Of Love and Sunlight - Part 01
I’m cleaning my maribat folder, so have another thing I wrote and never got around to post. There will be three parts, but the last one hasn’t been written yet, so you’ll get it eventually.
Tittles are adapted from Sunlight by Hozier, because I love this song and I didn’t have any idea how to name this series.
I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors, English is not my first language. I hope it’s still intelligible.
@alysrose-starchild @vixen-uchiha
If you wish to be added to or removed from the taglist, you can PM me. I’m still not sure how it works. (I think there’s a limit to how many people you can tag?)
A buried and burning flame
Marinette meets Damian first.
She’s been apprenticing under Audrey Bourgeois for a couple years when she finally gets around to take a business class. She’s determined to build her own fashion business and working under the Style Queen has only reinforced her desire to be in charge of her own brand.
The fashion world is cutthroat, she couldn’t afford to decline Audrey Bourgeois’ apprenticeship offer, but she has had enough of the Bourgeois to last her a lifetime. And now that Chloe has graduated, she’s more often than not in New York with her mom and dealing with two Bourgeois in one day is more than Marinette is willing to do. She endures for now, but the moment she can, she’s running away and never looking back.
It may happen sooner than she had planned actually, because her customer base has been growing steadily since she was fifteen thanks to Jagged and apprenticing under Audrey has made the quality of her work increased exponentially. Even when the apprenticeship ends, Marinette won’t be left adrift. She has commissions planned for the next few months and her portfolio has never look so perfect.
The only thing she really needs now is a solid plan to build her business into a proper fashion house. She wants to see MDC amongst the Big Names of Fashion. So, a business course, no matter how boring it may seem, is what she needs.
Marinette doesn’t realize who she’s sitting next to until two girls cornered her just as she’s about to sit down, a month into the course.
“Aren’t you tired of keeping him for yourself? He’s obviously not interested!” The blond one sneers.
Marinette blinks up at her, distracted from the flower design she was slowly mapping for her next dress. The blond reminds her far too much of Chloe and Marinette already feels a headache building.
“Who?” She asks, nonetheless.
“Damian Wayne!” The brunette hisses, sounding almost scandalized that Marinette has to ask.
Marinette blinks again. She’s going to have to disappoint the poor girl again, because she has absolutely no clue who they’re talking about.
“Me,” someone says from behind the two girls, making them jump in surprise before they swirl around with a look close to horror.
“Be gone,” he says in such a cold voice that Marinette almost feels bad for the girls. Almost. All her patience is spent dealing with Chloe and Audrey, she has none left for Chloe wannabes.
The two girls disappeared to the other side of the amphitheater without another backward glance.
The young man with exquisite bone structure, warm brown skin and green eyes who just talked, takes the seat next to her looking quite bored with the whole drama.
Marinette had noticed that he was beautiful weeks ago and that she wouldn’t mind dressing him up if ever given the chance, but again, she had far too much going in her life to really take the time to ogle her table neighbor.
“You’re famous?” She blurts out. She can see it, he’s the kind of handsome that people love to see on tabloid covers. With broad shoulders, a slim waist, and legs for days, he’s the kind of man Marinette wishes she could afford to model for her. She unfortunately doesn’t quite have the means for a professional photo shoot yet.
“Of a sort,” Damian answers coolly. He hesitates a second, before continuing. “My father is Bruce Wayne.”
It takes Marinette a minute to place it.
“Oh right! From Wayne Enterprise, in Gotham, right?” She smiles and offers her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Marinette.”
“Charmed,” he replies, shaking her hand firmly, before purposefully turning to face the front of the class and ignoring her.
Marinette internally shrugs. If he doesn’t want to be friend, she’s not going to force the issue. She has already enough famous people to deal with. She doesn’t need to add another one who is not even interested.
Opening her sketch pad to a new page, she goes back to mapping the flower design she was imagining before she was interrupted.
In the following weeks, Marinette realizes that she may have been wrong about her assessment of Damian Wayne.
Once she has proven she isn’t going to schmooze up to him, she’s apparently been placed in the category of friendly acquaintances. In no time at all, he knows she’s taking the business course in order to build her own fashion empire, that she’s apprenticing under the Style Queen and that she personally knows plenty of famous people like Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, or even Prince Ali of Achu, and she’s not counting all the other celebrities she had never met but who have commissioned her through Jagged, so Bruce Wayne’s son isn’t all that impressive to her.
The fact that she hadn’t recognized him seems to both pleased him and disgruntled him in equal measures.
But for all the things Damian has managed to weaseled out of her, she still doesn’t know him all that much, so she takes the initiative to invite him out.
“Uncle J is playing the Madison Square Garden in two weeks and asked me how many tickets I wanted, do you want to come?”
Damian actually looks surprise at her invitation.
“I am already romantically involved with someone,” he tells her a bit stiffly, his eyes burning into her own and daring her to say anything about it. Too bad for him, Marinette has faced far scarier things than her classmate.
“I’d love to meet them! Should I ask Jagged for three tickets?” She asks with a bright smile.
Damian visibly deflates at her question, before nodding.
“Yes, please, Marinette. Jon will probably cry if he learns I let go of the opportunity to attend a Jagged Stone concert.”
“Great!” She exclaims, taking out her phone to text her honorary uncle. “So, his name is Jon? How long have you two been together?”
“Two years. But I’ve known him since we were eleven.”
Marinette has to bite her bottom lip to resist the urge to coo. Damian wouldn’t like that. At all.
Jon, when Marinette meets him the day of the concert, is nothing like she imagined. He reminds her an overexcited puppy who is so sweet and in love with Damian, it’s enough to give her cavities. Damian, on the other hand, has never looked so soft than when he’s holding hand with his boyfriend.
By the end of the concert, Marinette has both Jon’s and Damian’s phone numbers added to her small list of contacts and Jon has invited her to join the both of them on their expedition to try all the restaurants in New York. Yes, all the restaurants of New York City.
But even though Marinette is going to end up third-wheeling their dates, she can’t find the strength to say no. She doesn’t really have friends in New York, and she misses that. Even Damian, looking soft and warm, tells her he’d like if she’d come, and really what can she do but accept?
