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Marinette enjoyed spending time with Jason.
He made her laugh, and smile. All regrets of the past melted when he put his arms around her, and all worries of the future turned into hopeful dreams.
He pushed her to follow her dreams rather than be held back by her own anxiety.
He held her when it all became too much, and she did the same for him. Not that he let himself be vulnerable often, but even if he didn’t show it, she managed to somehow figure out when he needed her to support him, to care for him or call him out on his stupidity.
In the beginning of their relationship, they travelled a lot.
Following the final battle with Hawkmoth, Marinette had already been on a trip around the world when they met, and Jason had been somewhat rootless for a while. Sure, Gotham was home, but at the same time it wasn’t anymore
They ended up taking a road-trip through Europe, seeing the sights, and exploring before returning to Paris.
“Let’s just go through Belgium. It’s much faster.”
“Mnyeah, no. Not a good idea. There’s a warrant out for my arrest in Belgium.”
“... okay?”
“Yeah. It was a misunderstanding though. I didn’t explode the train station on purpose. It was just, sorta, in the way, you know?”
“Uh -"
“Austria is no-go as well.”
They were rather opposite. Jason was rough around the edges, but he never treated her with anything but the highest respect.
That isn’t to say that they never argued. Marinette thought he was too cynical and impolite. He always started out perfectly respectful, but if others showed him disrespect or God forbid, disrespected her, he was ruthless in his comments and observations.
Not to mention, he was a horrible driver. Not that he was without skill – just without inhibitions.
Jason thought Marinette was too naïve. That she wore rose-tinted glasses that would make it too easy for people to take advantage of her.
When other men catcalled her, he got frustrated by the way she would just grin and bear it. One evening though, when they were visiting a bar and another guy put his hands on her after several dismissals, she finally snapped and tore into him with profanities he hadn’t even heard of, telling him to go and do some very inappropriate things to his mother.
Jason had never been so proud of another person in his life.
Even with those significant differences in their nature and thus plenty of things to disagree on, their first heated argument hadn’t been about their clashing worldview but came when Marinette had called ‘Pride and Prejudice’ overrated. That had started a fifteen-minute rant from Jason, which Marinette hadn’t had the patience for.
None of them won.
In their arguments, Marinette was always the most stubborn one. Not that she wouldn’t concede to Jason’s points when they made sense, but she insisted that they always finished whatever argument they started. They never went to bed angry, no matter if they stayed up all night to resolve their issues.
Jason while cynical with the rest of the world, was a hopeless romantic. He never held back in his affection with her, even though he was dismissive or suspicious about others. His affection showed itself in all sorts of ways. In his words and his touches. In the way he drove through the night while she slept, to surprise her with the most beautiful view of the Alps when she woke up or the way he remembered to get her favourite chocolate when he went to buy groceries.
Sometimes though, Jason said the strangest things.
“Hey, did I ever tell you about that time I trained with the League of Assassins?”
“... what?”
“Yeah. I was a bit messed up when I came back to life. But it's fine. I mean, I’m not crazy homicidal anymore, so there’s that.”
Eventually they made their way back to Paris. Marinette was moving out of the flat she had shared with Alya, as she and Nino were ready to take the next step in their relationship.
The flat she found was a bit on the pricey side, but with the commissions Marinette was doing along with the work she did for Audrey Bourgeois, she could afford it.
Jason didn’t move in officially until three months later, but unofficially they had been living together since they returned to Paris.
They were still learning about each other and still, Jason made some odd remarks from time to time.
“ – And then he set fire to the shower with a flamethrower. With me in it. What I’m saying is that I’m not that bad a roommate. ”
Sometimes she could relate to the things he said.
“I mean, I know his wife was sick and stuff and he tried like, everything to cure her, but I don’t think most normal people would approve of their spouse terrorising an entire city and turning people into ice sculptures, ya know?”
Sometimes, she really couldn’t.
“ – and then I suppose Talia just went ‘yeet!’ and next thing I knew, I woke up in this puddle of green goop and that’s how I came back to life.”
She didn’t quite know how seriously she should take it or how much of it was bullshit.
“Hey, did I ever tell you about that time I created my own criminal empire?”
“ – then I tried to kill Tim... again... but it’s okay, we’re over it. Actually, no one has tried to kill anyone else in a long time. I think we’ve reached a record or something.”
He certainly had a lot of scars, but that could have been from anything.
Then she met Roy.
It was three in the morning and Marinette was thirsty.
She grabbed a shirt from the chair in the corner, not really caring if it was hers or Jason’s.
Rather than turning on the lights, she used the flashlight on her phone, idly wondering if the neighbours would think someone had broken in if they saw the light bopping up and down with every step she took.
She nudged Jason’s shoes to the side from where he had stepped out of them in the hall, careful not to fall over them. She wrinkled her nose at the spots on the rug. She must not have noticed the trash bag leaking when she took it out earlier.
She ran a hand over her face and moved on to the kitchen, grimacing when she stepped on something wet.
She just had to step on the trash juice.
She reached the kitchen where she snagged a fresh cloth from the drawer, wetting it under the tap with the intention to wipe the spots off the hardwood floor.
The rug would have to go in the washing machine. Wouldn’t be the first time, wouldn’t be the last.
“Hi.”
Marinette screamed and threw the wet cloth directly at the intruder.
With the ‘splat' and ‘oomph' coming from the direction of the kitchen table, her aim was true.
A yelp came from the hall followed directly by the large bump that could only be the sound of a two-hundred-twenty-pound man, hitting a hardwood floor.
In a fluid motion, Marinette had already grabbed a decently sized kitchen knife on the other side of the kitchen, holding it steadily towards the intruder. She turned on the lights exactly as a dishevelled looking Jason appeared in the doorway.
“Roy?” he groaned; his voice hoarse from sleep.
“Hiya Jaybird.”
Jason frowned and leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed across his chest. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you even find me?”
“Put a tracker in you a couple of years ago,” the stranger admitted with a careless shrug.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Of course, you did.”
The guy - Roy winced and that’s when Marinette saw the wound on the side of his torso.
“Jason, he’s injured!” she exclaimed. “And I thought it was the trash that had leaked all over the hall,” she added in a mumble as she hurried towards the bathroom.
“Well, to be fair, that is a rather accurate description,” Jason chuckled.
She returned to the kitchen to see Jason pulling two beers out of the fridge. He put one in front of his friend.
“Hey, you aren’t even gonna offer the lady –“
A glass of white wine found its way to the table too.
“So. Want me to take a look at what you’ve gotten yourself into?”
Roy shrugged and winced again. “Nah. It’s done. Just gotta take care of this little souvenir,” he grunted, gesturing at the wound in his side.
Jason helped him expose the stab wound which he analysed with obvious experience and Marinette finally let it sink in that perhaps all the wild stories were true.
She did, after all, have a bleeding guy in some sort of hero get-up, with a mask on the table and a bow and quiver of all things propped up against the wall.
“Hey, Mari, could you get me a needle and some thread?”
Marinette squinted at the wound. “Sure. I’ll get some of the stuff I use for leather. You’re going to need something strong to keep that together,”
Jason turned towards her with a smile that could only be described as adoring as he was seemingly awed that she wasn’t freaking out.
Oh, you have no idea, lover boy.
She was quick to grab the things and took an extra trip to the bathroom but slowed to a halt when she heard their conversation through the kitchen door.
“– never thought I’d see you domesticated.”
Jason chuckled. “I wouldn’t call it domesticated,”
“Please. There’s ‘Jason Todd’ written all over this entire apartment. No one else would keep ‘Guns and Ammo’ next to ‘Wuthering Heights’ but you, you fucking nerd.”
“Exactly how long did you spend here, creeping around?”
“I had to make sure I had the right place,” Roy said in an innocent tone.
Jason snorted “And the ‘J. Todd’ on the mailbox wasn’t enough of a tip-off?”
“That was the thing that had me more suspicious. I can’t believe you aren’t using a pseud.”
Jason was quiet for a while and Marinette was about to enter the kitchen when he responded in a low voice.
“I want to be honest with her, man. I want her to know everything. I just – I wanna be Jason. With her, I just wanna be Jason Todd, but she should know what she’s getting into. I might just be Jason with her, but being Red Hood or the Wayne-thing doesn’t just disappear, you know? I’ve been relatively open about it, but we’ll probably have a loooong conversation about this tonight.”
“You think she might run?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I just – I love her. Sometimes, I look at her and it just strikes me, how much I love her. Like from the moment I met her, I knew that nothing would ever be the same.”
“God, you’ve gotten soft. It’s like watching a feral panther turn into a fluffy kitten.”
“Yeah, well, kittens still have claws.”
Roy hissed and Marinette chose that moment to enter the kitchen to see her boyfriend retracting his hand after poking his friend in the side.
Jason lifted an eyebrow when she put the things on the table. “Blue thread?”
She shrugged. “Makes it easier to see against the blood.”
Jason quirked a small smile at her and Roy gave her a shrewd look.
Marinette rolled her eyes. “I’m a designer. If I didn’t know about working with contrasting colours, I might as well go out of business right away.”
Jason cocked his head and studied her. “Would you like to try?” he asked, gesturing at the wound.
“Hey!” Roy protested, evidently not appreciating being used as a guineapig.
“You always want to try out new materials,” Jason tried to tempt.
Marinette scoffed. “Well, I’m not about to make a summer dress out of human skin,”
“I always thought Roy could make a cool leather jacket.”
Marinette made a face at him.
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Roy tried to argue.
“Hey! Beggars can’t be choosers and you broke into our home,” Jason countered.
Marinette leaned in to get a closer look at the wound.
It wasn’t too big.
“I’ll do it,” she decided.
Roy looked between them in panic and Jason gave him a wink.
Marinette switched places with Jason. Roy was almost hyperventilating by the time she was about to actually touch him.
“Really?”
Roy scowled at her.
She raised an eyebrow in response, but his scowl deepened.
With a sigh, Marinette leaned back and looked at Jason. “Sorry, Jay. Your friend is afraid of tiny women.”
“Well, to be fair, the only ones he’s ever met are rather dangerous,”
She smirked wickedly and gave a little wink to Roy, knowing that Jason couldn’t see her.
“Still are,” she mouthed.
Roy’s eyes widened.
“While I do this, maybe you could get the guest room ready, Jay?” she suggested innocently.
“Sure,”
The tension in the kitchen thickened with each footstep Jason took down the hall.
Roy had gone from fearful to defiant and sat, looking as if she was about to decapitate him.
“Relax,” she chuckled and threaded the needle.
He hissed when she disinfected the wound.
“You’re the one who set fire to him, aren’t you?”
Roy scoffed and she could feel him relaxing minutely under her hands.
“I had it fully under control.”
“Don’t worry, I’m tempted to do the same from time to time,”
He huffed a breathy laugh that turned into a wince when she made the first stitch.
“You okay?” she asked.
He nodded jerkily with his eyes squeezed shut. “Why is it that the treatment always stings like a bitch when I almost don’t notice getting stabbed when it happens?” he asked rhetorically.
“Because adrenaline numbs the pain, which is pretty neat in battle, but once it wears off, you feel everything. Try to think about something else. Talk to me.”
And so, Roy proceeded to tell her of the many new weapons he’d recently developed, and a meeting of minds happened.
Creative minds.
“ – Just think – if you could find a way to apply that to fabric, you could essentially make bulletproof clothing without kevlar or extra padding. It could be perfect for any sort of undercover work,”
“Jaybird! I might have to steal your girlfriend.”
Jason sighed heavily as he re-entered the kitchen. “This again?” he asked with a small smirk.
“Not like that… necessarily. Like, she’s actually really smart. What the hell is she even doing with you?”
Jason leaned against the kitchen table, looking at the work that was almost done.
“I ask myself that every day.”
Marinette scoffed and gave him a quick look over her shoulder. “Like you aren’t smart yourself. You wanna hear what his professor wrote?” she added to Roy.
“Mari…”
“I regret to inform you that your mark will not reflect the quality of this assignment. Our grade system simply does not go that high.”
“You’re taking an education?” Roy asked in surprise.
Jason shrugged. “Figured I’d try it. Can’t keep getting shot and stabbed at forever,”
Roy made a snort. “Say that to your dad,”
Jason cast a quick glance at Marinette who pretended not to have heard.
“There,” she said instead and cut the string with a flourish.
Roy made a small sound of surprise when he looked down. “It’s… pretty,”
“It’s a catch stitch. Figured it would do the trick.”
“I want you to do all my stitches from now on.”
When they went back to bed, after getting Roy tucked in, Marinette turned to face Jason.
“So, it’s all true then?”
Jason bit his lips, hesitating. “I would never lie to you, Mari,” he whispered.
Marinette nodded to herself.
“I’ve got something to tell you too.”
“Yeah?”
“It all started when I was thirteen –“