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Marinette scrolls aimlessly on her phone at the bakery counter. There’s no one other than her at the bakery, which is surprising. She’d worried that it may be due to an akuma that had not been reported. But two calls to Adrien and Alya had dispelled that worry.
She sighs in boredom, there isn’t anything interesting to look at on her phone, she’s done with all her homework and she doesn’t feel like sketching which leaves her nothing to do while she’s at the counter. Her shift won’t end for another hour, at which point she’ll be joined by Alya, Adrien and Nino to work on their literature presentation.
The bakery door slams open and Marinette looks up from her phone to see Alya panting, holding out her phone and saying, “Have you seen the news?”
Alya takes one look at her face and grimaces, “You haven’t seen the news.”
Marinette frowns, walking out from behind the counter. Wondering what’s get her friend looking like that, a weird mixture of pity, worry and fear. She takes the phone from Alya’s hand, sees the headline and freezes.
TIM DRAKE-WAYNE DEAD-
There are more words after that but Marinette doesn’t really register them. She knows Alya’s saying something but she can’t hear her over the roaring in her ears.
Her brother’s dead. Her brother’s dead and she had to find out from the news.
And suddenly all the pain vanishes and she’s consumed by anger. She doesn’t read the article. It’s almost certain the article is rubbish, another carefully crafted lie that maintains their secret identities. She can’t deal with that right now.
“You’re shaking,” Alya says gently, holding out her arms. And Marinette lets herself fall into her best friend’s arms and sob. In anger or in sorrow, she doesn’t know and nor does she really care at this point.
If any butterflies come their way, she doesn’t notice. Tikki and Alya must have handled it.
Some indefinite amount of time later, once she has stopped crying, she slips out of Alya’s hold. Muttering something about how she needs to speak to her family immediately, she turns to go upstairs. She doesn’t think Alya actually believes her but she doesn’t stop her either only telling her that she’s always here if Marinette wants help in kicking Bruce Wayne’s butt.
She nods before running up the stairs to the miracle box and grabbing the horse miraculous. Tikki shushes Kaalki when the kwami starts to speak, in any other situation Marinette would thank her kwami but she’s far too focused on the need to yell at her father to think about anything else.
Except Tim.
Taking a deep breath, she pushes thoughts of her brother away. Later. She can grieve later. Once she has an explanation.
Opening a portal, she steps into the batcave. Her father glances at her once before he returns to staring at the batcomputer. He doesn’t actually look at her until she’s stormed over and even then she can’t read his expression, he’s still wearing the damn cowl.
“How did it happen?” she demands.
“The Joker.”
“And where is he now?”
“Arkham Asylum.”
“Why did I not hear this from you? Why on earth did I have to hear about my brother’s death from the god damn news?”
“You could have been akumatised.”
Her father’s near robotic answers aren’t helping at all. If anything, it’s only making her angrier. In some quiet corner of her brain, she knows that he’s grieving too and he doesn’t really have a track record of making normal decisions but right now she can’t bring herself to care.
“I found out from the news. I had to learn of Tim’s death from some reporter who couldn’t care less that he’s dead. For what? So I wouldn’t get akumatised? I was in Paris when I learnt of his death, whether you would have preferred it or not.”
“I-”
“What? Were you even planning on telling me? Because you can’t tell me you didn’t know it would make international news. A Wayne died. My brother died. And I wasn’t told by my father. Do you not realise how messed up that is?”
“You should leave. You can’t return to Paris in this state. I’ll ask Alfred to take you to Damian’s-”
She stares at him open mouthed and says quietly, “I cannot believe you. Damian’s off-world. He’s been off world for the past one week, something about Jon and being Kryptonian. Why didn’t you try to contact either of us?”
“It doesn’t matter now. I’m heading out to patrol now.”
She’s crying, she realises, after her father has left. She knows Alfred is probably waiting worriedly upstairs. Hoping some sense will possess the man. But not worried enough to come down and check yet. So, she remains in the cave.
Alfred’s still waiting when she goes up an hour later. If he’s surprised by her being there, he doesn’t mention it. She follows him to the kitchen, he hands her a cup of tea but Marinette can’t bring herself to drink it.
“How are Steph, Cass and Duke?” she asks after a while.
“Miss Marinette.”
“Yes?”
“Ignoring what has happened will do no one good. It certainly hasn’t helped your father.”
Neither her nor Alfred say anything after that. Alfred drinks his tea, and Marinette stares at hers. Their silence is anything but comfortable, it’s heavy with grief and rage. Even if Marinette’s the only one angry.
“I’m going to kill him,” she states.
Alfred looks her in the eye and asks, “Would you like my gun?”
She stares at him in shock. “I- no. No, it’s fine. I’m sure Damian left a bunch of weapons in his room. It’ll be fine.”
It won’t. Not really. But she gets up and makes her way to Damian’s room anyways.
When the news breaks, her phone blows up. She ignores it, she’s not getting out of bed for that. Admittedly, there’s not a lot that she’s gotten out of bed for recently. Tom and Sabine have let her call-in sick for school, mostly giving her space. She frowns when someone opens the trapdoor to her room.
When a familiar voice says, “I heard the Joker was killed.” A sob rips itself out of her chest and she scrambles out of bed and down her ladder to see Damian, his eyes are red and he looks beyond exhausted. Marinette shakily states, “It had to be done.” And all it takes is a nod from him for the dam to break and the tears start free falling.
And somehow for the first time she thinks maybe things will be ok.