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Marinette was excited when she learned what a soul mark was. She loved her despite not knowing what it said. It was there on her right inner bicep, in words she didn’t understand but it meant the world to her. The words her soul mate would say when they had fallen in love with her.
At least she felt this way until she was 7 years old. She had tried to learn a few other languages, actually mastering English in her attempt to figure out what the words meant. Then a new boy had transferred into her class, and he knew the language her words were in. The language was called Arabic. Excitedly, she had asked him to translate. Nothing could have prepared her when his face turned solemn and he told her what they meant.
“mawtuhum la yaeni shayyan fi muajahat hayatik” Their deaths mean nothing in the face of your life.
Marinette grew up loving her soul mark until she learned what it meant. Then she hid it from everyone. Nino was the only person who ever knew what the mark said. They both knew that his soul mate wasn’t her though because it wasn’t in French or English, which were the only languages Mari knew. It was a mystery to everyone and she never shared it with anyone, even Alya when they became friends.
When she became Ladybug, Tikki had told her that as a miraculous holder, she could hide her soul mark through magic, because typically, it also meant that it would reveal her partner’s identity since they were supposed to be soul mates. Marinette choses to do so and the words are no longer visible on her skin, but she can still feel them, like a caress of warm wind on her arm but she would never have to worry about someone else finding out what her words said.
Damian had freaked out when his words disappeared when he was 14. They were on his left wrist and then suddenly they were gone. He didn’t know exactly when, as he usually wore a leather forearm guard to protect the person’s words, a habit he kept from the league both to protect his soulmate and his privacy. His family knew he had one, but they didn’t know what it said, nor what language it was.
But he knew. It was french.
“ Nous les enterrons tous ensemble.” We will bury them all together.
The only reason the person wasn’t dead yet was because the words had seemed to placate his grandfather into thinking that she was going to rule beside him when he became the Demon’s Head. But besides his mother and grandfather, no one else knew the words. Damian had grown up believing him and his soul mate would be the most powerful people on the planet, and made him want to be the best assassin ever because he couldn’t wait to bury whoever it was with his soul mate. He used to imagine that he and his soul mate would stand victorious over a battlefield of dead when she said those words to him.
Now, he was terrified of what his father and new siblings would think should they ever know what his words were. He had given up killing when he was about 12, that was the last time he had intentionally killed someone. But his words were a sign that he would go back to killing, back to his past, and he wanted the tentative happiness that he had found with his father in Gotham to stay for as long as possible.
But he definitely didn’t know what to do when his words disappeared. He didn’t know exactly when it happened, but he knew what day it was as he had taken the brace off when he went to shower that night after patrol and the words were gone.
Originally he thought his soul mate had died, but he had seen what others had looked like when their soul mate had gone, the letters blurred together till it was no longer legible what the words used to be. It was a striking cold feeling as well. He could still feel the heat of the words, and there was no mark. They simply were no longer visible.
He had asked Zatanna privately at the tower once if there was a magic that could do that, and she had informed him that technically there was a magic, but it was very old and difficult to perform so most likely whoever his friend was that had that problem was extremely unlucky to have that person as a soulmate.
He went two years without ever seeing his words, but still he wore the brace just in case it ever came back.
Marinette was tired. Lila had kept her promise, she no longer had any friends. Except for Chloe. And Tikki. And all of the other kwami except Plagg, Nuroo, and Dusu. And Kagami and Luka but they weren’t at school.
Adrien was getting on her nerves with the high road approach. And she was under so much pressure. From Mme. Bustier to be a good role model and do all of the teacher’s work as well as her own school work. From her parents who always expected her to be helpful all the time, to never say no to favors because that’s who she was supposed to be. From the city to be the perfect superhero. From the kwami to be a good guardian (although that was more her own beliefs of what she should be, they already thought she was infinitely better than Fu). And from Chat Noir to be the Ladybug that he loves.
Another thing that had happened over the last two years with the Miraculous was that Ladybug and Chat Noir had started dating. Mari had decided to give him a chance, he was her partner and she wasn’t getting anywhere with Adrien, especially since he was dating Kagami (at the time). So she said yes to a date. And another. And another. Until the whole of Paris thought they were dating. But it’s not what she wanted. Chat was not her soul mate, which was a good and bad thing.
Good because he wasn’t going to say those dreaded words, bad because he was so much worse than what she thought her soulmate might be like.
If she wasn’t his, then he would hurt others. The threats were there constantly. The only power she had in the relationship was that she refused to learn his true identity, and that he would never learn hers.
At least she had thought she had that power.
Until Chat had taken her after one of their longer battles to the top of the eiffel tower, until he had held her there as her timer ran out and Tikki had collapsed to the floor in exhaustion from trying to keep the transformation up as longer as she could, until chat noir changed to Adrien Agreste before her eyes. And she saw Plagg with sad and hurt eyes, no mouth floating just a bit away, not able to do anything against his master while he forced himself on Marinette.
Then they were dating in school as well. Chloe noticed that something was wrong. Her new best friend was fading and fading fast. It was time to interfere. So the class earned an all expenses paid trip to Gotham city, courtesy of her request to Jagged Stone and telling him that his favorite little rocker needed to get away. She may not have been specific enough though, she wasn’t expecting the whole class to earn the trip, just Mari, and maybe herself. But it was what it was.
The night that Adrien learned her identity, Mari decided she didn’t care if her soulmate was a murderer, they had to be better than this. And for the first time in 4 years, she let her words become visible again as she cried herself to sleep.
Damian had screamed when he saw his words back on his wrist.
He had been getting ready for school and was just about to shower when he saw them. Damian hadn’t meant to scream, but they were there, and they were visible and his soul mate was not dead .
His family had barged into his room, ready to fight only to find him cradling his arm and whispering prayers in Arabic. Then he explained what had happened for the last 4 years.
While saddened that they didn’t know and that they couldn’t have helped him, they were there for him now. That was what mattered. Damian was excused from school for the day. Hours later the words disappeared again.
Damian had cried.
The first time he had ever cried. Because while a soulmate dying before they ever got to meet was sad, getting his hope back and then having it taken away again was so much worse.
His father had let them know two days later that there was a favor his friend was asking of him. His French niece needed some time away from paris. Damian’s heart had soared. Maybe his soulmate was a part of that class. All of the siblings had begged for Bruce to agree to the request.
Two weeks later, the class was in Gotham.
Mari didn’t know what to do anymore. Adrien barely let her out of his sight, if it wasn’t while they were civilians then it was while they were heroes. And Lila had gotten so much worse. Adrien had demanded that Mari apologize to Lila for trying to ruin her reputation. She had. And then Lila’s fake friendliness was so much worse. Mari was always getting under foot but she was really nice so it was ok. She was always falling or tripping and so she really shouldn't be invited to a class outing anyway because she could get hurt. Why would Mari want to join them for this wonderful opportunity when she was supposed to be making the class clothes or food or gifts or preparing for this or that?
She was more alone when everyone liked her than when everyone hated her. Chloe could no longer get close to her unless she was actually alone, because everyone still saw her as a bully, and Lila said she was still bullying Marinette and oh they couldn’t ever let the two of them be alone together because Chloe will hurt their precious cinnamon roll. Adrien would hold Mari close and glare at his childhood friend, saying she wasn’t who he thought she was.
And no one but Chloe would notice Mari’s tears were because she was in so much pain and fear with the people who surrounded her, not because Chloe had confronted them.
When they had gotten on the plane to Gotham, Mari was squished in the window seat, Adrien next to her then Lila on his other side. Across the aisle sat Alya and Nino and Sabrina.
Chloe was next to Alix and Kim. Who as it turned out had started to notice that something was extremely wrong with Marinette. Nino had too, as the four of them had been best friends growing up. It’s when Chloe learned that Nino was the only one to know what Marinette's soul mark said, but Alix and Kim knew it was located on her right bicep. Just in Arabic. They hadn’t seen it since the day that Nino had translated it and neither ever told them what it had meant.
Arriving in Gotham, it was two people to a room. The hallway had rooms going up and down and at the end of the hall had two bedrooms instead of a wall with windows. From the elevator it was Chloe and Alix, Juleka and Rose, Sabrina and Mylène, Lila and Alya. then the Ice Machine room. Then Mme. Bustiers. Then Marinettes. Then the stairs. Then going back down it was Adrien and Nino, Max and Kim, Nathaniel and Ivan.
Lila had tried to argue her way into getting her own room, claiming disability reasons, but Alix had piped up saying it was probably better for her to be with a roommate in case something happened in the middle of the night, the roommate could get help. Mme. Bustier had agreed to that logic.
And Mari was technically being punished, because she wasn’t behaving the way she was supposed to, being a bad role model, that she wasn’t allowed to lock the door that joined her and Mme. Bustiers, but the teacher's door was locked. She couldn’t get out but her teacher could always get in.
Damian first saw the girl when he was entering WE. She was trying to make herself the smallest in the group. Four kids were shooting her worried glances. One girl was crying, with red hair and glasses, into a brunette with sausages for hair’s shoulder. Apparently, her boyfriend betrayed her.
It had taken him too long to realize the kids were speaking French.
Richard was giving them a tour of WE. He seemed concerned. The girl he had noticed, with blue black hair was stumbling as she walked, a blonde boy’s hand gripped relentlessly around her arm and would drag her along without warning. Most of the other kids would laugh. The blond girl in the back glared and the pick haired girl had to be restrained by the two boys with them. Damian had had enough. Approaching the group, he introduced himself to the slightly angry four and learned a bit about the class.
And how Marinette was being treated.
And Damian almost broke his family's golden rule to murder at least three people. Most of the others were sheep. But the wolf and the shepherds were not going to return to Paris in one piece. Of that he was certain.
When the tour was attacked whilst looking at some of the new technology by Scarecrow, Damian was seeing red as Mari was basically thrown to the rogue, offered as a sacrifice for their freedom. Both he and Richard were too late to stop the fear toxin from being injected into the poor girl.
Who reacted by completely freezing up as silent tears fell from cloudy eyes seeing her nightmares that no one else could see nor comprehend.
Batman and Redhood had gotten there minutes later, and still the girl hadn’t made a sound, hadn’t reacted. Damian hadn’t even noticed how most of the class had fled the scene, leaving only the concerned 4 from earlier. His focus was on the girl as he rushed towards her once she had been taken away from the villain. And held her tightly as she continued to cry silently. It was Richard who directed him to take her to the ambulance outside. Her friends had tried to help but whenever they got close enough for her to recognize them, she would tense up even more, even begging them not to be mad at her. Damian seemed safe to her because she had no idea who he was and was thus not a part of her toxin induced nightmare.
She was taken to the hospital to wait out the symptoms. The toxin was apparently a new strain that Crane had come up with and their antidote wasn’t working. He stayed with her, mainly because she wouldn’t let him leave. Chloe had given him her number, and demanded regular updates almost every 15 minutes. While normally he would be angry at such an annoyance, he could tell the situation was really freaking everyone out and he answered every demanding text.
Marinette was released from Gotham General the next morning.
When she had woken up, head finally cleared from the influence of the toxin, she had almost freaked out to see Damian there as she had no idea who he was. He was quick to calm her down.
“You’re okay! You’re safe, and no one’s here to hurt you. I have you.”
During the whole panic, the girl never realized she was holding his hand, squeezing harder as she got more frightened and relaxing as she calmed. It wasn’t until the doctor asked if they could perform a small physical on her that she even realized it and blushed and stuttered through an apology as she let go.
It wasn’t until then that Damian realized he liked holding her hand.
Alfred picked them up to drive them back to the hotel with Bruce in the back seat to make sure she was alright and explain to the teacher that he had covered the medical expenses and that he was sorry they were not safe in his building during the tour. The redhead teacher was there and took Mari back from them, holding the girl by the shoulders and tried to blame the whole situation on the girl. Damian almost punched the woman, wanting to take the clearly hurting girl back into his arms and never let her go back to these horrid people she called a class. His father seemed to be thinking the same thing. But Alfred held them both back.
As they drove off, Damian could see the teacher already berating Marinette as she led the girl inside.
Mari had been terrified. The Akumas in Paris she could deal with because she was Ladybug, her cure could fix any damages that they caused. Because it was the akuma’s who caused the damage. Here in Gotham, she had the same advantage as any other civilian.
“You’ll be fine m’lady.” Were the last words she heard before being thrust forward into the arms of one of the Rogues who had the worst reputation for how they treat their hostages. The last words as a needle sank into her skin and suddenly she wasn’t in the WE building anymore. She was at Dupont, with her back pressed against the rail of the second floor balcony as all of her classmates surrounded her. Calling her clumsy. Calling her useless. Calling her a failure. Calling her weak.
Telling her she was not wanted.
And she pressed herself backwards even harder, until the metal of the railing gave way and she was falling. Falling with the words surrounding her. Seeping into the already large cracks in her mind, in her heart.
And when she hit the ground an eternity later, she felt peace.
Then she woke up in an unfamiliar room, with an unfamiliar boy resting his head on the unfamiliar bed she was lying in. And she panicked. Because she didn’t know what was going on, what was happening. Heck she had no idea how she had gotten here!
But most of all, she was panicking because she wished she really had stayed in the place she had found peace.
The boy had done his best to comfort her, and surprisingly, it worked. Marinette had taken her first pain free breath in four years, thanks to a stranger.
A stranger whose hand she had been holding for an unknown amount of time.
The doctor had the good graces to look away to hide his laugh as she stumbled through an apology to the boy, to Damian as he had corrected, and released his hand. She thought that would be the worst of the interaction.
But the worst was realizing she missed it.
They had sat together in the back of the limo as Mr. Wayne tried to apologize and offer her things to compensate for the attack. She denied them all. She wasn’t worth that much worry.
Not anymore.
Marinette barely paid any attention to Mme. Bustier as the teacher, the person who should be looking out for her well being, blamed her for the attack and apparent threat to Mr. Wayne’s son. Nor when the woman led her back to her room, through the hallway of odd looks from her classmates. Nor when Mme. Bustier locked her in her room, taking away her key card and her phone. Nor when she was told that the class would be going out to dinner without her.
Because Marinette had realized how she could find peace. She realized how she could fix everything. The same way she had found it in her dream.
So she went out on the balcony.
Tikki didn’t seem to realize what she was doing. Of course, Marinette wasn’t going to just leave her without a goodbye. But it would have to be after dark, when there were less people on the street below.
So no one could see her fall.
The two of them watched the sunset together, it was mostly covered by dark clouds, but small rays of light still made it past as it sank below the horizon. Tikki had smiled and turned to her, offering that they go to bed. Marinette had said she wanted to watch the city at night. Tikki sighed and offered to stay out with her but the teen knew the Kwami was tired, knew she had stayed up all night watching her while she was in the hospital.
“I’ll be fine Tikki. Go to sleep.” The little god had given her a concerned look but ultimately flew inside and settled on a pillow on the bed.
Marinette looked out at the now dark city, lit up only by street lights and neon signs. She closed her eyes and imagined what would happen after, how her friends might react, how her parents would react, how the kwami’s would mourn before finding a new guardian.
How her soulmate would never meet her.
She glanced at her arm, the magic leaving it a barren plain instead of the words she had memorized. Hopefully, whoever they were, they would forgive her. For never getting to hear her say the words written on their skin. For never getting to know the words written on hers.
“I’m sorry.”
The whispered words are heavy and the tears that glide down her cheeks are the last thing Marinette feels as she lets go of the railing. Her eyes close and she smiles, because it would all be over.
No more Hawkmoth. No more Lila. No more Chat Noir. No more Adrien.
No more expectations. No more responsibility. No more not being enough.
No more being weak.
She had almost found her peace when there was a sound not unlike her yo-yo then she felt something collide with her.
That something was not the ground.
Opening her eyes, she found herself being held by a young man, face partially hidden behind a mask as he swung them to a nearby roof, and he pulled her away from the edge, to the center. His grip was strong and unrelenting, yet gentle.
And he was crying.
“Why? Why would you do that? Why?”
She stared at him trying to understand. He seemed to care. More than the responsibility of a hero.
“Why do you care?”
He stared at her trying to understand. She didn’t seem to comprehend that what she did was tearing him apart, that he had almost lost her.
A girl he had met maybe only a day before. But he was so attached. Because no one should ever go through that much hurt. No one should ever be so isolated. No one should ever feel the need to end everything.
There was something more too. Something he didn’t understand as it bubbled in his chest, constricting his heart.
“Because you shouldn’t throw your life away like that. People care about you. What about your soulmate?”
Marinette’s eyes brimmed with more tears and Damian gently cupped her cheek and swiped at them with his thumb. The girl leaned into the touch.
“They wouldn’t care. No one would care.”
That wasn’t true. The blonde and her three friends from earlier would care. Her soul mate, who ever it was, would care. He would care.
“I would care.”
“Why? You don’t even know me.”
Her voice was so small, just like her, and Damian could see her try to shrink into herself. Try to disappear. He couldn’t let that happen.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
“You’re right. I don’t know you. But I would like to. I would like to be the person who knows you well enough that you stay here.”
She looked at him like he was speaking nonsense. He probably was. But he would turn that nonsense into truth if it meant she would never try this stunt again.
“I want to be the person who shows you that they care enough about you to keep you here.”
“You would be the only one.”
“Trust me I wouldn’t.”
“Trust me you would.”
Damian glared at her from behind the mask. She seemed so sure, so positive that no one else would want her to stay here. But she was wrong. And he knew how to prove it.
His father was going to kill him.
“I know I’m not the only one who would care,” he slowly lifted a hand to his face and gripped the edge of his mask. “Because I saw who all cared for you before.”
The mask was off. She could see his face. She could see who he was.
And then Marinette broke down, crying, sobbing, hiccupping, all of it into his arms. He held her tight, whispering to her sweet comforts, because it was going to be okay.
Damian was going to make everything be okay.
They stayed like that for hours. Curled on the roof of some building, holding each other both of their faces bearing the tracks of dried tears. Marinette was starting to feel lighter.
She felt safe in the arms of this boy, the boy who caught her when she fell.
The boy who promised to do so again.
“Marinette, how can I make things better?”
“Don’t leave.”
“I promise I never will.”
And Marinette believed him. It didn’t matter that they had known each other for barely a day. It didn’t matter that they lived on different sides of the world.
Because Marinette believed him.
Because he cared. Enough for her to feel that he cared.
“Anything else?”
“Can you make them go away?”
She hadn’t meant to ask that. That wasn’t what she wanted to ask. She wanted to ask if he could take her away. Away from all the pain that they caused her, that they gave to her, that they made her feel.
But that was the question that left her mouth. A question asked with such innocence, such longing, such need . Because that was what she wanted most.
For them to just go away .
“Yes.”
She stared at him. He stared back. She believed him. If that was truly what she wanted, she had no doubt that this boy would make it happen. Maybe even by his own hand.
“I- you can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“I’m not worth that.”
“I disagree.”
Marinette could tell he meant it. Could tell that Damian cared for her. Could tell that he thought she had worth.
She could tell that he -
“Their deaths mean nothing in the face of your life.”
Loved her .
She gaped at him. He wasn’t lying. It was clear on his face. He truly loved her. She didn’t know why. She couldn’t know why.
But she wanted to.
She wanted to be the girl that he loves. Wanted to become that girl he sees in his mind, in his heart that was so deserving of his love.
Wanted to be able to love him back.
Apparently, to want was all it took.
Because at that moment, she knew.
“Then we will bury them together.”
She loved him too.