Chapter Text
The cacophony of night that most coastal cities had was entirely lost on the quiet, lonely streets of Gotham. It wasn’t a silent city by any means, but its citizens had learned a long time ago that nighttime was not their domain, and as fantastic as some of those night-liers were, Gotham knew it was best to leave the night to its own, and let the bats do their hunting.
Most of Gotham knew that, anyway.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng, President of the class in the French foreign exchange program, fashion genius, and proud owner of at least 3 brain cells, was lying wide awake at 2:30am in a bed in a luxury hotel room at the heart of Gotham City, desperately trying to figure out if cereal was a soup and feeling remarkably as though she had been lied to her whole life.
The hotel room, which she was finding she disliked more and more the longer her brain went without sleep, was a mess of creams and browns and golds when the lights were on, but in the dark, with only the faint street light filtering through the balcony doors’ curtains, everything was the same vague gradient of grey to black. She much preferred it like that.
Marinette lay on her back, sheets tangled at the corners of her bed after hours of tossing and turning, her arms and legs splayed out in a manner not unlike a starfish that had been asked for a high-five, and her black hair flopped out of the two now virtually-useless buns perched atop her head, loose strands sticking uncomfortably to her wide-eyed face.
She had half a mind to wake up her roommate, Chloe Bourgeois, who had been asleep for the last hour and a half, and ask her opinion on the matter. Even considering what ‘the wasp’, as Alya had taken to calling her, was going through physically at the moment, and that she’d put Sabrina in a choke-hold for almost a full minute last time she was disturbed–with precise details of how she would personally destroy anyone who dared bother her nap again–and only let go after she’d given Sabrina and everyone who saw the incident one (1) more chance to live.
It probably wasn’t worth it.
Unfortunately, Marinette was about to die from over-internalization, and she was genuinely considering putting her life on the line for answers.
Mari shifted to her side and stared at the gap in the curtains, one of the narrow slices of light that leaked through them leaving a stripe of color down her face and abdomen, illuminating her plain black sports-bra and green basketball shorts she’d stolen from Adrien after accidentally ruining her own fuzzy Pj bottoms mere hours before. If anyone else had been awake, they would have also seen the light glinting off the peculiar, vein-like markings that spiraled around her torso, their lines intertwining with themselves and leading up to two small marks just above her shoulder blades.
Marinette openly scowled at the double doors to the hotel balcony.
'I’m going to go insane.’
With a sigh as quiet as she could manage, Mari sat up, climbed to the foot of her bed, rifled under her dresser for her suitcase, and fished out her specially altered red-and-black hoodie, the matching pair of black leggings with red spots, and a pair of sneakers. Sliding into them in almost total silence–she doesn’t count the muttered French that may or may not have been cursing when she stubbed her pinkie toe on the end table–she opened the glass doors at the end of the room and slid outside for some fresh air.
Stepping out onto the small balcony, Mari inhaled deeply and stared at the city. The lights were loud, even though the noises weren’t, but the colors outside felt better, and she found she could think more clearly without the suffocating blackness of the room surrounding her, glaring at her with thinly veiled chartreuse and belly-hair-brown.
Mari looked up, the waning crescent moon sending a crooked smile her way as she did so, and she smiled right back.
The sky looked different in America.
She turned, mouth twisting into a knot, and stared at the 'french’ doors that led back to her room, having half a mind to just go back inside… but her designer’s heart craved a better view, and the stifling heat of her bed was exactly the kind of thing that would keep her awake longer.
Nodding resolutely, Marinette marched toward the doors, and leapt up precisely as high as she needed, fingers gripping the ledge above it with a strength that belied her small stature. Hooking her foot over the top of the door frame, she hauled herself up and began scaling the building, using every ledge and window she could. Her seemingly delicate hands were covered in calluses after years of sewing accidents and other… extracurricular activities, so the rough concrete and brick was nothing she hadn’t dealt with before.
Chloe liked to 'joke’ that she probably didn’t have fingerprints anymore, and could definitely get away with murder. Marinette snorted, smiling to herself as she pulled herself over another window ledge, her brain temporarily distracted from cereal soup by that particular conversation that had kept the three of them awake far past curfew.
Chloe scoffed from her perch on the largest bed, tossing her head to flip her white-blonde braid over her shoulder as she dipped the little brush back into the fingernail polish container.
“Oh course I’m not talking about actually murdering anyone, Bumble-Bug.” She said, delicately coating her pinky fingernail in pearlescent midnight-blue polish. “All I’m saying is that if, hypothetically of course, somebody, nobody in particular, at say… the school, happened to end up dead in a ditch somewhere,” she dipped the brush again. “And there happened to not be any fingerprints, the police couldn’t pin a thing on you. Ask Sabrina, she’s doing an internship at her Daddy’s place.”
Shaking her head, and biting her lip to keep herself from laughing, Mari turned her attention back to applying her own rose-gold polish.
A few specks of Gotham’s finest hotel were unintentionally scraped off the border of a window and tumbled to the pavement below. Mari grunted, adjusting her grip on a gargoyle-like figure near the edge of the roof to better secure herself so she could find another foothold, unintentionally scraping her palms in the process. She grinned.
“Y'know Ladynette,” said Adrien, his mop of sunshine-blond hair coming into view as he sat up from where he had been lounging on the floor, still waving his hands in an attempt to dry the sloppy black and green nail polish he had insisted he do himself. 'We just have to take it off before I go home! Father won’t know if we don’t tell him!’ “Bee’s got a point. I’m not saying I would appear as Chat to give you the best alibi in history, but I’m also not saying I wouldn’t.” He tapped the side of his nose, effectively smearing the nail polish on his index finger all over the inside of his eyelid. “You’re the star student, after all.”
Marinette couldn’t take anymore, and collapsing into a giggle-fit, accidentally spilling the rose-gold nail polish all over her fuzzy pajama pants in the process. It took far too long to calm down, but when she did, Chloe and Adrien had already found replacement pants for her.
Mari returned to the present as she, with a final shove, found herself on the roof of the very prestigious hotel her class was staying at during their 3 month exchange program. Her entire class.
'No one in particular my foot.’
Mari stood near the opposite edge of the roof from where she’d climbed up, letting the cool, damp midnight breeze play with her hair, as she breathed a deep sigh.
Cereal was soup.
…
Kwamiis, she’d been hanging out with Adrien too much.
Her thoughts stilled for a moment, though her mind continued at breakneck speed as memories of her loved ones filled her up to bursting. She closed her eyes and let the images chase themselves in circles for a little, drinking in the feeling of the night and the faint smell of coastal rain that sank into her bones.
Gotham was officially her second favorite city.
The mood was briefly soured as her brain, still dutifully chugging along as the speed of light now that she had nothing else to think about, began turning to darker subjects. Mari sighed, her whole body sagged in exhaustion and her fingers twisting around the ponytail that was wrapped around her wrist as said darker thoughts began playing on repeat in her head, the face of at least two thirds of her misery laughing at her misery, though she wasn’t on the roof to laugh at her.
‘Lila.’
Marinette’s fiddling with the ponytail ceased as she began bouncing her leg, her hands moving up to readjust her buns in a vague hope of making them slightly less disastrous.
‘Oh boy, Lila…’
Liar and life-ruiner extraordinaire.
The reason her only friends were suddenly transferred to new classes even though she herself had tried a dozen times over to do just the same.
Mari sighed, tugging at a nasty tangle the ponytail-holder had somehow created with her bun.
At least she still had Alix and Kim. As much as she loved Chloe and Adrien, Adrien couldn’t do anything to rock the boat without his father forcing him to quit public school, and since Chloe’s father had finally been replaced as Mayor, she didn’t have nearly as much power as she used to. Besides, the class was against her to begin with, and it had only gotten worse as Lila began to spin her web.
Alix and Kim on the other hand, while they couldn’t convince many people of Lila’s schemes, they could punch people in the face. Mari actually cried when they told her they both got suspended for a week after doing just that the day they found out Lila was nothing but a liar, (Alix did the punching and Kim cheered her on) and while she insisted they never do that again, she brought them 'thank you’ goodies every day for six months after that.
Her thoughts cheered up significantly after a few forceful topic-changes and as they continued to wander, a tune bumbled its way to the surface and, having nothing better to do at the moment, she began humming it. What the song itself was called she didn’t remember, maybe it never existed to begin with, but the melody was quiet enough to be soothing, and it was calming, if a little haunting.
A few measures into her strange melody, Mari found herself half dancing-half fidgeting to the beat of her imaginary song, incomprehensible words playing through her mind as the night dragged on and Gotham continued on in semi-silence.
Mari was midway through one of the ballet moves Chloe had dragged her to classes to learn, when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Mari cut her movement off mid-flow and stood stock still.
Someone was on the roof with her.
Years of constantly living life on the edge of both a mental breakdown and a life-or-death battle was the only thing keeping her from blindly round-house-kicking whoever it was in the face and running off into the night. Fight and flight instincts could fudge a delicate situation, and whoever was up here could simply be getting some air, like her.
Maybe she should have let her instincts run the show.
She barely had time to register she was still humming–being forced to communicate in the most dire of circumstances had made the moments where she couldn’t shut herself up more often than she’d care to admit–when an arm that felt as though it was made of steel and iron was pinning her left arm to her back as a knee, which she assumed belonged to the owner of the steel and iron arm, slammed into the middle of her back and began forcing her to the ground.
In the split second before her face made contact with the gravel on the rooftop, Mari had one single thought racing through her head.
She knew this hold.
She’d done it a thousand times in the back alleys of Paris on odd nights.
This was the hold that would break your arm if you struggled.
The hold designed to keep the victim still and in pain.
The hold to intimidate and contain.
The hold made for criminals.
Hah.
No.
Faster than even she expected, Mari twisted her body completely around and successfully out of his hold, eyes narrowed in determination.
C R A C K
‘Well.’ Mari rolled away from her attacker, clutching her broken arm to her chest. ‘That’s going to be hard to explain to Mlle. Bustier in the morning.’ Mari recovered quickly–She’d felt more pain than a broken arm and won a fight before: and a non-functioning arm wasn’t going to stop her now.–and regained her footing just in time to see a young man, probably about her age, in a truly shocking outfit with the most bizarre color coordination she had ever seen– Okay not the most bizarre. She’d fought Akuma after all, and some of those deserved to be taken down on their fashion sense alone–pull out a katana from seemingly nowhere.
‘Wait…’ She thought as she dodged the katana swipe and dropped to the ground in attempt to swipe his feet out from underneath him. ‘Him and his traffic-light costume look familia–’
“Robin!”
Marinette froze as none other than Batman–The Actual Honest To Goodness Batman–swung onto the roof just behind her attacker.
Mari would’ve fangirled if she wasn’t so high on caution juice.
“Father,” apparently-Robin said, not breaking eye-contact with her, the blade of his katana less than an inch from her throat now that she wasn’t fighting back.
‘Wait… wait, isn’t that called adrenaline?’
“Robin, why were you attacking a civilian.”
‘Oh glory Batman is speaking to Robin, he’s speaking with Robin and they’re talking right in front of me–’ Mari blinked. ‘Civilian?’
“Tch,” Robin’s lip curled slightly, though otherwise he didn’t move. ‘Oh. Right. I’m not wearing my mask. “Father this isn’t another civilian.”
‘I mean he’s right, but I’m right here–’
“She’s clearly a villain.”
‘Okay WHAT?!’
“And what makes you say that?” Mari’s mouth moved in her own defense before she’d formed a proper argument.
‘FrICK.’
Silence.
Silence punctuated by Batman’s stare.
Which of them he was looking at was a mystery, but he punctuated the lack of noise nevertheless.
‘I’m sorry Batman: One of us is going to die tonight and it’s probably going to be me if your son doesn’t say something soon.’
“Tch.” Robin’s head rolled slightly to the side; an exaggerated eye-roll if she’d ever seen one. “You’re up here, alone, ballet dancing, and humming a stupid creepy tune.” Mari blinked at him incredulously. “It’s highly unusual in Gotham for anyone to preform their own… musical theater routine, at 4 in the morning mind you, unless they’re extremely unbalanced and have a bomb planted sixty feet below the mayor’s office.”
“You…” She took a deep breath in, moving her broken arm as carefully–and casually–as she could. “You tried to knock me unconscious, fight me, and potentially take me to a police station for questioning… because I was awake at 4am.” Well, if Batman’s stare wasn’t burning holes into Robin’s head before, it sure was now. Robin, to his credit, relaxed his defensive stance slightly, even as a scowl darker than any she’d expect on his face dragged whatever hope she had of reasoning down with his mood.
“Robin?”
Batman had said 9 words since his first appearance, and somehow Mari knew he was on her side.
She and her motor-mouth could learn from him.
Robin snorted softly and stuck his nose in the air, though any fool could see it was over a sense of wounded pride rather than genuine haughtiness. Or, anyone who’d been friends with Chloe for more than a week, anyway. He finally relaxed his fighting stance, however, and stood with his back ram-rod straight and his arms crossed over his chest.
“It isn’t my fault she was being stupid.”
“And it isn’t my fault you couldn’t just use basic human communication to inquire as to my true intentions.” Being starstruck is overrated.
“If you were really a villain you’d take advantage of that.” He snapped, glaring at her.
“If I were really a villain,” Mari retorted with a scoff. “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to dance out in the open in celebration of my latest unfinished scheme.” Mari crossed her arms. ‘Owowowowow no that’s bad don’t move broken arm that hurts–’ “Especially not when it’s nighttime and the Batman Squad are out and about. Besides, you can be physically prepared for an attack while still brokering a deal. It’s how being a superhero is supposed to work, isn’t it? Get the villain talking so you can assess the situation and the threat without potentially risking any civilians in the way?” ‘I just back-talked Robin. And by extension, Batman.’
Mari could feel her blush burning her skin to ash.
‘Batman please take your son and leave so I can die in peace I’m–’
“You’re very correct, Miss.”
‘S a y f r e a k i n g w h a t n o w.’
Mari whipped around, her loose hair smacking her in the eyes as she did so, to see The Actual Freaking Nightwing standing on one of the rooftop gargoyles and grinning at her.
Her heart had stopped functioning a long time ago, and it appeared her lungs were now bent on doing the same.
“Being a superhero is about more than just punching crime in the face. Though I gotta admit that’s the fun part.”
“Until crime punches ya’ back,” the ghost of Marinette’s soul replied through her somehow still-living body. “Then you just have a black eye, injustice, and a whole lotta paperwork.” Nightwing burst out laughing, and slid off his gargoyle to walk over and give her a clap on the back.
“It’s official,” he said, his grin wide and friendly. “You’re my second-favorite civilian.” Mari’s soul transcended to the next dimension. “What’s your name, kid?”
“I-I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng, monsieur.” ‘I’m Freaking Nightwing’s Second Favorite Civilian. How in the ever-loving hECC, did I end up here? How has my life come to this? Is this where I die?’
“A pleasure to meet you Marinette,” Nightwing said with yet another grin, as he stuck out his hand to shake. “I’m sure you already know who we are, but based off your French accent you probably aren’t from ‘round here: I’m Nightwing.” He gestured to Batman’s looming figure. “The silent Night is Batman, and–”
“I suppose Traffic-Light boy is Robin, then?”
‘MOUTH WHAT THE HECK YOU CAN’T OPERATE WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION FROM THE BRAIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING GOING ROGUE LIKE THAT YOU’RE OFFICIALLY ON PROBATION–’
“No– wait I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that I swear–”
It was too late.
Robin had frozen in place, his face a mixture of shock and an emotion she couldn’t place.
Nightwing was doubled over with laughter.
Batman’s face seemed to always be an emotionless, impenetrable mask in the short time she’d known him, but Mari could’ve sworn she saw the faintest of smiles. It was gone in a moment, but it was there.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng had made Batman, actual honest to goodness Batman, smile.
Well, if she wasn’t dead before, she was now.
“We’re sorry for the trouble Miss Dupain-Cheng,” said Batman when it seemed like Nightwing wasn’t going to recover anytime soon. “I hope Robin didn’t hurt you too badly.” Marinette welcomed the distraction, though she was still redder than her hoodie. She waved her non-broken arm dismissively.
“He didn’t, Monsieur Batman. Je–err, I, am perfectly fine. I’m sorry to have disturbed your patrol.” Batman gave her the tiniest of nods. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get back to my room. It’s very late after all.”
“Enjoy your evening, Miss Dupain-Cheng.”
“You too, mon–err, Sir.” Marinette started walking toward the side of the building to climb back down, when a door in the center of the roof caught her attention.
Oh.
She paused halfway to the entrance, gnawing at her lip.
Mari turned around sharply.
“Robin?” The three caped crusaders paused. The boy in question gave her a sidelong glance, shooting her a quizzical look that may or may not have been laced with faint distaste. Not that she blamed him. “I’m sorry for any trouble I may have caused.”
He stared at her for a moment, his face expressionless for a moment.
“I’m sorry too. I hope I didn’t hurt your arm too badly.” he nodded to her curtly. “Have a good night, miss.”
And then they were gone.
A wave of exhaustion hit her like a truck, and she had the sudden realization she was supposed to be asleep at 4:30 in the morning.
She turned and opened the rooftop door, thanking anything and everything that the door was unlocked, and closed it softly behind her, leaning heavily against it and biting back her groan of pain.
Hiding a broken arm was painful.
Mari stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, absorbing everything that had happened.
Her face split into a joyous beam.
Adrien and Chloe were going to go berserk tomorrow.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BONUS:
Nightwing: “Hey, B-man. Bat-guy. Bro-man. Bat-dad. Can we please keep her? Please?”
Batman: “Not that it’s up to me, but we can’t. At the very least not unless she can fight.”
Robin: “Father, she broke her arm getting out of my hold and didn’t bat an eye at it.”
Nightwing: “The bean did what now.”