly lick the spoon she was holding and hummed in enjoyment. “I’m going to go talk to her,” he growled.
Tim looked up from his phone, finally finding something worth acknowledging the world around him. “Yes, you should do that,” he pointed at Jason and nodded enthusiastically.
“Absolutely,” Adrien agreed. He took Jason’s glass from him with a thumbs up.
“This is going to be catastrophic,” Kon grinned. He disappeared for a fraction of a second then reappeared. “Chips?” He held out a bowl of chips that looked suspiciously like the one that had been on the picnic table outside moments before.
“Oooh, yes please,” Adrien chirped. He grabbed a handful of chips, plopped onto the couch between the two, and kicked his feet up to enjoy the show.
“Three sentences,” Kon stated and popped a few chips in his mouth.
Tim scoffed and grabbed a few chips as well. “Aww, look at you, so optimistic. I’m betting three words.”
“Two,” Adrien gargled through a mouthful of chips.
Jason stalked into the dining room with determined, harsh steps that instantly faltered once he crossed into the kitchen, which just so happened to coincide with Marinette dropping the spoon she had been holding, which wouldn’t have been an issue except when she reached down to pick it up, she turned away from him and bent over at the waist, ensuring that he had a perfect view of her glorious derriere in her blood red capris, so tight, they looked like they were painted on.
“Oh Jason! Hi,” Marinette purred before he even reached her, which was probably for the best as he had frozen in place the second she bent down. She popped up-right with a brilliant smile. “Something sweet I can make for you?” she asked sweetly, her wide, innocent eyes blinking at him. Her eyes only left his for a moment to thank Ma Kent for taking the bowl from her, ignoring her tut before washing it.
“You,” he choked.
“Of course!” she chirped. “Well, me and Ma Kent,” she corrected quickly. “She’s teaching me so much about American baking and candy making. We’re thinking of making Pixies next!”
Her eyes lit up at her comment, shining with such excitement and passion, Jason got lost for a second. He was only knocked out of it when her tongue poked out to lick her lips, slowly, leisurely. His eyes traced the movement. “Pixies?” he finally rasped out.
She hummed in confirmation. “I’d never heard them called that, but they’re pecans and caramel covered in chocolate. We should have the first batch out in about half an hour, all sweet and gooey. Maybe you can be a taste tester.” She took a slow step forward, wide eyes never leaving his. “What do you say? Do you want to taste a Pixie?”
Jason made a noise that sounded like a cross between a whimper and a deflating balloon. He opened his mouth then closed it again only to open it again the moment it was closed. Finally, he made a rough noise then huffed away, spinning and disappearing in an instant.
“Do you want candy?” She called after him. “Should I save you one then?” She watched him for a few seconds then turned back to Ma with a wicked grin.
Ma shook her head as she dried the bowl. “Are you ever going to give that boy a break?” she asked.
“Nope,” Marinette crowed and popped a freshly roasted pecan in her mouth.
“Good girl,” Ma nodded knowingly and patted Marinette on the arm. “That’s how I got Pa all those years ago,” she winked at Pa through the window, grinning smugly at the blush it caused, distracting him enough he nearly burned himself on the grill, and would have if Clark hadn’t redirected his hand. “Still do, actually. Keeps the spice going in the bedroom.”
Marinette froze but snorted when Kon groaned loud enough for the entire house to hear. “I did not need to hear that.”
“Serves you right, young man,” Ma chastised pointing her large wooden spoon at him. “Next time don’t listen in on conversations you’re not a part of.”
“Good job, Big Brother,” Tim grumbled quiet enough Ma wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“That’s going to be a significant blow to missions,” Adrien hummed. He stood up and started toward the backyard to join the others and return the chips.
“I want a Pixie,” Kon grumbled, halting Adrien in his exodus. “Do you think she’ll let us have some too?” Tim and Adrien stared at him, mouths hanging open slightly. “What?” he asked once he looked over at them, brow scrunched in confusion until the realization hit him. “No! Not li… Not like that. Like… candy. I like candy. I want candy,” he stuttered out.
When they still hadn’t changed their expressions or shut their mouths, he scrunched his and crossed his arms over his chest. “Shut up. And give me my money.”
“What?” Tim scoffed. “He only said 3 words. I won.”
Kon shook his head, mouth dropped in affront. “It was three sentences,” Kon insisted.
“A single word doesn’t constitute a sentence,” Tim corrected. “It was three words.”
“That last noise doesn’t count as a word,” Adrien cut in. “It was two words. I win.”
Tim opened his mouth to argue but Kon held out his arm to silence them. “Oh, hold up,” he announced with a devious grin, “he’s going back in for more.”
“Oh brilliant,” Adrien grinned and plopped back into the chair. “Four words this time. All when he first gets there, nothing but sounds after that. Random sounds don’t count.”
“Three words,” Tim threw in and grabbed some chips, leaning forward in his seat to get a better vantage point.
“Marinette, I want to…”
“Oh, Jason, you’re back! Did you want my candy?” she asked innocently. The sound Jason made could be heard from the couch even without super hearing, though if Clark’s bark of laughter was anything to go by, super hearing definitely helped.
“Who needs fireworks,” Kon agreed. He gave Jason a thumbs up that went unnoticed as he rushed out of the house again. “This is so much better.”
When the old, battered car had pulled out in front of his motorcycle, a bit too closely he might add, he’d written it off as just another indifferent, oblivious Gotham driver who would pull off at any of the dozens of streets between there and the desolate lane leading to Wayne Manor they were currently on. And the fact that the driver, likely a woman judging by the long, styled hair, must be a date meeting Bruce at the manor. But, it was far too late in the day, almost night, for the visit to be innocent.
None of that was unusual in the life of Brucie Wayne. It was one of the MANY reasons Jason frequently avoided the manor. However, this was not the car of a woman who Brucie Wayne would date. In fact, it was a rental. The kinds of women Brucie Wayne dated didn’t rent cars. And if they did, the rental price was almost as much as what this car must have cost new.
It was all extremely curious.
And definitely not a situation in which he wanted to get involved. Not his jabberwocky, not his wonderland. He revved his engine to pass her when her car suddenly pulled off to the side of the road well away from the Manor. The Manor wasn’t even visible from this distance.
Curiouser.
After a moment, a woman, he silently congratulated himself on calling that, with long dark hair emerged from the driver’s side door. Her long, white skirt flared out as a gust of wind hit, striking a stark contrast against the darkening night as if the night wanted to focus all attention on her.
He almost just drove by her. If she was coming to see Brucie Wayne, it would be a shame to deprive him of the opportunity to swoop in as an overdramatic civilian hero and amaze her with his magnanimity. But as he got closer, he saw her gaze around uncertainly, pulling her cardigan closer around her, her wide eyes darting toward the sky like she was searching for something.
She was in luck though. It wasn’t going to rain on her. Gotham hadn’t seen a clearer night in years. If she was going to break down, it was actually a pretty good night for it. Amazing setting to be rescued.
When she turned her eyes toward him, somehow meeting his gaze even through his helmet, his mind was made up for him. He pulled to a stop next to her car and took off his helmet to meet her gaze unobstructed. “Car trouble?”
For a few moments the only sound was the crickets surrounding them, singing their final songs before sleep. Her eyes were locked on his and the longer it lasted, the darker the blush on her cheeks became. Finally, after a few seconds, he allowed a raised eyebrow at her, though he suppressed the smirk that wanted to burst through. The movement shook her out of her stupor. “Hm? Oh! Oh, no. I’m here to see the Perseids!” she explained.
Jason blinked at her. Of all the things he had expected, that was not one of them. He looked her up and down, letting his eyes linger slightly. She didn’t look like she was dressed to search for an obscure animal. “And the Perseids are…” he prompted.
“At peak tonight!” she exclaimed excitedly. Any shyness she may have displayed earlier was completely lost. Her hands started moving rapidly, seemingly not even in time with her words and her body was shimmying about. “And it’s a new moon. And it’s completely clear skies. Who knows when conditions like this will appear again! And you can’t see them in the city. There’s too many lights. My friend recommended I try here.” She motioned toward the field and started examining the area like she was creating a plan of attack. “They’re supposed to be really inspiring and…” she let out a breath before turning back and meeting his gaze again, “… I could use some inspiration right now.”
He nodded with a hum at her observation. Now that she mentioned it, he had heard something about that. The Watchtower was packed with people, and aliens, who wanted to see them closer. Unfortunately for her, she was confined to the Earth. And he had to agree, the field was a much better spot to see the sky than anything in Gotham, though still not ideal. “I hope you find it inspiring then.”
He looked around dubitably. Hopefully that’s all she found out there. “Kind of isolated out here though.”
She raised an eyebrow at his observation and, hearing it out loud, he could see how that could be taken wrong. He raised his hands in supplication. “I’m a Gothamite. I’m always suspicious. Just be careful. If something happens, there’s a house that way.” He motioned vaguely up the road. “There’s a gate, but if you buzz. They’ll let you in.”
She scoffed. “If something happens, I’m getting back in my car and running over the something.”
Jason barked out a laugh. She was full of surprises. Beautiful, sweet, a bit violent, funny… He shook his head and put his helmet back on but kept his visor up so he could maintain their eye contact as long as possible. “Have fun. Maybe if I get done before you leave, I’ll run into you again.”
She nodded, a small smile back on her lips, like it belonged there, and Jason decided he quite liked seeing it there. Though her excited smile from earlier seemed to fit her better. “Thank you. I think I’d like that.”
Luckily, his visor hid the goofy grin her statement caused, though he suspected she could tell judging by the way her smile widened. He pushed down his visor and started his bike. “Good luck.” He couldn’t be positive, but he thought she might have snorted at that. When he glanced back at her before taking off again, it was a different smile on her lips, an impish and teasing, despite having nobody to tease. He shook his head and pulled away.
Curiouser and curiouser.
><><><><><><><><
This was the worst night of Jason’s life.
Not only was this research completely fruitless, with every dead-end he hit, Jason’s mind reminded him that he could be out watching the stars with a smoking hot chick. Instead, he was at the batcomputer, cursing so many things; his luck, the Riddler for having apparently learned to cover his tracks and not leave evidence, for once, and the stupid name for the batcomputer.
Dick had been given too much naming power when he started and Bruce needed to grow a spine with his kids and say no occasionally… to someone other than just him.
He let out a frustrated breath. Maybe she’d still be there if he left now…
His daydream, if you could call it that at night, was interrupted before he could fantasize what he could do with the woman, who’s name he was also cursing himself for not getting. He shot up in his chair at a flash of white on the cave exit cameras.
None of the animals around the area were white. There should be nothing white around the batcave entrance. He brought up the internal cave cameras and started panning back and forth, his mouth going dry at the sight.
As if his thoughts somehow manifested her, the woman from earlier was there. Standing in the batcave looking just as gorgeous as she had along the road, but now soaked, sans cardigan and even from his distance, he could see her shivers, despite her arms being wrapped around her chest like it could stave off the cold in lieu of her cardigan. Her previously flowy skirt hung heavy and clung to her legs, moving awkwardly with each tentative step.
He stared at her as she slowly made her way further into the cave with tentative, unsure movements, trying to figure out how she had found the entrance, before she got far enough to turn the final bend in the road and he would no longer be hidden.
The entrance was expertly hidden. Someone would have to look very intently for a long time to find it, or had been following them when they returned from patrol. And that was so unlikely, it was laughable. Maybe if she was in the League or a competent rogue, who had enough history with them to have had searched in the past, he could believe she found it, but that was almost as laughable as someone following them back. That woman didn’t look remotely threatening, or even look like she was pretending not to be threatening, a ruse he was a bit too familiar with women pulling on them, sometimes successfully, thanks to Dick.
But she was either the world’s greatest actress or she really was just that lucky to have just stumbled onto the entrance, apparently while running from something based on her hesitant movements. But more than that, they were fearful, which may be expected of someone who wandered into a massive cave like this, but the way she kept moving further into the cave seemed like she was moving away from something rather than towards it.
Her movements were steeped in fear. She would take a moment to look around her in wonder, but then the wonder would turn to fear as her eyes darted over her shoulder. Then the pattern would repeat every few seconds. Each time her eyes darted, she would move closer to the sides of the cave wall, like she thought it could hide her, as though her stark white dress didn’t announce her presence like a candle in the shadows.
He leaned closer to the monitor to analyze her better, his chair squeaking quietly at the movement, but in the quiet of the cave, or perhaps the paranoia clinging to her, the noise was enough to draw her attention. Her head whipped toward his area of the cave, still not able to see him quite yet.
Her movements slowed even more as she padded toward him until she edged around the bend in the road. As soon as she saw him, her eyes widened comically and her body tensed in shock. “Oh shit,” she uttered, no louder than his chair squeak, but loud enough to echo through the cave.
She started to back away from him but whirled around when a noise sounded behind her. Whatever fear or shock she’d felt upon seeing him appeared to have been forgotten, which was, frankly, a bit insulting. He may not have been wearing his full Red Hood regalia, such as his helmet, but he was still in his suit and domino mask, or at least his shirt and domino mask, and he had never needed the helmet to intimidate.
He moved swiftly, crossing the considerable distance in a few nearly silent moves, though apparently, not silent enough because she whipped around as he landed a few feet away from her. She jerked back at seeing him, her eyes darted between him and where he had been moments before. She pointed toward the old spot, opened her mouth and closed it a few times.
Before she could formulate a question, another noise, like a rock falling sounded throughout the cave and she snapped her head toward the entrance again. She shrank away from the cave entrance, inadvertently moving closer to him, her breath coming in short pants.
He looked past her searching the dark for any indications of intruders, but he saw none, just the regular cave noises. He hummed not loudly, but apparently just loud enough to drag her attention back to him. She whipped back toward him, close enough to her now her face almost met his chest. She batted him away. “Stop doing that!” she huffed.
She let out a frustrated breath and pushed her sopping wet bangs out of her face. This close, he could see not just the shivers she’d somewhat managed to contain, but also the goosebumps along her arms. Her eyes drifted for just a second past him to where he was before then snapped back to him. “Are you a Super? You moved really fast.”
He scoffed loudly but before he could make fun of her for such an insulting insinuation, her eyes settled on something behind him. “Is that the Batmobile? Wait, are you Batman?”
His face scrunched with disgust at the suggestion. He thought the ‘super’ comment was insulting. This was character assassination. “God no!”
She apparently considered this to be the wrong answer as she took a step back when he said it, but she clearly just didn’t realize that ‘no’ was a significantly better answer than ‘yes’ would have been because first, Batman would be a lot angrier about a stranger being in the batcave. And second, if he was Batman, she would be dealing with Bruce and that was a torture nobody deserved. “Wh… who are you then?” she stuttered out.
“Lucky for you, not Batman,” he scoffed.
“You said that already,” she replied with a forced calmness that wasn’t remotely convincing, even less so when she took another step back.
There was the intimidation he’d been looking for, but it felt wrong. The fear in her eyes didn’t belong there. He sighed and straightened up. He didn’t like it there, but he would use it, because there were still pressing questions he needed to have answered. “Red Hood,” he answered curtly. He stepped closer, looming over her without having to try. “Your turn,” he growled. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Well, I’m not here on purpose,” she snapped, fear instantly disappearing as she straightened up as well, though it barely made a difference. “I don’t even know where I am,”
“Why did you come here?” he repeated.
The defiant fire in her eyes instantly doused at a loud sound near the entrance again. She whipped her head toward the sound, her entire body language shifting from impudent to fearful. Her shoulders curled in on themselves and her head lowered. Her breath came harder even as she wrapped her arms around herself in an ineffectual attempt at self-soothing. But he noticed she didn’t do it in a manipulative way, a way that pushed her chest up, which was definitely something the women he knew would do when trying to distract or garner sympathy. It wasn’t absolute evidence of her innocence, but it certainly lent credence to it.
Jason cleared his throat quietly to get her out of her head, effectively, as it turned out. She continued facing the entrance but her eyes darted over to him in acknowledgement. “A sweet guy I ran into earlier said if I had any issues I should head this direction for a house.” Jason barely stopped himself from raising a shocked eyebrow and blushing at the description, because all kinds of adjectives had been used to describe him, but nobody described him as ‘sweet’. “I didn’t see a house,” she continued oblivious to his reaction, “but I found a waterfall. I was just going to hide behind it but then found whatever this is.”
An involuntary shiver wracked her body and her breath caught for just a second before she continued again as though nothing happened, her arms wrapping tighter around herself the only evidence it had. “I was just trying to find a different exit that would lead me away from him. Oh!” she perked up suddenly, her eyes snapping to him. “Is this your lair? Who knew Red Hood had a lair?” She looked around quickly taking in the area again. She scrunched her nose and bobbed her head to the side. “Yeah, this is about as creepy as I expected… fewer guns.”
Jason’s expression dropped. If he wasn’t wearing the domino mask, she’d be able to see the flattest look he could manage. “They’re hidden,” he snarked.
She shivered again. “Colder than outside, too,” she noted. “How is it colder than outside?” She looked down as she rubbed her hands over her arms, seemingly just noticing her wet clothes. “Oh yeah.” Her brows furrowed as she looked around again. “So, how do you keep your electronics dry in here?”
He raised an eyebrow. That was really the questions she had? He opened his mouth but closed it and shook his head. He needed to focus. “What was the issue?”
She looked back at him and blinked a few times, waiting for the meaning to become clear. “What?” she asked when he hadn’t elaborated.
“You said the amazing guy told you to find the house if you had issues and you tried to find the house. So, what was the issue that drove you to try to find the house?”
Her eyes softened and she nodded almost resigned to explaining the situation. “Someone found me.” She grimaced and faced him again. “Don’t tell the cute guy. He warned me it could happen and I laughed at him,” she tried to joke.
“Who?” he growled.
She shifted uncomfortably, her eyes darting toward the entrance then rested on the floor. She let out a breath. “Classmate. Don’t know how he found me. I didn’t tell…”
She suddenly eeped and jumped behind him at the same time as she pushed him toward the cave entrance. She poked her head around his bicep slowly to eye the entrance. “…him,” she finished shakily. “Oh, come on, that was definitely a footstep,” she pouted.
Jason eyed the entrance as well, though he hadn’t heard anything suspicious. “And why was he after you?”
“Because he thinks I’m super cute and can’t take no for an answer?” she scoffed, keeping her eyes glued in the direction of the entrance but moving closer to him, her shivers more prominent now, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or her fear. Her labored breathes indicated the latter though.
Jason eyed her carefully looking for any indication of lying but only found the beginnings of a panic attack. He narrowed his eyes and pinched her. Not hard, but enough to get her attention.
“Ow! What the hell?” she demanded, jumping away from him and slapping his chest.
“You said you were a super,” he shrugged, a smug smile tugging at his lips at the indignant look on her face indicating his plan worked. “I was testing that.”
Her jaw dropped and she smacked him in the chest again. Definitely not hard, in fact he could probably barely feel it, but enough to make a point. “I said maybe he thought I was super cute!” she huffed throwing her arms out in exasperation. She narrowed her eyes and stepped closer. “I asked if you were a Super. Do I get to pinch you back?”
Jason raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, causing his massive biceps to puff out. His muscles, which were already pronounced in his suit, became even more prominent. She licked her lips and puckered them as she backed up a step. “No, right, that would be uncalled for. I see that.” She motioned toward the batmobile. “And I see that.” She snapped her mouth shut and molded herself against his chest. “And I heard that,” she breathed out, her body trembling enough he was surprised she was still standing.
He wrapped his arms around her like a shield and turned so he was between her and the entrance because, yeah, he’d heard that too. That was definitely not a normal cave sound. And the continued shuffling was also not a normal sound, at least not when the cave was supposed to be empty. He moved her back, toward the safety of their equipment, keeping his eyes on the bend in the cave. If anything happened, there would be more places for her to hide there, and he’d be closer to weapons, which he was appallingly lacking having in hand at the moment.
His heart almost stopped when Red Robin stepped out of the shadows. It took half a second longer than he would ever admit to before his heart rate slowed back to normal. “Fucking Hell,” he groaned. “What is wrong with you?”
Red Robin shot him a flat look then tried to crane his neck to see around him. “Marinette?”
The woman, Marinette apparently, cautiously poked her head around Jason’s arm to take in the threat. Her face went through a series of expressions, fear, confusion, interest, curiosity, then finally shock. “Oh my God!” She worked an arm away from Jason to point at him. “You’re… you’re…”
“He knows my identity,” Red Robin sighed.
“You’re Red Robin!” she exclaimed.
He opened his mouth but all that came out was a confused grunt before he closed it. “Not the one I was talking about, but yeah, he knows that one too.”
“Dieu, Tim!” she groaned.
“Yeah. That’s the one I meant,” he nodded then waved weakly. “Hi.”
“You scared the Hell out of me.” She collapsed against Jason, all tension leaving her body.
Jason supported her easily and curled around her like a blanket. He scrunched his face at Tim. “You two know each other?”
“Obviously,” he scoffed.
Marinette pulled away from Jason’s chest just enough to glare at him without much heat, then dropped her head back into the safety of his embrace. “He’s the one that told me to watch the shower in the field,” she grumbled against Jason’s chest
“It’s a good field to watch,” Tim answered, watching her carefully. His eyes darted between them curiously a few times, then toward the cave entrance with a more serious expression. “Didn’t realize Derrick would hear and follow. I chased him off. He’s probably all the way downtown by now.”
“How…” Jason started but immediately stopped when Marinette shivered again and nestled further into Jason’s warm embrace. He removed his jacket and settled it on her shoulders, wrapping his arms back around her as soon as she worked her arms through the sleeves. Tim watched the movement with a growing smirk and raised eyebrow.
“She works with Bernard,” Tim answered the unfinished question. “She’s the one I told you that you should meet,” he added smugly.
Marinette turned toward Tim, still within Jason’s arms. “Does Bernie know?”
“No. Neither do you.” He pointed a finger at her with a pointed look.
She blinked, eyes empty. “Know what?”
“Perfect. This is why I love you. I’m so… lucky to know you.” Marinette froze, her eyes widening in surprise. Tim grinned and ruffled her hair with a familiarity that indicated it was a familiar move, but he pulled his hand away quickly and examined it. “Why don’t we get you some dry clothes? You’re about Cass’ size. She keeps some clothes here and she won’t mind. Come on, Mari.” He pulled on her shoulder gently until she reluctantly gave way and backed out of Jason’s warmth.
Tim guided her to a small side room and reappeared after a minute. “Thanks for keeping her warm.” His voice was teasing but guarded.
Jason stared at him for a few seconds, eyes darting around his face, taking in every minute movement to gage his thoughts. After a few seconds he scoffed, leaned back, and crossed his arms over his chest. “She figured out your identity quicker than you figured our Dickie Boy’s.”
Tim bobbled his head and stood up straighter, ready to smack Jason down, verbally of course, Marinette wouldn’t appreciate anything else. He looked around before taking him down, but froze when he glanced at the side room and whistled. His eyes darted to Hood entirely too smugly for Jason’s liking. “Glad to see they fit. You’re going to give Jason a heart attack.”
“B is going to kick your ass for using names,” Jason growled, but he looked toward the side room with a mix of apprehension and anticipation.
Tim snorted. “You think she isn’t going to figure out who you are after knowing who I am?”
“There’s a problem with that logic,” Marinette announced as she exited the changing area. The ethereal white clothes that had been loose and flowing earlier in the night were now replaced with an absolutely sinful outfit. Her long-sleeved black sweater clung to her curves over dark pants that were essentially leggings. She carried Jason’s jacket by a finger over her shoulder.
As much as Jason hated to admit Tim was right about anything, he was right about this. Jason’s heart had skipped a beat at the sight of her. But it started pounding at the devilish smirk that graced her lips as she faced Tim. “I don’t know who you are. So, you were the one to give away civilian names.”
Jason grinned triumphantly. “Yeah, Red Robin. She doesn’t know who you are.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “For the love of…” He sighed so deeply it came out like a groan and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t encourage him. Absolutely not allowed. You’re my friend.” He huffed, but the twitch of his lips belied his angry act. “You going go back and to try to watch the shower again?”
Marinette’s smirk instantly fell and she shook her head vigorously. “No. I, um… I don’t think I am.”
Tim’s forehead furrowed for a second then cleared into sympathy. “Are you sure? I know you were excited for the inspiration.”
“No, I don’t think… I think I’d rather not go back there,” she answered quietly.
“Not a great place anyway,” Jason piped up. “Terrible advice. Still too close to the city. Now Baker Field… I can take you there, if you’d like. It’s further away so less light pollution.”
Marinette looked at him in surprise for just a moment then looked over to Tim who shrugged but his slight smile conveyed his satisfaction with the request. Marinette looked back to Jason for a few seconds, her eyes searching his like she was looking for something in them. Her brows furrowed and her lips quirked to the side as she watched him. After a few long moments, Jason reached up and removed his domino mask, tossing it over to Tim before gazing warmly back at her. She gasped and pointed at him. “You’re the hot guy from the road!”
“Oh God,” Tim groaned.
Jason’s smile beamed. “Can I tell you how much I love the adjectives you use for me?”
“No, no you cannot,” Tim Interjected. He pointed between them. “Ew. I want you both happy, but I don’t want to hear about or witness it.”
But Marinette’s lips split into a brilliant smile. “Yeah. I think I’d like seeing the stars with you.” Jason’s resulting grin matched hers.
He stepped past her slowly, turning as he moved so he could keep his eyes on her until he reached the changing room. He was gone just for a second, not even long enough for Tim to tease her, before reemerging with a new jacket and two helmets. He shoved them at Tim as he passed and stopped in front of Marinette slowly taking his jacket from her finger and holding it out for her to put on. You should keep the jacket… for the ride,” he added, taking the helmets from Tim without looking at him and handed one to Marinette.
He held his hand out for her to climb onto the motorcycle, when she placed her hand in his, he cradled it with deliberate care while she got on. As soon as she was comfortably on, he slid on in front of her and slid his helmet on.
“For the ride,” Tim scoffed quietly. He shook his head as he watched them peel away. “You’re welcome,” he called after them. “I’ll take care of your car. Because I’m a good friend. And would never just leave without saying goodbye.
“This is either the best or worst idea of my life.” He huffed as soon as they were around the bend and out of sight. “Both. Definitely both.”
The lighting was perfect. The thunderstorm had just passed the park, some parts of the city were still getting inundated so heavily, a distinctive rain line marked the boundary between dry and drenched. The voluminously ominous clouds rose up into the sky like ethereal mountains towering even higher than Gotham’s sinister skyscrapers as if to make a point to the man-made monstrosities.
Everything about the sight was inspiring. The colors. The contrast. The shapes. The way sunlight broke around the clouds setting the cloud edges on fire like the light was burning away the darkness, the fear, the negativity that permeated Gotham.
Marinette couldn’t keep up with her ideas. Her pencils were moving at the speed of light, or as close as she could manage. After only twenty minutes, her notebook was already half filled with ideas she could fully develop later, when her mind was capable of focusing on only one thing. Until then, she just needed to get the feel of the ideas out.
Unfortunately, the current design she was working on was not coming out right and she was rapidly losing her light. The energy wasn’t coming across right and no matter what she did, she couldn’t quite capture it. Every attempt seemed to get further off the mark. She shook her head with a huff and ripped the page out, barely crumpling it into a roughly ball shaped object before tossing it to the side.
Just one more sketch and she would collect the crumpled pages around her and leave; she lied to herself. Her pencil just met the paper when she was knocked to the side, her senses filled with lukewarm wetness and panting. She shot back up in her seat and looked around finally blinking in surprise at the precious but powerful intrusion.
Luckily, the dog seemed to have no issue with her movement. In fact, she seemed excited about it, like she thought it meant Marinette was going to play with her. Marinette chuckled when the dog dropped the discarded sketch in her lap. “Did you want to play fetch, girl?” she cooed at the dog that may actually outweigh her. “Do you not have a ball?”
The dog quirked her head to the side, short ears flopping over, as if she could understand what Marinette had said, let out a quick yip, and ran toward a man just approaching on the park path. She jumped up and down around the man who patted her head until she calmed down enough to walk calmly with him until he paused in a patch of light that escaped through the clouds.
He didn’t seem to notice anything around him, his eyes, bright yet wistful, as he watched the beam of light in the sky. The light hit his face so perfectly, like it was drawn in by his aura, like it wanted to burn away his shadows too. The pencil started moving before she consciously moved it, moving with a speed rivaling a speedster. She had just finished the last touch of shading when the pad was knocked from her hands by an adorable slobber monster who then proudly turned toward the man expectantly.
“You know, you're supposed to have your dog on a leash. They get really upset about it here,” she called out when the dog nudged her hand when she had the temerity to pick up her sketch pad, though the amusement in her tone made it clear she wasn’t upset.
He looked around like he just noticed the dog at his side and let out a long sigh. “She's not my dog. She just follows me around and I sometime feed her... and she comes when I call...” he dropped his head and groaned. “Damn it, she's my dog, isn't she”
Marinette giggled and offered a warm, sympathetic smile. “Sounds like it. Did you say you gave her a name?”
“No,” he said significantly more firmly and with a bit more pride than the situation warranted.
She quirked her head to the side as her mind tried to work through his statement. “But you said she comes when you call,” she noted slowly. “So, what do you call her then? And if she comes when you use it, doesn’t that make it her name?”
He opened his mouth to fight the logic because, no, he hadn’t given her a name, he wasn’t that invested in Dog. He didn’t have a dog. But as soon as the thought struck, so did the realization and his shoulders dropped. “Yes,” he acknowledged finally.
“So, what did you name her?” She was grinning at him like it was a personal victory, a teasing twinkle in her eyes that made it clear she was laughing with him, not at him.
He sighed heavily like it was crushing part of his soul to answer. “Dog.”
Marinette waited for him to continue but when he didn't, she blinked owlishly a few times then bobbed her head down like she was encouraging him to continue. When he still didn’t, she let out a choked sound. “Dog? Just ‘Dog’? Not even like ‘Good Dog’ or ‘Sweet Dog’? Just ‘Dog’?”
He dropped his head and sighed again, even heavier this time, but looked up to give her a contrite look. “Look, I'm not good with names, okay.” Her affront on behalf of Dog was absolutely adorable and her laugh, light and bright, lightened something in his chest. It was hard looking away from her and impossible not to smile with her. “Want to help me come up with a better one?”
Her eyes widened at the invitation, but the surprise quickly melted into a shy smile. “That's a big commitment. I didn't realize we were that serious already.”
He shrugged, his lips curved into a roguish smile. “You're right. You don’t know her well. You should really know her better before you make a suggestion. How would you like to grab an early dinner with me… us? You know, to spend time with her and get to know her better?”
Despite claiming Dog wasn’t his dog, she appeared to be a trained wingdog, playing into the act with gusto. She teetered back and forth between her hind and front legs, ears perked up tall, tail wagging faster than a helicopter rotor. Marinette couldn’t stop the chuckle that bubbled up in her chest at Dog’s apparent excitement, then bit her lower lip and looked up at him through her lashes with an excited, open expression. “I'd love to,” she agreed. “For her,” she added with a smirk nodding to Dog.
His resulting grin was brilliant, but he quickly schooled his expression. “Right, of course, for her,” he nodded in mock solemnity. “She loves a place around the corner. How does that sound?”
“Promising,” she answered with a smile beaming so bright he felt something long-dormant inside him come to life.
“I’m beginning to take this personally,” Chat groaned peeling himself off the wall that had just interrupted his extemporaneous flight which had taken him through several rooms before making a cartoon like impact against the wall.
“It does seem to be rather uneven,” Red Robin grunted in agreement. He held his hand out for Chat, still holding his aching ribs from the impact of the energy blast moments before that had blown him off his feet and into Nightwing, both hitting a wall with two resounding thuds, taking both of them out for a short period with likely concussions.
Ladybug cringed and dusted Chat off. “It really does,” she nodded. She looked over Chat carefully, letting her eyes linger on any areas that appeared to be more scuffed than the others. Her eyes finally met his with a question he answered with a small nod and smile. She nodded back before scanning the area around them for any signs of Klarion or evidence he had used the miraculous he’d stolen.
Not that he had given them many signs before attacking previously. He was proving to be more problematic than they had anticipated, especially considering the Miraculous team’s experience with illusion, but it was taking them time to adjust to the familiar tactic being used against them.
Klarion, however, did not appear to need the same adjustment period.
The Miraculous team was supposed to be a curveball, a secret weapon for the Bats, something to knock him off balance. Far from disorienting him, it seemed like he had anticipated their presence, thrived on it, especially where Ladybug was concerned. It was more like it was a game for him, distracting the Bats and Miraculous team, all in an attempt to gain Ladybug’s attention.
Never touching her or letting her get injured… just those around her. In fact, he’d protected her from rubble and redirected weapons a few times, directly at her teammates, like a serial killer leaving presents for his obsession. She shuddered involuntarily and leaned into Chat’s side, letting him wrap an arm around her.
“This must be your wet dream,” Red Hood grunted examining the fresh tears in his jacket. He easily pushed three fingers through one and wiggled them with an annoyed sigh. He had liked this jacket, but this was a bit too substantial of a hole to easily fix up. “Going up against Chaos. This is like your dream opponent. You certainly seem to be his.”
“Not exactly,” she hummed. She cocked her head to the side and watched his fingers calculatingly.
“Although an opponent who doesn’t want to harm one of us is pretty novel in our experience,” Carapace noted lightly. He turned toward her with a suddenly serious expression, his goggles askew on his face from his own previous run in. “Next time can it be me they don’t want to hurt?” He moved easily and with a grin when she pushed him away by his face.
“Any insights that might help us here, Princess? You’re made to oppose him, right? You’re literally created,” Hood let out a small chuckle, “to fight him. He’s your perfect opposite.”
“Excuse you!” Chat interjected his voice laced with affront, though which part of the statement he objected to, or all of it, was unclear.
Nightwing sighed heavily and stepped between them, but it was Ladybug that spoke. “Let’s focus on our little thief, please, before he figures out how to use the miraculous he stole and becomes a problem. Also, you,” she pointed to Hood, “don’t get to call me Princess.”
Chat nodded in support and pulled her back into his side. Carapace stepped up to Ladybug’s other side and gently prodded the back of his head with a grimace. “I’d say he’s already leveled up to Problem level.”
She shot him a flat look. “Before he hits Real Problem level then.”
“Agreed,” Nightwing nodded toward her. “We need a new plan. Clearly, the old one is not working.”
“Whatever plan we make, I vote we let Ladybug take the lead,” Carapace smirked and resettled his goggles over his eyes and adjusted his slightly singed hood.
Ladybug snorted and shook her head. “Harsh, but fair,” Chat nodded sagely. “Take some of the focus off of us.”
“Or maybe you should just get better, develop some skills instead of throwing your teammate out there to take the brunt of the damage,” Hood growled. He stepped up to Carapace, toe to toe, chest to nose as Hood glowered down at him in a move that had proven to make hardened criminals shiver. Carapace, while not a criminal, shivered and backed away. Red Robin, however, only raised an amused eyebrow.
“Back off, Hood,” Ladybug snapped. “His skills are not in question. My team is solid, skilled, and strategic. It’s a good plan,” she continued. Her fire only slightly lessened from Chat squeezing her shoulder. “I can keep his focus while…”
Her plan was cut short a fireball cut through the group, headed directly toward Chat. Red Robin dove toward him, shoving him to the ground milliseconds before the ball reached the space he had just stood. Chat stared at the charred remains of the impact site. “What the…”
“Hell was that?” Ladybug finished for him, attempting to crawl out from under Hood with a dark glare that froze when a high-pitched cackle echoed through the room. She immediately snapped her head away, eyes scanning the room for the source of the sound. Getting up suddenly skyrocketed in priority, made more difficult by what she swore was Hood tightening his grip on her. She turned her glare back toward him but turned away again almost immediately as an eerie voice floated into the room.
“Well, isn’t this just so cozy.”
Chat, Nightwing, and Carapace sprung up, closing ranks around Ladybug, who attempted to get up with them, but was again met with resistance. She shoved Hood again, using considerably more force than she had anticipated needing to get him to let go. He only rolled back a bit rather than shooting across the room’s distance like she was accustomed to opponents doing when she used that much force, much to her annoyance.
She opened her mouth to chastise him for acting like she was a damsel in distress, the weakest member of the team, needing to be coddled. Like she was a weakness to them. But the objection died on her lips when Klarion himself finally made an appearance, strolling through one of the doorways, his familiar winding his way around his legs, and an energy ball casually tossed from hand to hand.
“I almost hate to interrupt such a heartwarming scene.” He sneered the word like he was witnessing an abomination. Teekl sat down to his left, his blue eyes narrowing in disgusted judgement in the way only cats can. He meowed, somehow managing to make it sound like a condemnation. “Yes, Teekl,” Klarion nodded, “almost.”
“Hand back the bracelet,” Nightwing commanded. His hand stretched out toward Klarion who stared at it derisively.
“Put your hand down, moron,” Hood hissed at him.
Klarion hummed and looked around the room as though searching for an answer. “No. I don’t feel like it.” He turned his head to stare at Ladybug, his beady eyes running up and down the length of her, analyzing every millimeter of her, every muscle, every twitch, every strength and weakness. “I’m not done playing yet.”
He walked further into the room, Teekl trailing a step behind. “I so rarely get to play like this. My perfect opposite. My counterpart. My weaker counterpart,” he stressed the word to make sure everyone in the room understood the implication.
“So strong,” he praised, the condescension in his voice causing it to fall flat. “Except when it comes to me. Your only weakness, aren’t I?” He continued tossing the ball as he cased their expressions, his smile becoming more deranged as he looked from one to the next. “She didn’t tell you?”
Hood growled and jumped to his feet, moving toward Klarion in the same movement. “I know you like to hear your own voice, but nobody else does. Can we finish this please?”
Klarion wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know why you insist on surrounding yourself with such banal simpletons.” He accentuated the final ‘s’ hard, the only sign he was about to act before he threw the energy ball, straight at Hood’s chest. “Shelter!” Carapace screamed, the barrier appearing just in front of the energy ball. It lit up like a firework as the energy ball collided into it, the energy dissipating into the barrier, enforcing it, strengthening it.
Hood stared at the barrier for a few seconds, his pulse dropping slowly as his eyes traced the barrier, following its edge as it flowed back in a dome enclosing Klarion and his familiar. He nodded toward Carapace but focused his watchful gaze on Klarion.
“Does this mean I get to kick you off a building now?” Carapace grinned at Hood.
“No,” he scowled, never looking away from Klarion, “but ask again and I might do it to you.” He settled his hands on the guns strapped to his thighs, more as a familiar stance than a threat since they had already proven to be less than effective against Klarion or his little ginger shadow.
Chat stepped closer to the barrier. “Why didn’t we do that earlier?”
“Careful,” Nightwing warned him shooting a hand out to pull him back.
“What’s he going to do?” Carapace scoffed. “He’s cornered. There’s no escape. The magic is infallible. Nothing can get out through the barrier. What’s he going to do, teleport?”
Ladybug let out a breath, her shoulders relaxing almost imperceptibly at his words, yet remained taut, ready for the confrontation Klarion’s eyes promised, beady eyes that had not left hers since the barrier appeared. He cocked his head to the side and smiled.
It was such an eerie thing on his young features, she almost missed his hand lifting to expose the bracelet resting on his palm. His grin widened as he placed it very slowly, very particularly in his vest pocket and patted it. Once safely in his pocket, his hands moved rapidly, creating a portal behind him that he jumped through at the same time as Teekl, as though they had planned it, both disappearing instantly.
Ladybug jerked forward but stopped instantly. “How confident are we that that thing is real?” she asked hesitantly, having been burned by Klarion’s illusions before. She walked around the perimeter of the barrier, her eyes narrowed in calculation.
“We aren’t,” Nightwing answered his voice heavy with an implied command to stay. “We likely can’t be certain unless we drop the barrier.”
“No,” Hood answered instantly. “We aren’t dropping our only defense.”
Red Robin cocked his head and quirked his lips. “Does it look like it’s getting smaller?”
Ladybug’s head whipped toward the portal. “Shit!” She moved and disappeared through the portal before any of them could blink.
“Son of a bitch,” Hood growled and jumped after her, having to contort his body to fit through just as it closed.
The four remaining heroes stared at the empty air where a golden light had been just moments before. Chat slowly turned to Carapace. “You had to open your big mouth,” he chastised. He tried to be stern, but his fatigue showed in his tone.
“How was I supposed to know he could teleport!” Carapace exclaimed. He motioned haphazardly toward where the portal had been.
“He’s magic,” Nightwing pointed out flatly, staring at Carapace as though the connection was obvious.
Carapace, however, did not appear to agree with the assessment. “And?” he demanded and motioned toward himself. “I’m magic. I can’t teleport.”
“Be a lot cooler if you could,” Red Robin grumbled. “And a lot more helpful.”
“Not as much as you would think, actually,” Carapace answered leaning in with a serious expression like he was passing on a deep secret.
Chat’s eyes still hadn’t strayed from the empty air where Ladybug had disappeared. “You know, if Hood fit through, we definitely could have, too,” he noted grudgingly. “Rena is going to kill us.”
Carapace turned to him, eyes wide. “And risk it closing on me as I go? No thank you. I would like to survive to see my kid, thank you very much. So would A… Rena. She’ll be just fine with me not pursuing.”
“How did they even get through in the first place?” Red Robin asked. He motioned randomly around them. “Was the forcefield not actually there?”
Carapace’s jaw dropped and he gasped in offense. “Of course it was real. Rena does the illusions. I do the protecting. I was keeping him and all his magic in. I wasn’t worried about keeping us out.”
“Huh.” Red Robin’s eyes came into sharp focus. “You can control that? Like, you can…”
“Right,” Nightwing cut in loudly. He glared at Red Robin, disappointment rolling off him, which only intensified when Red Robin shrugged off the disappointment. “The important question is, how do we get to them? You know, since you can’t teleport and all.”
Carapace’s eyes shot to Chat quickly and back to Nightwing. “We do have a way we could possibly teleport,” he acknowledged hesitantly.
Red Robin stared at him, eyes becoming increasingly incredulous, until he couldn’t keep it in anymore and snapped. “You literally just said…”
“But it doesn’t matter,” Chat cut in sharply. “If we don’t know where to go.”
“And we don’t have that miraculous,” Carapace grumbled just loud enough for the three of them to hear just in case there was some lingering monitor.
“Even if we could manage to arrange it,” Chat continued over Carapace, “we don’t know where to teleport to and that’s kind of an important part of the teleport process. Unless you know where we should teleport to…” He looked at them expectantly.
Red Robin opened his mouth quickly then closed it slowly. “No. Maybe there is a way to trace the magic?” He pursed his lips. “You can’t like triangulate her position, or like, she doesn’t emit a beacon or something?”
Chat blinked at him. “You know that’s not how magic works, right? It’s important to me that you know that’s not how magic works.”
“How would I know that’s not how magic works? We can find traces of the magic and you always know where Ladybug is,” Red Robin insisted, with more than a little petulance.
“Yeah, because our team communicates, in and out of the suits,” Chat explained slowly as though it would be obvious.
“Our team communicates,” Nightwing objected but his voice came out weak like not even he believed what he was saying.
“We do?” Red Robin asked before he could stop himself. “I mean, yeah, we do,” he added quickly at Nightwing’s glare. The forced smile he delivered it with only served to make it more questionable.
Chat raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “More than that, we talk. Converse. Chatter. Chat,” he ignored the single chuckle Carapace let out, “we like each other, so we tell each other things, like where we’re and what we’re going.”
He didn’t react when Carapace walked up and leaned on him, his elbow resting on Chat’s shoulder. “We may not have vehicles, but we have something more important,” Carapace grinned. He placed a hand over his heart and opened his eyes wide in faux innocence. “The power of friendship.”
Chat sighed heavily and pushed him away with a hand to his face. “You’ve watched far too many kids shows.” He shook his head and looked back at where the portal had been. “Ladybug and Hood are alone facing someone that all of us together had trouble with. Can we focus please?” He settled a serious look at Nightwing and Red Robin. “We don’t have homing beacons, but I assume you do, right? You don’t actually talk, so I’m guessing you track each other instead, so you know where you all are and can back each other up when you get into stupid situations, all so you don’t actually have to communicate in any meaningful way.”
Nighwing sucked in a breath and let it out harshly. “Not exactly why we have it, but yes, we do have that feature.”
“And we aren’t using it because…?” Carapace asked.
“Right,” Red Robin perked up. “Give me a second. We’ll track him.”
“And we’ll get the miraculous,” Chat nodded. He grabbed Carapace and dragged him toward the exit.
><><><><><><><><><
The jump had clearly not been necessary. There was no tunnel that had to be forded, no liminal space between the room they had been in and the new rather cave-like location. No, it was like jumping at full velocity through an open doorway… and directly into the back of Ladybug, causing both of them to end up sprawled on the cave floor in a tangled pile of limbs.
“What is it with you today?” she demanded, shoving him off her with even more force than earlier. “I am not a couch seat you need to jump on before your teammates take it! And quite frankly, this is a lot more touching than I’m comfortable with from you. Why are you here anyway?” she snarled, her lips curling and eyes narrowed. “We had talked about me being the one to go after him.”
He looked around cautiously. Deft eyes darting around as he brushed the dirt and dust off his suit. “We didn’t talk about shit. Someone made a dumbass observation and you jumped at trying to get yourself killed. Someone had to stop you from doing something stupid.” He rounded on her, fixing her with a hard stare. “Something else stupid.”
Her eyes shot to him. “Excuse me!” she snapped.
“No! And lower your voice,” he growled, making no attempt to do the same.
“I've already lowered my standards by working with you,” she hissed. She allowed herself a few moments to glare dramatically at him and pushing into his space, demanding his attention. “You aren’t needed here. You aren’t wanted here.”
Hood stopped scanning the room, his eyes lasering in on Ladybug with a dark chuckle. “Oh, I may not be wanted here, but I’m definitely needed.” He took a step forward, closing the distance almost completely to tower over her, not to intimidate her, not really, he knew she didn’t intimidate easily, more to demand her attention, force her to listen to him. “The whole situation looked like you needed someone with actual skills to be here. Jumping through a portal to an unknown but certainly dangerous destination. Definitely a trap. No plan. No exit strategy. No thought. Against, apparently, your only weakness. Stupid.”
“Oh, Dieu…” she threw her arms out and huffed loud enough the echo could be heard if someone strained their ears enough. “Since when do you listen to the villains? He’s not my only weakness.”
Hood shook his head letting out his own disappointed huff. He took a steadying breath before continuing, voice quieter and more serious. “I wasn’t asking for a catalog of your weak points. But going up against someone who is the embodiment of your primary weakness is stupid.”
She clicked her tongue and stared at him with ill-disguised ire. “I can handle this just fine on my own.” She leaned forward, but then bobbed away, snapping her head toward a movement down a tunnel to the side and stepping closer like a siren song.
He stepped in front of her, closing out anything in her vision but him until her eyes snapped back to him. “An army unto yourself, huh?” His voice gained back his disdainful edge.
“Yes,” she snapped, stepping even closer, proving she wasn’t afraid, pushing back against his judgement. But Hood stood his ground, matching her gaze undeterred, letting her anger roll past him, letting her decide the next move. Her gaze faltered and she swallowed thickly. “…no,” she corrected after a moment.
He snorted derisively, finally stepping back to investigate a flicker in the distance. “Right.”
Her lips pinched with renewed annoyance and stepped back into his way. “I’m used to working with a team. I’m used to working with your team, in fact, and we work very well together. It’s just you that has an issue with me… TEAMWORK. An issue with teamwork.”
He only spared her a glance for a moment then turned toward a shadow that seemed to have moved a moment before. “I don’t have an issue with teamwork,” he ignored her caustic snort, “just working with less competent teammates. Like the ones that go off alone against their greatest weakness.”
She spun away toward the opposite side of the cave. “I didn’t know there were less competent teammates than you.” She walked deeper into the cave. “And he’s not my greatest weakness. He’s my greatest danger…”
“That’s the same thing,” he cut in coldly.
“… to society,” she finished with a hiss. “He isn’t my weakness. He’s my warning, my…” she threw her head back with a groan. When she looked back at him it was through narrowed eyes and with pursed lips. “I can’t think of the word in English, but if I was speaking French, I’d be able to explain.”
Red Hood motioned for her to continue. “I speak fluent French. Go ahead,” he challenged.
Ladybug opened her mouth then slowly closed it. “No.”
Red Hood snorted and shook his head. “Right. Well, whatever he is to you, you’re not going to be able to defeat him as long as his cat is wandering free. It’s where he gets his power. It’s like you with your cat, his only purpose really.”
“No, it isn’t,” she snapped loudly as though volume could keep him from interrupting. It wouldn’t, no matter how loud their fights got, they always continued. “Dieu! Do you ever get tired of being wrong? Or is it just a part of your genetic makeup. You can’t exist without it. It’s the opposite of me and Chat, jackass.” She stalked closer to him jabbing her finger at him, her chin set in a defiant line. She opened her mouth, her next insult on the tip of her tongue ready to be whipped out like a pavise, both shield and weapon, when her eyes lit up instead. “It’s the opposite!” She motioned toward Hood as if he was in on the revelation.
“I’m going to need a bit more than melodramatic hand motions if you’re going to pass on the insight you just gleaned,” Hood responded after a few seconds with no response. “Not everyone can see your delirious visions.”
Rather than get riled up as his words normally affected her, she continued on, a smile on her lips, a scheming smile that immediately deflated Hood’s chest. “It’s the opp…”
“Yeah, you said that already,” he cut in with a heavy sigh. “Shockingly, repeating the same thing doesn’t help.”
She took a deep breath and started again but not before shooting him a disappointed look. “My magic doesn’t originate from Chat but his does.”
“Yeah, I said that already,” he huffed. He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he motioned for her to continue, considerably less aggressively than before. “And that helps us how?”
“Because my yoyo is a magical vortex that leads to a pocket dimension that blocks magical power and I think we should play to our strengths and his weaknesses,” she smirked.
He narrowed his eyes at her, letting her words work around in his mind until finally the picture became clear. He nodded absently. “And your strengths are obstinance, hostility, being the focus of apparently particularly protective crackbrained sociopaths who don’t want anyone but them hurting you, cats, and duplicity.”
She huffed loudly, crossing her arms over her chest and popping her hip out. “Charming. And yours are creating a scene, distraction, and pissing people off,” she smirked as she added the last bit louder than necessary for their close proximity.
“You know, there are two kinds of people in this world, and both think you’re fucking annoying. You’re like that annoying kid so desperate to be liked they agree to anything. You look pathetic,” he thundered.
Ladybug’s face scrunched in confusion. She met his eyes with a pointed look. She waited until he let out a harsh breath then raised her eyebrow in question. When he gave a barely noticeable nod, she returned it. “And you look like you read with your finger,” she snapped with a force fitting a soap opera.
Hood moved so close, her breath left small fans of trace moisture on his chest plate. The slight tensing of his muscles was the only evidence they heard the disruption of rocks down one of the tunnels. “Excuse you. I am extremely literate.”
“Yes, I’m sure you can quote The Cat in the Hat very well,” she scoffed, her eyes darting behind him just momentarily, drawn to movement that had since disappeared and returning to him just as quickly. “Just stay out of my way.”
Hood backed away, arms thrown out like a gift, granting her the room to do with as she pleased, a dare if she thought she could handle it, with him strategically placed close enough to grab her if Klarion or his cat somehow managed to sneak in unnoticed. “I’ve been practicing that move for a year and a half!” When he brought his hands back, he settled them explicitly on his guns, drawing as much attention to the movement as he could.
Ladybug raised an eyebrow again, her lips twitching to curl up but remaining successfully neutral as she closed the gap again. “If you’ve been trying to not get in my way, not annoy me, you’ve been doing a shit job. You’d do better to focus on refinement.”
Hood snorted. “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“That checks,” she sneered dramatically. “It seems like you don’t know the meaning of a lot of words. Maybe you should work on upgrading from The Cat in the Hat so you can expand your literary skills.”
He chuckled lightly, another dare, fingers releasing and squeezing his guns tight enough his knuckles turned white.. “I read Hugo and Verne for a bit of light reading. I…” before he could continue his list of literary accomplishments, an energy ball stuck his side, flinging him across the cave and into the far wall with a resounding thunk.
“Hood!” The cry tore from her. The hit had been anticipated, yet shocking. The sight of him flying through the air then sliding down the cave wall like a ragdoll was more jarring than she cared to admit.
She started toward him but backed into the shadows when he held up a hand and shook his head. “That’s the best you’ve got?” he snorted. His arm shook slightly as he pushed himself back up, betraying his invulnerable act. “I’ve gotten hurt worse falling from a hammock.”
“Oh, that wasn’t to hurt,” Klarion’s voice creeped into the cave, his words echoing softly. “That was to make a point.”
“Well, maybe that was your problem,” Hood scoffed again. “You can’t use a ball to make a point.” The smug smirk on his lips could be heard even without being able to see it.
The effort hit its mark, the result taking effect immediately. Klarion growled, brow scrunched in irritation, lips curled in a snarl Teekl would have been proud of. “Maybe this will spike some interest.” He punched his palm through the air toward a stalactite, not the largest stalactite in the cave, but still substantial, long, pointed, and quite weighty. It shook for a few seconds then the tip, about the size of a man, broke off and hurtled toward Hood.
He only just managed to dodge the rock by rolling behind a large stalagmite. The stalactite tip smashed into dust against the stalagmite, cracking it all the way through. “Nope. Didn’t do much. Maybe I can give you a tip…” he grunted through pulling the broken portion of the stalagmite and throwing it toward Klarion.
Klarion watched the rock soar toward him with a show of disinterest, until it reached him and continued through him. When it was a few feet behind him, he flicked his wrist and the rock stopped instantly, hovering above the cave floor for a few moments until he slowly moved his fingers and the rock floated back through him, taking a position in front of him. Klarion examined it with detached interest, the only sound Hood’s labored breathing and barely heard whisper, “Well, that’s fucking cheating.” With a twirl of his finger, the rock rotated in the air. He examined for a few seconds then let it drop.
“I don’t think I have any interest in your tips.” His eyes flicked up to him and narrowed. He smiled impishly. “But I have one for you.” He wiggled his fingers and a glowing javelin appeared beside him, the crimson light adding to his malevolent appearance. The javelin flew toward Hood too quickly for him to completely dodge out of the way. He was able to move just enough for it to hit his shoulder instead of his heart, knocking him to the ground, the red glow illuminating the blood dampening his jacket.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he hissed through his teeth gritted to keep from affording Klarion any other proof of the pain he’d caused. “Let me give you a tip anyway.” He groaned in pain and pushed up to almost standing on shaky legs only flinching slightly when the javelin disappeared. “You should brush your fucking hair. You look like a skunk fucked a porcupine while a wolverine gave directions.”
Klarion growled and flew down to him. With a flick of his fingers, Hood rose up and floated toward him. The path seemingly designed for maximum pain, he was high enough his feet dragged along the ground but his path shifted toward any and every rock between him and Klarion, ramming his shins, knees, thighs, and sides into as many as possible. By the time he finally stopped, directly in front of Klarion, his pants were ripped open exposing cuts, scrapes, and the beginning of bruises that promised dark, deep coloring to come. “You smell like it too,” Hood added attempting to be light, but coming across as strained.
“You’ve bored me long enough,” Klarion seethed. He released his hold on Hood watching as he crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The change freed his hands to circle them creating a portal behind Hood. “It’s time for you to disappear for a very, very long time.” His smile widened, making his features seem even more gargoyle like. The illumination emitted by the portal accentuated the glee dancing in his eyes.
A surge of electricity erupted from Klarion’s fingers, not enough to kill Hood, that would end the fun, no just enough to hurt, and… nothing happened. He stared at Hood, brow scrunching in dumbfounded confusion for a second before trying again, with the same results. He looked down at his hands and gasped when his entire body flickered. “Don’t worry too much, Electile Dysfunction is a common issue for young magicians,” Hood snickered breathlessly.
Klarion narrowed his eyes at Hood, his hatred radiating from him almost as visibly as the weapons he had conjured were, and stalked closer until he was a mere step away then raised his foot to Hood’s chest but froze when he heard a voice floating into the room. “Well isn’t this cozy.” He turned his head slowly to the side as Ladybug walked into the light twirling her yoyo casually.
Her gait stuttered at the sight of Hood on the ground, bleeding in front of the flickering portal and Klarion’s foot ready to strike, but in the blink of an eye, she’d recovered, plastering on a patronizing smile. “I almost hate to interrupt such a heartwarming scene…” She raised her yoyo to her ear and nodded. “Yes, Teekl, almost.”
Her smile sharpened at Klarion’s horrified gasp and Hood’s amused chuckle. She sauntered closer, prowling like a predator playing with her prey until she was close enough for Klarion to feel the full power of her sneer, “But you see, I’m the only one who gets to kick him off things, down things, or through things. I don’t appreciate you expanding into my territory.” She quirked her head to the side, eyes narrowing in contempt. “Now, before I kick you though this portal that may or may not last long enough to actually sustain you through the trip, hand over the bracelet, and I will send your cat with you. Otherwise, I leave you stranded wherever that,” she bobbed her head to the side to indicate the desolate landscape beyond the portal, “leads.”
Klarion snarled at her as he lunged but froze just before contact. He stood prone for a few beats, the portal flickering more violently in the background as his power drained, then pulled back his hand, deliberate but reticent. His hand moved slowly toward his pocket, his eyes blazing with a promise of retribution. “You won’t sur…”
Before he could finish the threat, his body was tossed through the portal seconds before it closed. Ladybug stared at the empty space for a few seconds before turning slowly to Hood. “What did you do! I had it handled! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You mean today or in general,” he groaned, sounding more resigned than she’d heard him before, breath coming out in pants and swaying slightly, but eyes steady as steel.
“I’ll take the answer to either, but how about we start with what the fuck were you thinking?” she hissed. “We need that miraculous. Now he has the miraculous and we have his cat. I don’t want another cat.”
“One cat is more than enough, huh?” Hood chuckled then moaned again, clutching his shoulder and bending over as though the weight of his head and shoulders was too much to bear.
“Hood!” she shrieked. Her eyes blazed, fists finding a home on her hips. She should be consoling him, she knew that. And under any other circumstances, she would be. She would be helping him, caring for him, tending to his wound, helping take the weight off him. Any other circumstances but the victim being Red Hood.
But it was him and she was too angry to be caring at the moment.
Hood had that effect on her, and he knew he had that effect on her. He played it up. She knew he did. He knew he did. He knew she knew he did. And for some reason, she still let him. “Ugh!” she threw her hands up then motioned abruptly toward where the portal was. “Things like this are why I didn’t want you here!”
Hood finally looked up to send her a glare she could feel through his mask. “I know you think you’re tough, that you can handle everything on your own, but you are 5 foot tall against a…”
“I’m 5 foot 3!” she screeched indignant at the accusation.
He blinked at her and threw his head to the side then rolled it back looking to the ceiling for patience. “Jesus. You’re fucking Thumbalina!”
“I am not fucking anybody!” she yelled. “Wait…” There was no stopping the annoyed sigh that oozed out or the narrowing of her eyes. They were automatic responses to Red Hood. Her body just instantly reacted to him. “You’re awfully self-righteous considering you’re the one that’s hurt!”
“Because I was distracting him for you,” he growled finally straightening up as the frustration coursed through him and overtaking any pain. Instead, the pain focused his anger, gave it more substance. “That was the plan.”
“Because you were an asshole!” she growled back in his face, refusing to back down. “And you getting hurt was not the plan.”
He shook his head and stepped back to give him space to react and give her a disappointed look he hoped she could feel even if she couldn’t see it. “I’m an asshole because I distracted him so you could focus on your part?” he scoffed. “And yes, it was. You said play to my strengths which was pissing people off, the ‘people’ in this case being a violent psychopath. How did you think it would end? A handshake?”
She closed the space again, refusing to give him the space he sought, needing him to hear and feel her words. “The ‘people’ in this case was me! It’s me because you constantly piss me off because you do asshole things like this! Like the villain, with powers you can’t combat or defend against, into attacking you physically.” She shoved his shoulder hard. “You were supposed to distract, not antagonize.”
He scoffed loudly as he attempted to discretely rub his shoulder both without aggravating his injured shoulder and allowing her to see how much the action affected him. “Have you met me?”
She opened her mouth then shut it again quickly only to rub her forehead. “Yeah, fair point. I should have known better. That’s on me,” she agreed begrudgingly, the fervor from moments before bleeding out until she physically sagged against a stalagmite. “I just don’t… why do you always have to act like such an asshole?”
Hood huffed what could almost be interpreted as a laugh. The tension started to ease out of his frame. “What can I say, some people inspire it.”
“Awww, you think I’m inspiring?” Her voice was sickeningly sweet as she batted her eyes.
His snort echoed throughout the cave. “Yeah, like toxic relationships and love songs.”
“Hey, I like Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter!” She frowned at him with a glare, but they lacked the usual hostility that inherently marked all her interactions with him.
“You would.” He chuckled and looked around the cave. After a few moments, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the bracelet, holding it up in front of her. “It's not an act. Well, it is, but it’s strategic.”
She clasped her hands around it gentle yet rapid, like a Venus fly trap closing on a fly. Her eyes flicked up to him wide and awed. “You got it.”
He shrugged with one shoulder, somehow managing to keep his face from tugging at the pain. “Yeah, that was the job,” he announced like it was an easy feat, like his legs weren’t starting to shake and his head starting to pound.
She looked between him and the bracelet clasped tightly in her hand. “You got it before you knocked him through the portal.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have done much to knock him through after.” He watched her while she ws distracted by the bracelet, cataloging her every movement, her deft fingers trailing over the extent of the bracelet like her fingertips could channel the magic thrumming throughout it, her eyes moving over it like a caress, her tongue dampening her lips just slightly as they parted. “It’s also how I react to teammates who actively, consistently seek out the best way to hurt themselves,” he added harshly, but not unkindly. “The assholery,” he clarified.
“I wasn’t trying to get hurt. I was…” She sighed and let out a long breath, sagging against the stalagmite again. “I was the only one who could go after him. Like the others said, I was the only one he wasn’t trying to hurt. The only safe one. It made sense. It was the logical choice.”
“Right,” he scoffed, all the tension that had been ebbing from his body returning in an instant. “It made sense to go after your only natural predator, your greatest weakness. Your opposite.”
She groaned and dropped her head back, arms thrown out in exasperation. “Why do you keep… Chaos isn’t my weakness or my opposite, or whatever he fancies himself. Chat is. Chat is my opposite, my natural ‘predator’. You said he was like Teekl, but he isn’t. Klarion can’t function without his familiar, but Chat isn’t my familiar. He’s my partner. Without Chat, I still have my magic. Actually, it is even more powerful, which is bad.”
She leveled him with a pointed look, trying to convey the importance of her words, the importance of Chat. “He balances it. He keeps my power in check. Because Creation’s opposite isn’t Chaos, it’s Destruction. Destruction keeps Creation in check. It keeps Chaos from reigning. Creation without Destruction is Chaos. That’s why I said he wasn’t my opposite. He’s what I become without Chat. He’s my portent.”
Hood opened his mouth to respond, but instead swayed and staggered to the side, barely catching himself on a stalagmite.
“Hood!” she shrieked again, this time with considerably more worry and less judgement, possibly for the first time she’d ever said his name that way. “Okay, lets…” she helped ease him down to the ground, back resting against the stalagmite and pushed his leather jacket off his shoulders and eased it down his arms, trying hard not to jostle him too much.
When she opened her yoyo again, he tensed, preparing for a feline foray. “Magical vortex,” she assured him, her voice calm on the surface, but there was an underlying tension she couldn’t quite mask, reinforced by the way her eyes kept flicking from his face to his shoulder to his legs. “Things can’t get out unless I want them to. But I can store things.” She held up a box with a large red cross on the lid, like a prize.
He could see her holding something in, something that wanted to burst from her. When she wet her lips and took a breath, he knew she was ready to let it out. “You weren’t supposed to take his hits,” she stated carefully, her eyes focusing intently, pointedly, on his shoulder. “I never… the plan wasn’t for you to sacrifice yourself to get the bracelet.”
“It worked. It made sense. It was the logical choice,” he parroted back to her with only a hint of a sneer.
She finally raised her eyes to meet his, blazing even though narrowed. “Ooohhh!” she hissed out. She barely held herself back from shoving him again. “For as much as you accuse me of acting against my own self-interest, you immediately went for letting him attack you. He could have killed you. He wanted to kill you. If he’d been less interested in watching you suffer than just getting the act done, he would have.”
“Klarion is a showboat,” Hood scoffed. “He likes hearing himself talk and peacocking around too much to actually do much damage.” He shrugged and immediately hissed at the bolt of searing pain that shot through his shoulder. He just began to relax again, the pain easing slowly then all the muscles in his body tensed at once as Ladybug pulled the dressing tighter than necessary to tie it off. Her unrepentant, narrowed eyes met his glare.
“Right. Sure. Whatever. Just, next time don’t make me have to patch you up when you decide to get yourself killed,” she growled. She leaned back on her heels, away from him and his need to martyr himself in front of her. She threw the equipment back into the kit significantly more aggressively than necessary.
When all the equipment was disheveledly in the kit, her eyes flicked up to him momentarily and immediately returned to the kit, this time placing things back into place with more delicate precision. “Thank you,” she grumbled. “For coming after me,” she clarified quietly.
Hood stared at her for a few seconds before shifting uncomfortably. “I wasn’t done with him anyway…” He looked away and shifted again, “bastard just disappeared on us. I wanted to finish it…and he was threatening my teammates. That’s my job.”
His response surprised a bark of laughter out of her. “Careful, Hood, I might start to think you care,” she chuckled tightly.
“Perish the thought,” he hissed through the pain. “And thank you, too… for patching me up.” The words were sincere but still came out stilted and rough, like he was unfamiliar with saying them.
Ladybug hummed and looked away, the atmosphere suddenly awkward and uncertain. “So…” she scanned the cave for a second before returning her eyes to him, “is my English just that bad or is ‘electile’ not a word?”
Hood snickered. “Absolutely a word,” he assured her. “It refers to…”
Whatever meaning he was about to make up was interrupted by a portal opening up next to them. Ladybug shot up between Hood and the portal, body tense, prone for a fight, but instantly relaxed when Chat stepped through and wrapped her in a hug.
Red Robin stepped around them searching the cave. “Where is he? What’s the situation?” He barely moved to allow Nighwing to step past him, immediately zeroing in on Red Hood on the ground.
“Asswipe is somewhere else,” Hood grunted as he batted Nightwing’s probing fingers away from his shoulder.
“Could you be a bit more specific,” Carapace asked, his voice and gaze flat. “Somewhere else like another part of the cave? Somewhere else like he fled and will be back in anytime? Somewhere else like you killed him and buried the body?”
Pegasus leaned through the portal but flinched back when Ladybug peeked around Chat with a wicked grin. “Did he inhabit Ladybug’s body? Is that where he is?”
She rolled her eyes. “Idiot.” But the grin came back as she held up her yoyo. “We can’t say where he is, but we can say he can’t get back without his familiar.”
“Oh, shit,” Red Robin whispered, he cradled the yoyo, looking back up at her with bright eyes. “That’s amazing. You’re brilliant.”
“And the bracelet,” Chat prompted.
Ladybug and Red Hood’s eyes met for just a moment before she looked back to Chat. “Also, in there.”
“Right,” Nightwing announced, cutting through their chatter. “Pegasus, can you open a portal to the Watchtower, please? I would like to get this idiot to the doctor.”
“Yes sir,” he saluted and opened a second portal for them before ushering the Miraculous team back through the first one.
><><><><><><><><
Nightwing burst through the medbay doors, almost running into them in his excitement to get to Hood. Red Robin followed at a much slower pace, he gazed around indifferently. “How you doing? You okay?” Nightwing asked, instantly fussing over him. “What did the doctor say?”
“Fine,” Hood grunted, batting him away again.
“He’ll be fine after a bit of recovery,” the medic interjected pointedly. “He will need a day or two before he should be off bed rest and a few weeks before easing into training. Not in the field for at least 6 weeks.”
“I’m fine,” Hood repeated louder as though volume could end the discussion.
The medic shot him a flat stare. “You’re not.”
Hood glared at the medic, eyes narrowed with a venom that would make Ivy jealous. “Medical information is supposed to be private. Isn’t there something about not sharing information without permission?”
The medic snorted and continued to type on his computer to update Hood’s file. “Like I could keep it secret if I wanted to. One of you is literally a machine with a brain.”
“Yeah, but that one doesn’t even have a brain,” Hood huffed motioning toward Nightwing.
Nightwing stepped forward with a smack to the back of Hood’s head and a wide, reassuring smile. “I’ll make sure he follows the instructions,” he assured the medic.
The medic looked over his shoulder to raise an eyebrow. He looked from Hood’s defiant glare back to Nightwing. “Good luck with that. I’ve never seen any of you actually follow instructions, but sure,” he drawled before leaving.
Nightwing kept his smile up until the moment the door closed behind the medic. Then, like a light switching, his smile turned mischievous as he turned to Hood, studying him like he held a secret. “What!”
“Funny thing,” Nightwing noted slowly as though his thoughts hadn’t quite settled into place in his head yet.
Hood rolled his eyes so hard it could be detected even with the domino mask on. “Nothing about you is funny except your attempts at being taken seriously,” Hood grumbled. “And your clothes.”
Nightwing clicked his tongue as his eyes sharpened. “You jumped after Ladybug without any hesitation.”
“Almost like it was instinct to follow and protect her,” Tim finished the thought. He grinned wickedly at Hood’s scowl deepening.
Hood groaned and threw his head back. He looked toward the door calculating the effort it would take to throw two annoying vigilantes out of a room. He scrunched his nose at the result. Definitely more effort and backlash than he was willing to endure. “It wasn’t like anyone else was going after her,” he huffed. “Almost like nobody else actually cared if she was hurt, which I completely agree with, but I don’t want to face Wonder Woman’s wrath if we let her protégé get hurt.”
“Or,” Red Robin paused for dramatic effect and to shoot Hood a smirk, “or, you didn’t like the idea of her getting hurt and you wanted to impress her.”
“Impress her,” Hood scoffed hard enough he had to clear his throat after. “There is no impressing someone like her. She’s never satisfied with anything. Always has a criticism. Always has a snide comment.” Nightwing raised an eyebrow and dropped his head to snicker quietly toward the floor. “Plus, she’s seeing someone anyway,” Hood sniped with a bit too much forced indifference to be believable. “I don’t impress taken women.”
Red Robin hummed and shrugged. “It won’t last.”
“I don’t care,” Hood grumbled. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away pointedly. “It’s none of my business. I’m just impressed she found someone to put up with her. That’s, that’s what is really impressive. Something’s got to be wrong with whoever that is.”
Nightwing snorted but didn’t challenge him, barely managing to hide his smirk as Hood fell back onto the bed for a few seconds glaring at a point in the distance like it had personally offended him before he spoke up again. “So, you know who it is then?”
Red Robin quirked his head to the side. “What?”
Hood huffed and ran his tongue between his teeth and cheek as though continuing to engage in the conversation physically hurt. “You said ‘it won’t last.’ So, you know him? The asshole masochistic enough to date her?”
Red Robin couldn’t quite stop the snort that escaped, nor the smug smile on his lips. “No. I know her.”
Hood’s head snapped to him with a crack, quickly followed by a cry that echoed throughout the room. His hand flew to his shoulder as he let out a noise that he would never admit was a whimper. After a few moments, he lifted his narrowed eyes to Red Robin. “You know who she is?” he demanded like an accusation.
Red Robin rolled his eyes. “Of cour…” he trailed off in favor of letting out a deep sigh. He pursed his lips then leaned toward Red Hood, only pausing for a moment before flicking him in the forehead. “I don’t know her identity. But I know her. I know…” this time trailing off before he said too much, more than Hood was willing to admit to. “I know she isn’t fully happy. Doesn’t feel fully safe. I know it isn’t right, so it won’t last.”
Hood stared at him for a few seconds before closing his eyes and adjusting more comfortably into the bed. “Whatever. None of my business anyway,” he grunted, though the lines in his face had eased significantly.
Nightwing didn’t bother to hide his snort this time. “No, of course not,” he mocked. He shook his head and headed toward the door. “You just wish you were that asshole,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Hey,” Hood called, sitting up suddenly and looking around frantically. “Where did you put my jacket?”
“Jacket?” Red Robin asked. “You weren’t wearing your jacket when we found you.” He looked around the room despite his previous statement, as though it may have magically appeared.
“No, I…” he groaned and threw his body back into the bed. “You assholes left my jacket back there?”
Nightwing scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, so sorry for focusing on saving your life rather than your wardrobe.”
“I liked that jacket,” Hood huffed.
“Shouldn’t have let it get damaged protecting your woman then,” Red Robin responded, a smirk etched on his face, which only widened when the pillow hit so hard, it almost knocked him over.
“She isn’t my…” Hood let out a long breath and focused on reducing his stress. “Get the fuck out.” Nightwing left with a mocking salute and a completely unappreciated grin. “And give me my pillow back,” he called before Red Robin crossed the threshold.
“Nope,” Red Robin quipped back before closing the door behind him.
I managed to forget my computer when I went home for my dad's Celebration of Life so I'm behind on my plans so today's prompt isn't right, but I'll catch up.
Ladybug glanced around the ship… plane? batplane? whatever the Bat’s flying vehicle they were currently meeting in was called, taking in the optimistic look from the Bats, or at least two of them. She couldn’t see Red Hood’s expression under the mask he was wearing but she didn’t think he would be capable of ‘optimistic’, an observation reinforced by the way he was precariously perched in a chair, legs propped on the table in front of him. Nightwing and Red Robin, however looked chipper and hopeful. She hated to let them down, but she would to protect her team.
“I’m not saying we don’t want to help,” Ladybug assured Nightwing. “I’m just saying… it’s not the best time. There are some…” she scrunched her face as she considered how to phrase her next words just right to not reveal their personal information but convey the severity of their concern.
She glanced at Carapace quickly and then looked at the other members of the Miraculous team before looking back at Nightwing. “…personal changes that have come up and um… we would like to focus on that particular change. Changes!” she corrected quickly. “We would like to focus on those changes. And a mission may put undue stress on the… um… change. Changes. …in a delicate time.”
“Dieu, Ladybug,” Rena scoffed. She rubbed her hand over her forehead. She looked at the team, her gaze lingering on Carapace for a moment before moving to Ladybug. “I think the change can withstand a few hours away. It’s not going to… fail because we left the city for a few hours. If it does, it would never have survived anyway.”
Chat and Carapace both stepped forward, mouths open, but before they could say anything Red Hood spoke up, his voice booming through the space, derision echoing from the walls. “I think your date can wait a few hours to save the world, don’t you?” Ladybug whipped her head toward him, her face instantly contorting.
“We can certainly appreciate personal lives affecting your vigilante activities,” Nightwing spoke up quickly, exhaustion and a bit of panic edging into his tone. He stepped forward interrupting their line of sight, a hand raised in both directions in a conciliatory gesture. “We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t think your skills would be an asset. Please listen and then decide.” He ignored Red Hood’s scoff as he nodded to Red Robin to continue, but he purposefully bumped into Hood’s chair, causing him to flail out his arms to keep from falling.
“Okay,” Red Robin stated loudly before Hood could react. He clicked a button on his tablet and the main cabin screen behind him blazed to life, a dizzying cacophony of code moving too fast to read, files with seemingly arbitrary names, and randomly, a movie summary appearing. And in the middle, a Map of the Yucatan Peninsula. The screen suddenly zoomed in on a spot along the coast, and a series of photos popped up around the map, most panels of variations of green, but a few LIDAR and infrared images emerged between the overhead photos.
“This is the site the rogue team we are following has infiltrated. It is in the ruins of an as yet undiscovered by archaeologists, Mayan kingdom. This particular Mayan kingdom, or city-state, had grown particularly strong around 350 CE before their sudden and inexplicable downfall only 15 years later. It appears this rogue group, or rather the archaeology student helping them, believes it was due to a sacred relic. And as no other city-state rose to sudden power in the aftermath of their collapse, they theorize the relic stayed in the city. Hidden. They’ve been searching for it for the past 3 months and apparently are getting close.”
“And you believe this item really exists?” Rena asked. “Not just fallacious philosophical fantasy? People really like to write off ‘primitive’ cultures’ advances as due to outside influences because they couldn’t possibly have done it themselves.”
“Oh, it exists,” Red Robin grinned, his excitement at a mystery and making a larger archaeological discovery than his parents ever had, boiling over. “Both the bigotry and the item.” He pulled up a picture of a relief depicting Mayan hieroglyphs. “From the analysis we’ve done, this is the depiction of a bat above a depiction of a ruler wearing a rather pronounced lip plug. Sound familiar?”
Ladybug shook her head as she fought a returning smile in favor of a professional expression. “And we believe it actually has power?” she asked.
“Do you think you would be here if we didn’t?” Red Hood glowered. “Do you think we go out of our way to make our lives more difficult?” Ladybug quirked her head to the side and opened her mouth to respond but before she could, Nighwing cut in.
“We do,” he confirmed shooting Hood a pointed glare. He snapped his head to the rest of the figures as they all let out loud snorts at his inadvertent confirmation. “Think it has power,” he qualified, annoyance clear in his tone. “They did an analysis of the area and found there to be a magical signature.”
Ladybug nodded and settled on the edge of the table, as far away from where Hood had positioned himself as possible. “Do you know what kind of magical signature?”
“I’m going to guess it was Miraculous magic if we’re here,” Chat reasoned, his voice level and forcibly calm as if he could disseminate his serenity into the group.
Ladybug raised an eyebrow and turned back to the map, moving closer to the images and examining them more closely. “You are giving them too much credit,” she singsonged.
Red Robin cleared his throat and took a breath before answering. “We are still uncertain,” he admitted grudgingly.
She looked at Chat and motioned toward Red Robin with a look that clearly said ‘see?’ “Never trust a Bat.”
Red Robin rolled his eyes at her and slapped her hand away playfully. “But…”
“We will happily contact a Lantern or Zatanna is you’re too preoccupied to help save civilians,” Hood growled. “I thought that was your whole schtick.” He looked her up and down lazily. A condescending smirk settled on his lips. “You’re a hero, you like showing how good you are by saving people. Trying to prove how much better you are than the rest of us. Brushing them off to get laid wouldn’t exactly live up to the hype.”
Ladybug raised an eyebrow and quirked her head to the side like she was accepting a challenge. “Ooohhh,” Rena bubbled. She settled into a chair Carapace held out for her to watch the chaos unfold. She leaned in close to him when he took the seat next to her, like she was preparing to start gossiping, as though she intended to keep her voice low, a proposition nobody believed.
“We’ll happily contact a Lantern?” Red Robin muttered quietly to Nightwing. “Which one? Which one would we happily contact?”
“They’re not all terrible,” Nightwing offered weakly.
“Name a good one,” Chat asked popping up between them. Nightwing opened his mouth then closed it quickly.
“Hush,” Carapace chastised with a pointed glare that ignored Chat’s eye roll. “This is just getting good.”
Rena leaned forward to add her own chastising glare to support Carapace’s. “We don’t have much to keep us entertained lately. Let us have this.”
Red Robin sighed and turned away from them, closer to Nightwing as if his voice didn’t carry across the room. “I’m just saying I’m not going to be the one to deal with them. You’re taking the lead on that,” Red Robin finished quietly.
Ladybug ignored them and prowled closer until she was a few steps in front of Hood who sat up straighter in greeting of she approached, smirking as he leaned in toward her and abandoning all pretenses of disinterest. “I don’t know about the rest of them,” she vaguely motioned behind her, “but I don’t have to try to prove to anyone how much better than you I am. The evidence comes naturally and in abundance without ever trying.”
She leaned forward at the waist like she was addressing a child, though the glint in her eyes was savage. “Because I live up to my hype,” she purred. “All of it. Unfortunately, so far you have too.”
The comment struck straight to his ego. His smirk widened and he leaned back, arms behind his head and legs propped back up on the table, the picture of a man who had earned his reputation. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” She looked him up and down, her lip curled up into a sneer that got deeper the longer she looked. “Though I imagine someone like you thinks it is. All brawn, no brains, and not even one of the strongest League members. Your greatest contribution is as bait. More likely to use brute force than strategy. More likely to distract than act. More likely to destroy than save. And no moral compass.”
“Hey!” Chat squawked. “Let’s not disparage destruction, please.”
Hood’s smirk dropped into an annoyed sneer. “I’ve seen the hype you claim to live up to. Your moral compass hardly points north.”
“Okay, maybe we should focus here,” Nightwing interrupted quick and loud before Hood said something Nightwing couldn’t unhear.
“Boo,” Rena jeered. She looked around for a few seconds then under the table before leaning toward Carapace. “Do you have anything I can throw at him? There’s nothing here I can use.”
Carapace shook his head and looked around like he was taking in their environment for the first time. “It really is eerily clean around here, isn’t it?” he noted. A visible shiver ran down his spine.
“It’s clean,” Red Robin defended. “Do you not have clean vehicles?”
“We don’t have any vehicles at all,” Chat shrugged.
Ladybug’s cheeks managed to return to a normal color during their interaction, becoming just slightly rosy instead of her entire face and neck matching her suit as it had moments before. Her eyes narrowed at Hood, completely ignoring Nightwing unsuccessfully attempting to move between them. There was nowhere for him to stand unless he wanted to straddle Hood’s legs.
“I’ve seen some of yours too, honey,” Ladybug sneered. She ran her hand along his boot, ignoring his body tensing under her, until she shoved his legs off the table. “Awfully optimistic. From what I’ve seen you’ve been closer to death much more often than a stable or healthy relationship.”
Hood shot to his feet the second his feet hit the floor, towering over her menacingly ignoring Red Robin choking quietly and loudly whispering, “Well, she’s not wrong.” Rather than cower at his attempted intimidation, Ladybug stood straighter. “Aww, sweetheart, I love the effort, but I’m taken. Maybe try flirting with someone a bit more desperate,” Hood snarled.
“I didn’t know there were people more desperate than you,” she scoffed. Her expression somehow managed to cool even more. “But clearly there must be if someone agreed to date you. But I guess someone had to take out the trash.”
Hood took a step closer, his hand clasped tightly around the handle of his gun. “Right!” Red Robin announced loudly. He shoved Nightwing between Hood and Ladybug and pushed at her shoulder to turn her back toward the screen to focus on the mission at hand. Without looking, he already knew the thunk he just heard was Nightwing shoving Hood back in a seat.
She continued the eye contact with Hood for a beat to drive home her point before allowing Red Robin to redirect her and focus back on the pictures. “Where are they focusing their searches?” she asked curiously staring at one particular image that seemed like a typical overhead jungle shot, just like every other one. However, this one was a wider shot of the region. Like the others, there was the tapestry of green over the vast majority of the image, but this one was wide enough to include the surrounding area including a bit of the sea in the corner and a small cenote just before the sea.
She stepped closer to the image, not reacting when Chat stepped behind her close enough his right shoulder was bolstering her left shoulder like a support structure. He raised a hand to trace a slightly darker green square near the center of the image and traced a dark line leading from the square. Ladybug nodded.
“That’s the temple,” Red Robin stated. He stepped up to the other side of Ladybug, but unlike Chat, he gave her a bit of space. “That’s where they’ve been focusing. There are quite a few smaller structures and what looks like a road out, but they have only been looking at the temple in the center of the city-state.”
“We agree that is the most likely spot,” Nightwing spoke up. He moved to the other side of Red Robin and pulled up another image on the main screen. This one was a closer picture of the temple, giving a better idea of its dimensions. He expanded it so everyone in the room could see it clearly. “We know the Mayans had a pantheon and believed in Magic and the power of magic rituals. Temples were where kings preformed their magic ceremonies and where priests lived. It is likely the temple is where the relic would be kept.”
“Believing gods have powers and actions we perform can affect those powers isn’t magic. It’s religion,” Ladybug noted distractedly. She quirked her head to the side still studying the original image to the side of Nightwing’s image and flicked the touch screen to examine the other images, quickly flicking through them when they didn’t show her what she was looking for, until she arrived back on the original image.
“Yeah, but this object had powers that allowed them to manipulate the world around them and gave them the power to gain enough influence to become the leading kingdom in months,” Nightwing shrugged.
Carapace stepped up next to Chat and shook his head distractedly as he expanded one of the shots from a lower angle. “According to Frazer, Ladybug is right. That’s the difference between magic and religion. Magic attempts to impact the natural world directly, religion attempts to impact the natural world via gods,” he offered. “Both use objects to channel that impact.”
Red Robin, Nightwing, Rena, and Chat stared at Carapace in surprise, Chat with his jaw on the floor. “That’s right,” Rena nodded absently, eyes never leaving Carapace, though the look had shifted from shock to awe. “He’s right. That’s what Frazer said, though there are concerns about his theory as seriously compromised due to bias.”
“What is happening right now?” Chat muttered to nobody in particular. He shook his head like he was trying to rattle them into the appropriate slots. When they still hadn’t placed neatly, instead stacking on top of one another like a rookie Tetris game, he looked over to Carapace searchingly. “How… what? You never paid attention in World Religions. You tried to copy off me! How do you people know these things? None of you studied.”
“I studied,” Ladybug scoffed. “I have a degree in…” she glanced around at the Bats watching them with varying amounts of amusement. “A degree,” she finished defiantly.
“Not in Religious Theory or even History!” Chat exclaimed.
Carapace shrugged. “I’m married to her,” he motioned to Rena who had taken the opportunity to join the group at the monitors. “I picked up a few things.” Chat stepped back and rubbed his temples, reevaluating his world view but Rena grinned sappily.
“Awww, babe,” she kissed Carapace on the cheek. “Now if you could pick up your socks as easily as obscure religious theory…” she added tiredly.
“Don’t you call what you do magic, not religion, and didn’t you say there are gods involved?” Red Robin asked dryly.
Carapace opened his mouth but snapped it closed quickly, the only sound in the chamber was Ladybug’s snort. Red Robin raised an eyebrow at her and she gave an acknowledging shrug.
“Okay, that was a fun aside and I love a philosophical debate,” Hood grunted. “But, regardless of Nightwing’s nationalistic bigotry,” he ignored Nightwing’s scandalized gasp, “we would like to get this object before the rogues do, and we have an even larger problem that we are going to have to clean up.”
“I thought you liked being part of the problem, because then at least someone let you be part of something,” Ladybug drawled.
Chat stepped between Ladybug and Hood, non-discretely pushing her back with a hand to her face. “What do you think it does?” he asked loudly.
Red Robin snorted at the glare Ladybug shot Chat but quickly shook his head and sobered up. “It appears to make people… agreeable.”
Carapace blinked. He looked to Chat and Rena, who just shrugged, for insight. “Agreeable? Like nicer? That doesn’t seem like a bad thing. In fact, I’d like a bit more of that.” He glanced to Ladybug and Hood so quickly it would have been missed if you weren’t paying attention, which the subjects of his observation weren’t as they were glaring at each other.
“In this vehicle, if possible,” Chat mumbled so only Nightwing could hear.
“Like they do whatever they are told,” Red Robin clarified. “No resistance.”
Ladybug let out a long breath and nodded. It was sounding more and more like a miraculous. “Submission,” she stated like it was already a conclusion.
“Yep,” Nightwing nodded.
Ladybug met the eyes of each of her team members, receiving a nod from each, lingering on Carapace for a few seconds longer waiting for him to give a nod before agreeing. When he finally raised his head almost indiscernibly, lips set in a thin line, obviously not happy with the motion. She turned to Red Robin and nodded. “Okay, Captain. We’re in. If it’s miraculous magic, we should hopefully be able to detect the object quicker.”
“Yeah,” Hood snarked. “That’s why you’re here.” He stood up aggressively and stalked past her toward the cockpit. “That and according to your hype you’re the Queen of Submission, so we figured this was your kingdom.”
Ladybug turned bright red instantly with a loud squeak. Red Robin gave her a sympathetic pat as he passed her to join Hood. “Make sure to buckle, Red Robin is a great pilot but turbulence over the Atlantic is a bitch and take offs and landings are always rough,” Nightwing advised gently.
“Well, I can’t call it that now,” Chat grumbled. He buckled his seatbelt without making eye contact with anyone. “How about we go with Capitulation instead?”
“Agreed,” Carapace nodded. “Until we hear otherwise, we refer to this as the Miraculous of Capitulation.”
“Agreed,” Nightwing called back before shutting the cockpit door.
Red Robin kept his eyes forward as he powered up the plane, but a smirk pulled at his lips, and when he shot Nightwing a knowing look, it was not only returned, Nightwing sported a smirk of his own. “So, you’re seeing someone, Little Wing? Since when? Or do you mean like… do you see someone with us now?” Nightwing asked overly innocently.
“Fuck off,” Hood fumed. He tugged at his seatbelt with significantly more aggression than required until the belt almost tore from the seatback. “You two seem awfully chummy,” he growled at Red Robin.
He shrugged. “Yeah, we would.”
He could feel the glare pointed at the back of his head. If Hood had been a super, Red Robin had no doubt he would be dead… well long ago, but definitely now. “Why is that?” he asked in what was clearly barely controlled rage.
Red Robin snorted. “Because we’re friends?” he answered like it was the most obvious response possible. “We went to see a movie the other day.”
Nightwing turned to him then, eyebrows raised in surprise. “As civilians?”
“No, in our suits. Apparently, it’s something they do in Paris frequently.” He looked over at Nightwing. “Chat and Kon came, too. It was fun.”
“How sweet,” Hood sneered. “A double date.”
Red Robin actually glanced back at Hood to give him an incredulous look. “I’m not dating anyone in that group. If you’re jealous maybe try…”
“I am not jealous!” Hood scoffed.
“Riiight. Because you’re seeing someone,” Red Robin nodded amused. “How’s that going? When do we get to meet them? Or do imaginary significant others not get to meet the family?”
“Leave the poor confused, frustrated, man-child alone,” Nightwing chastised more than a little cheerfully. “Focus on getting us there in one piece.”
><><><><><><><><><
“That was barely enough time for a nap,” Rena yawned after they landed a short time later. She stumbled down the gangplank to the ground, bumping into Carapace along the way and almost knocking him off, and would have if Red Robin hadn’t steadied him.
“I’m so sorry for being so efficient,” Red Robin chuckled.
Ladybug snickered and ruffled his hair as she passed. “How dare you.”
Hood stomped past them to exit the plane. “They probably aren’t used to a leader who is.”
“So, are we ready?” Carapace asked after everyone had exited the plane. “The little…” he examined the smaller transport vehicle with blatant skepticism, “… thing is safe?”
“Yes,” Red Robin answered confidently. “We’ve used the skiff a lot.”
Carapace nodded mindlessly for a few seconds before looking up again with a concerned expression. “And any new info before we move?”
Nightwing raised an eyebrow at the unexpected concern from the typically laidback hero. “Uh… you feeling okay there, Carapace?”
Carapace’s eyes darted quickly to Rena and back. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, just, you know… want to make sure nothing gets blown up this time,” he joked. His voice clearly going for light and airy but not quite achieving it.
“Right,” Nightwing drawled. He continued staring at Carapace, examining him like he was looking for a crack in the façade that he could wedge open.
Ladybug rested her hands on his shoulders with a sympathetic look. “It’ll be fine. Red is monitoring and will notify us if anything changes. You can trust him.” She took in and harshly let out a breath at Hood’s grunt.
Instead of nodding in agreement, Red Robin focused on his wrist monitor. “Well, that's not good,” he grumbled.
“Did you want to elaborate on that, just a bit?” Rena sighed.
“No,” he answered distractedly.
Ladybug waited a few beats for him to elaborate but when he continued to examine his wrist monitor, she groaned and threw her head back. “You know I love you, Red. But I hate it when you speak.”
“Thanks,” Red Robin looked up from his monitor long enough to glower at her.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hood sneered. “She lied. She doesn’t love you. Nobody does. But everybody does hate it when you speak.” Despite his proclamation, he moved next to Red Robin so he could look over his shoulder at his monitor.
Nightwing rolled his eyes and stepped up to the other side. “What did you find?”
Red Robin took a breath before answering. “It appears the goons are working with the Joker,” he said gravely.
“The Joker?” Chat asked looking between the Bats. “That sounds much better than you’re acting like it is.”
“No, Joker is bad. Real bad,” Nightwing grumbled. He peeked over Red Robin’s other shoulder.
“Are you certain?” Hood asked, his previous glower disappearing in an instant.
Red Robin looked up just long enough to raise an eyebrow before returning to his monitor and typing more buttons. “Oh, now you’re dying for me to speak,” he snarked. Finally, he grunted and turned off his wrist monitor and stalked back toward the ship.
“Shut up,” Hood snapped trailing after him. “Are you positive?”
“Yes,” Red Robin hissed back. “When am I not positive? Or wrong?” He played the audio feed he had just intercepted on the main computer. There were a few moments of silence before a staticky voice broke in, “Tell the Clown we don’t have it yet but we think we’re close. There’s nothing for him to see yet.”
The first voice was cut off by a second more aggressive, unmistakable voice. “Then perhaps it’s time to replace you with someone who can find a single object in a TINY CONTROLLED AREA IN LESS THAN 3 MONTHS. I will be there in two hours. I expect you to have it for me.”
Red Robin cut the audio and looked at the other Bats with a litany of raised eyebrows, furrowed brows, rolled eyes, frustrated grunts, and exasperated sighs, until Hood apparently couldn’t take it any longer. “I’m just saying, we should fall back and reassess!”
“Since when do you want to reassess instead of taking him on?” Red Robin scoffed.
Chat stepped forward and placed a hand on Ladybug’s arm and gave her a pointed look. The effect was immediate. The aggravation that had been clearly building, finding a home in her stance eased. It didn’t disappear completely, but she no longer looked like she was going to snap. “How does this change our plan?” he asked purposefully.
“It means we have a time limit for our search. The Joker is dangerous. He really enjoys violence, both physical and psychological. Complete and utter devastation,” Red Robin answered. As he spoke, he watched Hood become increasingly rigid. “And he has a particular taste for doing it to Batman.”
Nightwing shook his head staring at the reports on the screen. “How did we miss this?”
“We didn’t miss shit,” Hood barked. He shoved Red Robin hard enough to not only knock him off balance, it knocked him to the ground. “How did you miss this!”
Red Robin stared at him open-mouthed for a few seconds trying to let the sudden aggression. Hood had never responded that way before to a sudden update in information. Not even when the Joker had been involved. “They never mentioned the Joker,” he answered carefully. He rose slowly, hands raised to defend himself if he needed to. “None of the messages mentioned the Joker. They all went to an intermediary who must have been delivering the information to the Joker.”
“It must have been too much to resist,” Rena mused.
“What?” Chat asked.
“It’s a bat miraculous, right? And Sub… Capitulation. The poetry of using a Bat themed magic object to force him into… ah…” she looked at Carapace with a smirk, “submit.” Carapace shivered in disgust while Chat wrinkled his nose.
Nightwing dragged his hand down his face. “Fuck, that makes sense,” he groaned then stepped forward with a shake of his head. “He said two hours, so let’s take those two hours before he gets there to search and after that, we can reassess.”
“And if we miss our window?” Ladybug asked carefully. “If we go over two hours and we’re still there when he gets there?”
“We won’t be,” Hood stated definitively.
Red Robin sighed and bobbed his head to the side. “It could get bad, but you’ve seen bad.”
“If you’ve changed your minds, you can stay here,” Nightwing offered. “The main ship will be camouflaged and it’s completely secure.”
“You’re staying,” Carapace said instantly to Rena. She opened her mouth to object, but he shook his head, lips set in an uncharacteristically firm line. “No. We aren’t debating this. You’re staying.”
“More people will make it go faster,” Rena answered petulantly.
“No,” Carapace answered firmly.
Rena sighed but nodded. “Fine.”
“Okay,” Nightwing chirped with a clap of his hands, “with that odd interaction done, we should get going. We’re on a clock now.”
“We shouldn’t go at all,” Hood argued.
“We will be careful,” Nightwing assured him. “We will be careful, stay out of their notice and be gone before the Joker arrives. If we haven’t found it, we’ll reassess then. But we do not have time to argue about it now.” He stepped up to Hood and lowered his voice so only he could hear it. “I know you’re worried, but we don’t have time, and she can protect herself.”
“I’m not…”
“I don’t care,” Nightwing cut in. “We’re doing this.” He backed up still looking directly at Hood as he announced to everyone, “Let’s get on the skiff.”
Ladybug and Chat looked to Red Robin for some insights on what was happening, but he sighed, shook his head, and motioned toward the skiff. They looked at each other for a second to confirm their decision and finally followed Red Robin into the skiff. Chat ducked just before entering through the open back ramp, causing Ladybug to snicker mercilessly at him. “It’s like a full meter taller than you.”
“It’s… deceptive. Shut up,” he grumbled as he shoved her to move past her. He moved just in time to get out of Hood’s path as he stomped into the skiff, making no secret of his displeasure with the decision.
Carapace finally followed, the last to join, but only got as far as the doorway, taking a spot next to Ladybug to watch Rena as long as possible. The ship jerked slightly as the skiff detached from the main ship and rose above it. “Are we sure it’s safe to leave her there alone?” he asked nervously, eyes still not leaving Rena even as they rose higher.
Nightwing patted his shoulder. “She will be safe in the vehicle. It is cloaked and impossible to get into without permission. Honestly the safest place on the entire peninsula right now.”
“I just really don’t like her staying there alone,” he grumbled.
“I know you’re worried,” Ladybug soothed, “but she will be safe we’ll make sure. We can…” Whatever plan she had come up, she never had the chance to reveal. Carapace watched in horror as Ladybug fell from the plane and Hood lowered his leg to take her place next to Carapace. “Problem solved,” he announced calmly like announcing he’d buckled his seatbelt.
Carapace stared out the rear of the plane wide eyed, mouth agape. He woodenly took two steps to the side, making plenty of room for any bugs that might decide to fly onto the plane. Instead, a bat stepped into the open space. Carapace continued staring out the back, eyes never breaking their focus until the door finally closed. Finally, he turned and met Chat’s eyes, a knowing look passing between them, before turning his gaze on Red Hood.
“Did it feel good?” he asked, his tone seemingly filled with genuine curiosity. He nodded to himself before Hood could respond. “Yeah, I bet that felt good. I bet you're flying real high right now.” He suddenly stopped nodding, his smile turning into a grimace as he sucked in a breath. “I'm happy for you. I'm happy that your last moments on Earth are joyous. ‘Cuz she is going to kill you.”
He paused and looked at nothing as he moved his hands as if trying to help form the right words out of air. Finally, he appeared to have figured out the words. “Are you sure that I can't just… you know… kick you off of something high before that happens? Please? It would make my last moments happy. You know, before your family kills me like Ladybug's going to kill you.”
Hood stared at him for a few deadly silent seconds before slowly turning toward the front of the skiff and walking with measured, solid steps away from Carapace’s pleading looks.
Chat stepped up next to him and threw his arm over his shoulders and shook his head. “Guess he’s just not a boy’s boy.” He shot a big smile at Carapace. “But, hey! Bro time! You know, before she kicks our asses for abandoning them.”
Carapace scoffed and made his way to his seat. “She won’t kick our asses. M… she isn’t like that. She’ll just ignore us for a while until we make it up to her.”
Chat shook his head with a snort and plopped down into the seat next to him. “I wasn’t talking about Ladybug’s reaction to leaving Ladybug behind.”
Carapace’s head whipped toward the back of the plane. “Oh. Oh shit.”
“Yep,” Chat nodded. He clapped a consolatory hand on Carapace’s shoulder. “I’ll pray for you and your home life after this.”
><><><><><><><><><
“You just proved my point,” Ladybug screamed at the retreating vehicle. She glared at it as it pulled away. “See? Never trust a bat,” she hissed to Rena who just shrugged.
“Guess they thought we needed some girl time,” Rena sighed.
Ladybug snorted. “Think they think we’re going to have a pillow fight?”
Rena snickered. “Can you imagine their faces if they came back and we were in our underwear surrounded by feathers?” Ladybug’s face instantly flushed red, but Rena continued as though she hadn’t purposefully caused her to turn that color. “Think they realize you could have gotten back on that ship if you wanted?”
“Chat and Carapace definitely do,” Ladybug scoffed. She made her way back to the computer and pulled up the image she had been looking at again.
“But you were just so excited to spend time with me?” Rena asked innocently, knowing full well there was more to the story if Ladybug hadn’t gone after the skiff. There wasn’t a chance she would have allowed herself to be treated that way unless she had a plan.
“If it’s as dangerous as they said, I don’t like you staying alone,” Ladybug answered distractedly.
“And,” Rena prompted.
Ladybug whirled toward her with a devious grin. “And I think I know where the object is and they are way, way off. And since we aren’t allowed to check there first…”
Rena raised an eyebrow, but her lips raised up into a matching smirk. “We’re going to solve this whole damn thing on our own purely out of spite, aren’t we?”
“Damn right,” Ladybug nodded. “Taking advantage of my most powerful tool… and Brian is studying Mesoamerican Archaeology. Did you know the bat is associated with the underworld in Mayan mythology? Now, do you want to walk a few miles or take the plane?”
><><><><><><><><><
“Have fun storming the castle, boys?” Ladybug asked, an unsettingly smug grin on her lips when they returned one hour and fifty-two minutes later. She leaned against the edge of the table, throwing a green object up and catching it with the same hand, seeming to have finally found something in the ship that could be thrown.
“It was a temple,” Red Robin grunted as he passed by her to collapse into one of the seats at the table. He eyed the projectile warily as he passed, fairly confident it would be used against Hood, but not entirely so.
“It was unproductive is what it was,” Carapace mumbled, settling into the seat next to him.
Ladybug turned toward them with an exaggerated pout. “Aww, did you not find what you were looking for? U2 has a song about that.”
“We searched everywhere,” Chat groaned. I even detransformed and asked Plagg to look. He laughed and said it wasn’t there. When I asked if he could sense it, he said not to worry about it.”
“Huh,” Ladybug hummed, lips quirked to the side mocking imitation of thought. “Strange.” She threw the object up and caught it a few more times while she pretended to think. “Wonder what he meant.”
He huffed and leveled Ladybug with an exasperated look. “I think your little god needs to speak to my little annoyance.”
“Either way, it wasn’t there. It seems like it was a wild goose chase after all,” Nightwing sighed. “We used all kinds of analytic tools to find it, and the magical signature was exceptionally weak. There was nothing to follow.”
“Oh, it wasn’t a goose,” Ladybug grinned. “It was a bat. They were right about that”
Red Robin blinked at her. “It was a…”
“You found it,” Chat observed. Not a question. Her smug grin was an answer in itself. He let out a pained groan and dropped his head. Karma. That’s what it was. It was karma for allowing her to have been kicked out of the skiff.
“Duh,” she grinned.
“Where is my wife?” Carapace asked suddenly looking around anxiously.
“You found the item?” Hood demanded. He stepped up behind her close enough for her to feel his anger rolling off him like heat waves.
She turned toward him and quirked her head to the side and opened her eyes wide and innocently. “What, like it was hard?”
“You’re unbelievable,” Red Robin huffed but his lips quirked up.
She looked over her shoulder with an even smugger grin. “Thank you,”
“Not a compliment,” Hood growled.
“It kind of was,” Red Robin mumbled quietly, making sure not to meet Hood’s eyes and garner his ire.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Hood thundered. “After everything we said, you went in and risked your lives!” He moved to crowd Ladybug but before he could Carapace stepped in front of her and grabbed the jade lip plug from her hand.
“You brought my pregnant wife into the temple! Right into the danger?” he bellowed. Red Robin and Nightwing leaned back in their chairs while Chat grimaced. “And you still haven’t told me where my wife is or if she got hurt because of your moronic decision!”
Ladybug raised an eyebrow, challenge in her eyes. Everyone braced for the response, but then she took a deep breath and her eyes softened. “We didn’t go to the temple,” she quietly stated then smiled gently. She walked to the display and pointed at a picture. “Cenote. The Maya believed Cenotes were paths to the Underworld and many rituals were performed there. If the miraculous had to be in this kingdom and wasn’t in the temple…”
“Then it had to be in the cenote,” Nightwing nodded.
Ladybug nodded, but her eyes never left Carapace. “We never went near the temple. We didn’t have to. Also, beautiful place. You should check it out.”
“Oh,” Carapace uttered quietly, the word coming out like a relieved breath along with all of his bluster. He looked up to finally meet her eyes, a glimmer of regret showing through. “Ladybug…”
She snorted and waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. You were protecting your family.”
“Yeah, but…” he let out a long, frustrated breath and ran his hand over his face. “I shouldn’t have accused you of doing something that would harm her or our baby. I should know better. I DO know better.”
“It’s fine. I understand. Your wife though…” she grimaced. “Questioning her judgement… Good luck with that.”
“Oh yeah… oh shit.” His eyes opened wide and he pulled his shield close to his chest, a figurative shield against the anger he knew was coming. “Oh, I messed up.”
“And announcing the pregnancy to everyone before she could…” Chat grimaced.
He joined them with a matching grimace the entire team matching. He turned to Hood “You sure I can’t… you know…” he mimed kicking him hard and something falling. “You know… before I die?”
Hood stared at him with what was clearly a deathly glare under his mask. He continued the stare for a few seconds then grunted, turned, and walked away. “Fucking dumb ass heroes…” he grumbled under his breath.
“Rude,” Carapace harumphed. “Everyone else has gotten to do it except for me.” He nearly jumped out of his shell when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Dieu, Dudette.”
“Rena’s in the cockpit,” Ladybug said after watching Hood stalk into the cockpit. “She was a bit tired after getting the miraculous and she wanted to take a nap. It has the only chairs that could fully recline.”
He nodded. “Thank you.” He turned to Red Robin. “Think you can get us home without waking her up?”
Red Robin nodded. “I’ll try. And I’ll pray for you… not that I pray… or believe it does anything. I’m not religious, but I do believe in magic and I think you might need all the help you can get.” He snickered as he went to the cockpit, pretending he didn’t hear Carapace’s groan.
Welcome to Maribat Calendar Events July event. July is dedicated to JASON TODD.
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Keep NSFW works under the ‘Keep Reading’ line with an appropriate warning above
Questions? Send us a message/ask, or contact @mochegato or @izanae.
Get creative and have fun! We all look forward to your participation and submissions!
Welcome to Maribat Calendar Events July event. July is dedicated to JASON TODD.
Do one prompt! Do them all! Do your own prompt! Any participation is great! They just serve as ways to encourage that creativity. No Pressure.
The prompts have a sound track again this year We've created a Spotify playlist of songs we felt resonated Jasonette. Follow the link at the bottom of the post to listen. Take the whole song, the title, a lyric, the vibe, the music video (some have them), whatever you want from the song as your inspiration. Or create your own inspiration!
Make sure you tag us so others can more easily see your work:
AO3 COLLECTION:
Jasonette July 2026 | Archive of Our Own
TAGS FOR TUMBLR & AO3:
#JASONETTE JULY #JASONETTE JULY 2026
TAG THIS BLOG @MARIBAT-CALENDAR-EVENTS AND REBLOG SO OTHERS GET A CHANCE TO SEE TOO!
Guidelines
Any orientation or relationship style is welcome and encouraged (familial, platonic, romantic, aged-up NSFW)!
Any creative works (writing, fics, drabbles, head-canons, art, poetry, incorrect quotes, etc.) are accepted
Tag @maribat-calendar-events in your works so we can share it
Use the hashtag so others can see your work
Keep NSFW works under the ‘Keep Reading’ line with an appropriate warning above
Questions? Send us a message/ask, or contact @mochegato or @izanae.
Get creative and have fun! We all look forward to your participation and submissions!
“I don’t like this,” Marinette groused as she trailed after Roy with hurried, yet ultimately unproductive, movements and a furrowed brow, her too large jacket, or rather Roy’s jacket that hung loosely over his too long shirt on her, decidedly not flapping dramatically behind her as she would have preferred.
It was taking everything in her not to physically shove him forward under the delusion she would be able to force him to rush, maybe not at the pace she wanted, because she wasn’t sure humans were capable of moving at the pace she wanted, but faster than the glacial pace he’d set.
She glared at his red hair, effortlessly, sexily ruffled and not getting messed up in their rush. Why couldn’t she have fallen for a Super? They’d be faster. Or! Or a Speedster. She was in Gotham after all and had already met some Bats. Why couldn’t she have met one of the useful heroes and fallen for them? But noooo. She had to fall for a civilian.
One of the Speedsters had red hair, didn’t they? The old one? Older, she corrected herself grumpily. He hadn’t done anything to earn her ire, unlike the escargot in front of her. She shifted her glare to his shoes. Maybe if she moved his feet for him, he would actually move instead of whatever he called this sedate pace he’d adopted.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he chuckled with absolutely no amusement or sympathy. “Am I going too slowly?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed then looked around quickly to see who they may have woken up.
She glared at him as he seemed to move slower until he stopped and turned to face her. His teasing smile eased into a serious but soft expression. “I’m not going to go faster than I think your body can handle. I’m not going to stop you from doing anything, but I’m not going to facilitate the things I think will hurt you. If you think you can find your way,” he motioned down the hallway ahead of them, “then feel free to limp at the speed you prefer.”
“I’m perfectly capable of walking, running even. Which, please feel free to do as well,” she snipped. “I would love to prove myself.” He raised an eyebrow at her. After a staring contest that Marinette would normally have been more than willing to let continue until she won, she finally groaned then let out a long breath. “Fine.” She motioned ahead of them, her lower lip pulled down into a pout.
With a pointed nod, he moved again, continuing his previous unhurried pace, looking back over his shoulder frequently to assure himself she was keeping up. Instead of being endearing, which she knew it should be, it was making her resentful. She didn’t have time to go this slowly. Even if it did hurt, which she would never admit to Roy that it did, and every movement did, in fact, cause extreme pain, running would probably actually kill her, the pain would be temporary.
They were in a hospital.
She’d be fine. Afterall, she’d come back from worse. But, if something had happened to Adrien, that could be permanent.
“How do you know the hospital so well anyway?” she huffed.
Roy snorted. “Are you kidding me? I’m a Queen and friends with the Waynes and a bunch more friends who have more money than brains I know the layout of every major hospital in every major city in America. And a few in other countries too.”
Marinette froze mid-step and stared at him, her pout disappearing as her jaw dropped. “What?” Roy looked back and blinked like hearing her shock at the bomb he just dropped was unusual. “That’s… that’s… why would you know that?”
He grimaced and his shoulders slumped as he edged toward her. “Yeah, okay. I’m not doing great with words… today.” He sighed and met her eyes offering a wry smile. “I will have you know, typically, I’m charming and the best one on the… of the group with words,” he finished awkwardly. He may be having significant issues over the past day with telling truths that were a bit too deep for the short amount of time they’d known each other, but his status as a hero was definitely one that he knew wasn’t the right time to expose, because it didn’t just expose him, it exposed her entire family.
He gently cupped one side of her jaw, the side that seemed the least colorful, actually it might be the least colorful part of her entire body at that particular point. “I think something about you unsettles me,” he stated in a soft voice. He searched her face for a second before placing a soft kiss on her lips. “In the best possible way. Come on, let’s get to the waiting room.”
Marinette stared after him for a second, her mind warring between focusing on his words and the mission she had only moments before. Roy made it all the way to the next set of doors before one side finally won and she marched toward him, eyes narrowed. He’d win this one. She would let him change the subject, but only because she was so focused on Adrien. If Adrien had been any less injured, she would pursue the topic, but not today, a fact he clearly knew judging by the wide, smug smile on his lips as he held the door open for her.
She glared at him as she passed through the door refusing to acknowledge the way her stomach fluttered, and her chest felt a little less constricted as a result of that smile. He might have won this one, but she didn’t have to be happy about it. She kept the harsh eye contact until she passed him, only then facing forward and immediately freezing.
In front of her, feet from the confrontation just moments before, her friends were sprawled in chairs and a makeshift bed, which Chloe had taken command of after pushing several couches together. Or more likely, which Chloe was resting on after having had Conner push them together for her. Not that she couldn’t, but if there was someone around that she could get to do it for her, she wouldn’t have.
“I hate you so much,” Marinette hissed lowly.
He kissed the top of her head as she stomped toward the trio sleeping or seemingly trying to sleep. “Love you, too,” he chuckled, then froze instantly. “Like you… Care about you, too…” he rushed out. “Not… it was an automatic response.” He glanced up at her desperately, trying to read her expression to make sure he hadn’t screwed anything up with her. They’d already established where they were. She’d made her opinion clear, and he didn’t want her to think he was trying to pressure her or worse take advantage of her distress.
However, she didn’t appear to share his concern about the topic. Either that or she hadn’t heard him, because she was already across the room, descending upon its innocent sentries.
“How is Adrien?” she demanded loudly.
Max jerked up and looked around him anxiously, slumping back into his seat when he recognized his assailant. Marinette standing inexplicably angrily in front of them, Roy quietly closing the door. “Hey, look at that,” he sleepily reached over the arm of the couch to smack Chloe’s arm, “the doors don’t have to slam.”
Chloe batted his hand away distractedly, having risen significantly more gracefully and disdainfully while he was still floundering. “That’s because…” but her retort died on her lips as her eyes laser focused on Marinette’s legs then snapped up to Roy in a dark glare. “Why isn’t she wearing pants?” she demanded.
Max snapped back up in his seat, eyes suddenly wide open. He stared at Marinette’s legs for a few seconds before his head cocked to the side. “I put pants in your bag,” he noted puzzled. “I distinctly remember doing it.”
“Dude,” Conner groaned tiredly. He slowly unrolled himself from his, frankly, torturous looking folded position in the waiting chair. “Really?”
Chloe whirled back to face Max, face thunderous and accusatory. “Did you put… oh,” she interrupted herself and deflating only for a moment before turning her thunderous expression back to Roy. “Why isn’t she…”
“Did I pack the wrong pants?” Max asked, head still cocked to the side as his brain whirred to put the clues in the correct sequence to form a coherent picture.
“The wrong pants?” Conner asked, his voice thick with confusion and sleep. “How would you get the wrong pants out of her bag?”
Max looked uncertainly between Chloe and Marinette’s legs then back again. “She complains about not getting the right combination of…”
“Oh my God!” Chloe snarled. She shoved the second couch away with enough force, the heavy seating scooted back a few feet, so she could stand and glare down at him with more authority. “This is Marinette. She doesn’t care what she looks like. She is perfectly content going around looking like a…”
“Adrien, how is he?” Marinette repeated more loudly this time, frustration rising in her tone. They were all there for a reason and it felt like everyone else had forgotten what that was.
Chloe’s attention shot to Marinette but instantly drifted to Roy standing anxiously behind her. Her eyes narrowed as she scowled and stalked toward him. “I said rested, not happy,” she screeched.
“I did!” Roy exclaimed quickly, jumping out of Chloe’s reach before her nail, chipped at the edges from having been bitten throughout the night, could dig into his chest. “I mean I didn’t. I got her to sleep!”
Chloe’s eyes widened and her entire face morphed into pure fury. “You…”
“Not like that!” he exclaimed. He moved quickly behind Conner, which was pure coincidence. It had nothing to do with the whole body of steel thing. At least nothing he would ever admit.
“Adrien! Now!” Marinette yelled, causing even Markov to bob back in surprise. “How is he?” she continued at a lower volume but no less rancor.
“He’s okay,” Conner answered before anyone else recovered from their surprise. He edged toward her cautiously, hands held out toward her as though he could push down her fear and anger. “No change in status... well, no negative change. He's getting stronger,” Conner assured her.
Marinette’s body relaxed instantly. She collapsed into a chair as a tautness she hadn’t realized was holding her muscles’ position, releasing at the news. “Oh, thank God. Has he woken up?”
“No,” Max answered, his voice soft with concern, “but that is expected. It would be highly unusual, and slightly concerning, if he had. We’ve been keeping a close eye on him. Especially Markov. He’s given an update every time anything changed. So, we’ve been on top of it.”
“Conner Kent is correct,” Markov agreed. “Adrian is stronger, though still in a concerning state. He should remain under doctor watch and care.”
Marinette’s lips curled into a slight smile. “Thank you, Markov. We agree. If anyone suggests changing that, let us know immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Markov bobbed forward in agreement.
“I'm sorry,” Chloe cut in, the tentative edge from Conner and Max’s voices nowhere in her sharp tone, “are we just going to ignore the lack of pants?”
Marinette instantly scowled at nobody, but her eyes immediately found the doors to Adrien’s door. “I forgot to put them back on.”
“Put them back on!” Chloe screeched. She advanced on Roy again, harshly motioning toward Marinette. “Why did she take them off?”
Roy threw his hands up and edged around Conner again. “Back on after she threw them at Bruce when she found out he’d been tracking her through bugs in her clothes.”
“I am right here you know,” Marinette grumbled without looking over to them. “I can also give reports on my life.”
“But not accurate ones,” Roy scoffed. Marinette’s eyes finally moved from Adrien’s door to pin him with a glare. Her scowl deepened when Max snorted in agreement.
“He’d been what?” Chloe asked carefully, emotionlessly. An innocuous tone that would seem innocent to anyone who did not know her. However, to anyone who knew her, anyone who had experienced her outbursts. Those people knew that tone was more dangerous than any venomous, harsh timbre words.
“How did you get here with no pants?” Conner asked curiously, unaware of the chill that had run down Max’s spine.
“With a tight grip and a lot of luck,” Marinette quipped, a bit too lightly, avoiding Chloe’s gaze.
“We should get her some pants,” Max offered, immediately looking around to find pants she could use. He ruled out using the pants of anyone else in the room almost immediately and let his mind move to less traditional options. They were in a hospital; she couldn’t be the first person to come in without pants. They must have options for such cases. He looked for Markov to ask him to run some analytics but was interrupted by Roy.
“It’s fine. She’s going to be in a hospital gown anyway,” he stated, not loudly, but with a definitiveness, it was almost a solid thing.
Conner looked back and forth between Marinette and Roy. “Why will she be in a hospital gown now if they didn’t admit her before?” he asked delicately, like he was afraid the answer might break the straining stick holding up a cracked dam wall and release the flood water.
Chloe cocked her head and stepped closer to Marinette, her eyes running over her like she could run one of Markov’s analyses. “That is your first smart question. Let’s discuss that.”
“Hey,” Conner exclaimed.
But while Chloe, Max, and Markov’s attention was on Marinette, Roy shifted his attention to Conner and shoved him as hard as he could, trying to at least produce a minute movement. “What the hell?” Conner grunted. “Is that your new introduction every time you see me now?”
“You saw how bad she was and didn't say anything,” Roy whisper hissed, he looked around to make sure nobody was listening to them but pulled him away a few steps despite the others having become more focused on Marinette’s legs.
Conner blinked at him shaking his head like shaking the words into a more reasonable order. “She said she saw a doctor and was cleared so I figured you knew. Plus, she's no worse than a few of your latest fights.”
“She not a hero,” he growled through his teeth. “The gage is different.”
Conner opened his mouth to respond but immediately snapped it shut again. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Roy. I’m so used to you guys…” he sighed and nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Chloe’s eyes carefully traced the edges of the bruises exposed by Marinette’s impromptu wardrobe, tracking as one deep purple seemed to melt into a lighter purple of the next bruise before deepening so dark, it was almost black and disappearing under the shirt that swallowed her, making her appear even smaller than she already did. Chloe started to lift the hem of the shirt to continue tracking the path but was shocked back into reality when Marinette batted her hand away.
Chloe rolled her eyes and leaned back; arms crossed over her chest with an annoyed scoff. “Oh, come on, it’s not like it isn't something everyone here has seen before.”
“Excuse you!” Marinette shrieked. “It is something NOBODY here has seen before outside of my bikini at your pool party last year.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “Really? Well, that's disappointing,” she huffed.
“What do you…” Marinette stared at her incredulously. “He told you we didn't do anything. You yelled at him for maybe not meaning it.”
“Well, yeah. That’s my job. Can’t let him think it’s okay,” she shrugged off Marinette’s dismay like brushing off annoying lint. “But I thought he meant ‘we didn’t do anything’ like I mean it when I say I didn't do anything.”
Nobody responded for a few seconds, just watching the two women face off, one clearly considerably closer to a breakdown than the other, until Max finally broke the silence curiously. “What do you mean when you say it?”
“That I definitely did something, just not everything… usually… sometimes… okay never,” she admitted flippantly, “but it’s what I expect other people mean.”
“That’s the exact opposite of what that means,” Max pointed out at the same time Roy chimed in with, “Oh... yeah, same.”
“Roy!” Marinette exclaimed.
“Just with clothes on,” he amended, but the contrite tone was countered by his smug grin.
“Well, that’s… slow, but that’s the speed she likes so... Good job. I’m proud… I guess,” Chloe granted grudgingly. She eyed Marinette’s legs again, eyes narrowing into a dangerous glare. “Bitch, what does Ginger Spice mean you didn't see a doctor?”
Marinette let out a long, pained sigh. “I’m fine.”
Chloe’s eyebrow arched and bobbed back like she needed more space in order to properly evaluate the stupidity of the statement. “The fuck you are and according to Lucille Ball’s less talented brother, you didn’t see a doctor.”
Marinette met Chloe’s accusatory gaze with an apparently unbothered one of her own, just the slight tremor of the corners of her lips betrayed her. Finally, she huffed out a breath to glare at Roy. “Teller tale,” she hissed loudly.
Roy blinked once. Twice. Before finally responding, calmly, a harsh streak in his voice. “Tattletale. The word is tattletale. And if you hadn’t done something to tattle on, I wouldn’t have taled.”
“So,” Max started tentatively, drawing the vowel out as he stepped next to Marinette and Roy, almost between them but just to the side, not quite willing to insert himself into the mire, but knowing he had to, “you didn’t see a doctor?”
“I said,” she responded through gritted teeth, but quickly switched to a threadbare smile, “I’m fine.”
“That’s a no,” Max sighed. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Marinette…”
“No, she did not,” Chloe interjected with a sneer. She stepped in front of Marinette, having absolutely no fear of jumping right into the mire and any creatures stupid enough to try to come at her, “the liar.”
Marinette gasped and straightened up instantly. “I am not a liar.”
“Did you not imply you had seen a doctor?” Roy asked, though the tone was harsh leaving no doubt it was more of a disapproving demand.
She opened her mouth to deny, but the steely look in his eyes stopped her. She readjusted her posture trying to find one that fit the new situation. The incredulity of a moment ago felt wrong, like a too tight shirt, but giving in felt like not wearing anything at all and she wasn’t ready for that kind of vulnerability. She straightened again, but with less solidity this time, just the tiniest bit of waver in her posture that felt more like a tsunami wave to her, one she was determined to ride through. “Implication is not a lie.”
Roy’s expression fell into an unimpressed gaze. “Is that really the lesson you want me to take from our interactions? ‘Implication is not a lie.’ It’s okay if I only implied something false?”
Marinette huffed and looked away. “There were more important things to worry about,” she mumbled.
Roy’s unimpressed look somehow flattened even more. “The fucking genetics, man,” Conner grumbled under his breath, but still loud enough to feel like it echoed throughout the room. “If ever there was a doubt…”
Chloe’s scoff, however, was actually loud enough to echo throughout the room. She started to stalk toward Marinette but stopped when a nurse walked into the room, laptop open in his hand and fingers scrolling as his eyes darted back and forth across the screen. “Oh, look how lucky that is,” she sneered at Marinette with an overly wide pompous smile. “Hey, you, Doogie Howser, my girl needs someone to look at her. Bill the Waynes.” She waved her hand flippantly then immediately frowned as her eyes zeroed in on the chipped polish on her fingernails.
“Chloe!” Marinette screeched. She opened and closed her mouth. Her brows furrowed and head cocked to the side as she tried to scrub her brain. “Who is Doogie Howser?” she finally asked after finding no trace of the name.
“Don’t know. Just know it’s an insult for doctors,” she shrugged. Suddenly, she straightened up and leaned closer to Marinette, her eyes alight with glee, like she was sharing a secret. “I heard someone say it a few years ago and the look on the guys face…” she glanced into the distance a blissful expression settling on her face making her look almost innocent, a look that was utterly alien on her features. She let out a longing sigh and shook her head, snapping it toward the nurse when he took a step. “Where do you think you’re going, Hot Lips? We aren’t done here. She needs a bed. In the same room as Adrien.”
The nurse snapped his laptop shut with a loud crack. “That is not how things work,” he stated firmly, just a hint of condescension in his tone. “We will get her on the docket to get checked out and if necessary, we will find an available room that works with the appropriate nurse specialty and rotation for her to move into.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes, but a smirk settled on her lips and her body relaxed as if easing into a role she was intimately comfortable with. “Do you know who I am?”
He looked her over apathetically, eyes settling on her blonde hair. “Well, you’re not a Wayne. Are you a Queen?”
“I am, but not like that. That’s his department,” she scoffed motioning dismissively toward Roy. “For your purposes, consider me a princess. In fact, the princess. The most spoiled, annoying, determined, screechy princess Gotham has ever witnessed.” She took a threatening step towards the nurse. “So, when I say, she will receive a bed in that room, I mean, she WILL receive a bed in that room.”
“Ma’am,” the nurse sighed heavily as if expelling his last, barely grasped reason to live, “if you think you are more annoying than one of the rogues messing with our medical supplies, causing us to have to triple check every single tool, supply, and medicine we use, you are sorely mistaken. Now, if you will excuse me, I will finish my rounds then I can find someone to enter her information into the system so she can be added to the Emergency Room docket. Or you could make it go faster by taking her to the ER yourself.”
“Look you insignificant irritant,” Chloe hissed. “This woman…”
“Chloe, please stop and let the man do his job,” Marinette begged tiredly.
“What do you think that statement will accomplish?” Max asked, voice comprised of equal measures doubt and curiosity. “You know it won’t work. Are you trying to get in the hospital staff’s good graces?”
“No, I’m trying to…” the rest of her sentence was interrupted by a loud bang against the door then immediately a quieter, but deeper thump. The nurse glanced at the door curiously, but Chloe, Max, and Roy immediately moved into battle stances, Roy’s move positioning him in front of Marinette. His body was tense but pliable, ready to react whichever way the situation played out. However, his body eased after a glance to Conner who was stifling a laugh. He glanced at the door curiously as it opened slowly and Stephanie poked her head into the room.
“We brought waffles!” Stephanie announced meekly, holding aloft a bag, splotches where presumably syrup had leaked through.
“Waffles and embarrassment,” Tim chuckled stepping around her into the room. His steps slowed until he stopped midway into the room.
She glared at him, dropping her hand with the bag so quickly the food inside bounced against the sides and a small tear appeared along one of the stains. “That’s your fault,” she hissed. “I was ready to wake up stupidly early for this, but that wasn’t good enough for you. Noooo. We had to come hours earlier than I agreed to so you could feed your paranoia.”
Her eyes widened and she slowly turned toward Marinette and Chloe with a strained smile. “But I wanted... want to be here. It's fine. I'm happy to be here to support Marinette. You.” She motioned toward Marinette like Marinette may have forgotten who she was. “How you doing girl? You doing better? You look... okay you look like death warmed over, not going to lie, but that means you're alive, so fuck Black Mask. And, we brought waffles,” she exclaimed holding the bag out to Marinette. “That makes everything better.”
Tim waved her away, physically trying to push down her distraction. His eyes focused on taking in every detail in order to form an assessment of the situation before he chose a course of action, his eyes lingering on Marinette’s legs and his face contorting for just a second at the sight before slipping into a detached affect. “What… uh, what did we miss?”
“Me doing my rounds,” the nurse grumbled and started toward the ward doors. “Which I’ll perform for you now.”
Chloe smoothly stepped into his path. “I don’t think so, Nurse Ratched. Do you see my friend standing there?”
“My eyes work, yes,” he sighed.
“Then we aren’t done here,” she said slowly yet harshly with all the pomposity of someone explaining to one of their butlers why they were still wrong for not doing something she hadn’t asked them to. A position she was very familiar with. “We will not be done here until you take her to be examined.”
Stephanie straightened up and with significant effort tore her eyes away from Chloe, but her head quirked to the side, concern seeping into her tone. “She needs to be examined again?”
“She needs to be examined for the first time,” Conner grumbled, with absolutely no concern in his tone. There wasn’t room with all the frustration.
“She wasn’t examined?” Tim asked, his head whipped back and forth between Marinette and Chloe then finally landing on the nurse. “How the Hell did that happen? She came in here after a fight with Black Mask and nobody examined her?”
Marinette’s shoulders slumped and she let out a long breath. “I am fine,” she repeated yet again.
Tim stared at her incredulously. “Not with bruises like those you aren’t,” he growled motioning toward her legs. “And from what we heard, your legs were not the part that got hit the hardest.” He turned his glare toward the nurse. “I need Dr. Tompkins here now.”
“I was not on duty when any Black Mask victims were brought in so I cannot speak to what happened. However, I can submit your request,” he agreed, “after I’ve done my rounds. However, if you want Dr. Tompkins specifically…”
“We’ll submit the request now,” he cut in dismissively, already done dealing with him. He sent Stephanie a look, one she instantly understood based on her nod just before she shoved the waffles into Max’s hands and stepped out of the room, phone already in hand.
Chloe nodded at him in approval but narrowed her eyes at the nurse. “Now we just need them to put her in Adrien’s room.”
“This is not a hotel. You cannot simply request a room. There are regulations, requirements, health standards. We have a hard enough time complying amidst all the rogue attacks. We’re certainly not going to acquiesce to you,” he stated with forced, not entirely believable calmness. “Not to mention I have no idea who you are talking about.”
“Adrein Agreste,” Max clarified. “He was admitted last night.”
The nurse nodded slowly. “Right. Mr. Agreste. Severe…” He snapped his mouth shut when the door eased open as Stephanie strode back in with a nod to Tim. “I can’t reveal anything about his condition.” He looked over at Marinette. “And we cannot put her in his room. He is in critical condition and under extensive observation.”
“And she would like to extensively observe him as well,” Chloe snapped. “And she is going to get what she wants because she is of particular interest to the Director of Style Queen, the CEO of Graham Studios, Jagged Stone’s entire team and especially the man himself, Clara Nightengale, the CEO of Tsurugi Industries, the entire Miraculous team of heroes, Wonder Woman…”
“And the Bat family,” Tim cut in, crossing his arms over his chest. “They’ve been watching over her since she was outed as a Wayne,” he added quickly. “As well as the Waynes themselves and every executive of Wayne Enterprises who’s met her.”
“And the Queens,” Roy added in stepping behind Chloe, “and the Arrows.”
“And the Luthors, and the Supers,” Conner added stepping up on Chloe’s other side. “Not to mention the lead reporter for the Daily Planet, and Clark Kent.”
“Oh my God,” Marinette groaned. She dropped her head to her chest and covered her face with her hand as though she could disappear behind it. “Chloe, guys, please…”
“And me,” Stephanie offered after a beat. “I don’t, like, know who else other than the people they mentioned and I don’t have money or anything, but yeah, me too.”
“And none of them like to see her disappointed. So, when I say, you will do everything you can to make sure she and Adrien are cared for and together,” Chloe stepped closer to the nurse digging her nail into his chest, “I mean you. Will. Do. Everything. To. Make. Sure. She. And. Adrien. Are. Cared. For. And. Together.”
The nurse looked down at his chest for a beat then looked back up with a look so over the situation, he could have pointed to this moment as his villain origin story and nobody would have been surprised. “I told you already, I cannot put her in the same room, it would disrupt them both and the room is not able to support two beds and all the ancillary equipment,” the nurse responded tiredly. He looked over them again then lifted his gaze to the ceiling with a silent prayer for serenity before returning his eyes to Chloe. “But tell Dr. Tompkins there’s at least one open room in this ward. I don’t know where it is but it’s at least close.” He nodded to them and left the room, without getting intercepted this time.
Chloe glared at him until the door closed behind him then whirled around on the men who had stepped up to support Marinette, and more importantly her. Her eyes narrowed as she studied them like a legal brief cataloging every weakness, every loophole, every unsaid admission. “Interesting,” she stated.
“That was so fucking hot,” Stephanie whispered to Tim through hard pants, though the slight uptick of Chloe’s lips indicated she heard it.
“Can you guys not threaten and intimidate innocent people who are just doing their jobs,” Marinette asked though her voice lacked heat, instead sounding about as done as the nurse’s had been.
“No,” all four answered in unison. Even Stephanie had allowed herself to take her focus off Chloe long enough to contribute to the chorus of voices.
Max blinked at them. He just barely stopped himself from taking a defensive step back. “Well, that’s just…”
“Fucking creepy,” Marinette finished for him.
“That is an accurate assessment,” he agreed.
“Threatening and intimidating people of all kinds is one of the many, many, many talents I was blessed with,” Chloe commented with only slightly less hostility than she had used on the nurse. “Which you well fucking know so I don’t know why you’re wasting the energy you obviously don’t have to fight me.”
Marinette narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, being careful to make it appear like it was firmly done while simultaneously attempting not to actually touch her still aching chest. “Fighting you is one of the talents I was blessed with,” she leaned in close to hiss through her teeth, “literally.” She maintained eye contact for a few seconds before finally backing away to glare at her from a different position. “And I’m not doing anything that means I can’t monitor Adrien.”
Chloe let out a long breath like she was having to deal with a particularly petulant toddler. “Which is why I said in the same room or across from him.”
“And whatever tests they’re going to do? You think they’re going to just do all of those in that room?” Marinette demanded. “No, they aren’t. They’re going to make me leave. And then Adrien will be left with nobody here to protect him.”
“No, offense,” Max added in quickly giving Tim and Stephanie a strained smile.
“He won’t be defenseless,” Chloe huffed. “He has…” she motioned toward the room and paused a second before continuing like she was looking for a word, “godlike things that float and watch over him.”
“Guardian angels,” Conner provided for her.
“Not what I would call them,” Chloe snorted dismissively, “and Markov, and whatever Bat is outside, and them,” she motioned toward Tim and Stephanie. “And you won’t be far away for long and you’ll have Max’… lucky glasses.” She took a step toward Marinette cutting the distance Marinette had just created. “And because if you don’t, I will tell Kagami.”
Marinette narrowed her eyes at Chloe. “No.”
“Yes,” she chirped back. “And think how much better ‘she saw a doctor finally’ will sound to our heavily pregnant, on bed rest, friend than ‘the stupid fucking bitch still won’t do the very basic, no effort things to stay alive after actively trying to get hurt’.”
Marinette leaned back, arms almost over her chest again, and clicked her tongue. “Oh, if it’s a stupid fucking bitch off…”
“It isn't,” Chloe cut in harshly. “You'd win. I’d win the insufferable but gorgeous fucking bitch off. So, you’re going to get your tiny, likely dark purple ass in whatever room their doctor tells you to go into and get checked out and let them do whatever they say they need to do get you healthy again.” She grabbed her phone and started toward the door, but called over her shoulder as she moved, “And call your fucking parents. They’re worried out of their minds.”
Marinette huffed and pursed her lips but didn’t argue back. She did want to talk to her parents, she was desperate for it, in fact. This had been the longest she’d gone without speaking with them ever. She just hadn’t had the chance or mental capacity to do it since Adrien had been taken. “I still don’t have a phone.”
Chloe turned back toward her with an unimpressed look. “Well lucky for you, you’ll have Markov. And I assume the Red Queen here has a phone as well.”
Roy immediately stiffened. “Red Queen?” he asked carefully, his eyes darted to Conner and Tim quickly and back to Chloe. “Why, uh, why Red Queen?”
Chloe tore her gaze from Marinette to look at him face scrunched with such incredulity she would have scolded herself for causing semi-permanent wrinkles if she could have seen herself. “Do I seriously have to explain the redheaded child of Oliver Queen why I’m referring to you as Red Queen? Is that a thing I need to do? Do…”
She shook her head with a disgusted huff and turned to Markov. “We’re going to have to rely on you more than we thought. Don’t listen to Strawberry Shortcake here…” she turned toward Roy, eyes widened in faux concern, “do I need to explain that one too?”
She turned back to Markov before Roy could respond. “About anything,” she continued. “And when we come back this afternoon, with food, because we care if our friends have eaten or not,” she added pointedly glaring again at Roy, “we will bring your phone. And the charger for you, Markov. Also, I’m putting you in charge.”
“Thank you,” Roy nodded as he stepped forward to place a protective arm around Marinette’s shoulders but only hovered over them so as not to put pressure on her bruises.
Chloe’s face immediately scrunched in disgust. “Not you, snitch.” She motioned toward Markov who had already floated forward to meet her gaze with a bob forward. “Wake us up immediately if anything happens, Markov.”
“Of course, Chloe. I will monitor both of them,” he stated.
“Wait,” Roy interrupted, “it gets a full, accurate name, and I get the snarky monikers?”
Her eyes flicked up and down with a sneer. “I respect Markov.”
“Thank you, Chloe. And I fear you,” Markov stated matter of factly.
“And I appreciate that about you,” she cooed. “Now I need to get some sleep before I start looking like her.” She motioned toward Marinette almost like an afterthought as she made her way toward the door.
“Thanks Chlo,” Marinette deadpanned.
Chloe halted her progress enough to sneer without heat at Marinette. “Well see a fucking doctor and get better and I won’t get to say shit like that.”
Marinette scoffed. “Like that would stop you.”
Chloe shrugged. “True.” She continued walking toward the doors again and froze in front of them to glare at Max who had forgotten he was apparently supposed to go with her. He scrambled to join her and opened the door for her. She continued her glare for another few moments then turned back toward the room. “And let us know if you detect any…” she motioned like bugs flying about, or more specifically a bug and a cat, “messages we should know about.” She moved through the door without another acknowledgement or a thank you.
Max sighed and looked back at Marinette. “And let us know what your doctor says.” Marinette nodded but rolled her eyes and looked back toward the door leading toward Adrien’s room. He groaned and looked toward Roy. “You let us know what her doctor says.”
“Will do,” Roy nodded with a small smile. At least someone trusted him.
Max snorted. “Not you.”
“Yes, Max. I will let you know as soon as Dr. Thompkins enters her report,” Markov answered as he floated forward over Roy’s shoulder. Max nodded and followed Chloe out.
“Fucking figures,” Roy grumbled and dropped into a seat ignoring the snorts from the other people in the room.
The final day of Jasonette July: Castles in the Sky
@maribat-calendar-events
Link to AO3
Six months. It had been six months since she and Jason officially got together and everything was going perfectly. Marinette had really settled into Gotham life, setting up a boutique with money she’d saved from commissions and the bonus that Jagged had decided to pay her when he finally got fitted just before his tour.
Of course, he’d said it was to make sure she could settle down while looking directly at Jason, but she’d managed to keep her blush to a reasonable level. It helped that Jason had merely given her a besotted look that made her heart sing and reminded her of the videos Conner had sent her all that time ago.
She’d also been properly introduced to the Waynes as his girlfriend, a family dinner at the manor that hadn’t ended in bloodshed or tears, and Jason said that that was as good as it could possibly get. He’d also introduced her to Steph and Cass who had been absent from the gala and seemed to absolutely adore her, promising that they were going to have a girl’s night when their schedules allowed it. It had yet to happen but she was optimistic.
But now that they’d known each other for a year, she wanted to come clean about knowing he was Red Hood. And then she could tell him about her past as Ladybug which she’d kept secret as much as was possible while still letting him know what she’d gone through in Paris. She’d told him there were secrets she wasn’t ready to share and he’d given her a grin and promised that he was willing to wait.
So tonight, she’d made Roy promise that he would intercept anyone looking for Jason before he got pulled away, saying that she’d made plans to celebrate their six month anniversary. He’d been more than happy to, messaging the Waynes to say that he was on call instead of Jason if they needed it.
Setting up a picnic on the roof of her Nonna’s apartment building, she tucked the key for the new place she’d managed to secure under the desserts she’d made and hoped that the evening went as planned. The fact that the place was now hers - theirs, she hoped - was a surprise but he’d been involved when she’d been looking so she knew that they both liked it.
“Hey Pix,” he called as he arrived, coming to sit next to her on the blanket and tugging her into a kiss that made her almost forget her plan. But it was a good plan and she definitely wanted to share the news if revealing what she knew went well. “Mmm, this all smells amazin’. Is that your famous coffee cake? Baby, I ever tell you how perfect you are?”
“Hey Jay,” she giggled, straddling his lap and running her fingers through his hair as he ran his own along her waist. “Only sometimes. Had a good day?”
“Better now I’m with you,” he said sincerely, making her heart practically burst with joy. “Happy six month-a-versary, darlin’.”
“Happy six month-a-versary,” she giggled, leaning in to kiss him again. “And happy anniversary for the first time we met. Luckiest day of my life.”
“Wow, a whole year, huh,” he said, voice going slightly hoarse. “You think it was lucky for you? Doll, I don’t think I’ve ever been luckier than when I met you. Even if I lost Dickhead’s umbrella.”
“No, that was the second time we met,” Marinette said casually. She felt him stiffen under her, likely trying to work out when she was referring to and probably only coming up with the one instance. “I mean, you were dressed a little different, and Penguin was there-”
“What the hell, Pix, you know? Since when?”
“I worked it out so long ago,” she laughed, smoothing his hair back and pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose. “You left your suit out one night and I found it when I was looking for a sweater. You should really be more careful with your secrets, Jay.”
“Dammit, I knew you were too cool with me vanishin’ sometimes. Ah well, at least it means I don’t have to pretend not to know you when I see you skulkin’ around in Crime Alley anymore. Which reminds me, we need to discuss your self-preservation skills, Nette, ’cos they feel non-existent most the time.”
“Well that would be because of the secrets I’ve kept from you. Very well, I might say! You remember Ladybug, superheroine of Paris? That was me,” she admitted, flushing when he looked at her incredulously. “Surprise?”
“Well shit, now I can’t say you need trainin’,” he snorted, dropping his head onto her shoulder. “What’re the chances of us findin’ each other like that?”
“Got to love those instincts to jump into a fight,” she said, snuggling even closer. “You up to another surprise?”
“I swear to god, Pix, if you’re about to say you’re pregnant-”
“No! I got the apartment you goof. And now that those secrets are out of the way…I was wondering if you wanted to move in together,” she said, her voice getting smaller as anxiety started to close her throat. This was the moment he could turn it all away, that he could decide he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.
“You want to live together, knowin’ everythin’ about me?”
“Jay, I would move into your place if I thought it was big enough for the both of us. And I’m not saying you get rid of your apartment, I just…I want to be with you. Always, and to know I’m coming home to you every night instead of trying to make our separate apartments work like one.”
“Then yeah, there’s nothin’ I’d like more’n movin’ in with you,” he said softly, cradling the back of her head as he looked into her eyes. “I love you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. And I don’t think there’s a thing you could ask of me I wouldn’t do.”
“I love you too, Jason Todd. And I promise not to ask anything totally wild any more than once a week,” she said with a cheeky grin, relishing the laugh that burst out of him right up until he kissed her again.
“So there’s no girlfriend?” Marinette asked, exhilarated and exhausted as she lay draped over him on the sofa.
“I have no idea why you would think there was someone else-”
“I saw you together! You were cuddling, in the street, and you just- you looked so comfortable with her-”
“Who?” Jason asked incredulously, tilting her chin so that she had to look at him instead of hiding in his chest.
“The- the woman at Roy’s? She seemed surprised that I knew the news - you know, that you’d fallen in love with her - so I figured I had it completely right! And when I congratulated her on you getting together-”
“Jesus Christ, Pix, that’s my sister-in-law. She married Dick last year and she’s pregnant. The news she thought you knew was the baby they’re havin’, not that I’m datin’ her. Gross, she’s had sex with Dick.”
“But then who were you talking about in those videos-”
“I fuckin’ knew it, Kon’s a dead man,” Jason groaned, letting his head drop back and rubbing his face with the hand that wasn’t threaded in her hair. “I was talkin’ about you. Nette, I’ve been so stupid about you ever since you tried to take my head off for offerin’ you an umbrella. There’s nobody else, I swear.”
“Oh,” she said in a small, breathless voice. Everything he’d said when drunk…Tikki had been right. All her. Wow. “Now’s probably a good time to tell you I love you too?”
“Darlin’, it's always a good time,” Jason said with a sharp grin that stayed even as he angled her head to kiss her thoroughly.
_ _ _
Jason didn’t want to leave Marinette’s apartment but he needed to at least sort things out with Roy, let him know he wasn’t dead or out killing everyone he came across in a rage. He could probably do that by texting him but then the temptation would be to just keep Marinette hostage in her own apartment.
“You’re not gonna vanish as soon as I leave, right?” he asked, keeping her seated in his lap as he delayed leaving. “’Cos if I have to chase you to the airport I’m gonna be pissed.”
“Well I wasn’t but if you’re basically going to dare me…” she giggled, shifting away from him slightly.
“Nope, don’t even think about it,” he growled, kissing her neck and pulling her flush against him again. “Or I’m gonna end up stayin’ here forever and nobody’d ever see us again. Not that I’d complain,” he added with a smirk when she squealed and slapped his arm.
“Okay, I promise to stay in Gotham until we work everything out,” she said with a smile, turning around to face him. He gripped her hips as she put her knees on either side of his legs, not quite believing he wasn’t dreaming. “Maybe we can do something tomorrow? You know, like an actual date?”
“Why wait ’til tomorrow? I’m free tonight,” he murmured, cupping her cheek and drawing her into a kiss that made his veins thrum and heart fly. “I love you so fuckin’ much, Pix, you know that?”
“Love you too, Jay,” she said, smiling softly.
Making his way back to Roy’s apartment in the late afternoon, he smiled and hummed to himself. He had promised her that he would be there to pick her up for their date around seven and he just had to go and explain things to Roy before he started preparing for it. He got there at a much more sedate pace than when he had left earlier that day, much reducing the risk of breaking his neck.
“Hey, you look like you sorted things out,” Roy said without preamble, smirking at Kor’i who was drinking a cup of tea while they sat chatting on the sofa. Jason had let himself in and couldn’t even muster up enough annoyance to shoot a scowl at his best friend. No, Marinette had him completely and thoroughly happy just then so it was unlikely that he would be able to fake anger.
“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’ and dropping onto the armchair that was still free. “Worked out why she’s been dodgin’ me for the past week too. Kor’i, she got the wrong idea about who you were to me and she thought your news was about us gettin’ together.”
That led to a humour-filled explanation and conversation where Roy reminded him again that if he’d just communicated openly about his feelings he wouldn’t have ended up in that situation. Jason refused to admit it but he could acknowledge internally that things wouldn’t have become so messy if he’d just allowed himself to be honest with her.
“So, do you want to celebrate tonight? We could go out for drinks and-”
“No can do, I’ve got plans to take her on an actual date for a change. ’Sides, if I didn’t have plans with her I’d be off committin’ the murder of Kon for sendin’ her those videos in the first place. Not that I’ve ruled it out,” he muttered as he thought again of how easily it could have gone the other way.
“Man, don’t tell me we’re going to see even less of you now,” Roy complained, his voice weary. “You know if you don’t get enough rest because you’re too busy fuc-”
“Hey, I don’t tell you what to do with your sex life,” Jason said in mock outrage. “When’s Lian comin’ back? ’Cos I bet you’ll see more of me then, even if it’d be with Nette.”
“God, you’re going to be one of those couples, aren’t you,” Roy said in disgust. “You’re going to spend all of your time together and be gooey and inseparable, aren’t you?”
“I’m literally here without her now,” Jason said deadpan, rolling his eyes to Kor’i. “But anyway, you’re the one that wanted me to define the relationship, right? Well, I did it!”
“I’m just messing with you,” Roy said, waving a hand in the air. “Besides, Lian’s going to be thrilled that Aunt Nettie and Uncle Jay are actually dating now, so there’s that. But you’d better be making her a flower girl for the wedding.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed as Kor’i started laughing but didn’t bother denying his eventual intentions, not considering they knew all about his drunken ramblings. And the thought of Marinette all dressed up and ready to marry him left him a little speechless.
_ _ _
Marinette stood on the roof of her apartment building, letting the events of the past couple of weeks wash over her. She’d been every bit as foolish as she had as a teenager, jumping to conclusions and letting those assumptions fuel her actions. When she had believed Adrien was her soulmate she had rushed into planning an entire future with him without stopping to see if the relationship worked as well in real life as it had in her imagination.
With Jason, she had assumed the worst because she’d already been burned once. The wind ruffled her hair and she closed her eyes against the invisible touch. She wished he was there, so she could apologise for her behaviour over the past week but at the same time found it a relief to have some time to herself to get her thoughts in order.
She would need to talk to him eventually, about knowing his other identity, but she wasn’t ready to give up her own secrets. Someday, she hoped they would be together for long enough to justify sharing the kwamis and her past as a superheroine but not yet.
Imagining a future together, without any pressure of making it perfect? That made her smile.
Jason frowned at his phone, wondering if maybe he’d broken it somehow. Or maybe Marinette had broken hers and she could only send two or three word texts. The alternative was that she was avoiding him, which he didn’t want to believe but…the videos. They were bad, and he knew that because Kor’i had shown them to him and he’d groaned as he watched drunk him practically crying about how much he loved Marinette, even if he hadn’t named her. It was very obvious who he was talking about and he hadn’t been able to hold back, apparently.
But why else would she be refusing to see him? Why would she be making a million excuses every time he asked about meeting up? He couldn’t even try to offer Lian as a reason they should meet because she wasn’t here for another couple of weeks.
And yes, she did have a commission that she said she needed privacy to complete, so it wasn’t necessarily that she was avoiding him. He clung to that thought even though the creeping voice in the back of his head said that she was finished with him and even if she was doing the commission, she should be taking breaks. If he didn’t think it would be breaking her trust, he’d show up at her apartment anyway to make sure she was eating and sleeping.
He sighed and threw the phone to the side, wondering if there was another way he could check on her. He could always go out as Red Hood, linger in her neighbourhood until she showed her face for whatever reason. She had to be leaving the apartment sometimes, right?
Or maybe it didn’t need to be him. Maybe he could get Roy to message her and find out if it was a him thing. Maybe see if Kon or Tim had already sent her the videos and screwed his life up like that. It would be so typical of Tim to take this from him, to ruin his life by thinking he was being funny.
He was pulled from his dark thoughts by his phone ringing and he almost flew across the room to pick it up. Only to have to swallow his disappointment when he saw that it was Roy.
“Hey man, what’s up?” he asked, sticking the phone next to his ear as he slumped back onto the sofa.
“Got a mission for us, if you’re not too busy hooking up with Nettie,” Roy teased, only faltering when Jason didn’t fight back. “Hey, everything alright?”
“No, everythin’ is fuckin’ shit. Mari hasn’t said more than a few words to me by text for a few days and I don’t know if we’re still cool. I should never’ve gone out for Steph’s birthday.”
And then the whole story came spilling out, at no provocation from Roy. He told him about all the events that had led up to what was happening now. The words wouldn’t stop, his worries and fears tumbling over each other until he wasn’t sure if he was even making any sense.
The silence that followed his story felt heavy. The fact that Roy wasn’t laughing it off was concerning and it made the worry that was gnawing at his gut worse. They sat in silence for several minutes before Roy sighed and Jason could already hear the ‘I told you so’ that was definitely coming.
“Listen, Jay, you should maybe just give her some space. Marinette obviously cares about you, maybe she just needs to get used to the idea that you have more than just surface feelings. It’s not like she totally ghosted you, and she has good reasons for keeping you out of her apartment while she’s working. If she’s using the circumstances to make sure she has some space…”
“You’re right. God it’s annoying when you’re right. Fine, tell me about this mission.”
_ _ _
Marinette stitched up the last couple of pieces on the trousers for Jagged’s suit and leaned back to look at them critically. She knew they were well stitched, but she wasn’t sure they were perfect yet, and striving for perfection would definitely keep her occupied for longer.
It had been four days since she’d seen Jason and his new girlfriend and it still didn’t hurt any less. She’d thought that distance would give her time to sort through her feelings, or at least find a way to bury them so she could wish Jason luck going forward but it just seemed to make her miss him more.
She’d heard that Red Hood had been sighted with an archer in the past day or so, so she knew he was okay. And Roy, probably, though she hadn’t messaged him recently because she didn’t want to risk Roy inviting Jason to anything she did with Lian. It was going to suck, stepping back from Lian to make room for Jason’s girlfriend because she really did love the little girl, but she should never have allowed herself to get attached.
Deciding that the trousers were as well made as they could possibly be while still allowing herself the thought that they may need to be adjusted after Jagged tried them on, she snapped a picture of them to send to the man in question. She smiled sadly at the thought that she wasn’t going to be in Gotham when he needed any adjustments but pushed the thought away. She hadn’t told anyone about her leaving Gotham yet, and wouldn’t until the suit was finished and she had her tickets to fly to Washington re-set up.
Gina hadn’t messaged recently, though when she last spoke to her parents they’d mentioned that they had received a postcard from the flighty woman. It had said that she was having fun and taking ‘each day as they come’ - which meant she had no plans to return to Gotham and her granddaughter any time soon.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and her heart entered her throat until she saw Penny’s name lighting up the screen. Sighing in both relief and disappointment, (she really missed Jason) she answered the call with as big a smile plastered on her face as she could manage. It might not stop Penny’s spidey-sense from letting her know that Marinette was sad but it would muddy the waters slightly.
“Hey Pen! So, what do you think?”
“Marinette, those are exactly how Jagged described them, only better,” Penny gushed, making Marinette’s smile feel a little less forced. “God, you must have been working non-stop to get them done, aren’t you having any fun at the moment?”
“You know what I’m like when I’m focused,” Marinette dodged, picking up a pen to twirl between her fingers. “Besides, I’m sleeping and eating, and listening to the album on repeat. Did I mention recently that Jagged’s a creative genius? I feel like I should mention it again because he really is.”
“I’m not telling him you said that, he’ll get a big head,” Penny laughed, and Marinette could hear Jagged making noise in the background. It sounded half offended, half proud and it made Marinette feel a little unmoored. They had such an easy relationship, balance having been found a long time ago between them. “But you’re okay? Still staying in Gotham for the time being?”
“Yeah, that’s…I said I would, and it would take time to arrange anything else, right? When’s the tour start again?”
They confirmed dates and chatted for a little while longer but Marinette felt very keenly that her time was limited if she was trying to keep anyone from working out that she was on her way to falling apart.
Marinette threw her hands up in frustration when the sequins refused to sit right again. She’d stayed up late the night before, trying to get the vision in her head and on paper to come to reality with the fabric but it wasn’t working. She groaned and fell face first onto the sofa, her brain moving sluggishly.
“Marinette, why don’t you take a break,” Tikki said, landing on top of Marinette’s head and waiting. “You have plenty of time to get this piece finished so getting some sleep now means you actually manage to get things done instead of having a breakdown over sequins.”
“No, I want to be gone by the end of the week, because I don’t know when Roy will ask to meet up for another knitting lesson for Lian. I haven’t even messaged him to make sure he knows I’m not available for one! So I don’t have time to sleep,” Marinette said stubbornly, mind moving sluggishly but moving nonetheless.
“Marinette, you haven’t slept for more than three hours at a time all week,” Tikki said disapprovingly. “I will start hiding your coffee if you’re going to be unreasonable, and then you’ll have to go out which runs the risk of running into someone you don’t want to see.”
“Tikki, please,” Marinette said with a hint of desperation. She knew staying up for the whole week wasn’t sustainable but she really couldn’t sleep. Every time she did she was plagued by either nightmares that woke her crying or dreams that felt so real that she ended up depressed when she woke and they weren’t.
But Tikki wasn’t budging, her tiny face set in stone as she started to float threateningly towards the kitchen. So she allowed the kwami to push her into bed, tucking her in and curling up next to her either for comfort or ease of monitoring.
Marinette fell asleep within moments.
_ _ _
Jason checked his phone again when the mission ended, glaring at the lack of messages from Marinette. He’d gone by her apartment complex a couple of times as Red Hood but it seemed like she was taking the risk of someone seeing her work seriously because the curtains had been drawn every time, obscuring everything from view.
It wasn’t like he had ignored Roy’s advice to give her space. He totally had been giving her space, he just had also been sending a quick text in the morning to see if she was finished with her work. He’d just about refrained from saying that he needed to talk to her, though he had the feeling some of his messages were on the border of explicitly stating it. Those were the messages that got the shortest responses and it didn’t exactly reassure him that things were fine.
“Jason, you should really give some time so that she may message when she is free,” Kor’i said as she floated down from her perch on top of the building. “What is that saying, a watched frog never boils water?”
Jason snorted involuntarily, finding her the mangling of the two phrases amusing. But it was a short lived humour and he sighed as he yanked his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair. “A watched pot never boils, yeah. But this is different, I should be able to work out what she’s thinkin’, or find a way that makes her talk to me.”
“Roy said to give her some space, yes? It feels as though, perhaps, you are disregarding his advice in spite of agreeing at the time that it could be effective.”
“Kor…I feel like I missed somethin’. Like somethin’ bigger than a coupla videos, even if they were pretty heavy. Would you leave it if somethin’ like this had happened with Dick?”
“It would be a different situation, I have known Dick for a lot longer than you have known your Marinette. Not only that, but we have never been in a casual relationship as you are now, so I do not know the rules for any issues you are having,” Kor’i said sympathetically. “Roy does seem more ideally placed to advise you on these matters, so I would suggest you listen to him and give your Marinette some more time to work through whatever it is she is struggling with.”
Jason sighed again, but threw back on his helmet and put his phone away. Maybe tonight would be a good time to visit Wayne Manor so he could let patrol distract him.
_ _ _
Marinette woke up after only two hours of sleep, tears coating her face and her heart aching. The dream this time had consisted of Alya talking down to her, condescendingly telling her she had told her so, that she knew nothing good was going to come from Marinette hooking up with a random guy in Gotham.
It didn’t matter that rational, awake Marinette knew that Alya hadn’t meant that she would get her heart broken. That she knew that Alya was worried about something much more sinister, like organ harvesting or human trafficking. No, apparently her subconscious was willing to torment her with things she knew weren’t going to happen because…well, what if it did.
At least it wasn’t the one where Adrien had come and reminded her that he was still available and dream her, for whatever reason, had agreed and gone back to the horribly lonely life she’d been living in Paris. Yeah, that was not going to happen. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to head back to Paris at all, a thought that she’d only spoken aloud to Jason in the dead of night.
The thought of Jason gave her another pang and she forced herself up and out of the bed again, making sure not to disturb Tikki when she went. Chances were Tikki was well aware that she was getting out of bed but she’d done as the kwami had asked so it wasn’t like she was going against orders.
Pouring a fresh cup of coffee, she eyed the jacket critically and, upon closer inspection, she saw where the issue from earlier had arisen. The fabric sat differently to what her sleep deprived brain had been able to see and that meant the needle wouldn’t go the way she needed it to, resulting in sequins that didn’t sit the way they were meant to.
Wincing at the realisation that Tikki absolutely would say ‘I told you so’ when she saw that Marinette had succeeded after her brief nap, she picked the needle, thread and sequins back up. Maybe if she could get the work done, she would know exactly what she wanted to do at the end of the week.
“It's finished!” Marinette cheered, basking in her success for a moment. She admired the way the suit twinkled as she photographed it, excited to share the results with Jagged and Penny before she needed to talk to them about her no longer being in Gotham when they wanted it fitted. The thought dragged her out of the blissful bubble she’d constructed when she’d finished the task.
“It looks wonderful, Marinette,” Tikki chirped, hovering near it to inspect it as Marinette took the pictures. The designer gave a halfhearted agreement, the full weight of her next steps settling onto her again. The kwami gave a sigh and came straight back over to her to hug her as tightly as a tiny god could. “You know you don’t need to make any decisions right now. You could still talk to your young man and get some closure before we vanish into the sunset.”
“I’ve already rebooked the tickets, Tiks. Besides, I can’t- the thought of talking to Jason directly and have him tell me what I already know sounds like the worst thing I’ve ever done. Or will do,” she added softly, grimacing and hunching into herself. She glanced around the space and grimaced at the mess and materials. “I’d better get cleaning up before we go though, I doubt Nonna wants to return to this.”
So she spent the next couple of hours cleaning up fabric scraps and boxing anything she wouldn’t be able to take with her. There were a dozen or so scarves and hats that she hadn’t managed to get out to the homeless children but she didn’t dare go out where she might run into Red Hood. It didn’t matter if he didn’t know she knew, she’d probably burst into tears as soon as she saw him and that would be impossible to explain.
So she sighed and bagged those up alongside the skeins of yarn she hadn’t managed to use yet, checking the time to see if it would be unreasonable to drop by Roy’s with the stuff. She turned it over in her head and decided that, even if he wasn’t home she could drop it off with a note and hope he got it. Actually, that would probably be preferable and she started trying to manifest it through sheer willpower as she headed out of the door.
_ _ _
Roy frowned at his door when someone rapped on it, glancing at Kor’i who was just as surprised that someone was there as he was. Which ruled out it being Dick because he would have messaged her before coming to encroach on her time with friends. Especially when he wouldn’t know if the mission was done yet because her part had only really ended half an hour before.
Checking the peephole cautiously, he was absolutely floored to see Marinette standing on the other side, looking like she was about to ditch out. It took a long second to get the door open and she had put the bags down and was turning on the heel when she pulled up short at his appearance.
“Oh, hey, I wasn’t sure anyone was in,” she said in a tired voice. Her eyes had dark circles like she hadn’t been getting anywhere near enough sleep and that worried him. “I was, uh, I was just looking to drop off some stuff. There’s a letter and-”
“Well thanks, bring it on in,” he said easily, purposely not making it a question so she was more likely to just do it. She hesitated only a moment before sighing and picking things up before following him in. But only as far as his living room, setting the bags down on the coffee table and inching backwards again. “Been a while, Jay said he’s not really heard from you either. Luckily Lian’s off at her grandparents and doesn’t realise you gave up on messaging for lessons. Cold feet?”
“Commitment’s no fun,” Marinette murmured halfheartedly, refusing to look in Roy’s eyes. It worried him even more, made him want to sit her down and have an intervention but he held back. Forcing her to discuss this would probably only end badly, so he was going to have to be careful.
Unfortunately, that was the moment that Kor’i appeared in the doorway to Roy’s kitchen. Roy didn’t know why but Marinette completely tensed, eyes darting around the room to, presumably, find an exit. It was alarming but he couldn’t think of a single reason she would feel trapped.
“This must be Marinette! It is so nice to meet you at last, I have heard so much about you from Jason,” Kor’i said, coming forward to pick Marinette up in a hug. But Marinette stepped back, like she was afraid, and Kor’i pulled up short, tilting her head at her.
“Yeah, um, it’s okay. I already know who you are so…yeah. I understand congratulations are in order?”
“He told you the news?” Kor’i asked, wide eyed. Roy could tell she was excited, that she was as surprised as he was that Jason had told Marinette anything about her pregnancy. “Thank you, we are very excited-”
“Right, I’m sure it’s very…anyway, I can’t stay. I only really came over to give you this yarn, for Lian. I’m- I fly out to Washington tonight and I can’t really take all of this with me-”
“You’re leaving? I thought you had longer here,” Roy said, well and truly bewildered at this point. “Nette, is everything okay?”
“Everything’s great!” she said overly enthusiastically, a grimace parading as a smile on her face. Her eyes drifted back to Kor’i and Roy thought something like pain passed over her face before disappearing. “Things changed, obviously, and I can’t…it’s not important. Can you tell Jason that I’m sorry I couldn’t catch him before I went? Tell him I’ll write to him when I get where I’m going, if he wants me to.”
“I mean, he’s supposed to be on his way over,” Roy lied smoothly, opening his phone under the pretense of checking for messages and sending a shorthand SOS as quickly as he could. Sure, it might send Jason into a bit of a tailspin and panic slightly but it was the fastest way to make sure he hauled ass to get to the apartment.
“Oh, um, no, I really do need to go,” Marinette said, face blanching and eyes going slightly wild. “Thanks for everything Roy, I’ll let you know when I land in Washington. N-nice to meet you, good luck with everything.”
And then she was gone, practically running away from the pair. Maybe three minutes later, the thud of Jason’s feet landing in the bedroom had Roy heading over to talk to him as well. The gun Jason was holding was lowered as he took in Roy, whole and healthy and not in dire need of back up.
“Buddy, what the fuck? There’d better be a helluva reason for sending an emergency message when you’re clearly fine-”
“Marinette was just here,” Roy interrupted, not mincing words when time could be short. “She came over to drop off a bunch of stuff and she ran out of here when I told her you were coming over.”
“What?” Jason looked like Roy had sucker punched him, his surprise palpable between them. “Of all the times- How long ago? Like, if I head to her apartment now am I gonna catch her?”
“You literally just missed her,” Roy said, frowning. He didn’t like how this was playing out and he couldn’t see any way for it to work out unless Jason went and made Marinette have a conversation. “You should’ve told us you told her about Kor’i and Dick’s news.”
“I woulda if I had,” Jason said, giving Roy a confused look. “I told you, I was tryin’ not to scare her off, why would I bring up pregnancy even if I was talkin’ about someone else?”
“Well she knew. Congratulated Kor’i and everything, it was weird. I’ve never seen her act like that, plus she said she’s leaving tonight-”
“Why the fuck wouldn’t you lead with that?” Jason shouted, turning on his heel and practically running out of the door.
Jason was running down the streets that led to Marinette’s apartment fast enough that he worried distantly that he would slip and hurt himself irrevocably. It had rained recently enough and the floors were still slick since the sun didn’t come out enough to dry it. But the thought that he might miss his chance to talk to her before she ran away from Gotham made sure his feet didn't slow.
He didn't know what was going on between them but he refused to let her slip away without getting to the bottom of it. Which is how he ended up outside her apartment building, breathing hard and ringing the bell determinedly as he waited for her to answer. He refused to believe that she was already gone; even he wasn't that unlucky.
When she opened the door it was clear she was reluctant to let him in. He didn’t understand how things had gone so wrong, they’d seemed on the same page up until he’d been out with Steph. She didn’t say anything but stepped back to let him in, maintaining her silence all the way until they were standing awkwardly in her living room. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to pick a place to start.
“So I hear you went to visit Roy,” he said finally, leaning against the back of her sofa. He didn’t dare look at her, not yet, not until he had a grip on his own feelings. Which felt impossible.
“Yeah, well I needed to…I can’t take the yarn with me when I…” She kept trailing off, her voice faltering.
“I don’t get it, what’s the problem?” he muttered, jaw clenching as he pushed back the anger that felt a little too green to be all his.
“What?” Marinette said, and he felt the tension between them breaking into something sharp.
“I said, ‘what’s the problem?’” he said, frowning down at where she was playing with her fingers. She only did that when she was nervous, or overthinking, and he wanted to take hold of them and make them still.
“There's no problem. I just…I've been here so much longer than I ever meant to be and I think it's…it's time for me to move on,” she said quietly, still not looking at him. He felt it like a knife to the gut and he had to take a moment to gather himself together.
“Pix, what's goin’ on? I thought things were- I thought you were thinkin’ about stayin’.”
“I changed my mind,” she said, shoulders curling in around her. He knew things had been weird between them for the past couple of days but he didn't think it was anything they couldn't figure out. Hell, he was prepared to flat out deny everything Kon had recorded that night if it meant she would stay. Besides, friends fell out and made up all the time, and that's all they were.
Liar, a little voice hissed in his mind, but he shoved it away. He swallowed and tried to make sense of what was going on.
“Is it somethin’ I did? ’Cos I thought we were good but if there's-”
“You didn't do anything wrong, Jason. We both agreed this wasn't permanent, that I had to leave-”
“Maybe I’d believe that if you’d said more than four words in a row to me in the past week before today,” he shot back, panic building somewhere in his chest. They had to be able to fix this, it couldn’t end like this. Not when she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t even talk to him.
Marinette shook her head frantically, desperately looking for a way out of this that didn’t expose the feelings she hadn’t realised she had. She tried again, mouth tasting like ash. “I’ve been busy, I’ve barely talked to anyone-”
“No,” he said, holding her shoulders tightly as she stumbled backwards. If she'd really been trying he wouldn't have kept hold but part of her was leaning into the easy strength and warmth in his hands. “I know I'm kinda stupid but even I know that's bullshit. You've been pullin’ away for days and I wanna know what I did. Please, Pix, you're killin’ me.”
“You didn't call either,” she said immediately, arms curved around her as though it could keep all of her feelings inside.
“‘Cos you said you needed space to do somethin’! You asked me to wait and I did, but now you're runnin’ like somethin's chasin’ you and I'm startin’ to think it's me.”
“Jay-”
“So if I did somethin’ or you found out somethin’ that's makin’ you second guess things-”
“I fell in love with you!” She blurted out, throat tightening when he looked at her nonplussed. “I didn't- it wasn't on purpose but I fell in love and when I realised it I was too late so I wanted to give you a clean break-”
“You- whaddaya mean too late? I'm crazy about you, Nette, I thought you knew that-”
“But you have a girlfriend now so it doesn't matter how I feel-” she said, not really hearing anything he said. Or at least not registering it as she spiralled into distress that she couldn't have him anymore.
He pulled her roughly forward and she broke off when his lips crushed into hers. Her defences crumpled like wet tissue paper, hands fisting in his shirt and keeping him close while she kissed him back fiercely. She didn't know if this was a goodbye or something else but it was like he was a drug she'd gotten addicted to and maybe just one more hit would let her cut off clean. It wasn't true, she knew that kissing him again was only going to reset all the work she'd done this past week by staying away from him but she couldn't help herself.
“Marinette, I love you,” he panted, lifting her by the rear to pin her against a wall before kissing her again. He kept speaking whenever they broke apart. “God I love you. Don't go, please.”
“Jason,” she moaned, fingers already tangled in his hair and heart trying to beat its way out of her chest. He broke away, still panting, and rested his forehead against hers. “I can’t- please, I don’t want to hurt things with you and-”
“Pix, I have no idea why you think there’s anyone else but there isn’t,” he choked out, pulling her even closer. “Stay, Nette, please. I’ve been in love with you for so long and all I wanna do is keep you near. I promise to be as much as I can for you, just don’t go.”
She nodded dumbly, her voice caught behind the lump in her throat. Then she kissed him again.
