Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: Neither DCU nor Miraculous Ladybug belong to me. I am simply borrowing the characters for fun and writing practice.

Despite a full week of work establishing the new morning routine and her best efforts, Marinette did not make it to her first class early. By the time she arrived at the room where her intro to marketing class was to be held, only one seat in the back row remained open. Still, she managed to make it before the class began, so she decided to count it as a win.

Baby steps.

She slid into the open seat and pulled the binder from her bag. Glancing around the room as she got settled, Marinette decided she owed Tikki a few cookies for suggesting she reserve the more specialized classes for any necessary early morning slots. It seemed counterintuitive at the time, but the rooms used for them were much smaller than the theater-like rooms used for the general education classes. So even arriving late and being stuck in the back, she was still close enough she might be able to lip-read if she had difficulty understanding the teacher.

How helpful that'd be with English, she wasn't sure. The calls with J-Bo over the past six years had done wonders for her skills with the language, but it was still one she didn't use frequently before moving to Gotham last week. And she'd never tried lip-reading during their irregular video calls since it was never needed, so who knew if she even could?

The professor standing from her desk at the head of the room pulled Marinette from her thoughts.

"My name is Julia Hernandez," she said, hefting a stack of papers from her desk and walking to the far side of the room. "It is my pleasure to give you all an overview of marketing from product design to post-launch promotions this semester." She handed a small stack of papers to the first person in the row to the far left of the classroom. "Please take a syllabus and pass the rest straight back."

The next few moments passed in relative quiet as Professor Hernandez handed a new stack to the person at the head of each row. The click of her heels on the tile and the shuffling of papers filled the room as they followed her instructions.

"You'll notice a number to the top right of your syllabus," Hernandez said once everyone had one in hand. "These will pair you up for your semester project with the person either to your right or left."

Marinette frowned. Group projects were the worst, but at least this one was just a pair up with one person and not a big group.

She found a seven at the top of hers. Judging by the number sets Hernandez was explaining now, she guessed the guy to her right would have an eight and end up being her partner for the project. When she looked over, he was regarding her as well.

"You have an eight?" she asked, turning her own syllabus to show the seven.

He nodded and looked back to the front of the room as Hernandez continued speaking.

"As you can see, you will still have midterm and final exams for this class, but they will only comprise a fourth of your final grade for this course," she explained. "I firmly believe there is no better teacher than experience, so you and your partner will use every skill we study over the semester to build and pitch a marketing plan for a product you are assigned. Projects are due the last week of classes, and they will make up the other three-fourths of your total score."

Marinette's heart rate spiked, and a knot twisted in her gut. She thought she'd left this group work nonsense back in le lycée, but here she was in an American university hearing another student will be partially responsible for the majority of her grade in this class. This was a disaster!

"Please come forward, draw your product, and allow me to record your group information."

Marinette stood and made her way to the front of the room along with her partner to join the line. Hearing her new classmates list off the products they drew did nothing to help her settle the anxiety having this kind of project was causing. Sports horror stories podcast, edible tableware, temperature-controlled clothing: the products sounded like someone used a mix mash of random generators to compile ideas. How were they supposed to come up with anything for these? A quick glance toward her partner didn't tell her much, but he certainly didn't seem happy.

Marinette was the closest to the bowl filled with little slips of folded paper. After a quick nod from the guy, who told Hernandez his name was Damian Wayne, she pulled out one of the slips.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," she answered as the professor motioned toward her. Unfolding the paper, she continued, "And we will be marketing a pilot season for a history mockumentary series of at least twelve one hour episodes."

Damian's tongue click and soured expression as they returned to their seats made his attitude toward the whole affair rather plain, and she couldn't help but agree. What the heck were they supposed to do with that?

"I'd like to schedule a time to discuss our strategy for handling this assignment," Damian said as they sat back down.

Marinette nodded, jotting down their topic in the front of her binder before checking her class schedule. The fact he was serious enough to want to schedule such a thing this early made her feel a little better.

"My morning is packed today, but I am free anytime after noon," she said. "Tuesdays and Fridays are afternoon heavy, and Wednesdays, I have longer classes in both morning and afternoon with a gap from eleven to two."

"I am free at three this afternoon," Damian said. "There is a cafe here on campus, The Lunchbox. It should be relatively quiet by that time, and the food is acceptable."

"Three at The Lunchbox," Marinette agreed with a nod. She wrote the appointment down under the note about their topic and immediately began setting a reminder on her phone for two.

"Do you have a preferred method of contact in case something happens between now and then?" she asked.

Damian regarded her with one eyebrow raised. "Do you plan to make excuses?"

"No, but sometimes things outside one's control happen," Marinette answered with a shrug. "Classes go over. An accident causes a traffic jam." She scoffed. "This is Gotham," she continued, stressing the is. "Who knows when one of the local psychopaths will decide to pop up somewhere and cause chaos? I just thought it would be prudent to have a way to warn the other if something unforeseen will cause a delay or require a venue change."

The guy's expression relaxed into something more neutral as she spoke, and he nodded. "Sound logic," he agreed and held his hand out. When she did not move to hand him anything, he looked to her phone and back up. "Let me give you my number, and you can message me with yours."

Marinette didn't really like the idea of handing her phone over to a complete stranger, but she didn't see what damage he could do if she kept an eye on him while he programmed the information in. She handed him her still unlocked phone. He entered and saved the contact quickly, handing it back to her.

Clicking on the new contact, she typed, "Contact information for Marinette from Intro to Marketing," in the text field and hit send.

Once all of the groups had been recorded with their assigned products, Professor Hernandez went through the syllabus, their materials, her attendance and grading policies, as well as the rubric she would use to assess their work. Marinette made careful note of each point.

The lack of movement or sound other than the occasional scoff of tongue click from the young man sitting to her right caused the knot in her gut to retighten. Was he not as serious as she thought, or did he just have a good enough memory he didn't need to take notes? She hoped it was the second option for the sake of her GPA.

The class concluded several minutes earlier than scheduled, leaving Marinette with a little over a half-hour until her next class was due to begin. She opened her email, deciding to take advantage of the few unexpected free moments to message J-Bo while he was on her mind.

From: BossLady@MDC_Designs.com

To: [email protected]

Subject: Guess what.

Remember how I kept changing the subject every time you asked about university? Surprise! I'm attending GU, so I moved to Gotham last week.

My first class let out a few minutes early, so I thought I'd message you to set up a time to catch up before I forget about it yet again. So text me or write back ASAP cause it's been way too long!

She hit send and finished packing up in the almost empty room before heading off for her next class.

Damian held onto his patience by a fraying thread as he walked toward the on-campus cafe a couple of minutes walk away from his last class of the day. He'd argued obtaining a degree was an unnecessary waste of time considering the education he'd had prior to arriving in Gotham, but once again, his arguments had fallen on deaf ears.

His father's words still rang in his ears. "A lot has changed in the past decade, Damian. Some of what you learned is out of date. Feel free to test out of what you can, but I expect a valid degree from GU before you take on full responsibilities at WE."

It galled him to admit it, but it seemed his father was right. While the basic principles remained the same, the practice, at least within the marketing and PR fields, had undergone considerable change since he last studied them. Still, the fact his Mondays and Thursdays would not be a complete waste for the next few months was small comfort.

Damian found himself regretting the decision to pack his courses into two days per week as this meant he was trapped in one classroom after another with gossiping imbeciles for their entirety. He'd left himself one two hour gap mid-afternoon, and that was now taken over thanks to a partnered project. Thankfully none of the other classes had stooped to such a puerile practice, and only one other class remained in the day, giving him hope this would be the only one he'd be forced to endure.

The professor's method of selecting their partners spared him the usual juvenile tactics to curry favor such things were prone to breeding, though it had left matters up to chance. The fact the girl he'd been partnered with arrived with less than a minute to spare had him considering dismissing her and simply completing the project on his own, but she'd shown herself suitably organized afterward. So he'd resolved to reserve judgment until after their meeting this afternoon.

His phone chimed, and Damian pulled it from his pocket, unlocking the phone without breaking stride to view a text from Jon.

J. Kent: Want to meet up somewhere for lunch before our PR class?

Me: I am heading to a meeting with a project partner from another class. We are meeting at The Lunchbox cafe on campus. You may join us if you will not disrupt our work.

J. Kent: Look at you. First day of class, and you're already making friends.

Me: I resend the invitation.

J. Kent: LOL

Damian closed his phone and pocketed it as he reached the student center. The Lunchbox sat nestled in the corner of the larger building. A few students sat at outdoor tables enjoying what little sun Gotham offered late in the summer, and more booths and freestanding tables sat inside. Not seeing the Dupain-Cheng girl in the alfresco area, Damian went inside. He preferred to work out of the elements anyway, so he would procure an indoor booth.

He found himself pleasantly surprised to see Dupain-Cheng seated in a booth off to the side of the cafe. It appeared she had already ordered, and her attention was trained on a notebook she was writing in.

"Have you been waiting long?" Damian asked as he slid into the other side of the booth.

"I've been here for a while," Dupain-Cheng answered without looking up from her work, "but no." She apparently finished what she'd been doing and closed the notebook, sliding it off the table and returning it to her bag. She pulled a small case from her bag, removed an earplug from one ear, and closed it in the case before dropping it back into the accessory. "I didn't see the point in going home only to turn right back around, and I found this place better for getting some work done than the college library."

"An unusual opinion."

She shrugged. "It doesn't have the same obnoxious lighting, and I came after the lunch rush." Dupain-Cheng had pulled a small binder from her bag as she spoke, and she opened it on the table.

"I don't know about you, but I have a decent amount of work outside of coursework to juggle as well," she started. "So, I'd rather commit to regular, moderately timed work sessions over the next few months rather than pulling a series of all-nighters late in the semester. I thought hammering out the times and locations of a few planned work sessions would be a good place to start, and then we could start brainstorming. What do you think?"

"I too have responsibilities outside coursework," Damian agreed, "as well as a packed schedule." He pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and opened his calendar app. "I suggest attempting to schedule an hour or two per week to start. We can adjust our plan later depending upon how well we work together and the demands of the project."

Dupain-Cheng nodded her agreement about the time a waitress stopped by their booth to ask if she could get anything for them. He ordered a bowl of the vegetable soup he preferred here and a cup of tea, and the waitress refilled Dupain-Cheng's coffee.

"Aside from my classes, I can be relatively flexible with my schedule given prior notice," Dupain-Cheng said after the waitress left to fill his order.

"Convenient." Damian made a mental note to look into her occupation when he ran the usual background check he'd run on anyone with whom he had regular contact. "I'm afraid my own schedule is rarely so forgiving."

"Most aren't," she agreed, "which is why I mentioned it. I'll work around your schedule."

"Mondays and Thursdays are when I have the most available time this semester," Damian answered. "I have this slot between classes, but I have a PR class that starts at four. Or, I am free after six if you are open to meeting off-campus."

She nodded along until he suggested meeting off-campus during the evening. Her posture stiffened, and he wasn't sure, but he thought she might have started to rock just the tiniest bit for a moment. He'd pegged her as being here on a student visa from France based on her accent, and it was usually even odds foreign students were clueless to the dangers of Gotham. It seems Dupain-Cheng had done her research.

Good. If he had to be paired with someone at all, it was good his partner had at least a modicum of sense.

"Where off campus?" she asked.

"Probably his place."

Dupain-Cheng startled, and Damian suppressed a groan as Jon cut into their conversation. He'd seen the other man enter and head toward the counter to place an order a few moments before, but he hadn't expected him to make such a tactless introduction.

"Hi. My name's Jon," he introduced himself while offering Dupain-Cheng his hand. "Best friend to Mr. Frosty here."

Accepting the offered hand, Dupain-Cheng shook it while introducing herself as well.

"Mind if I join you?" Jon asked. "We both have a class here," he trailed off as he checked his watch, "in about forty-five minutes, and I didn't get a chance to grab lunch."

Dupain-Cheng glanced at him, eyes wide and posture tense, obviously seeking a second opinion about Jon. Damian had grown accustomed to the sheer size of the Kent men as well as his own father and brothers long ago, but he knew they intimidated many. He wasn't exactly a small man himself these days though he hadn't developed the same type of bulk his father had, and Dupain-Cheng was a petite woman. He could understand her discomfiture, so he confirmed Jon's assertion of their friendship.

Her posture remained tense, and the hint of rocking returned for a few seconds. Yet, she smiled and nodded.

"Why do you th-th-thi-n-n-nk," Dupain-Cheng said. The abrupt appearance of a stutter caught Damian's attention, and it annoyed and frustrated her if her expression was anything to go by. Her hand clenched hard enough to make the wood of her pencil creak, and her annunciation was exaggerated as if she was forcing the words out through sheer will as she continued. "Think h-he mi-m-ment his place?"

Jon hesitated before he answered, and he wore that expression he had when he was paying a bit too much attention to someone's heartbeat. It was gone almost as quickly as it appeared, and he plastered on his pleased puppy persona as he responded.

"Dames here is something of a local celebrity," Jon explained, clapping a hand on Damian's shoulder. "He and his family do their best to avoid catching the paparazzo's attention, and him hanging out with a beautiful girl in public would have those sharks smelling blood in the water, college assignment or not."

Dupain-Cheng's brow furrowed ever so slightly as she listened to Jon's explanation. She turned her attention to him and raised an eyebrow at Damian. He rolled his eyes but nodded, and she seemed almost taken aback. Had she not heard the name he'd given their professor earlier?

The young woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She laid her pencil down and brought her hand up to rub at her eyes. The waitress from earlier returned, delivering both Damian and Jon's orders as Dupain-Cheng continued to process what she'd been told.

Damian waited for their server to leave before he added his thoughts on the matter.

"I can understand your reluctance," he said as he unwrapped his cutlery. "You're barely acquainted with me, and this city has its reputation for a reason." She nodded. "However, the Wayne family has our reputation for good reason as well."

"I'm afe-afr-afrai-ai-afraid I do n-not know it."

Jon nearly choked on the bite of the sandwich he'd taken. Dupain-Cheng's body language had been growing steadily more closed and anxious since the Kryptonian menace joined them, and she flinched at his sudden coughing fit. Unsure how to help at this moment, Damian decided to simply eat his late lunch. Time was running short, and he'd have to drag Jon to their shared class in a few minutes.

"Oh, excuse me," Jon said once he'd regained control of himself. "Sorry. It's not often we come across someone who doesn't know the Wayne name."

Dupain-Cheng shook her head. "No, I rec…" She stopped in the middle of her sentence looking lost for a moment before she sighed and started again. "I know the na-ne-name j-j-j-just not the reee the rept-repu-ta-ta-taion."

He'd ignored the stutter before, figuring it was an anxiety response, but the feeling something was off here was becoming too much to dismiss. Dupain-Cheng did not seem frightened, so he suspected this had happened before. Yet it almost looked like she was having difficulty controlling her motor responses, and he wasn't about to sit about and let someone suffer a neurological event in front of him and do nothing.

"Are you okay, Dupain-Cheng?" he asked.

She looked at him, and he could almost see her searching for words before she simply nodded. Her face flushed as she turned to her bag and dug within it, pulling out a thin tablet a moment later. The flush deepened as she pulled a stylus from the side and began writing something on it. A moment later, she lifted the tablet and held it where he and Jon could read what she'd written.

Every now and again, part of my brain throws a tantrum and won't let me speak verbally. It's annoying but not dangerous.

After he looked up from the tablet's surface, she pulled it back, flipped a switch on the back, and pressed a button on the front. The text she'd written before disappeared.

"This has happened before?" Damian asked.

She nodded.

"It resolved on its own without additional problems?"

She raised a hand and wobbled it side to side before writing another message on the tablet.

Eventually, yeah. It could take a few minutes or several days. There's really no telling. Sometimes I get a migraine with it, but that's about it.

"Perhaps we should adjourn then," Damian suggested after he read her latest message. He checked the time as she cleared the tablet once again. "Jon and I must leave soon in any case, and I am sure you would prefer to be at home in the event a migraine sets in."

Dupain-Cheng nodded.

"We have each other's contact information," he continued. "We can always finish setting our arrangements via text before Thursday's class and share any ideas we may have between now and then."

The look she gave him before writing something else on the tablet was one he found difficult to interpret.

It'd also give me time to look up the Wayne reputation. See if I ought to have a friend tag along.

Jon didn't try to hide his snickering in response. Damian glared at him before giving Dupain-Cheng a flat look.

"Quite," he returned, taking a page from Alfred's book. "Though I doubt you will find much to be concerned about on that matter."

The woman's body language eased at his response to what he was beginning to suspect was a deliberate baiting. She cleared the tablet once again, writing out her next response.

I'll message you later then. Have a good afternoon, both of you.

Pleasure to meet you, Jon.

"Nice meeting you too," Jon answered back as Dupain-Cheng gathered her materials back together into her bag.

She responded with a smile and a wave to them both as she left the booth heading toward the register on her way out. Jon waved back, and Damian forwent responding in favor of eating his quickly cooling soup. Once she was gone, Jon also returned to finishing his lunch, and the two ate in silence for several minutes.

"Go ahead and tell me then," Damian said, breaking the silence once they'd eaten the majority of their meals.

"Huh?"

"You found something when you scanned her." Damian glanced at his first friend and sipped his tea. "Your responses have been off since you got that look, so go ahead and tell me already."

"Her heartbeat was all over the place, but her body language might as well have been screaming anxiety from the moment I showed up," Jon said. "I dismissed it as just that until the stuttering got worse."

"You x-rayed her?"

Jon nodded.

"It's mostly healed now, but her skull's been cracked on the right." He shifted uncomfortably and picked at the remains of his sandwich. "And it looks like her cervical spine has suffered a fair bit of damage on that side too."

"Don't go inventing things," Damian said before downing the last of his tea. "Blunt force trauma can result from any number of things. Though it could possibly explain her speech problems."

He placed his spoon in the bowl and retrieved the bill from under the bowl. "We should leave if we want to make it to class in sufficient time."

Jon nodded, and Damian halted his attempt to rebut as they left the booth. "You know I'll run a check," he muttered low enough only Jon would hear as they walked to the register. "Don't put another stray on Father's radar."

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"This is what hell is like," Marinette thought. "I thought it was back dealing with Lila and everyone starting to hate me, but it's this."

Jon seemed nice enough, but the constant shifts in the conversation from her marketing project with Damian to the one Damian and Jon were working on was giving her a headache and making it almost impossible to keep track of anything. Nothing was making sense anymore, and she swore the lights' humming had gotten louder over the last half hour. Her back felt like someone was trying to rip a muscle out of the middle of it thanks to squashing the urge to rock with everything she had, and her knuckles were seizing up.

Why had she thought this was a good idea again? Move somewhere completely new. Blow her routine all to heck and back. Add in a bunch of new responsibilities with deadlines and strangers galore when she'd barely recovered from a severe burnout. Just stellar.

Top-notch logic, really.

Oh crap, Damian said something to her, and she completely missed it.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Could you repeat that, please?"

"I suggested we theme the episodes on the myths surrounding the origins of Gotham's villains," Damian said. "There's plenty to work with, surely, and it has a bit of local flair."

What were the other ideas they had discussed already again? The last thing she remembered, they were talking about libel and something about spin?

"It's not believable though," Jon countered. "It's better than the idea of basing them on conspiracy theories that contradict historical events."

Well, that was true enough, so Marinette nodded her agreement.

"But it's still something no network would ever greenlight," Jon continued.

"But they're all so ludicrous!"

Jon laughed. "Sure, yeah," he said. "But Dames, you're thinking like you."

The expression Damian made in response to that was one Marinette didn't think she'd ever seen before. She didn't have the slightest clue what it meant, but she was fairly certain it was a negative one. The notion was reinforced by his sputtering.

The squeezing ache around her eyes and head stuffed full of cotton feeling gave way to the ice picks being jammed into the sockets and her temples as the air conditioning kicked on, adding another layer to the everpresent background hum. Shouldn't it be quieter this far from the main part of the city?

"You've gotta think like a network exec," Jon said. He leaned back in the chair and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee. "Appeal to demos with money and the lowest common denominator without offending either one in the process. Greenlighting mocumentaries featuring the rogues is begging for one or the other to get huffy and attack the place."

"People will believe the oddest things," Marinette agreed. The comment reminded her of something she'd found and printed off just because it was kind of hilarious and sad, so she went digging through the materials in the back of her binder looking for it.

She tried to ignore Damian and Jon's continuing debate over the ideas and what sounded like parts of a story while she shuffled through the papers, but that worked about as well as it ever had. Hadn't she organized them better than this? No, she'd purchased the dividers yesterday, but they were still sitting on the kitchen counter in the bag.

The distinctive sound of a dog running on hardwood floors came from the hall followed by a couple barks when it reached the foyer. The reverberation off the paneled walls made the ice picks flare, and she wasn't able to hide her flinch. The guys' conversation never faltered, so she figured they hadn't noticed.

Three new voices, all male from the sound of it, joined the mix mash of sounds. A door closed. Footsteps, but two voices remained just outside. Bits of their conversation came through, making it impossible to separate their conversation from the one happening a few feet from where she sat.

The pain in her skull went from localized sharp and stabbing to a burning pressure behind her eyes and across one side of her skull. Her heart started to race, and the sting of gathering tears made it clear she needed out of here now.

Giving up her search for the papers, Marinette set her binder and pencil on the coffee table and asked where she could find a powder room. Damian's instructions made absolutely no sense to her, layered over as it was by something about expense reports being said in the other room.

Doesn't matter. Make a grateful face and get out. Get out. Get out!

Somehow Marinette managed to get to the door despite feeling like she was controlling her body via remote. She clipped the door jab with her shoulder on the way out, but she barely noticed. The other voices she'd heard were a little louder, but she couldn't tell where they were coming from or see anyone around.

Even with a wall between them, she could still hear Damian and Jon too, and the lights out here were even louder. Someone was cooking. The vinegar in it was making her stomach feel funny, and all this wood was reflecting the lights absolutely everywhere.

It was too much. Too much! Too much!

Why wasn't there anywhere small and quiet in this damn house?

Dupain-Cheng had been quieter than he'd expected throughout this evening's study session, slower to respond. Whether this was down to discomfiture from being somewhere new, the surprise of having Jon join them, or because of the fatigue she'd complained about earlier, he wasn't sure. Her carriage was stiff to the point of seeming brittle when she'd asked where she could find a restroom, and he was fairly certain her eyes were unfocused as he told her where to go.

Still, he hadn't thought anything of it until Jon went stiff moments after she'd left the room. Jon was out of his chair and bolting for the door a second later, Damian hot on his heels. They dashed into the hall about the same time the front door opened, but Damian's attention was too pulled toward the distressed woman at the far end of the hall to register who'd just arrived.

Dupain-Cheng was curled in on herself as she paced erratically about the foyer. Her hands were balled into fists, and she slammed them into either side of her head hard enough he could hear the thumps from here. They ran toward her, but Todd reached her first, capturing Dupain-Cheng's wrists before she could strike herself again by the time he and Jon reached the foyer.

Her reaction to the unexpected touch was instantaneous. Dupain-Cheng went stiff for a fraction of a second before she started twisting and pulling in an attempt to free herself from Todd's grasp while oscillating between distressed yelps and sobs.

Jon had frozen in the doorway. Damian looked to Todd for some idea of what to do, but the man had his hands full as it was, keeping hold of Dupain-Cheng in a way that prevented her from self-harming while not accidentally injuring her himself. He was murmuring to her in that voice Damian had heard Todd use with Drake on bad days sometimes, but she didn't seem to be registering anything that was said. Not that it was likely Todd could tell any of this considering Dupain-Cheng's back was too him.

Todd looked to him before gesturing toward Dupain-Cheng with his head. Out of his depth, but realizing this was on him as she was his guest, Damian moved forward slowly while being careful to ensure Dupain-Cheng could see his approach.

"It's okay," he said, mimicking the tone he'd heard from Alfred and his brothers from time to time. "You're safe."

Dupain-Cheng's attempts to pull out of Todd's grasp grew weaker. Damian couldn't tell if this was due to fatigue or her distress beginning to ebb, but he'd take what he could get. She continued to weep, but after a couple minutes of speaking to her in that soft voice, she was only giving Todd's grip the occasional weak tug.

"My brother's just trying to keep you from hitting your head again," Damian assured her when he felt relatively certain he had her attention. "Do you understand?"

Dupain-Cheng nodded.

"If he lets go, will you return to hitting yourself?"

She shook her head. He watched her for a moment, looking for any hint her assurance might prove inaccurate. Finding none, he looked up at Todd and nodded for him to release her wrists. Dupain-Cheng darted away the second she was let go, tucking herself in the crook of the stairwell.

The young woman was curled into a ball with her hands clasped over her ears and still quietly crying, but she was significantly calmer than she'd been moments before.

Todd paled as he took a few slow steps forward. Damian didn't know whether he should back off or intervene between his most volatile brother and classmate. Todd's focus was riveted to Dupain-Cheng where she'd wedged herself. Her eyes darted between them and Jon's still presence further back in the room. She hid her face in her knees and started to rock back and forth, hands still clutched over her ears.

Todd stopped a few feet away from Dupain-Cheng, kneeling down and curling his shoulders forward to shrink in on himself a touch. "Poprock?"

The tone, filled with confusion and worry and maybe a bit of hurt, was one Damian hadn't heard from Todd before, but it got Dupain-Cheng's attention. She lifted her head, and her eyes focused on Todd for barely a second before recognition sparked in them. Dupain-Cheng scrambled forward, whispering a few disconnected sounds, as she virtually threw herself into Todd's arms.

She tucked herself under his chin, burying her face in the crook of Todd's neck. He, in turn, ran a gloved hand over her hair while rocking and shushing her like a child for all of five seconds before Dupain-Cheng began to squirm. She pushed away from Todd, and he let her go.

A fresh wave of confusion freed Damian of his shock paralysis, and he moved forward as Dupain-Cheng retreated to her corner again. Todd's jaw clenched, but he remained still and quiet as he asked if there was anything they could do to help.

Her mouth moved, and she seemed to struggle to produce a couple letter sounds and disconnected syllables. Her fist moved in another swing she aborted midway, opting instead to merely grip her hair, loosening it from the low ponytail. Her grip tightened enough to make the knuckles blanch, and she tugged twice before letting go.

Dupain-Cheng focused on Todd. She tapped the side of her nose twice before miming smoking a cigarette. Then she gave him finger guns?

Todd chuckled and shook his head. "I guess I probably do smell like cigarettes and gunpowder," he agreed.

Damian turned his head and whispered where only Jon would hear for him to go get the tablet from her bag. Then he knelt more or less beside Todd.

"Go shower," he said. "I'll stay with my guest."

Saying Jason was reluctant to leave Marinette in Damian's care would be an understatement of epic proportions. Yet there wasn't much of anything he could do to help her when she couldn't stand to be within a few feet of him because of his bad habits, so it's not like he had a choice. As he watched, fresh tears welled up in Marinette's eyes. She buried her face in her knees and rooted her fingers through her hair, completely demolishing her ponytail and gripping the hair tight enough he'd be shocked if she didn't pull a bunch out.

He turned to Damian and murmured as quietly as he could. "Mari has severe anxiety that she tries very hard to hide. Don't let her spiral out of embarrassment at failing." He put enough venom into the word failing that he knew even the demon's emotional constipation wouldn't miss it. "And don't let her hurt herself. I'll be back in ten."

Damian nodded and made a shooing motion at him. Jason ignored it in favor of letting Marinette know where he was going and that he'd be back as soon as possible. She didn't raise her head, but one hand freed itself from her hair to give him a thumbs up.

Jason stood and trotted up the stairs as quietly as he could. His body moved on autopilot born of long-held habit as he hurried to hit the shower and get back where he was needed.

Of all the things he'd expected to find, knowing Marinette was going to be at the manor this evening, seeing her mid-meltdown wasn't even in the top hundred. Sure, she showed every sign of having ADHD just as bad as him or Dick either one, and she'd been a little ball of anxiety as long as he'd known her. But he'd never seen her do more than tug on her pigtails even in the middle of her worst teenage meltdowns.

He guessed he'd have to adjust his idea of worst when it came to the pint-sized spitfire. Seems she'd been hiding more than he thought.

Gina Dupain was a frightening whirlwind of a woman. Convincing her to put up with his sorry ass and bad attitude for a year, dragging him around the globe righting wrongs with enough finesse to go virtually unnoticed, was a debt Jason doubted he'd be able to pay Bruce back for in this lifetime.

Between the insanity that was Mothman and how well he'd hit it off with Gina's "little fairy," they'd spent more time in and around Paris than not. Good thing too, considering Fu drug Mari into that whole mess as an untrained kid without any sort of guidance whatsoever. He hated to think what might have happened if he hadn't figured her out early on and browbeat her and the cat into letting him train 'em up a bit and provide backup now and again.

Jason sighed as he started the shower, turning it as hot as he could stand it. Ducking in, he scrubbed his hair and skin with a vengeance.

Looking back, he remembered a few instances over their calls a couple years back. He hadn't thought anything about it at the time, but she'd answered a video call wearing sunglasses indoors a few times. Marinette had been rocking in her chair a time or two as well, now that he thought back. Always when they'd gotten a bit carried away with whatever they were talking about, usually either literature or some new technique she'd been studying.

They stopped video calling around then, communicating more frequently over plain calls, text, or email. She'd stuttered a few times here and there, but that'd been normal enough when she was talking to Adrian or otherwise flustered. So he hadn't thought anything of it. Even the few times she'd rejected the call and asked to text instead. It just hadn't occurred to him to wonder why she'd do that.

Why hadn't he realized how much she reminded him of Tim in a dozen little ways until now? Why hadn't he hit the road for home the second he saw that text yesterday? Maybe he could've helped her get free of the demon child and decompress before she hit the point of no return.

Toweling off, Jason decided to brush his teeth too, just to be on the safe side. He yanked a comb through his hair, put on some deo, and pulled on fresh clothes.

He was not expecting to find Tim sitting on the end of his bed when he opened the ensuite door. Thank God he'd gotten in the habit of taking his clothes into the bathroom with him back with Gina because that was an awkward moment he sure as hell didn't need.

"Bruce and I saw what happened," Tim said by way of explaining. He patted a bundle sitting beside him. "I thought she might find this helpful to borrow considering her stim choice."

Jason only then recognized the gray bundle as Tim's weighted blanket.

"I figured since she knows you." Tim trailed off with a shrug.

He chuckled and went to the bed. Hefting the blanket in one arm, Jason mussed Tim's hair with his free hand. "Thanks Timmers."

How did one help someone in situations like this?

Grayson had a tendency to either disappear for hours at a time or give the gymnastics equipment in the cave a workout when he felt overloaded. He'd heard a couple of Drake's meltdowns in the past years living in the manor, but it was always Alfred, Father, or Todd who helped him. Something about them had always hit Damian like a taser, and he'd shy away.

As much as Drake irritated him, Damian did understand such things were not Drake's fault or within his control. He'd be damned if he made matters worse because of a knee jerk reaction to the sound of it, so he removed himself from the equation.

Yet, that same reticence meant he was completely out of his depth now.

Jon returned with the strange tablet they'd seen Dupain-Cheng use Tuesday afternoon. He strode across the room with as little sound as possible and sat down on the floor next to Damian.

"Jon got your tablet for you, if you'd like it," Damian said, careful to keep his voice quiet and even. "Or, my family and I are pretty well versed in ASL if you find it easier."

Dupain-Cheng tugged on her hair, allowing her balled fists to thump back to her scalp a couple times before letting go. Her fingers remained tangled in the strands since parts still remained in a half-destroyed ponytail. She made a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh before reaching back to slide the elastic from her hair, shifting it to her wrist with a practiced movement of her fingers. Finally, she raised her face from her knees to peer at them.

Her eyes were bloodshot and slightly puffy, and her face was blotchy from crying. Dupain-Cheng tried and failed to smile, succeeding only in looking exhausted and pained as she reached toward Jon, who handed her the tablet. She signed a quick, "Thank you," before removing the stylus and writing.

I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid I only know a few signs. This thing is the only form of AAC that's really worked for me, clunky as it is.

"If it is what works best for you, that's all that matters," Damian said. "My sister prefers ASL, so it is top of mind for us Waynes." He gave her a quiet laugh that came out a bit more uncomfortable sounding than reassuring.

Dupain-Cheng nodded and gave him a watery smile before writing again.

It's cool you're so understanding. Thank you.

How the hell was he supposed to respond to that? Why was she thanking him for having basic understanding and etiquette?

As he floundered for an acceptable response, Dupain-Cheng cleared the tablet and wrote something else. Her holding up the tablet again snapped him out of his wool-gathering.

I'm so sorry. I'm okay now, really. You two can go work on your assignment. I'll be back in a couple minutes, and I can have the laptop read what I type to keep from dragging us down.

Jason's statement made a bit more sense as he read her response. She was embarrassed and trying to deflect. The distinct hint of defensiveness in her last sentence was concerning as well.

"You have no reason to apologize," Damian said. "These things happen."

You're very kind. Please, don't let me put you two behind. I can call a cab, and we can brainstorm over text later.

"You aren't going to put us behind, Dupain-Cheng."

"Yeah, no way we're just letting you call a cab right now," Jon protested at the same time.

Damian shot him an exasperated look but didn't refute the point.

No. It's fine really. I just need to go home and get some ibuprofen and sleep, and I'll be right as rain.

Exhaustion was fairly typical judging by what he'd seen from Drake, but the implied headache was both concerning and not surprising considering what'd happened. Given what Jon had noticed earlier in the week, Damian found himself attempting to come up with an argument to have her stay the evening on the off chance she'd given herself a concussion. From everything found on the search he'd run, she was living alone. Should something happen, there'd be no one to assist her.

Dupain-Cheng was obviously familiar and comfortable with Todd for some unfathomable reason. Perhaps he'd be best served stalling for time until the oaf returned from scrubbing o de ashtray from himself.

"Ibuprofen is easily obtained," Damian said, "and I had planned to offer you both dinner for agreeing to come all this way so late in the day. Though I apologize for leaving the invitation so late."

"Excellent idea!"

Todd's exuberant agreement startled the three of them. Damian would deny feeling relieved to see Todd hurrying down the stairs, but he'd admit grinning at the frustrated little groan Dupain-Cheng let out. She hid her face in her knees again, covering her head with her hands, allowing the thin tablet to flop over the top of one hand.

"Hey, could you carry this into the parlor for us?" Todd asked, offloading a blanket on him without waiting for an answer.

Damian nearly dropped the thing, not expecting the weight of it. He'd heard of weighted blankets and knew Drake had one he used often, but he'd never seen it before. How much did this thing weigh?

"Whatcha say now, Pix?" Todd addressed Dupain-Cheng as he knelt back down in front of her. She shifted her arms and peeked up at him. "Can I get a hug now that I'm all clean?"

Dupain-Cheng grinned and nodded, shifting to where she sat with legs tucked under her instead of hugged to her chest. Todd moved forward and pulled the woman into his arms. She wrapped hers around his shoulders, a slightly awkward move while still holding the tablet and stylus.

They sat there for a long moment, neither moving, holding one another like family that hadn't reunited in years. Eventually though, Todd moved back just far enough to look down at Dupain-Cheng.

"Let's get out of the foyer and go somewhere more comfortable," he said and shifted to scoop Dupain-Cheng up.

The woman let out a startled squeak at the sudden movement. The way her head swooped and disoriented blinking following the move indicated vertigo, another sign toward caution being the better part of valor for now.

Damian had noticed Dupain-Cheng was a rather petite woman before, but seeing her positively dwarfed by Todd's broad frame emphasized the matter. The woman was easily a foot shorter than Todd, and he'd outweigh her by more than a hundred pounds if Damian were to hazard a guess.

The discrepancy made her protests and squirming to get down as Todd started toward the main hall all the more amusing. Dupain-Cheng thumped Todd's ear.

"Ow. Rude!"

Ignoring Todd's taunt, Dupain-Cheng scowled at him as she pointed first towards herself and then at the floor.

Todd shook his head. "I saw how dizzy you got when I stood up, Poprock," he chided. "No way I'm letting you tip over and get even more on Gina's bad side."

Dupain-Cheng huffed, but what else she communicated, Damian couldn't see as he followed the pair into the hall. Whatever it was made Todd chuckle.

"Pout all you want," he said, "but we're gonna go to the parlor. You're going to try out this nifty weighted blanket Tim Tim lent you, and someone'll get you some Ibuprofen and a cup of tea. And that's that.

Chapter Text

Todd settled Dupain-Cheng on one of the sofas as the two continued their conversation through a mix of charades and making use of the tablet around Todd's comments. Damian was quick to hand off the heavy blanket, and he used the excuse of requesting a pain reliever and tea to escape the room, leaving Todd and Dupain-Cheng to catch up. He hadn't quite expected Jon to follow.

"I think I know what caused the fracture," Jon whispered once they'd shut the parlor door.

Damian raised a skeptical brow at Jon as they headed toward the kitchen. "The chances of someone fracturing their skull bare handed are astronomical. The mind has failsaves."

"The reopening of some of those previously healed over areas begs to differ," Jon answered. "But you're not wrong about it being highly unlikely for the original injury, if she was barehanded. If she had something substantial in hand when a meltdown started, however."

Damian clicked his tongue, but otherwise, he didn't respond. It was all inference and conjecture, but it tracked. He felt even more sure he needed to figure out a way to convince Dupain-Cheng to hang around for the next several hours, so she'd have someone to provide medical attention if needed.

Drake and Gordon had left medical records out of their low-level checks to preserve doctor-patient confidentiality, but Damian found himself wondering, not for the first time, if such a thing was foolhardy. If he'd known such a thing were a risk, he could have taken steps to prevent this!

They pushed the door to the kitchen open. Alfred was at the stove, watching over the final stages of preparing dinner. He glanced up from tending the sauce.

"How fares Ms. Dupain-Cheng?" he asked.

Damian didn't remember seeing Alfred in the hall or foyer during the meltdown, but he'd ceased being surprised by the man's knowledge of what when on in the manor years ago.

"Nonverbal for the time being, but she appears to be recovering well," Damian answered. "She's expressed a need for ibuprofen, and a cup of tea seems fitting."

Alfred nodded. He set the sauce to simmer, filled the kettle, and set it to heat. "Will the young miss be staying for dinner?"

"Todd and I are certainly trying to persuade her to do so," Damian answered. He walked across the kitchen and opened the cabinet where the cups were kept, retrieving one before looking over the available teas. "Considering a few concerning symptoms she's shown, I feel compelled to convince her to stay the night as this happened while she's a guest here. It'd hardly do for her to return home and suffer further injury."

Jasmine, chamomile, or mint? Which would be best? Chamomile was a safe choice, but was it possible Dupain-Cheng was hiding nausea? Given the evening's track record, he decided adding a bit of mint to the diffuser ball as well was a good idea.

"I'll prepare a room," Alfred said, placing a tray on the counter. He turned toward where the medications were kept.

"Thank you, Alfred," Damian said. He placed the now filled diffuser ball in the cup and placed it on the tray as the kettle began to whistle. Lifting it off the stove, he turned off the heat and poured the water into the cup.

"When will dinner be ready?"

"Master Bruce and Master Tim were held over, so we will not be keeping to the usual time," Alfred said. "I should think the dishes will be ready in about twenty-five minutes."

Damian nodded. Perfect. That'd give him time to speak with Father about persuading their guest to stay.

Marinette felt her face was going to be permanently scarlet by the time J-Bo put her on the couch. She'd seen his mother hen mode a few times back when he was staying with Nonna Gina. It was during her early days as a superheroine, and she'd gotten smacked around a lot. Even though the cure fixed everything, he'd been just as coddling then and just as impossible to stop.

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest as he situated a weighted blanket over her legs. Where the heck he'd gotten one this fast, she had no clue, and she wasn't sure she even wanted to know. Actually, hadn't he said something about someone lending it? Oh no, did that mean someone else saw her?

This evening just kept getting better and better. RIP. Here lies Marinette. She died of embarrassment because she couldn't handle normal freaking sounds and smells and lights.

"There," Jason said, giving her the big, lopsided smile that'd charmed all her friends way back when. "That's better. Compy now?"

Marinette chuckled and scribbled her answer down on her LCD tablet.

I'd better be. This blanket's so heavy, I don't think I could move without transforming.

She waited until he'd finished reading before hitting the erase button and writing again.

But, yeah. I'm surprisingly comfortable anyway. The about to vibrate apart feeling disappeared.

"That so?"

Marinette nodded.

"Might have to get me one of those then," he mused, poking at the edge of the thick blanket and humming. A moment later, something seemed to occur to him, breaking him out of whatever daze he'd slipped into. "Did Damian happen to mention we all know ASL pretty well, if that's easier?"

Marinette nodded.

He did, but I've never had luck with sign language. My visual processing is too slow, so I get lost trying to follow it.

J-Bo's brow crinkled as he read her response, but he accepted it without another word on the matter, asking about her tablet instead. She answered what she could, but something kept nagging at her.

Damian and Jon came back about the time Jason started running out of questions to ask about the simple device. Damian set a tray containing a cup of herbal tea and two tablets on the coffee table, and Jon gathered his materials. He mentioned being called home to help his dad with something, saying goodbye to them all. Damian left as well to speak with his father before dinner, and Marinette thanked him for the tea.

She wrote the question that'd been bothering her since she'd recognized Jason earlier and handed him the tablet before downing the pain medicine.

Why didn't you tell me you were a Wayne?

"You caught onto that, huh?" he asked and handed her the tablet back. His voice sounded resigned.

"Remember how I told you I used to be a street kid until I had a run-in with the bats that put me in the system?"

Marinette nodded.

"Well, Bruce heard about it somehow," Jason explained. He'd shifted so he was squished back into the sofa as much as such a formal piece would allow, and he let his head thunk back against the ornately carved wood at the top. "Next thing I know, I have a new surname tacked onto my old one, and I'm in this place."

He chuckled, but there didn't seem to be much humor in it. "A street kid living in a freaking mansion, food aplenty, access to any book I could ever want. I loved it, but it was terrifying too. Not that that makes any sense."

Marinette set her cup back on the tray. Scooting closer as best as she could while caught under the heavy blanket, she laid her head on his shoulder as she wrote again.

Your whole life changed. That's a scary thing.

An amused huff let her know when J-Bo read the message. He shifted to wrap the arm she was leaning against around her shoulders and pull her closer.

"You'd know plenty about that, wouldn't ya, Spots?" He sighed. "I guess I never mentioned it because I liked the relationship we built, and I was afraid learning I was one of the big, bad Waynes would change that."

Marinette pulled back just far enough to give him an incredulous look and bopped him on the head with her tablet. She ignored his affronted, "Hey," as she composed her response.

You big dummy! Did I treat Adrian any differently because he was rich? Did that keep me from speaking my mind to Chloe once I'd grown a backbone?

She cleared the tablet and wrote the rest as soon as he'd read the first bit.

You're my Jay Boy, a great big teddy bear, overprotective big brother, complete badass, and major dork. Nothing's going to change that!

It was hard to tell with the relatively dim lights, but it looked like Jason's cheeks darkened a bit. He laughed.

"Okay, fine yeah. I'm dumb," he said. Jason squeezed her in a one-armed hug and pecked a kiss against her temple before they settled down again. Her head rested on his shoulder until he shifted and tucked her under his chin.

"This is just a wild guess," he murmured a few moments later, "so forgive me if I'm way off base. You're just reminding me of someone so much. But, are you autistic, Mari?"

Marinette's heart skipped a beat, and it felt like her stomach fell through the floor. Not him. Why'd he have to ask her that? She didn't want to answer, but she couldn't lie to him either.

Oh no, and he was in overprotective mode already with that suspicion already in mind. The more she clammed up, the worse he'd get, and she decided she'd rather tell him herself versus having him somehow getting hold of her medical records.

Resigning herself to the inevitable fallout, she nodded.

"Gonna turn your question back on you, kid. Why didn't you say anything?"

Didn't know at first. I wasn't diagnosed until right before my 17th birthday.

"I figured you were a masker," Jason said. "Damn good one too. But that's hella exhausting to keep up, isn't it?"

Not like I was doing it consciously, but yeah. It works until it doesn't, and I kinda crumbled all at once. Took the doctors six months to figure out what was going on.

She erased the tablet once he made a noise indicating he'd finished reading and started writing again. Jason hadn't pulled away or started freaking out or acting like she lacked understanding or emotions. Still, she didn't dare get her hopes up again.

Maman and Papa thought telling my whole class would "encourage understanding," and I'd get my friends back. They didn't listen when I asked them not to.

"The hell?"

She wasn't sure, but Marinette thought there was a fair bit of offense or anger in his tone. She hit the erase button and hurried to continue her explanation before she lost courage or Damian came back.

I mean, it kinda helped with some who were willing to talk and listen, but I still can't really relax around them. You know?

Jason huffed and nodded.

A few figured I was faking for attention or an excuse to be a "self-centered, selfish bitch." Others started treating me like a little kid, and some said I was so "high functioning" it didn't make any difference.

He hugged her tighter as he read. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

It's just, everyone has treated me differently since they found out.  Everyone . And I didn't want that to happen with you.

Sighing, Jason shifted so he could look at her. He didn't make any demands or even requests for her to look at him, but she did anyway. His expression was as focused and serious as she'd ever seen it.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with all that, Mari," he said. "But I don't see you any differently because you are the same tiny spitfire who can out sass anyone I met six years ago. I can't promise I won't say something if I see you gettin' wound up or exhausted 'cause you've always had a bad habit of taking care of everyone else and forgetting you."

She laughed and pushed his shoulder in mock offense.

"Just calling a spade a spade, half-pint," he said with an eye roll. "And," he said, dragging out the word, "if I start treating you differently, I give you permission to smack me upside the head 'cause I'd deserve it."

The tight feeling in her chest eased. Whether it was because of the weight that'd just been lifted from her shoulders or the medicine, she neither knew nor cared in this moment, but the throbbing pain in her head had started to ease as well. She laughed, hands moving in tiny flaps with the still tentative relief of acceptance from a man she considered family. Partly because she was just too tired to suppress much, and partly because a slightly masochistic side of her wanted to see if Jason was serious or just trying to make her feel better.

A light knock sounded before the parlor door opened to admit Mr. Pennyworth. Jason stood, and Marinette turned to regard him.

"Dinner is served," he said. His focus settled on Marinette, and his tone softened into something less formal. "I can bring a tray if you are not feeling up to joining the larger group just yet."

Clearing her tablet, Marinette wrote out a response and handed it to Jason to read out while she tried to escape the weighted blanket.

"We'll be along in a sec, Alfred," Jason said instead of reading out what she'd written. She scowled at him for wrecking her manners as she got the blanket folded away.

Mr. Pennyworth nodded and left with Jason never having bothered to even ask her question. She frowned at him and poked the tablet to emphasize the point as she wobbled to her bag, still sitting by the chair she'd sat in earlier.

"There will be more than enough room for your laptop, and no one's going to have a problem with you using text to speech as AAC."

Nodding, Marinette rubbed a bit of a solid perfume she found settling on either wrist before pulling her laptop out of the book bag. She took the tablet back from Jason, snapped the stylus back in its place, and tucked it away.

The pressure in her head was less painful now but still present, and the world swooped as she turned, making Marinette stumble to the side. Jason must have anticipated something like that happening because he steadied her. Thankfully for what little dignity she had left, he took the laptop and let her lean on him to steady herself instead of toting her around like a kid.

The dining room was about the same size as the ridiculously oversized one in the Agreste mansion, but it wasn't nearly so cold or empty. Less than half the seats were occupied, but judging by the others mentioned as being out-of-town, Marinette imagined the whole thing would be full come the holidays with everyone and their significant others in attendance. Only Jason's adoptive parents, younger brothers, and youngest sister were seated around the table, which was plenty for Marinette's nerves, thank you very much. Yet, he apparently had an older brother, another sister, and an honorary cousin he'd neglected to mention.

She was happy for him, really. Marinette just wished she'd been able to meet Jason's family without having made a nuisance of herself in the process.

It's very nice to meet you all, and thank you for welcoming me into your home. I apologize for the commotion earlier. I promise I'm not usually like this.

"There's no need to apologize, Miss Dupain-Cheng," the man who'd introduced himself as Bruce Wayne, Jason's adoptive father, said. "We're happy to have you."

"Yeah," agreed a younger man introduced earlier as Tim. "It wasn't the first meltdown this house has seen, and it won't be the last. It's really no big deal."

The table was set with a fresh salad, rice, and curry. Everyone had begun serving themselves as the introductions were made. Marinette picked at her food, hungry but almost afraid to attempt eating.

The mix of smells wasn't something that'd normally be an issue, but her senses had been on a hair-trigger all day. Then the meltdown had gone and hiked them up another notch on top of that. Although the dishes looked quite appetizing, the scent of the vinaigrette and pungent spices from the curry was overwhelming. She'd applied the bit of perfume to her wrists because it'd helped soothe her in similar situations before, but their attention was on her here. How could she make use of her stim aide without insulting her hosts?

She speared a bit of the salad and held her breath as she brought it to her mouth, breathing in only after she'd gone to pull the bite from the tines. She'd hoped to catch the grounding scent of sage and cinnamon, but she didn't. Solid perfume might last longer, but the slow evaporation of the formula meant it had a low scent throw. So that tactic wouldn't work.

"So, how did you meet Jason," asked his mother. Marinette thought her name was Selina, but she wasn't entirely sure she was remembering correctly.

Nonna Gina came by for a visit one day and introduced him to Papa as his new little brother. She drug him around for a few months, teaching him stuff, and I got attached. So, we've kept in touch. I didn't tell him I was moving to Gotham until Monday, though he still didn't see my message until yesterday.

"Oh wow," Jason said, letting the spoonful of curry plop back down onto his plate. "Drag a man for being out of service range. Some of us have to work, you know."

You know precisely what I do, J-Bo. Should I tell Auntie Pen you insinuated I'm lazy?

"Now you're just putting words in my mouth, Poprock."

At the head of the table, Bruce cleared his throat before addressing Marinette again. "Nonna Gina. You wouldn't happen to be talking about Gina Dupain, would you?"

Marinette nodded.

You know my grandmother?

Bruce laughed, and Marinette could swear she saw his cheeks go just a little red.

"She got me out of a tough spot or two in my more rebellious years," he admitted. "Taught me quite a bit before more or less yanking my head on straight."

"Quite," agreed Mr. Pennyworth. "For that, she has my eternal gratitude."

Bruce glanced at the butler with an expression she couldn't begin to interpret. Jason had whispered the older man had raised Bruce once his parents died and was considered an official part of the family despite being on payroll. The fact he joined them at the table to eat and this easy back and forth between him and the other members of the family backed it up.

"I didn't know Gina had children, let alone grandchildren," Bruce said.

Nonna tried when Papa was little. She really did. But a settled life just isn't for her.

Bruce's wife nudged him with an elbow and muttered something to him too low for her to understand. Though judging by the way the conversation shifted to be more between the main family than a series of questions directed her way, she'd hazard a guess Mrs. Wayne had told him to let her eat before her food went cold.

Try as she might though, Marinette barely managed half her salad and a few measly bites of the curry. It all tasted fine, but the smells and textures were still just too much.

The conversation shifted again as it became clear she was more or less done eating. Tim had asked about how she'd met Damian, and that led to Bruce asking them about their project. That, in turn, led to her and Damian kvetching about the difficulty they were having settling on a theme for the hypothetical mocumentary series.

"It's the mock bit that's the important part with mocumentaries," Tim said after they'd listed the themes they'd thought of and rejected. "It's hilarious how some will believe the most obviously fake things when it's treated like an educational show." He laughed. "Animal Planet did this mocumentary about mermaids of all things a few years back, bad CGI and all, and still, people believed it!"

That sparked Marinette's memory, and she pointed at Tim excitedly, waving her other hand and bouncing in her chair just a little before typing out what she wanted to say.

Yes! That's what I was trying to remember earlier, but I couldn't find the information I'd printed out. I think we've been being too serious with the whole thing. Maybe we need to make a joke of it, but tell it with flat affect.

That started a whole thing with Damian objecting to interjecting any sort of humor into an academic project as if the very idea was unthinkable. It took Tim and Marinette pulling up examples of actual mocumentaries to get him to consider their teacher was likely expecting them to do just that.

"What about basing them all on classic literature," Jason suggested about the time everyone was finishing up their meal. "Most of it has a historical setting already, and they're well known. So, it'd be obvious enough it's fake, but treat it like the stories were true."

Damian's eyes unfocused, and his brow furrowed in a way that made Marinette think he was thinking it over.

Of course that's your thought, Mr. Bookworm.

Marinette leveled her best teasing expression at Jason as the computer's robotic voice read it out.

"Everyone's a critic," he answered with an eye roll.

Hey now, I didn't say it's a bad idea. I kinda like it, actually. It's certainly better than our other ideas, and there's a ton of material. What do you think, Damian?

"It's acceptable," Damian agreed with a nod. "We can gather works of literature we find suitable and narrow down the list on Monday."

Great! Now that that's settled, I really should be heading home. Thank you all again. Supper was wonderful, and it's been a pleasure.

"Mari," Jason jumped in while several of the others were trying to decide what to say guessing by their odd expressions. "I know you are a strong, independent woman, but you've been wobblier than usual all evening. I'd feel a lot better if you'd take one of the guest rooms for the night."

He gave her the doll eyes, the big cheater.

"Besides," he continued, dropping the doll eyes and giving her a grin. "We were going to meet up for breakfast in the morning anyway, right?" His eyes grew wide, and his grin turned into a full-on smile. "I got the video of the Much Ado About Nothing starring Tennant and Tate as the leads," he said. "We can have a movie night!"

Damian's observations of Dupain-Cheng throughout dinner did little to settle his confusion regarding the woman. Her relation to an old mentor of his father's, who had been called upon to dampen Todd's more feral tendencies, explained how she'd come to know Todd. Yet, that was the only answer he could truly claim.

He'd seen Drake following meltdowns. Drake tended to look exhausted almost to the point of collapse. His senses seemed to be even more bothersome than usual, and he stimmed more for days afterward.

Dupain-Cheng had moments where exhaustion or sensory avoidant behaviors would peek through, but by and large, she seemed almost back to what he'd seen of her before. There had been a couple moments where she looked like she would start stimming, but they disappeared within a second or two. Was she able to hide her traits, or was she simply recovering with unusual speed?

He'd been composing arguments to get Dupain-Cheng to agree to stay throughout dinner. It was their responsibility to see to the safety of their guest, after all. Damian hadn't expected help from Todd of all people, but he wasn't going to complain. Surprisingly enough, it appeared Todd was doing an adequate job. The woman insisted she didn't want to impose, but Father's insistence on ensuring the well-being of his guests coupled with Alfred mentioning he'd already prepared a room for her essentially closed the argument.

Dupain-Cheng pouted, but she eventually agreed. She did seem genuinely excited to watch the recorded performance with Todd, and somehow they'd all gotten roped into doing so for a "family movie night." Damian was certain such a thing was only allowed because they'd recaptured Penguin last night, and none of the rogues had escaped, meaning tonight promised to be as quiet as Gotham ever managed.

"I need some of those patented Dupain cuddles," Todd said as he finished queueing up the DVD. "I've gone too long. I'm havin' withdrawals."

Dupain-Cheng rolled her eyes, but she didn't protest when Todd essentially pulled her onto his lap and hugged her like a stuffed animal. Todd then made grabby hands at Drake, who chuckled as he handed over the weighted blanket he must have retrieved when Damian wasn't paying attention. Todd unfolded it and laid the thing over both of them.

"You're right, Pix," Todd said. "This thing rocks."

The movie started, and both Todd and Dupain-Cheng were drawn in and oblivious to the world within minutes. Never much of one for Shakespeare's comedies, Damian decided to take the opportunity to see what light Drake could shed on the matter, if for nothing else than to prevent the confusion nagging. He set his phone to silent and opened the text feature.

Me: I assume you ran Dupain-Cheng's records after what happened earlier?

Drake: Yes. What of it?

Me: Her responses following a meltdown are quite different to your own. I was hoping you had some insight as to why.

Drake: She was diagnosed with both autism and ADHD a bit over two years ago, but nothing other than anxiety was even suspected before she was 16. Even then, she endured months of testing for a laundry list of things before they tested her for a neurological divergence.

Drake: So my educated guess? She's masking her traits.

Me: What do you mean by masking? I was unaware such a thing was possible.

Drake: It's something that's only been recently recognized, and the ability to do so varies widely from one individual to the next. Some do so instinctively and from an early age, well enough traits do not appear at all until the demands on them exceed their ability to cope. Others do not mask at all.

Drake: Marinette is more like the first from every indication. And so was I, believe it or not.

Me: You hide your traits?

Drake: All the time at work, yes. Though I have stopped doing so here at home because, while masking can make certain things a lot easier, it's costly.

Drake: I'm safe here. None of you are going to reject me for them. I can't say the same for people at large, particularly a couple of our more ableist board members.

Me: What do you mean, it's costly?

Drake: It's exhausting. Extensive masking puts you at higher risk for overload, shutdowns, meltdowns, and eventually burnout. That's what usually precipitates a late diagnosis. They mask until they burnout so badly they begin to "regress."

Me: And this is what you believe happened with Dupain-Cheng? If that's the case, why would she continue to mask her traits?

Drake: 99.999% sure, yeah.

Drake: It's not always a conscious thing, Damian, and other than Jason, we're strangers to her. You can't blame someone for keeping their walls up.

Drake: Why do you think Jason made it sound like the cuddles and weighted blanket were for him?

Drake's last question startled Damian, and he glanced over at Todd, seeing the lummox in a new light. He knew the man wasn't nearly as dense as he liked to pretend at times, but such manipulations seemed out of character until he remembered the way he managed Helena and Mar'i at times.

Looking closer, he discovered Dupain-Cheng had succumbed to her fatigue well before the middle of the second act. Todd noticed his attention and looked down, finding their guest was asleep as well. A fond smile graced his features, and he waved at the rest of them to go patrol if they wanted.

One quick, wordless conversation later, Damian left for the Batcave with Father, Drake, and Alfred.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Between a distinct lack of sleep and the residual discomfort from having a victim clinging to him like a lamprey the evening before, Damian found himself in a dismal mood Monday morning. Freeze, Penguin, and Riddler escaped Saturday evening during a shift change, so they'd had a rather eventful weekend attempting to round them up before they caused too much damage. Penguin was relatively easy to find though time-consuming to catch, which meant patrol ran long Sunday night even before he'd come across a mugging in progress on the way home.

It was easily handled. However, the victim was new to Gotham and, judging by her reaction to the event, she would not be a resident here much longer. He'd assisted her through the panic, but she'd continued to cling to his arm and sob until the police arrived. Thankfully Father's training and both Grayson and Jon's tendency toward physical contact taught him how to endure such things years ago. But having someone so close and the noises they make when in such a state did something to his nervous system he couldn't quite explain.

All in all, it'd been a trying and tiring night. Then to top it off, by the time he finally reached his bed at 4 a.m., the uncomfortable sensations remained running down his spine and through his arms. So, he managed little more than a fitful nap before his alarm went off at 7:30.

He slogged into his 9 a.m. class running on fumes and dreading the remainder of the day. Dupain-Cheng slid into the seat beside him moments later, and he nodded in acknowledgment without actually looking up from the emails he was perusing. Or he didn't until a thermos was set on the edge of his desk.

"Looks like you need it more than I do this morning," Dupain-Cheng responded to the questioning stare he'd given her. "Rough night?"

A fatigued groan and vague hand gesture toward the thermos were his response. Dupain-Cheng's expression tightened almost imperceptibly, but she neither retrieved her thermos nor turned her attention from him.

Damian sighed. "I had to put in some unexpected overtime," he explained, "and then I had trouble sleeping." Picking up the thermos, he handed it back to her. "I appreciate the offer, but coffee doesn't agree with me."

"I know those feels," Dupain-Cheng responded as she accepted the thermos back. "I have a couple of clients who are prone to making last-minute orders or changes." She giggled and rolled her eyes. "Pull a couple all-nighters, and your whole sleep schedule gets shot for days."

Professor Hernandez entered the classroom and began class, effectively ending their conversation. Turning his attention to the lecture, Damian opened the notes tab on this phone and took notes for once, unsure whether or not he would recall much of the lecture afterward.

Had he really gone so soft in the past few years that a couple days where he only managed two or three hours sleep rendered him so incapacitated? Or had the near-constant adrenaline high of death looming for the slightest infraction merely hidden the effects?

Focus damn it!

Soon enough, the class ended, and Dupain-Cheng turned to him as the others began packing up.

"Are we still on to finalize the list this evening?" she asked.

Damian nodded. "Would you prefer to work at the manor or on campus?"

"Either's fine," Dupain-Cheng answered with a shrug before starting to gather her materials back into her bookbag.

"If you are uncomfortable at either, other arrangements can be made."

Pausing in her packing, Dupain-Cheng turned to look at him with a furrowed brow. A moment later, something seemed to occur to her, and her expression smoothed.

"I meant what I said the other night," she said. "That kind of thing usually isn't a problem. I..." A blush colored her cheeks, and she fiddled with the strap of her bag. "I was fatigued, and that made it easier to get overloaded. It was just bad timing, not your house."

"Perhaps a quieter area of the manor then?" Damian suggested. "It'd be more conducive to productivity in any event."

Dupain-Cheng smiled and nodded. "Sounds good. Same time?"

"I could pick you up on my way from class," Damian offered. "From what Todd said, it is on the way."

Her eyes went wide. She flushed and began waving her hands in a frantic motion. "That's not necessary," she protested. "I can just take a cab again."

"Nonsense," he said with a dismissive wave and a mild grin. "I was unaware before you did not have a vehicle of your own, and picking you up is far less troublesome than Todd's prattling on the matter."

She sighed. "Fine." Her tone carried the pitch of annoyance, but it was off what he expected. "Text when you're headed my way."

Marinette returned home with an armful of groceries after a full morning of classes. She set the grocery bags on her counter and hung her purse and bookbag over the back of her desk chair. She unpacked the food, setting out some of Tikki, Plagg, and Wayzz favorites, before she settled at her desk with a sandwich and cup of tea.

She figured she had about four and a half hours before Damian came by to pick her up, and she intended to make good use of it. Her Fashion in Culture and Commerce class assigned a fair bit of work due next Thursday that she wanted to get a jump start on. Yet, long experience with high profile clients with hectic schedules taught her to keep a close eye on incoming messages before planning her day.

A message from Penny caught her attention right away.

From: [email protected]

To: BossLady@MDC_Designs.com

Subject: Rush Order for Stone Tour

Good day, Marinette. I hope this email finds you well.

The tour has been just the thing to break Jagged out of the block that's plagued him this past year. He has begun writing new songs again, and he is anxious to release at least a few during the tour itself since ticket sales have been down as of late.

We both know you are busy with classes and are constrained by your visa, so I am tempering his enthusiasm as much as I can. I apologize for the short notice, but the release for the attached single is scheduled for Friday next. We need the usual package. Cover art is due Monday by 8 a.m. Amazon Standard Time. The costume needs to be to us by next Wednesday evening, and the backdrop is due by no later than 10 p.m. AST next Thursday.

Payment will be the usual rate plus supplies and shipping with the rush order fee, of course. Two more songs will follow, but we will not release them until the Mexico leg of the tour next month.

Call me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Penny Rolling

A sense of unease coiled in Marinette's gut as she read back over the email. So now she had an assignment due at the same time as this latest rush order for Jagged plus her classes. Work was good, and this would certainly keep her busy. Yet, there was something she couldn't quite place nagging at her.

Marinette pulled up her calendar. Might as well check to see if she had anything else scheduled over the next week and a few days and write down this latest bit of work before she forgot, right? Saturday and Sunday being completely blocked out in the blue she reserved for MDC Designs' tasks caught her eye. How had she forgotten Hunter City Anime Con was this weekend? She'd purchased the pass months ago, and it was nonrefundable.

The urge to panic hit and hit hard, but the past two years of therapy had helped her improve her ability to recognize and derail spirals as they started. It wasn't perfect, but she was getting better. She'd always found stopping responsibility overwhelm far easier for her than more self-directed spirals or dealing with sensory stuff. So, she acknowledged the beginnings of the spiral for what it was, took a couple of deep breaths, and started mapping out how she would manage her time.

She could eat while she listened to the new song a couple of times. Then she could draft the rough designs before Damian came by, and start working on her newest assignments when she returned home.

Nodding to herself, Marinette downloaded the audio file and lyrics.

Damian wasn't one to visit his brothers. In fact, he generally avoided them when possible. Yet, desperate times call for desperate measures, so he let himself into the apartment Todd kept for when he was on the outs with Father that afternoon for a much-needed power nap and some easy energy from Todd's hoard of discounted sweets. An hour wasn't great, but it was enough to make it through the remainder of the day as well as the work session he had planned with Dupain-Cheng.

As agreed, he messaged the woman as he left Gotham University, and she was waiting on him when he pulled into her block's parking garage. Dupain-Cheng was obviously fatigued, but she still looked fresher than he felt, a fact he found irksome. More irritating still, she was obviously distracted, headphones in and sketching away in a notebook by the time he pulled back out onto the street.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the music he could almost hear from her headphones.

Dupain-Cheng startled and paused the music. Removing one headphone, she asked him to repeat himself.

"Am I interrupting?"

"Oh," she muttered once his meaning visibly registered a moment later. She removed the other headphone and began packing her materials away. "Sorry. I didn't think you would want to get started while on the road." She let out a nervous sounding laugh. "Watching the road instead of focusing on notes and all."

"Quite," he agreed. "Though I wasn't expecting to be completely ignored."

"Sorry," Dupain-Cheng apologized again.

Something about her manner and the excess of apologies struck him, creating a squeezing sensation deep in his chest. Why?

"I came home to a new assignment for work with a tight deadline, and I got caught up in it," Dupain-Cheng explained.

"Oh?" Damian raised an eyebrow in a show of curiosity. He already knew the answer, but he might as well ask anyhow since she didn't know that. "What do you do? I'd assumed you were here on a student visa, and those are usually quite restrictive, I thought."

"I am, but I have a CPT agreement allowing me to continue work for my employer," she answered. Apparently deciding she'd get no more done, she slid her notebook, phone, and headphones back into her bag. "I'm a designer for Rolling Media. What about you?"

Damian huffed. "I work with Wayne Enterprises, of course," he said. "Why come to GU if you're already a designer with Rolling and a good enough one at that they'd bother securing a CPT? Seems like a waste."

"I could ask the same of you," Dupain-Cheng laughed. "Though, as grateful as I am to Rolling, and however much I love the work I do for them, I have my own ambitions. If I want to launch my own brand, I need the credentials to back it up and enough business sense to not get conned."

"Ambitious indeed," Damian agreed. "The same can be said for me," he continued, turning onto the road that would lead them out of the main part of the city. "I have learned a lot shadowing others over the years, but I still have much to learn if I plan to head the family business one day."

"You do seem more the type than Jason," Dupain-Cheng agreed.

Damian nodded. "Todd prefers to aide our community outreach programs much of the time." This earned a warm smile from the woman. "Drake has assisted Father with the day-to-day running for several years now, but I fear he will burn himself out keeping the pace he is now."

Dupain-Cheng grimaced. "Ten out of ten, do not recommend," she commented. "Has no one talked to him about slowing down?"

"Only everyone," Damian grumbled. "Drake has a pathological need to 'earn' acceptance and an under-responsive interoceptive sense. So he pushes himself to do everything and does not always recognize his body's needs."

"Oof."

Damian hummed in agreement. The conversation lapsed into silence. The turn of their conversation toward Drake brought a host of questions he'd had nagging at his subconscious for days, and his internal filter was weakened by his recent lack of sleep.

That's what he'd tell himself afterward anyway.

"What does sensory overload feel like?"

Dupain-Cheng flinched, and her body language was guarded as she turned toward him. "Why do you ask?"

"In addition to you, I know several individuals who experience difficulty with sensory processing," Damian explained, casting about internally for a way of phrasing this that wouldn't be offensive. Why did he ask? He has better control than this! "I wish to better understand your experiences. Perhaps then, I could be of more help should the need arise."

"Oh, okay," Dupain-Cheng said. Her expression cleared, and she gazed out of the front window, seemingly gathering her thoughts.

"It can vary," she said eventually. "Even from one time to the next, so it's not exactly easy to explain. Sometimes bad sensory input starts out as just unpleasant. An itch that just won't go away no matter how much you scratch, a gross sound or smell, overlapping conversations you can't filter out.

"Other times, it's almost like your body tries to reject the stimuli. It makes you gag or nauseated or it hurts." She let out a laugh that sounded almost bitter. "I spent a long time taking painkillers I didn't need because I thought I had migraines when it was visual and auditory overload manifesting as a severe headache.

"Then there are times like Thursday where the bad stimuli…" she trailed off, sounding frustrated. "It's almost like it short circuits your nerves. You touch something, and the texture of it, just the memory of touching it, sends a crawling sensation up and down your limbs and spine." She shuddered as if illustrating. "Or there's just too much information coming in all at once, and it's like a computer that's locked up but you keep entering commands anyway until it crashes."

Damian sat processing what he'd been told. Quite a bit of what she'd described struck a chord with him, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He used his key fob to open the gate as they pulled into the manor drive.

"Thank you," he said, voice quiet and less sure than he'd like. "That is quite helpful."

Marinette followed Damian up the stairs to a study on the second floor, still trying to process the odd conversation they'd had on the way over. Aside from Luka, no one had ever inquired about how she experienced sensory input. Her therapist back in Paris had focused only on finding triggers and ways to mitigate or prevent self-harmful stims and behaviors. Everyone else had simply continued responding to her based on their own assumptions, whether she attempted to explain or not.

It was weird being asked that kind of question. Kind of frightening too, if she was honest with herself, not knowing why he wanted to know or what he'd do with the information. Yet, something in the way he spoke about Tim just before and the way he asked, the reason he gave, made her trust him.

Hopefully her trust hadn't been misplaced again.

Marinette shook her head and took a deep breath as Damian stopped in front of a set of double doors. Now wasn't the time to let herself get distracted. They needed to finalize their list of works to base each episode on before the night was done, and she still had work to finish when she got home.

The room was in a newer looking part of the manor, though she could not tell if it had been added on or renovated. From what she could see, great pains had been taken to match the original look of the manor, but the stain used on the panels was a shade off what was used in the entrance, indicating the original was likely discontinued. She hoped that meant the walls would be a bit more sound resistant up here, or the house would be less lively this evening.

Settling in one of the overstuffed chairs, Marinette pulled her marketing binder out of her bag and flipped to the list of potential works she'd written up over the weekend.

"So what did you come up with?" she asked.

"I'm afraid my reading list was a bit different than most," Damian said, flipping through a file of his own. "I am much more well versed in nonfiction, but I found the Project Gutenburg website to be quite helpful."

Marinette nodded, having turned to the website herself when she started having difficulty remembering titles outside her personal favorites or without just writing out her favorite authors' list of published works.

"Pygmalion, Around the World in 80 Days, Treasure Island, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Huntchback of Notre Dame seem fitting," he said.

"Pygmalion," Marinette mused to herself. She recognized the name, but what it was, she could not recall.

"A play by Shaw touching on the role of accent and language education on social standing in England."

"Oh, it's the one that got turned into that musical with Audrey Hepburn," Marinette said with a smile. "Beautiful costuming."

"I wouldn't know." Damian's tone was inflectionless so far as she could tell, but the way he shrugged made it seem a mere statement of fact. "What are your suggestions?"

"My first thought was to do some of Shakespeare's histories," Marinette said, "but then I realized that, although he took a lot of liberties with events, that'd still be too much like a documentary versus a mockumentary. So, I was thinking, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Le Morte d'Arthur, A Study in Scarlet, Don Quixote, and Gulliver's Travels."

"Don't Le Morte d'Arthur and Gulliver's Travels have fantastical elements to them?" Damian asked, noting something down in his file. "Wouldn't that push things a bit too far?"

Marinette hummed. They did want it to be "obvious" they were mockumentaries, but part of the joke with those is an element of believability, no matter how ludicrous the topic.

"You're probably right," she said. "Although, the only thing in Le Morte d'Arthur, if I am remembering correctly, is the vision of the Lady of the Lake taking back Excalibur. That could be explained away as a comforting lie Bedivere told Arthur, who was delusional with fever on his deathbed or something."

Damian nodded along with her reasoning.

"Gulliver's on the other hand," she continued. "Yeah, maybe we ought to strike that one out."

Jason stalked toward the second-floor study. He'd gotten back to his apartment after work to find his stuff moved and his candy stash raided. Not that he minded his brothers coming by now and again, but courtesy was a thing. So, he was on his way to remind the little demon it was polite to ask before helping yourself to someone's home seeing as he was the only one who would have had the chance to mess with his stuff today.

Alfred was kind enough to point him in the right direction upon arriving back at the manor and to give him a heads up the brat had apparently brought Marinette home once again. So, knowing he'd have the opportunity to see her without having to concoct an excuse to visit, while subtly warning her of Damian's less than stellar aspects of personality, was a nice bonus. Two birds, one stone so far as he was concerned.

However, he was not prepared to find them already packing up when he pushed one of the doors open. It was barely seven when he'd arrived. They were done already?

Damian scowled at him, and Marinette's expression was rather surprised though pleased as they turned to see who had entered.

"Will you join us for dinner?" Damian asked, apparently deciding to ignore Jason's existence. "It's nearly 7:30, so I expect it will be ready momentarily."

"I appreciate the offer, but I really must be getting home," Marinette answered. "Between an assignment for another class and that rush order…" She trailed off, continuing a moment later almost to herself. "I'm not even sure if I will be able to meet up Thursday evening if I want to make Hunter City this weekend."

"Hunter City?" Damian asked.

Marinette jumped, seemingly surprised anyone had heard her. "Hunter City Anime Con," she explained. "I've had my pass for a couple of months." She sighed. "I'd just skip it, but they're nonrefundable. And I only have so much time and money to try and scout the circuit here in the states."

The thought it sounded like Mari was planning to put down roots in the area distracted Jason, but not to the point he missed the flash of suspicion in Damian's eyes before it was hidden behind a curious mask. Damn Bruce and his paranoia. He might as well have programmed them all with trigger words with the way certain ones sparked suspicion for them all now, no matter the context. He'd better stomp that out right the hell now.

"Scout the circuit," Jason said, cutting Damian off before he had the chance to start talking. "You make it sound like you're planning to set down roots and bring MDC with you, Poprock."

Marinette finished packing her stuff back up and shrugged. "Nothing's set in stone, but Paris lost all appeal years ago, Jay. It's not home anymore."

"MDC?" Damian asked.

Jason wanted to roll his eyes. Like he didn't already know.

"MDC Designs," Marinette answered. "Remember that brand I mentioned wanting to launch?"

Damian nodded.

"I've had to put it in a holding pattern for now, but it's the start of it," she explained. "It's largely focused on costuming and creating fandom based accessories and what not with sales at conventions bolstering the profit margin at present."

"You are evaluating this convention as a possible sales venue."

Marinette nodded. "Each city, each convention has its own culture." She smiled. "I'm not going to move my whole life on a hope and a prayer."

"Prudent," Damian agreed with a nod of his own. "I can see how the new assignments are inconvenient." He gathered his own bag and the three of them left the study.

"We've determined our source material," Damian continued as they walked back toward the staircase. "Perhaps we can brainstorm rough ideas as to the content of each one between now and our next session?"

"Sounds good to me," Mari agreed. "We can work out the details Thursday morning. I ought to have a better idea of what my schedule will look like next week by then."

Damian stopped by his room, drawing Marinette's attention as she paused as well. Opening the door, he dropped his bag just inside and glanced back over his shoulder.

"Did you need something, Todd, or were you planning to loom over our shoulders all night?"

"Oh, I was just waiting for a chance to have a word with you, Demon Spawn," Jason answered, snickering internally at the face Pix was making at Damian's barb.

"I'll just," Marinette said with a gesture over her shoulder toward the stairs. "I need to call a cab anyway."

"No need, Poprock," Jason cut in. He tossed an arm around Damian's shoulders, causing the brat to scowl at him again. "Give me a sec to speak with my little bro here, and I'll drive you home. I was about to head back out anyway."

He really wasn't. Patrol was coming up soon, and Alfred's cooking was far better before a long night chasing dirtbags than anything he could scrounge at home. But the chance to figure out what exactly Mari was up too was worth the sacrifice.

She looked between the two of them, visibly uncertain, but nodded nevertheless. Damian rolled his shoulders, shrugging Jason's arm off, as she turned to head downstairs.

"What is it?"

"Next time you need to crash on the couch, call first, would ya?" Jason said, ignoring the irritated growl from Damian. "And keep your grubby mits outta my stash. You can get your own candy."

The residual sensation from Todd's surprise hold brought Dupain-Cheng's words back to mind. He made a mental note to conduct further research upon completing his work for the evening and tried to set it aside. Yet the tension remained, a constant distraction he couldn't shake.

Eventually, Damian gave up the effort as unproductive and searched through the pertinent symptoms once again, comparing and contrasting those for SPD alone versus autism. This time though, he searched out first-hand accounts instead of sticking solely to academic sources as Dupain-Cheng's lived experience resonated in a way the lists he'd seen before never had. Yet, after hours, he remained with more questions than answers, a state he abhorred.

A glance at the time showed it was approaching midnight. Drake was patrolling with the others at this time since Damian was the only one excused, as he was each Monday and Thursday throughout the semester. He'd send a text. They silenced notifications while on patrol as a matter of protocol, unless they reached a lull, so there was little danger of distracting him.

Me: I require your assistance when you are free.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

He'd just gotten back to the cave after dropping Marinette off and was heading to get changed when Dick popped out of one of the crevices in the north wall. If asked, Jason would forever maintain he didn't jump, but Dick was worse than a cat about sneaking up on people when he wanted. And judging by the shit-eating grin he was wearing, Dick knew it'd worked.

"So, when are you going to fill us in on little Marinette?"

Jason arched a brow at the older man. "You met her tonight," he said.

Dick scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "Not buying it," he said. Dick crossed his arms and leaned back against an outcropping of stone. "I've known you since you were a preteen punk who thought boosting Batman's tires was a good idea. I know all your tells."

Jason laughed. "Not likely." He shook his head and continued on toward the locker room.

"You had that look all evening," Dick continued, catching up to Jason and tagging along toward the locker room. "The one you only get around women who can, and likely already have, mopped the floor with your ass."

Jason's heart dropped into his boots, and he'd spun on Dick and pressed him up against the north wall before he registered what he'd done. "Shut it," he hissed. "You're full of shit, and I won't have you sicking B and the others on her because of your overactive imagination."

It was when Dick's grin got even wider and gained a sharpened edge to it, Jason knew he'd fucked up.

"Oh," Dick said, voice dropping to a near whisper. "So it is something beyond what we'd expect just for her being Gina's granddaughter, then."

"You're delusional."

"You're a bad liar when you're put on the spot. You know that?"

"We're not having this conversation," Jason insisted.

"We have it now, or we have it over coms," Dick answered back.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Your continued aggression says otherwise." Dick's eyes flicked down to Jason's arm still holding him in place, almost but not quite pressing into his neck.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!" went through Jason's head as he cast about for something to throw him off Mari's trail. Still, Dick had made a valid point, so he started by letting go of his older brother and taking a step back.

"You knew her back during your days as… What did you call yourself? Taurus?" Dick continued. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck from one side to the other. "And she brought up you interfering with akumas. Even mentioned one by name."

"Her class was one Hawkmoth was fixated on was all," Jason said. "She got caught in the crossfire a few times. One was a kid that got akumatized because he had a crush on her that ended with his classmates being typical middle school dicks about it. You think I'm gonna see monsters going after a girl I see as a little sister and not do something?"

"Little sister, huh?"

Didn't take a genius to figure out Dick didn't believe him for a second.

"Yeah, no." Dick shook his head and pushed away from the wall. "I wasn't getting sibling vibes from the two of you," he tossed over his shoulder as he entered the locker room.

Disgust and anger sent a wave of heat coursing over Jason as he stalked after Dick. "Just what are you implying?" he said. Building emotion and the tightness in his chest dropped his voice, pitching it down to a growl. "I'm not some damn pedo!"

"Woah, woah, woah." Dick whirled on him just inside the locker room. His arms were raised like he was trying to get Jason to calm down, but his expression was just as insulted as Jason felt. "How'd you come to the conclusion I was implying anything like that?"

"She's six years younger than me!" Jason shot back. "She's a kid!"

Dick's eyes went wide, and he hummed to himself before chuckling as he turned away, heading for his locker. "So that's it then," he said, almost to himself but loud enough Jason could still hear. "You can't shake the image you have of her from back then even though she's all grown up now."

"You've got a one-track mind, Dickie Bird," Jason answered, stalking over to his own locker. "Not my fault you're delusional."

"Interesting timing too," Dick continued to muse, pulling his shirt over his head. "She moves to Gotham, and you inform B about the Guardian being in Gotham a little over a week later."

"Not really," Jason shot back, opening his locker and starting with his boots. "They're college kids, and the semester started that same week. When else are they going to move here?"

"I'm just saying, Little Wing." Dick's voice strained ever so slightly as he wrestled the heavy, snug material of his uniform over his head. "You never bring anyone home. And you look at her the same way you used to look at Wonder Woman back in the day."

Nightwing tugged the material into place and gave Jason one of his pointed looks. "Makes a guy wonder, you know?"

Heaving a heavy sigh, Jason gave him the best explanation he could without throwing Mari under his family's proverbial bus.

"You know how Gina is." Nightwing nodded. "Pix gets her size from her mom, Sabine. Don't know if you caught my reaction to her threatening to tell Sabine about that crack I made earlier, but..."

Nightwing's expression went flat for a moment before his eyebrows shot up. "Scary lady?"

Jason nodded. "I might prefer my guns, but I could probably knock Replacement off the mat with a staff now thanks to Sabine. And you best believe Nonna Gina and Maman Sabine made sure their tiny pixie of a girl could handle herself just fine."

"So she kicked your ass."

"Walked funny for two days."

Jason had been with Gina for a grand total of fifteen days before she drug him to Paris to meet her family. Something about hauling supplies and needing to burn off his excess energy enough to be any use to her.

It wasn't like he had meant to knock over that can and alert the smugglers they were there.

When Gina mentioned she had a son, daughter-in-law, and young granddaughter, he hadn't imagined anything like what he found when they got to Paris. Tom was freaking huge! Seriously, the guy was built like Killer Croc, minus the scales and fangs. Sabine was a petite woman, but where Tom gave the impression of a big, slightly anxious teddy bear, Sabine had an aura around her that set Jason on edge.

Then there was the granddaughter. Gina told him the girl was thirteen, but looking at her, Jason found that hard to believe. The kid was tiny.

Between her size and the sweet, if clumsy and anxious, personality she had, he could see why Gina's nickname for the kid was Little Fairy.

To Jason's dismay, they visited for a couple days, and then he woke up Monday morning to find Gina had up and vanished on him. According to Tom and Sabine, Gina wanted him to help out in the bakery until she returned, to "help him learn patience and discipline" like he hadn't already had those lessons drilled into his head by Batman himself. Alfred too if he was being honest.

Disgruntled, he'd tried to slip away a few times to go track Gina down and get his rehabilitation back on track, so he could get back to Gotham already, which is when he learned why Sabine set him on edge. The first time taught him the woman could lecture with the best of them. The second proved she wasn't intimidated by his size in the least nor adverse to making use of pressure points he didn't even know existed to get him down where they were eye to eye as she warned him what would happen if he tried to run off again while they were responsible for his health and safety.

Did he listen? He was nineteen, had died already, and felt certain this woman was completely incapable of following through on her promise of a painful lesson.

Upon making his third attempt to sneak off, he'd promptly learned, not only was she both capable of and willing to keep said promise, but those big wooden paddle looking things Tom used to move stuff in the brick ovens could double as a bo staff in a pinch. They also delivered one hell of a smack when the wide end was applied to your rear with force. That'd hurt his ego enough to get him to knock off the escape attempts, but he'd never been very good at keeping his smart mouth in check.

His frustrations started to manifest as jibes sent at the family. Tom and Sabine, for their part, just ignored them and kept him in the back to prevent him from smarting off to the customers. Little Marinette didn't handle them so well though.

It was his second Saturday with the Dupain-Chengs when matters came to a head. He'd been taking potshots at her height all week, chuckling to himself when she went red in the face and grumbled insults under her breath in response. Now that he was part of the staff, he got drug out of bed at the ass crack of dawn to help unload their weekly ingredient delivery, and he was pissy as a result.

"Careful there, Short Stack," he snarked, walking into the storage room to find Marinette unlatching the roll-up door. "You'll hurt yourself working that thing."

"Haven't yet," she answered without so much as glancing over her shoulder. Ignoring the handle set about waist high for an adult, she squatted down and pulled up on a handle bolted into the bottom of the door.

To his surprise, the heavy door started rolling up as the girl used the toothpicks she called legs to lift the weight.

"Pardon me, Pixie," Jason said. "I hadn't realized they modified it for the vertically challenged."

Marinette apparently decided to keep taking the "high road" approach. She made it look like she was ignoring him, but the tension in her shoulders and jaw, and how very red her ears had gone, told him the barb had hit home.

She greeted the delivery driver by name as he opened the back of the truck. Jason stepped forward to start offloading bags, but Marinette held up one of her tiny hands.

"You stay there," she said.

"And what, you're going to get the bags, or are you going to make Geoffry here do all the heavy lifting?"

Marinette rolled her eyes and stepped across the foot or so gap between the dock and the truck and walking to Geoffry's side. "I toss," she said. "You catch and stack," she finished with a gesture toward the shelving unit off to the side.

Jason looked from her to the bags stacked in the back of the truck. There were several different kinds and different sizes, but the ones in the stack she and Geoffry were counting off looked almost as big as her. His eyebrows nearly met his hairline. Was this guy seriously going to let her pull or tear something to prove a point?

Well, if Geoffry wasn't going to put a stop to this stupidity, he'd just have to do it.

"Come on, kid," he said. "Those bags are bigger than you are. Get out of the truck and stop wasting time."

To his shock, Geoffry hefted the top bag off the stack and handed it down to Marinette, who freaking slung it at him without wasting an iota of its kinetic energy. Caught completely flat-footed and unprepared for the mass of a twenty-five pound bag of flour flying into his chest, Jason stumbled back. His heels caught an unopened case of napkins and sent him back onto one of the stools they had back in the back for quick breaks when needed.

He caught the edge of it at a weird angle and bounced off, finally landing on the floor, twisted into an awkward position with the flour bag pressing down on him. Groaning, he pushed himself up, wincing at a sharp pain that radiated from his tail bone.

"Are you planning to lay there all morning? Stop wasting time."

Marinette's voice radiated irritation from her continued position in the back of the delivery truck. She jerked her head toward the shelves, and he'd be damned if freaking Geoffry wasn't trying and failing not to laugh. Embarrassed enough for one morning and mentally planning a bit of payback, Jason got up and carried the bag over to the shelves. He'd no more than limped back to the dock before Geoffry and Marinette repeated the unstack and fling maneuver.

Prepared this time, Jason kept his footing, but he nearly lost it when he heard Geoffry ask Marinette if her parents forgot to warn him she'd done this with Tom every week for the past couple years.

It didn't take long for Marinette to realize she'd been right about another burst of adrenaline being responsible for her "improvement" during dinner with the Waynes. J-Bo had driven her home a little after 8:30, and she'd started having to fight the urge to nod off on the ride. She'd hoped to at least search up and download the images and clips she'd edit into the backdrop before heading to bed, but given her state, she decided sleep was her first priority in order to be functional in class the next morning.

With any luck, she'd wake feeling at least a bit recovered and could make up for it after class.

Too bad she'd forgotten Monday was errand day until halfway through her classes. Cursing herself out mentally, Marinette sent a message to a dummy email she'd set up to be able to communicate with the kwamis active within the apartment when she was out and about.

"Please clean up. A classmate is coming over tonight."

Tidying things away was a deeply ingrained habit for Marinette, crucial to her functioning, but anyone who had lived with both destruction and emotion incarnate quickly learned the same was not true for them. In truth, her life would probably be much calmer if she kept her tiny but powerful roommates within the miracle box unless strictly needed, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Even two years later, Nooroo and Duusu were just beginning to truly heal from being so abused. Upon seeing what having another's will imposed on them could do to the kwami, the thought of doing such a thing made her sick.

So she didn't do it. Some were perfectly content to spend the majority of their time within their pocket dimension, but Duusu, Stompp, Trixx, and Xuppu were fascinated by how the world had changed since they were last active long term. Tikki and Wayzz requested to stay active now as well, mostly to continue her training and keep the others in line. Plagg stayed because Tikki did, though he'd claim it was because he couldn't stand being separated from cheese so long.

Today was one of those days where she wished she had brought Plagg with her instead of Tikki. Wayzz and Stompp would keep the others focused and from causing too much trouble, but Plagg tended to be more hindrance than help in such situations.

But alas, hindsight. And either Tikki or Wayzz always accompanied her on errand days, especially in Gotham.

The one time she'd suggested taking Plagg instead, the cat had "put his paw down."

"One thing we've learned in our time here, Bug," he'd said. "The residents who've been influenced by this place the most are drawn to destruction like a magnet. Take me outside the wards Tiks and Wayzz put on this place, and you're begging to catch their eye."

Plagg had floated over to her and butted his head into her cheek before rubbing his against hers, and then he'd settled on her shoulder. "As much as I'd like to get out more, I'm gonna be the reason you get hurt, kid."

Jason was in the know. A little mess or random kwamis flitting about the apartment while he was over wasn't a big deal. The same couldn't be said for Damian, and the man was neither lacking in wit nor unobservant.

Marinette groaned to herself as she hurried off campus as soon as her last class ended, heading toward the local shops as quickly as her legs would take her. Aside from a few guilty pleasures, she wasn't overly fond of prepackaged foods, especially when she was due to have guests, and Tikki was even more against them as a general rule. However, she was still far too low on spoons to care, and she had even less time to make sure her place was in order and some work was done before he showed up. So frozen spinach and cheese ravioli, a quick sauce using canned crushed tomatoes, and packaged garlic knots it was for the evening. Maybe they'd have a salad too considering she was getting all of the necessary ingredients anyway with her usual weekly shop.

It was a rather awkward thing, walking back home with arms loaded down with bags. Add in the fact one of said bags had a curtain rod jammed in it, and the whole thing was just kind of ridiculous. It was half past two, and she was verging on exhausted by the time she made it back to her place.

Thankfully the kwami had been binging Supernatural through her Netflix account most of the day and hadn't caused much mess or trouble. So she had what little needed to be cleaned up done, her groceries packed away, the curtains she'd finally gotten for the sliding doors hung, and a quick shower before 4 p.m.

Great, that gave her about an hour and a half to at least get her clips and images in order before she needed to start dinner.

Too bad she forgot to set an alarm.

Marinette thought she was making remarkably good time. She'd found what she needed to build the backdrop. And, since her alarm hadn't gone off yet, she started uploading all of the clips and images into her video editing software. She was pulling them into the order she wanted them when her intercom buzzed, indicating someone was trying to buzz into the building to see her.

Surprised and confused, Marinette glanced at the time readout on her computer. It read 6:10.

Marinette jumped up, cursing under her breath, as she dashed to the intercom. Sure enough, it was Damian on the security feed. She pressed the button to buzz him into the building and went back to her desk to save her progress and shut the editing program down. A quick word to remind the kwami they had a guest coming in, and they flitted back into the miracle box for the evening while she made it back to the door just in time to greet Damian.

He stepped through the door, eyes flitting about in a manner Marinette found too familiar for comfort. She shoved the observance to the back of her mind, resolved not to think about it. This was J-Bo little brother, and that was a train of thought she didn't want leaving the station. It'd be devastating for her stress levels, and she had enough going on, thank you very much.

"Nice place," Damian commented.

"Still a bit bare, but I can't complain," Marinette answered, shutting the door. She flexed and clenched her hands at her sides. "I'd meant to prepare dinner before you got here, but I seem to have got caught up in work and lost track of time. Would you prefer to eat first or start researching potential locations?"

"Again, dinner is not necessary," Damian answered. "I don't wish to be an inconvenience."

Marinette waved a hand and shook her head. "It's nothing big," she said. "There's no way I'd have time to cook from scratch today, so I got ingredients for something quick, simple, and that requires a minimum of work. And it's not like it's something that would rewarm particularly well, so you'd be doing me a favor."

The look he shot her was dubious, but he didn't argue further.

"A compromise then," he said. "We find three options, and then I will continue researching options while you cook. We'll see where we are after that."

That was something she could live with, so Marinette agreed. The two of them settled on her sofa with their laptops and began researching public spaces in Gotham. They'd settled on the botanical gardens, Miller Harbor, and Robinson Park within forty minutes. Although he tended to play like he didn't get out much, Damian seemed quite familiar with the city as a whole, which was helpful.

Damian moved to the breakfast bar when Marinette began working on dinner. The garlic knots merely needed to be warmed, and the pasta just needed to be boiled for fifteen minutes or so. This meant the most demanding part of cooking their evening meal was seasoning the crushed tomatoes, cooking them down into a passable sauce, and putting together a quick salad.

They debated the finer points over whether or not to stay within the main parts of Gotham or risking some of the lesser watched areas. Damian seemed more comfortable considering certain places than Marinette had expected, and by the time dinner was ready, they'd added the public space outside the women's shelter run by The Sirens, parts of Old Gotham, and the clocktower to their list.

"When are you free to visit some of these locations?" Damian asked as Marinette finished plating their meals.

She hummed to herself as she considered her workload and deadlines. She walked past the breakfast bar to the small dining area on the other side of it and placed their plates on the cozy, round table sitting there. Motioning for Damian to join her, she sat.

"Not before Friday morning at least, I'm afraid," she said. "I still have my usual workload plus the last portion of that rush order due Thursday night."

Marinette kept an anxious eye on her guest as she spoke, worried the dinner she'd prepared wouldn't be up to the Wayne standards, and she'd find herself embarrassed by one of the few people she'd gotten to know in town. Yet, he'd tucked into his meal without hesitation, and his expression remained impassive. So, even if he wasn't impressed, he at least wasn't disgusted.

"What time are your Friday classes again?" Damian asked. He speared one of the ravioli. "I could request the morning off if you've sufficient time available."

"My first class starts at one."

"Acceptable," Damian agreed with a nod. "If we plan well, we should be able to scout two or three of them Friday morning." He made a note on his phone and then looked up. "Would you be available to scout the others over the weekend?"

Marinette chuckled. "Baring another rush order or the local villains causing a stir," she agreed.

"Oh, always," Damian responded with a put upon groan. They both chuckled at that and ate in relative quiet for a few moments before he broke the silence again. "How are you adjusting to that part of Gotham?" he asked.

"Really well, actually," Marinette answered after a moment to consider it. She huffed at the irony of her thought before voicing it. "It's almost nostalgic in a quiet way."

Damian seemed to swallow his latest bite before he was quite ready to do so, causing him to cough and sputter for several seconds before he got his breathing back under control. Marinette apologized profusely, unsure how she could help, but he waved her away.

"I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe Gotham in such a way before," he said. "It caught me off guard." He took a long sip from his water before watching her with an unusual amount of intensity in his deep, green eyes. "What do you mean exactly? Most find the villains operating in Gotham to be overwhelming, even with the vigilantes helping keep things in check."

"It's less publicized due to the city's dependence on tourism, and the former mayor's ego, but Paris spent four years being terrorized by a similar villain," she explained. "It was just Hawkmoth for the first year before Mayura joined him, but their powers worked in such a way, it felt like whole armies of them."

"How so?"

"Magic," was her sardonic answer. "What else?" Marinette rolled her eyes. "A selfish fool got his hands on a piece of magic jewelry and decided the end justified the means, even if it meant terrorizing an entire city. Unleashing huge monsters. Killing people. Destroying landmarks again and again. Endangering his son even, not to mention the numerous children he used and traumatized."

Marinette found herself the center of Damian's attention when she looked up again. His expression was one she wasn't confident reading, though after running through her explanation in her head again, she figured the way his eyebrows were drawn together was confusion. He seemed to either be processing or having difficulty deciding which question to ask, so she decided to try and clear up the gaps she'd seen in her explanation.

"He could infuse butterflies with magic and use them to possess people feeling strong, negative emotions," she explained. "He'd offer them powers as a way to fix or get payback for whatever was making them upset in exchange for them getting the source of Paris' heroes' powers. Babies, kids, and teens seemed to be his favorite victims."

"Magic," Damian spat like the word itself was disgusting.

He sighed, and for a moment, Marinette could almost feel exhaustion radiating off of him in waves, and it confused her.

"Illogical, unpredictable, and easily corruptible," he murmured almost to himself. "All traits I can't stand, and every time I hear anything about magic, it's usually all three."

As much as it pained her given the nature of her roommates and friends, Marinette couldn't argue against his point. Instead of nodding or agreeing outright, she decided on responding with a noncommittal hum, and they returned to eating in silence again.

"So, Paris has heroes?" Damian asked several moments later.

Marinette couldn't help the nostalgic grin that accompanied her answer. "Had," she said. "At first it was just Ladybug and Chat Noir. Taurus showed up a couple months later. Eventually, he left, and more heroes rotated through after Mayura showed up."

Memories bubbled up, crowding out everything else, until she realized she'd been quiet, lost in her thoughts, for a while. She shook her head and apologized as she laughed at herself.

"Hawkmoth and Mayura were captured two years ago," she said. "With their jewels returned to the individual responsible for guarding those particular artifacts, the heroes retired and returned theirs as well."

"Why not simply destroy the artifacts?" Damian asked.

Marinette's chest felt heavy, like Gigantitan had stepped on it. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but something must have shown through given Damian's reaction. She couldn't put her finger on what his expression meant, but it was somewhere in the zone of confused, worried, or concerned.

"Something that powerful is dangerous by its very nature, right?" he pressed. "It just seems more logical to remove that danger from the world instead of hiding it away where it will inevitably be found." He huffed, and a scowl settled on his face as he sat back in his chair, now finished with his meal. "Probably by the wrong sort, statistically speaking."

As much as she wanted to argue against his point, Marinette could not do so without bringing information she only has because of being Ladybug and the Guardian. It pained her, but she had to settle for answering with, "I'm sure the Guardian has their reasons. You'd have to ask them what they are though."

"They always do," Damian answered with a roll of his eyes. He finished off his glass of water before easing his expression. "Let's hope this Guardian is competent at least."

Marinette giggled in an effort to hide the pain and anxiety triggered by his statement. "Well, considering she was Ladybug, I like to think we're in good hands."

Chapter Text

The discussion he'd had with Dupain-Cheng regarding Paris' time dealing with magically powered villains and heroes did nothing to ease Damian's curiosity and concern. The fact Todd refused to speak about the matter at all, after what little he said when caught talking to Father about them, only served to heighten both and point toward Todd having been involved at some point. So Damian did what he always did when he had far more questions and concerns than answers.

He spent what free time he had the next three days researching the names he'd heard. True to Dupain-Cheng's statements about the news being kept suppressed outside the city, he found precious little of use until he changed his system to "appear" as if it was inside Paris city limits. Once he did that, thousands of hits began appearing for his searches.

Damian searched back through them to find the earliest mentions a little over a month after Todd was sent to be retrained following his resurrection and time with the League. The first few videos were horrifying. It was blatantly obvious to anyone with training the heroes had little to none before being tossed in the proverbial deep end. Chat Noir had perhaps taken a few classes here and there, though it looked as if he had no experience outside formal matches, and Ladybug seemed to have none whatsoever. One could also tell from their overall size and the way their proportions were slightly off, the heroes were young teens, probably just entering puberty.

Who thought giving untrained children powerful magical artifacts without so much as a primer, based on Chat Noir's complete waste of his one power during their first fight, was a good idea? Ladybug seemed to have a bit more knowledge of her powers at least, though it seemed other critical information had been left out of whatever basic instruction she'd been given. Such was evident given their second fight started barely twenty-four hours later as the result of an oversight from their first.

Damian was uncertain exactly what had happened, but there was a noticeable change in first Ladybug and then Chat Noir starting about a month into their tenure as heroes. They not only became accustomed to their powers, but there were subtle shifts in the way they fought, indicating they were finally being trained. Something struck him as familiar about the way they moved, prompting him to rewatch a few of their fights several times in slow motion. Eventually, he realized Ladybug was incorporating some of the flamboyantly gymnastic moves Grayson developed during his days as Robin, and Chat Noir began favoring a strike only ever taught by the League.

Point two in favor of Todd having been involved. Damian could not think of another who could have been training the two if those particular techniques were part of the curriculum.

Then, in a video date stamped roughly seven weeks after the first occurrence, Taurus, the third hero Dupain-Cheng mentioned, appeared. The first glimpse confirmed it. Taurus was Todd wielding one of the artifacts. No one else had that tuft of white hair amidst the black in that particular location. However, despite his knowledge of both this and the fact Todd had obviously been training the younger duo, his mind seemed to be fighting to prevent this knowledge from being incorporated into his long term memory. Whenever he closed a video, he had a nagging sense he knew the identity of Taurus without being able to recall it. Then, as he started the next video, the knowledge would return.

Damian growled as he realized it must be some sort of magical protection meant to protect the bearer's identities. Annoying, but nothing he was unable to circumvent after years dealing with mystics. Leaving the current video paused on an image of Taurus rushing an akuma, Damian pulled his phone from his pocket and made a coded note of the information.

Jason didn't remember much about the start of the day Stoneheart was first seen in Paris. He remembered it was the first day of school for Marinette because it was the first day since he'd started staying with Tom and Sabine that the girl wasn't either in the apartment or down in the bakery. He expected it'd be quiet and kind of boring without her to rile up, but then Stoneheart had shown up.

Everything got pretty chaotic after that.

Most of what he remembered was scrambling to try and figure out what to do. Bruce had been adamant he not take his Red Hood getup, and Gina had found the couple he managed to sneak past the Bat. So here he was, stuck without a means of concealing his identity past a flimsy cloth mask anyone would be able to see through easily if the thing didn't fall right off anyway. It was maybe 3 a.m. back in Gotham, and what could Bats do about this anyway. It's not like they had Zetas set up for Paris since Diana had left the city before the JL was formed.

It was just his luck Sabine had tasked him with making sure Marinette stayed safe once she was back in the house. The girl was already up in her room by the time he'd washed the flour off his hands and shucked the apron he wore when helping Tom. He didn't see her, but he could hear her easily enough. There was an awful lot of thumping and that weird sound she made when flustered interspersed with the sound of her talking to herself coming from her room.

Something had told him he probably ought to go up and check on her, but given how frosty they'd been toward one another in the last week or so, he didn't think she'd be receptive toward it. Even if she was panicking, he was pretty sure he'd just make matters worse, and fun to rile up or not, he didn't actually want to scare or anger the kid. Eventually though, he did go to check on her only to find her room empty and her balcony just as deserted.

He had hurried back down the stairs, intent on getting Tom and Sabine's help, but something on the news stopped him in his tracks. There on the screen were two, obviously young and completely untrained kids with superpowers fighting the villain. The one in the polka dotted onesie looked and sounded suspiciously like Marinette, but that couldn't be right. The kid had spunk and could sass with the best of them, but there was no way she'd intentionally go out and do something like this.

Right?

He'd stood there, watching the whole thing in a kind of daze as he went around and around in his head debating whether or not this Ladybug chick could or could never be little Marinette. It was the fact he didn't even remember said internal debate until the next day, when Stoneheart resurfaced with an entire army of clones that Chat Noir and Ladybug stopped, that really caught his attention. He was so busy composing a coded message to himself about it that he missed the first bit of Ladybug's speech that first go around.

Even with the note, he still forgot about his suspicions, and the note too, until the heroes appeared again. The proof something was screwing with his head put him in even more of a foul mood than the fact someone had put a pair of untrained kids up to fighting a grown-ass man who decided to be a villain and seemed to love picking on kids.

Finally, Jason had enough of the go around whatever magic this was had been playing with his head and simply staked himself out in Marinette's room during one of the afternoon attacks. This crap had been going on for a couple weeks now. He was sick of watching a couple kids get hurt over and over, and he couldn't give two shits whether or not Ladybug's powers fixed everything up after all was said and done.

Kids were getting hurt, and it pissed him off, especially considering he was 99% sure he knew one of them. He might pick on Marinette now and again, but he'd be damned if anyone else so much as laid a finger on her.

Even then, shock slapped him across the face when Ladybug dropped through Marinette's balcony door moments after the fight three streets over ended. The fear on her face as her transformation dropped, leaving her as the gangly teen he knew, made him feel just a bit guilty. Not guilty enough to put up with the red sprite's lecturing, but guilty nonetheless.

"Shut it, Bugsy," he snapped, waving his hand to force the creature to back up a bit. "Was it your bright idea to con a kid into throwing themselves into this bullshit?"

"Marinette is my chosen," the sprite answered. "It's her honor and her duty to protect her people and stop Hawkmoth!"

"No. Fuck that!" Jason argued back. "She's a kid. It's her duty to grow and learn, something you are getting in the way of so far as I can see. How the hell'd you get in here anyway?"

"Please keep your voice down," Marinette hissed. "It's dangerous enough for you to know! Please. Please don't make Maman and Papa feel like they need to come up here right now!"

"Relax Marinette," Jason said, softening his tone as he turned to her, ignoring the angry, red critter for a moment. "I understand all about secret identities. I'm not gonna blab."

Her face scrunched up in confusion. "You do?"

"Gina ever tell you where I'm from?"

"Just somewhere in America," she answered. "A city not known for being very nice, and that you had it rough, which is why you act like you do."

Jason felt his expression go flat at that. He'd have to thank Gina for oh so nicely making him out to be a feral charity case whenever he saw her again, but that wasn't important right now.

"Okay, so have you ever heard of Batman?"

Marinette shook her head, and Jason groaned.

"He's a vigilante back where I'm from," he explained. "The city's home to a lot of not nice folks the cops are unable to keep up with, so Batman's been trying to even the playing field for years now. Has a bad habit of getting kids caught up in his crusade too, just like this one." He jabbed a finger in the sprite's direction again.

"I've seen what happens when anyone caught up in this gets their identity revealed to the wrong person." Remembered pain constricted his throat, and green filled his vision at the memories. He ground his teeth and breathed through the flash of rage. "Ain't no way, no how I'm letting the same happen to you, Pipsqueak."

"What happened?"

"Kid got himself taken by one of Batman's enemies and beat half to death," he said.

"Don't lie."

Jason and Marinette both startled at the sprite's hard tone.

"What do you mean, Tikki?" Marinette asked, eyes blown wider than Jason had ever seen them before.

The sprite, Tikki he supposed, turned hard blue eyes on him. "If you're going to scare my chosen, at least have the respect not to lie to her," she said. "He wasn't beaten half to death. He was murdered."

Jason found himself locked in a battle of wills with an oversized bug with a head six times too big for its body, but he could see Marinette looking between the two of them in his peripheral. Horror began to dawn on her face, growing worse by the second.

"How?" he asked.

"I know any time one of my creations is used, and how, even if I'm inactive," Tikki answered. "One of the resurrection pools was used to revive the bat's son three years ago."

"Resurrection pools?" Marinette's question came out as a half-hysterical squeak.

"The result of a wish," Tikki explained. "The last one Plagg and I were forced to grant. Pools that can heal any wound. They can even revive the dead in some cases, but the more they give, the more they take."

"No way in hell am I letting her or that other kid end bloody like the second Robin did," he said. "He at least got some training before trying to get into the life. Did you even tell her what her powers would be before tossing her to the wolves?"

"There wasn't time."

"Not an excuse!" Jason hissed back. "Did you just have no clue this Hawkmoth guy existed at all, or did you ignore it until he forced your hand?"

"You have no right," Tikki argued back.

"Neither do you!"

Marinette clutched her thermos to her chest as she made her way down the stairs Friday morning. She'd finished the backdrop and sent it off yesterday afternoon, so she'd managed a decent amount of sleep last night, even after finishing off the fourth scarf and hat set she'd made for the stockpile she needed to donate soon. But, she'd never been a morning person, and she was due to meet Damian in the block's parking garage at eight.

Still, the more they managed to check out this morning, the less they would need to do tomorrow. She didn't really expect to get more than three of the potential locations done this morning though, early start or no.

Thankfully Damian was as punctual as usual, and she arrived in the garage just moments before he pulled into the building, driving a much more nondescript vehicle than she'd seen him in before. He didn't even bother parking since he caught sight of her standing to the side. He simply stopped the car, let her in, and they were off.

"I thought we'd knock the shelter, Old Gotham, and the clocktower off our list first," Damian mentioned as he turned onto the street. "They're all in the same general area, and there is a lower chance of things going sideways with the majority of the locals being at work or school."

Marinette nodded. Her hand went to her trusty, handmade bag, fingers gliding over the smooth threads of the embroidery. She could feel Wayzz patting her fingers reassuringly through the thick material, and the bracelet warmed where it lay twined around her wrist. Part of her trusted in her "luck" along with the positivity the kwami radiated to keep the two of them out of trouble, but she'd had a growing sense of unease these last few days. Her time in Gotham thus far had been relatively quiet, and with the atmosphere within the city being so similar to Paris at the height of Hawkmoth's reign, she was growing antsy. Having Wayzz with her felt reassuring.

Thinking of the kwami drudged up the memory of Damian's words from Monday night. While she could understand his point of view, and she couldn't fault his logic, the sentiment still stung. Of course, there was no way for the man to understand what he suggested by saying she ought to destroy the miraculi much less a reason for him to suspect he was talking to the Guardian he so distrusted. But feelings were rarely logical.

She pushed the hurt back with long practice. It's not like she should really care that much so far as Damian was concerned. She wasn't part of the hero life anymore, but she still had secrets to keep, as much as it pained her to do so. Given the connections between the Wayne clan and the heroes present in both Gotham and Metropolis, Damian wasn't someone she could afford to slip up around. It was bad enough Jason knew given he was a freaking Wayne too and just never bothered to mention it, not that she could blame him given how much it hurt having people treat you differently after learning something you have little or no control over.

Neither one of them being much for small talk, Damian and Marinette passed most of the drive in silence. Marinette watched the city pass by out the window. It was almost mesmerizing to see how the very architecture changed as they ventured from the newer parts of the city into Old Gotham.

Soon enough they were pulling into a small parking lot outside an older, three-story brownstone with an amazing amount of greenery thriving even this deep into the city. Even if she hadn't conducted her own research into this particular women's shelter, the plants alone would have tipped her off Ivy was involved with the place. There's just no way plants grew that healthfully this deep in a city like Gotham without a bit of extra help. The amount of shade cast by the high rises surrounding the area alone would deter many species.

"You know," she started as she exited the car. Unease filled her as she finally gazed at the building. "I like the aesthetics in the area, but the idea of actually filming scenes here feels weird."

"How do you mean?"

Damian shut his car door nearly in sync with her as she did the same. The two walked toward the entrance.

"This isn't really a public place," Marinette explained. "Yeah, it operates like a nonprofit, but people live here."

"You make a valid point," Damian agreed. "Do you wish to strike it from the list and move on?"

"Probably yeah," she said. "Although, if you don't mind, I do have a question or two I would like to ask the owners while we're here."

"What could you want to ask Quinzel and Isley?"

"I'm in the market for places to donate," Marinette answered with a shrug.

Damian gave her a funny look she wasn't sure how to interpret, but he didn't say anything else as they made their way inside. Marinette wasn't sure what to expect walking into such a place, but having one of the owners, who just so happened to be an ex-rogue turned anti-hero, meet them in the lobby wasn't even on the list.

"What are you doing here, Mini Wayne?" asked Harley.

She stood in front of double doors Marinette guessed led back into the main part of the shelter. Her feet were planted shoulder-width apart. She had her arms crossed over her chest and stared them down with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I was showing a classmate Old Gotham, and she wanted to stop in and speak with you," Damian answered.

The other woman's expression remained closed and tight, with her lips pressed into a thin line. She arched an eyebrow at Damian before glancing Marinette's way.

"What you want, hun?" she asked. "This one isn't giving you problems, is he?"

Marinette's head jerked back in surprise, and she barked out a sharp laugh. "No," she said. "He's a little grumpy sometimes, but he's been a perfect gentleman."

Dr. Quinzel blinked, something Marinette guessed was surprise flashing over her features, before both brows raised. "Really?"

Marinette nodded. "I was actually wondering what kind, if any, donations you accept," she said in an attempt to change the topic. She felt her face flush hot, and she clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides. "I'm a stress knitter, so I'm always looking for places that could use scarves and hats or sweaters, that kind of thing."

"Well ain't you sweet," Quinzel said. A wide smile spread over her features, and her posture shifted into something that made Marinette feel less antsy.

"Girls and women come in all kinds of ways," she continued. "So, we never quite know what we're gonna need. But with it starting to get cooler out, warm clothes are always good, especially for the ones who had to leave with just the clothes on their back or who come in pregnant or with littles."

Marinette nodded. "Okay. Are there specific times you take donations, or?"

"Any time, Sugar. Though I'd advise against heading out this way past sundown, even with the little prince here with ya."

There was that flush again, and Marinette studiously ignored the irritated growl from Damian. "Nah, I'll probably come by before classes next Friday," she said. "That'll give me time to make a few more sets for you. Thanks."

Marinette waved and turned to head back out the door. The older woman giggled and waved as well as Damian scowled at her before turning to leave with Marinette. They walked back to the car in relative silence, Damian only breaking it once they were back on the road.

"Stress knitting?"

Marinette shrugged. "I like the feel of the yarn under my fingers, and the repetition of it all is soothing."

Jason went round and round with Marinette and Tikki for days. Marinette refused to give up being Ladybug after having made a promise to herself and to Paris, so he was forced to settle for ensuring she at least knew how to handle herself.

He did find out Tikki, and her counterpart Plagg, weren't operating on their own. There was some old fart out there going by The Guardian who was pulling the strings, and it was he who chose Marinette and the other kid for this stuff without bothering to train them. He and Tikki came to an understanding of sorts. He'd refrain from bringing this guy up to Marinette, and she wouldn't out him as the formerly dead Robin.

So, to start off with, he talked Sabine into training him and Marinette with what she knew. From what he'd seen when the woman trounced him the weeks before, it would give them both a bit of a boost. Plus, it added a layer of plausible deniability if anyone caught onto the changes going on with Marinette's situational awareness.

The hard part was finding a way to include the other kid without driving Marinette into a panic attack about identities.

It took a bit, but Jason finally found an old building that was functionally abandoned, not particularly watched, and out of the way. Then he got Marinette to ask the cat to meet her there one evening in place of patrolling. Even with Marinette knowing who he was, he decided discretion was the better part of valor here, so he went with the stupid cloth mask and just prayed the thing stayed on. He dressed in the most generic stuff he could find and left in plenty of time to beat both superpowered teens there.

Ladybug arrived first, but the cat wasn't far behind. While Ladybug had slipped through one of the still open windows, the cat's arrival was heralded by a thump on the roof. Jason watched from the shadows as Marinette returned her yoyo to her side and made her way into the middle of the open space.

"Why did you want to meet here, M'lady?" Chat Noir asked as he entered a couple moments later.

"We've been flying blind," Ladybug answered. "I don't know about you, but I had no training for this whatsoever, and luck can only take us so far. So, I've arranged for someone to help us."

What the hell? Did the cat's tail really move on its own? Damn thing was doing the little side to side swing just at the end of the tail cats did when they were agitated.

"Who?" Chat Noir asked, eyes narrowing.

"A cousin of mine."

Jason found himself frozen. He and Marinette hadn't thought to think up a way she knew about him before they set this plan in motion, and normally the kid's excuses and off-the-cuff explanations were horrible and delivered with a stutter that screamed lie. But this. This was smooth and seamless.

When had she come up with that, or had she taken to thinking of him as family at some point?

Whatever. Doesn't matter.

Jason stepped out of the shadows and greeted the kids with a wave. "Yo."

Chat Noir startled and turned toward him. He placed himself between Jason and Ladybug while dropping into a defensive stance. That warning movement of the tail was still there, and what Jason had previously believed to be fake, decorative ears were pinned back. Any more, and Jason would expect the kid's hair to bristle. He raised his hands in a show of surrender to make the kid feel better.

"Hey now," he said, keeping his voice neutral and nonthreatening. "I come in peace. I'd be the cousin she was talking about."

Chat Noir glanced back at Ladybug for confirmation, and she nodded with a slight roll of her eyes. The kid relaxed at that, but he was careful to keep himself positioned between Jason and Ladybug.

"Chat, this is J," Ladybug introduced him by the name they'd discussed earlier.

Jason gave the kids a two-fingered salute, to which Chat Noir responded with a narrowing of his eyes.

"What makes you think J can help, LB?"

"Gotham mean anything to you, kid?" Jason asked before Marinette could answer.

"Not much," Chat answered. "It's in America, relatively close to Metropolis, but otherwise, just that it's one city my father has told me I'd never be allowed to visit."

"Smart man," Jason answered. "He didn't mention why?"

Chat shook his head.

"It's because it has a whole slew of psychotic killers and assorted criminals that call it home," he explained. "The regular police force and a guy with fancy toys, far too much time on his hands, and a bad habit of roping kids into his bullshit are all that stand between the citizens and said killers and criminals."

To say Jason enjoyed seeing the kid's expression morph from suspicion to wide-eyed shock would be grossly inaccurate. However, it did give him a sense of satisfaction to know he'd painted an effective picture.

"My mom died when I was nine," he continued. "Didn't have anyone else, so I spent two years living on Gotham's streets before I got adopted. You don't just do that without learning how to handle yourself."

Chat glanced back at Ladybug. "I thought you said he was your cousin."

"Didn't say he was a blood relative," she shot back.

The kid looked back and forth between the two of them, and Jason could almost see the gears turning in the kid's head. Eventually though, he shrugged.

"Alright," he said. "If you trust him, Bugaboo, that's good enough for me."

Upon leaving the women's' shelter, Damian drove Dupain-Cheng through the thickest part of Old Gotham on the way to the clocktower. The tower itself had shown promise in a few different areas, and Gordon still had full access to it if he was not mistaken. The remainder of Old Gotham would be useful only for exterior shots, so Damian found himself rather disappointed with their scouting.

Still, he could admit the two of them had a productive morning nonetheless. Despite underwhelming results for locations, Dupain-Cheng and he were able to brainstorm different ways to approach the stories and their "true origins" to make what places they did find work to their advantage. Additionally, he was able to glean a bit more information regarding the Paris situation as well.

Damian had a suspicion Dupain-Cheng knew more about what really went on than she let on. Considering the proof pointing toward Todd's involvement, the fact she held information she would not easily reveal was more reassuring than it would otherwise have been. If she knows and can keep Todd's secret, the danger should she discover other, similar secrets, was low.

Still, here it was nine in the morning on a Saturday, and Damian found himself on his way to collect Dupain-Cheng again. There were other things he could be spending his time doing, but it was an unseasonably nice day. There were worse things he could do than spend a Saturday showing an acquaintance he was beginning to find less tiresome around the botanical gardens and one of Gotham's better parks.

Miller Harbor was the least appealing of the remaining three areas they were to scout out, so upon collecting the woman from her apartment, that is the first place they went. Thankfully, Miller Harbor was one of the better maintained and managed areas, though it did have its occasional issues. They'd been out here last month when the Blue Fairy cases first started appearing, but his family had no cause to visit the area since.

When they arrived, the night trawlers had already offloaded their catch, and the day shift wasn't due back for hours. Missing out on the fish hauls made their walk through the area much more pleasant if no less hectic and busy.

The modern equipment and backdrop locked them in to more recent eras than the stories were originally written, but they agreed, the area could prove useful at least for Count of Monte Cristo if nothing else.

From there they went to Robinson Park. It was a nice park Damian frequented with Titus often enough. There were wide expanses of grass, large trees here and there, picnic tables, benches, walking trails, playgrounds, statues, fountains, and even an old bandstand. Dupain-Cheng walked beside him virtually vibrating with excitement as she made notes and snapped photos as they went.

It was the most animated he had seen the woman in a while.

By the time they'd made a loop around the park, it was getting close to noon, so they purchased a meal at one of the food carts and ate at one of the tables. Dupain-Cheng pulled a sketch pad from her purse and began sketching something as they ate.

"Another assignment for Rolling?" he asked after watching her for a bit.

Dupain-Cheng shook her head. "Roughing out some ideas for our project based on what we've seen so far," she answered. Upon reaching a stopping point, she looked up at him with a broad, bright smile. "It's actually kind of a relief we'll probably have to modernize a few of the stories. It'll make costuming easier, but that doesn't mean I haven't gotten some lovely ideas."

She spun the sketchbook around and pushed it across for him to see. Sketched out were the rough outlines of a dress and suit that wouldn't have looked out of place during Gotham's founding.

"Are you planning to create costumes for everyone, on your own?" Damian asked.

"Maybe?" Dupain-Cheng shrugged and frowned. "I'm sure we could recycle a few here and there, but you're right. That's probably way more than I can manage around school and work." Her voice trailed off as she continued until she was talking more to herself than to him by the time she finished.

She grimaced. "Do you think we ought to just stick to regular, modern clothes and just pretend we're in an alternate reality where styles never change?"

Damian wasn't sure what his expression must have looked like in response, but whatever it was set Dupain-Cheng to giggling.

"Yeah, I don't like that idea at all either," she said once she'd calmed down.

"Am I that transparent?" Her mirth was infectious it seemed. He couldn't help but grin.

"Oh, I'd hardly call a scowl that could curdle milk transparent."

He arched a brow at her sass as he found himself smirking in amusement. "Quite. It's why WE has the top cottage cheese in the U.S."

It was amazing the things one could get their hands on even in Arkham when you knew who to bribe. Kept things interesting to still get news from the outside past what little they were allowed in their infrequent visits to the commons areas.

The youngest Wayne boy's pretty little friend, for instance, would have taken months for him to discover if it weren't for his old pal, Henley or whatever.

His smile grew, and a chuckle bubbled up in his chest as ideas began dancing through his brain.

Yeah. It was about time he got out and stretched his legs again.