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Ladybug is sitting on the roof of the WE building, swinging her legs over the ledge. Somewhere off in the distance she hears the sound of guns and she briefly wonders whether it’s one of the several criminals of Gotham or just Jason. There’s noise behind her and Marinette turns around to find her father.
“Ladybug.”
Marinette grins, “Batman.”
She can see the sigh he’s trying to hold back. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ladybug. I wasn’t expecting to see you in Gotham.” His voice is so weird and gravelly she almost laughs. No wonder her siblings endlessly tease him about the Batman voice. She’d always thought the comms made it worse than it actually was.
She only hums, still grinning. “Really, I was sure I’d told you.”
Ladybug definitely did not tell him. Marinette on the other hand told him months ago that she’d come to Gotham during summer break.
He really does sigh this time. How surprising, she never thought he’d do that around heroes he barely knew. “No, you did not. There’s a rule about no metas.”
She snorts. What a hypocrite. “Have you not noticed that Signal’s a meta or are you just ignoring that?”
Marinette can’t actually tell but she’s pretty certain his eye is twitching. This is so much fun, she should have made the trip to Gotham earlier. But regardless that’s not why she decided to come out on a little night run. Before he can reply she says, “Besides, Batman and Robin were in Paris last month even after the Justice League promised not to set foot in Paris. I’m only returning the favour.”
She’d already chewed out her dad during their visit. He’d ignored her, insisting that it was necessary for him to check and once again trying to talk Marinette into moving back home. Not that he was any good at it, her father isn’t really capable of carrying such conversations. Plus, it wasn’t like Gotham was much safer.
Batman remains expressionless. “We weren’t spotted. Neither by civilians or the Parisian heroes.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she replies coolly, “You weren’t spotted by any civilians who felt the need to announce it to the rest of the city.” Adrien had seen them and mentioned it the next day in school. Marinette had been ready to storm back to the bakery and start yelling at them again. Instead, she had taken a deep breath, thanked Tikki that Alya was absent, put on her best confused expression and faked interest.
Marinette gets why her siblings hate the cowl. It’s hard enough to figure out what her father is thinking without half his face hidden. “You and Chat Noir are teenagers. You can’t take care of the whole city on your own-”
Marinette snaps. She’d only wanted to mess with her dad for what he’d done not listen to him question her capability.
“Last I checked you’re the only adult in this city.”
“Nightwing-”
“Started out as a child vigilante in a crime ridden city. All Chat Noir and I do is take care of akumas and spend our free time trying to figure out Hawkmoth’s identity. You really do not need to worry.”
She doesn’t wait for his reply. She swings away to the next building, pulling out the horse miraculous to portal back to her room in the manor. She detransforms and falls face down onto her bed trying extremely hard to cry.
It’s quite a while later that there’s a knock on her door. “Come in,” she calls not bothering to get up. The door opens and closes and Dick says, “Hey Nettie.” She feels the bed dip as he sits next to her.
“Apparently B had a very interesting first meeting with Ladybug today.” He sounds nonchalant but Marinette knows better.
She lifts her head up and glares at him, “So?”
He shrugs, “Just thought you should know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Dick sighs, “I went through the footage to see where exactly B messed up.”
She looks at him incredulously, “You needed footage for that? He almost definitely messed up the second he opened his mouth.”
Her brother chuckles, looking away from her, “That’s true. But I figured it’s better to know, if only to ensure Ladybug doesn’t yell at me the next time I see her.”
She frowns, confused with where he’s heading with this.
“Nettie, did you know that Nightwing and the first Robin being the same person is a conspiracy theory? One of Bernard’s in fact. It’s considered just that insane.” She inhales sharply, but Dick continues as if he doesn’t notice, “So, imagine my surprise when Ladybug threw that fact in B’s face, after all we both know she isn’t the kind to believe in baseless theories.”
Marinette squeezes her eyes shut. “Shit. Does B know?”
Dick is still speaking casually, “About the conspiracy theory or about you being Ladybug?”
The confirmation that her brother now knows her identity doesn’t help at all. “Both.”
“He’s too paranoid to not know about the conspiracy theory but he doesn’t know you’re Ladybug-” she sighs in relief “- he thinks you heard it from one of the other JL members.”
She gets up to sit beside him, looking at him in confusion. He finally meets her eyes when Marinette asks, “How?”
“I told him so. I was the only one who was there every single time you were at the Watch Tower.”
Her mouth opens in shock. He smiles softly at her, “The audio on the security tapes isn’t perfect even if he gets Babs or Uncle Clark to check, both of them would lie for you. Even if he checks himself, Babs can alter it.”
She throws her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Continuously whispering thank you. He laughs and ruffles her hair, “Don’t worry about it. I get it.”
Marinette laughs a bit at that. She doesn’t really miss when B and Dick argued all the time because of how overprotective their father could be. Before he slips out her room, he ruffles her hair more and grins as he says, “Be early to breakfast tomorrow. Alfred’s making chocolate chip pancakes.”
She smirks, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there first.”
There’s a laughing call of, “You’re on,” from the hallway and Marinette grins. Sometimes, she’s really thankful that she has siblings.