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“You don’t have to like me, you just need to pretend you do.” Were the first words out of Nightwing’s mouth when he showed up to patrol.
Marinette looked at him and blinked a few times. “What?”
He got into her space a little and looked into her eyes. At least she was pretty sure that was his goal. His whiteout lenses made it impossible to know for sure. “Hood is patrolling with us tonight and I need you to pretend that we don’t hate each other for one night.”
She thought it over for a moment and decided this could be really funny. “Then don’t bait me.” At least Adrien would get a kick out of her plan. “But I just heard that Calamity is in town and he asked to patrol with us as well.”
She bit her tongue so that she wouldn’t laugh when she watched his eye twitch.
“You might have mentioned that before. I wouldn’t have asked for Hood’s help with this case if I knew that we already had a third.” He hissed out at her.
“Ah, ah, ah, I thought we were supposed to be playing civil tonight.” she smiled at him.
He took a step back and grumbled. “I swear, if Baby Bird didn’t vouch for you I’d think that you’re trying to kill me.”
She smirked and looked out at the street where she knew Adrien would be coming around on his bike in just a moment. “Who knows, maybe I am.”
“Red would have known. He’s too good a detective for you.”
She laughed and then saw that Adrien was rounding the bend with Red Hood right on his trail. “Let your brother know that it’s Calamity.”
Nightwing walked over to the edge and sighed. “This is going to be a long night.” He pressed the button on his wrist that would connect his com unit and relayed the information to Hood.
Marinette didn’t wait to hear what he said, she was already jumping off the building diving right towards Adrien. She had done this enough times she knew he would smoothly transfer from bike to pole and catch her. Sure enough, just a moment later she was in his arms and they were heading back up into the sky. They landed a building over from where Nightwing was glaring at her.
“Well LB, looks like not much has changed there.” Adrien laughed lightly, setting her onto her feet gently. “He’s calling you a show-off.”
“He’s the show-off!” She shouted just enough to remind him that Calamity could hear across the distance.
“He says that eavesdropping is rude.”
She just stuck her tongue out at him and smirked. “He has to play nice tonight.”
Adrien laughed again. “I’m not gonna do anything. This is your rivalry.”
“Not tonight. Tonight he wants to act like we are happy partners. Apparently, his family thinks we get along.”
“His family?” He gave her a curious look. “I thought you didn’t do a reveal.
She shook her head. “We didn’t, it just annoys him when I call his team his family.”
“So you do it every chance you get.” He rolled his eyes. “KF says that this rivalry needs to stop at some point so that we can all know your identity.”
She gave him a look. “I’m sorry… Do they think you don’t know who I am?”
---
Dick was glaring at where Lady Bird had just thrown herself off the building. She didn’t seem to be grabbing her yo-yo, but that didn’t matter much when Calamity was there to catch her he guessed. For two people who didn’t know each other under the masks, they sure acted like they would trust the other with anything. Though with the way Paris forced them to die for one another he guessed they really did.
Jason parked his motorcycle and started to grapple up while Lady Bird and Calamity landed across from them.
“Freaking show off.” He complained, seeing her being placed on her feet and smiling at her partner.
“He’s the show-off!” Her response rang out and he remembered that Calamity’s hearing was annoyingly expanded. Good for missions, bad for complaining about Lady Bird.
“Eavesdropping is rude kit-kat,” he grumbled, glaring at her as she stuck her tongue out at him.
Jason landed next to him and looked over at them. “I forgot his bike did the fade to shadows thing. I wish we had that.”
“Magic isn’t that useful Little Wing, you know that.” Dick rolled his eyes and turned to look at Jason.
“Alright Dickhead, what did you need four people on? It can’t be powerful enough that you really needed to drag me out as well as the two of them.”
Dick ground his teeth and glared at Lady Bird again. “It isn’t. I didn’t know he was joining up until about ten minutes ago.”
“So this really isn’t a ploy to get me to help you with your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend!” He turned back to gape at Jason.
Jason laughed at him. “Then why are you glaring at her partner like he killed your cat?”
“It’s nothing, let’s just go.” With that, he pulled out his grappling hook and flung himself into the open air to join Lady Bird and Calamity on their roof.
He landed just in time to hear the end of her sentence. “Do they think you don’t know who I am?”
“Wait! You know each other’s identities?” he was glancing between them and trying to wrap his head around that. “I thought only one person knew your identity?” He turned his attention to Calamity. “You said that only the other guardian knew her identity.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “Nightwing, who do you think the other guardian is?”
“I don’t know! Your mentor?” Dick responded.
Lady Bird rolled her eyes again and shook her head. “It’s like you don’t listen when other people talk.”
Jason started laughing so hard he had to sit down. “Oh my god she’s right, even I know the answer to this one.”
He glared at Jason and then turned back to Lady Bird. “So what is it?”
“I became the guardian when our mentor was compromised. He gave me guardianship and erased his memories so that he couldn’t give away our identities.” She spoke to him as though he was a child who was being told this again. “So when Calamity and I shared our identities we also made him a guardian. That way our kawmi are taken care of, even if one of us falls in battle.”
“Not that that’s gonna happen Bugaboo.” Calamity came and hugged her from behind.
“ Anyways , let’s get on with the mission. Yeah?” Lady Bird looked at him and he scrambled to get it together. He’d never realized how… human she looked when she talked before.
---
It had been a couple of weeks since Nightwing found out that Calamity knew her identity and so going to the tower had been hell. Now that everyone knew that Adrien and she knew each other they were begging for a reveal, and the whole “no one can know” was officially a weak argument.
So Marinette did what she did best! Avoided her problems until she couldn’t anymore!
“LB if we don’t show up they will send someone to get us.” Adrien was suited up and sitting next to her on the tower. “Besides, what’s the worst that can happen?”
She flailed her arms into the air. “They could recognize me and hate me!”
“I mean you wear a magical mask as MDC, so I highly doubt that.”
“Not MDC, I mean ‘me’ me, civilian me!”
Adrien sighed at her and hugged her. “None of them are from Paris, and do you really think Nightwing will know you? He’s the only one who might have seen you in Gotham. And he already hates you. So once again, what’s the worst that could happen?”
“Chat Blanc.” The moment she said it she regretted it. She knew that Adrien still blamed himself for the ruined world he caused in a failed timeline, and she shouldn’t have brought it up, but it really was her biggest fear.
“M’lady, you know that won’t happen. Hawkmoth is gone, and even though you mean the world to me, you’re not as critically important to anyone else.” He smiled and squeezed her tight. “Besides, it’s not like you’re telling your identity to your crush again. Officer Grayson was it? I highly doubt that Nightwing turns out to be a cop. The Bats break the law all the time.”
That made her laugh at least, and she felt a lot lighter after that. “You’re right Kitty, there’s no way. He’s probably just some guy who has never even interacted with Marinette. Let’s go.”
---
“So have your brothers made bets?” Wally asked him as he walked into the Titans’ living room.
“Like I don’t know Tim called all of you to see who wanted to join in.” Dick laughed and vaulted over the couch to steal Wally’s popcorn.
“Tim thinks he’s narrowed her down to four possible girls.” Wally pulled out his phone to look at the girls. “But I think he’s wrong, none of them feel like they are Lady Bird.”
“That’s the magic,” Donna said as she walked into the room joining them on the couch. “We won’t be able to just logic out who she is. Him either for that matter.”
“Tim thinks they came to Gotham as a couple, so he narrowed down to people who arrived around the right time for her to have started joining them on patrol.” Roy was upside down on the couch still playing Mario Kart with Garth.
“She always says he’s visiting, so I think Tim is wrong,” Garth added while trying to shove Roy and make him lose concentration.
“Marinette said that Calamity still visits her parents, so I doubt that he moved with Lady Bird.” Dick chimed in.
“And you don’t think it could be designer girl?” Wally asked him.
“She was a hero a couple of times, but always seen with Ladybug. She showed me a picture of her with the core team once. She was the mouse hero.”
“I don’t know man…”
“She’s afraid of heights, there is no way she’s Lady Bird.” Dick shook his head. “I literally watched Lady Bird dive off of Wayne Tower without even reaching for her yo-yo. Marinette is a klutz who is afraid of heights. She is also nice, and caring, and wouldn’t push someone else off a building.”
“Oh my god is that why you hate her?” Roy looked up now that he had finished the round. “Because she pushed me?”
“You could have died!” Dick shouted, this had been a sore spot since it had happened, and he was still upset over it. “It was completely unsafe! There wasn’t even a net! What if she had missed? You could have-”
“Calamity would have caught me.” Roy cut him off. “Dick, he was standing right there, you saw her save me, but her partner was already on the ground ready to catch me if she missed. I asked her to push me. I wanted to see if I could hit the target in mid-air after being pushed.”
“It wasn’t safe.”
“Neither is when Donna throws me, I was spotted the whole time though.”
“By two unknowns, you could have died!” Dick screamed, and the whole team realized exactly what the issue really was. This had little to do with Lady Bird and everything to do with trauma.
“Nightwing?” Lady Bird’s timid voice came from behind him and he froze. “I-i’m sorry.”
He heard her footsteps get closer. “Don’t,” he sighed out. “Don’t come closer. I need to… you’re not going to understand the way it happened in my head until you know who I am… and until that happens I don’t want your apology.”
---
He turned and looked at her. The whiteouts of his mask still hiding his face, but she could still tell that he had been crying. She did this. She didn’t know why or how, but throwing Speedy off the side of the tower had triggered something in him. She had to fix this. She needed him to know she trusted him. Marinette grabbed Adrien’s hand and took a deep breath.
“Spots off.” “Claws in.”
They dropped their transformations together and she opened her eyes to look at Nightwing.
She took two steps forward and reached out her hand. “Hi, I’m Marinette. I’m kinda a klutz, I’m a fashion designer, and I moved to Gotham about a year ago to pursue my own company under the eye of Jagged Stone. I grew up in a bakery, and after the fire that nearly killed me and my parents, I have been terrified of open flames. I miss Paris but moving to Gotham has helped me so much and I feel like just being in the city is helping me to do good for people.”
Nightwing started laughing and she took a step back.
“Uh… I mean… sorry… I ramble when I-”
“Marinette stop.” Nightwing stepped closer to her and grabbed her hand and drew her into a hug. “I get it now. You really didn’t mean it.”
She stiffened in his hold. “Uh, Nightwing?”
He pulled back and smiled. “Oh yeah.” He reached up and grabbed his mask slowly peeling it away from his face. “Shit ow, wait a moment.”
She moved out of his arms while he reached into his utility belt to grab the solvent for the skin glue on his mask. He slowly removed the mask, parts of his cheeks red from where he tried to rush it, but then he was standing there and Marinette smiled.
“This is what you couldn’t tell me.” She gasped looking at him.
He picked her up and twirled her around. “I thought you were afraid of heights!”
She laughed and shook her head. “It’s easier to claim that I am than to have to explain why I can do a triple summersault without any formal training.”
He stopped spinning but kept holding her. “You mean we could have been-”
“Kiss me” she cut him off.
His eyes widened as he blushed. “What?”
She could feel her own face heating up and wanted to take back her words but Adrien was grinning at her and she used his certainty to give her courage. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for months, if you feel the same then please kiss me.”
That was all it took. He moved the hand around her shoulders up to her hair and pulled her into a kiss. It was sweet and perfect and he started to deepen the kiss when someone cleared their throat.
“Uh, MariBug? Think maybe you could stop sucking face for a moment?” Adrien was awkwardly standing next to the rest of the team waiting for them to separate.
Her eyes got wide and she went completely red. She leaned down to hide her face in Dick’s shoulder. “Oh my Kwami, I can’t believe we did that.”
Plagg started laughing and Dick gently set her down. “I guess it’s time to finish introductions.”
“Y-yeah that would be good.”