Chapter Text
Marinette grunted as she was slammed into the wall by the waves of magical interference coming from the woman. Ladybug had been tracking her down for weeks, her presence in Paris becoming more than just a little concerning, and now it was time for their final show off. It…Wasn’t going too well.
Marinette had learned and grown in incredible strides since her teenage heroine days, so it was always a surprise when another magic user got the better of her. Ladybug shook her head, both from the pain and the negative thought. She knew she had to persevere. Getting up, brushing away the blood from her nose with her knuckles, Ladybug readied herself and began to strategize.
The witch came out of nowhere, and a little birdy told her that even the Justice League’s own magicians were struggling with apprehending her. This new foe was sewing chaos, the kind that liked to put the JL on their toes.
Enough that Red Robin of all people had found the magical and technological capabilities to reach out to her yo-yo communicator. Marinette honestly didn’t think it was a feat possible, but evidently time travel and Magic were things that Red Robin just knew how to deal with. A question for another time.
Ladybug swung around the ever growing circle of spells, noting this time that the language wasn’t latin. Sure there was latin mixed in, but the heart of it, the center of the spell… Contains Egyptian hieroglyphics. Not bad per say, but, it was a language of the dead, and that was never a good thing.
Ladybug worked on breaking down the outer shells of the spells, cutting through them with her yo-yo string acting as a blade at the velocity with which she wielded it. The witch was still monologuing about bringing forth the rights of passage when Ladybug finally got her opening. Casting her lucky charm, Ladybug was greeted with a ticking clock, and then the room went blank.
Panic flooded through her system as Marinette came to realize that an outside force had gotten involved. Who the fuck had flash grenades? In fucking Paris?
The clock is yanked from her hands while she’s at her most disoriented but Marinette does her best to recoup- Why hadn’t her magic protected her?
The spell has grabbed hold of the Miraculous object, and while it lacks the full power that Tikki grants Marinette, it was apparently the missing ingredient that they needed for the spells success.
A bright light emits into the room but this time it appears from each and everyone of the goons as the magic carves its way onto the skin around their ribcages- coiling around their bodies like bandages in a mummification. Marinette breaths through the pain for just long enough to call upon her most powerful restoration spell. Her namesake called out, the clock removed from the summoning circle- Marinette finally gets a leg of surprise up on the crew. They hadn’t been expecting the pain that came with the spell it seemed, and the zealots cried out at the sharp edge that punctuated its abrupt end.
The witch hadn’t been expecting this, and though she was currently unnamed, Marinette had a list of expletive worthy nicknames that fit her well enough. Ladybug is able to keep up her element of unpredictability and gets the higher ground. Without much further difficulty, Ladybug knocks the Witch out and then handles the still groaning goons. The spell had drained them all considerably…
Huffing, Ladybug noticed that all of the goons’ sides continue to bleed, and notices her own discomfort. Her brain can’t even process that she is also still hurt and that her restoration spell hadn’t worked when frustration replaces her exhaustion. Double checking that everyone was tied up properly and no one was awake to cause her strife, Marinette calls the fucker that got her into this situation. Or rather, he calls her.
“Ladybug report- What is that spell meant to do to all of us?” Red Robin’s tone comes in through her communicator with urgency and concern dripping from every word- Too bad Marinette started talking over him the second she answered his call.
“You piece of shit! Why didn’t you mention she was primed and ready for me? Surely you had better intel or could have found me some back up-”
“Ladybug, I need you to focus and tell me what these carvings in my side are!” His voice commands, raising his volume with her in an unprecedented way that takes her aback. Marinette is smart. She’s quick as a whip and cracks sharply like one when need be. Right now her brain cells are struggling to keep up.
“What do you mean? What-”
“Ladybug we have reports coming in around the globe about mass injury. Whatever that spell was, which I hope you have an answer, has had a presumably global impact.”
“...Carvings on the ribcage? Global impact? ”
“Yes.” He affirms and to his credit he gives her a moment of silence before prompting her again, “So really, an explanation would be great sooner than later.”
“There were… It was a dead language. Heiroglyphics. My knowledge is rusty but I have a friend who’s trained in museum curation her whole life… I saw the mention of Hathor. I, I’m pretty sure it was Hathor.”
“Hathor… the goddess of love?”
“I haven’t seen the carvings yet- I- I don’t know. Can you please send someone my way that can lock the Witch up?” Ladybug sighed.
“I’m sending Superboy to pick you both up, he’ll be just a minute.”
“Hey- No. I’m exhausted and I need to go home and figure out whatever that spell was-”
“Ladybug I got you into this mess today, the last thing I’m going to do is let you go home without having been given medical attention, a meal and the option to yell at me to my face.”
“Fine.” Ladybug groans and then hangs up on him, evaluating the scene around her once again. The spell drawn out on the floor wasn’t carved so much as painted, and the rings and circles looked like old alchemy. It kind of looks like stolen homework… but Marinette isn’t sure why she gets the vibe that its someone else’s magic when the Witch is lying unconsciously face down not even thirty feet away with her arms cuffed behind her back.
“Hey uh, you must be Ladybug.” A voice comes from behind her, and Marinette did her best to keep herself from sighing again.
“Superboy I presume?” Ladybug turned around and sure enough, it was the one with the leather jacket and the earrings. At least he had a personal sense of style, she could respect him a little bit more for that.
“Yep. I’m gunna grab this psycho and the goons first, wait up for a moment okay?” And it was almost humorous watching him pick up their sleeping bodies and piled them into his impossibly strong arms. He’s gone in a moment before Ladybug can respond, so she gets to taking a few photos, not that she thinks the mental images will be fading anytime soon.
It was an odd combination of magical sources that informed the spell, and it made Ladybug all the more anxious that her Miraculous Item was utilized essentially as its battery. That shouldn’t be possible but… A part of her brain bitterly thought that Gabriel might know something if he were still around.
There was nothing special about the warehouse that the Witch chose- if anything it was further out of the City than most planned attacks. Red Robin had reached out to her with urgency, telling her that there was no time to waste if she was going to apprehend the Witch. Stupidly, Ladybug ran straight into the fight.
She wanted it over with. And now that it was done, she wished she’d never left her parents' intervention.
Clapping her hand over her eyes, Marinette forced herself to breathe.
She didn’t want to think about how her efforts to be a hero meant her whole family had to suffer. That she had to self isolate more and more. That she never thought she would feel so betrayed at such a kind act of love and concern for her well being.
“You’re not doing okay, and I get that, but I think we should probably get a move on. This place gives me the creeps.” Superboy’s voice returns.
“Can you make sure no one gets into this building? I’m going to have to come back here for answers eventually.” She asked, exhaustion seeping into her every word.
“Oh yeah, Impulse is already running caution tape outside the place like he was wrapping a christmas present. Not to mention the condemnation notices and locks.” Superboy says this like it’s nothing she needs to worry about, but Marinette highly suspects that the security of this warehouse is going to keep her up at night.
“Look this shit is freaky but we’ll help get it sorted out.” Superboy tries to optimistically steer their conversation but Marinette knows that even with her mask, that her face loudly voiced her displeasure and disbelief.
“Mm. How am I getting to Red Robin? He said I was allowed to yell at his face and I need to take him up on that offer.” Ladybug asks instead of explaining that he sounded like a silver lining idiot. A glass half full moron.
“Zeta tubes. There’s one not far from here so, if you’re cool with it, I’ll just fly us over to it.”
“Fine.” Ladybug relents, tired to her bones and willing to go along. Hadn’t Red mentioned medical attention? Hadn’t he mentioned bleeding rib cages? Maybe these two statements had something to do with her.
Superboy grabs her gently around her waist with a single arm, and then upwards and forwards they went. It was a strange sensation in comparison to flying with her yo-yo, but not too dissimilar to flying in her space suit. Only less ideal because she couldn’t determine their pathway and the turns Superboy made, well, almost made her vomit.
Stepping onto the strange platform that he lands in front of them, Ladybug doesn’t hesitate for a second to walk from him and then forward into the beam. She’d seen it on TV once, and really she should have asked more questions before just jumping in, but she had a bone to pick.
As soon as she arrived wherever the hell they were, some strange industrial office building, Red Robin presented himself before her.
“You sent me into a trap.” She accuses.
“I did. I wasn’t sure who the trap was for, and I had you pegged as a 13% chance because we had other, more infamously known magic users in the area.”
“Never bet against me.” Ladybug threatens, “She was primed and ready to fight me, with goons that knew my fighting style and had weapons to distract me.”
“We’ve found the trade route for the flash grenades and tracked them-”
“And now we have the Witch in custody. Tell me that you have Raven or someone with a brain putting her magic on lock or trapping her into a mirror somehow.” Ladybug is next to screaming but not quite there yet.
“Mirror.” The Sorceress, Daughter of Trigon, appeared before them.
“Good. We’ll deal with her when I’m ready.” Ladybug nods her head in respect to the older Sorceress and tries not to be star-struck by recentering her attention (and rage) on Red Robin. “You knew it was a trap, sent me into it anyway, and now there is a potentially global impact.”
“Yes, and the intel does show it’s pretty unanimous across the world. Interestingly enough, you paused the butchering spell just in time and some people have started to note that the carvings have duplicates.”
“Duplicates how? Elsewhere on the body?” Ladybug can’t help herself from inquiring even though she’s supposed to be yelling at him right now.
“Not every carving is unique, and if I were going to put money on it, I would say that each carving has a match to another person or a limited number of people.”
“You mentioned seeing an egyptian god in her spell script,” Raven brings up, clearly having heard Marinette’s stumbling explanation from earlier, “Hathor is the goddess of love. You likely stopped the witch from bonding people’s souls.”
“If she was trying to bond souls, then half of the world would be dead.” Ladybug concludes out loud for the group. Suddenly the stakes became clear on exactly how dangerous this witch could have been.
“You stopped the spell just in time to reveal who’s souls were matched pairs, but prevented mass casualty. Not too horrific when you think about it.” Red Robin says it but she can tell his mind is elsewhere now, he’s just trying to politely carry their conversation while he considers something else.
“Sepsis isn’t magic Red Robin, and not everyone has access to medical care to make sure their wounds don’t get infected.” Ladybug begins to raise her voice but in doing so, becomes a bit light headed.
“You need to go to the medbay.” Red Robin announces, “And we currently have medical teams and drones deployed to reach even the most remote populations. We’re very cognizant of the problems the Witch caused and this isn’t our first world ending rodeo.”
“A rodeo that-”
“I’m sorry Ladybug. I did this to you, and I did this to the world.” He spoke coldly, and then began to walk away. Raven had the last words however.
“Pretty sure the person responsible is the Witch I just locked up.” She monotonously replies, and then tilts her head towards the right. “Med bay. Go get your wound cleaned.”
Ladybug is all too happy to walk away from their weird ass conversation and the pit of guilt that is now threatening to eat her alive.
If Red Robin hadn’t sent her, maybe this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. If he hadn’t sent her, maybe half of the world would be dead by now.
She’s not sure if she can accept not blaming herself at this point in time, but she also can't put all of the blame on Red Robin. He was smart and respected, it's why she trusted his intel in the first place.
From the medbay she grabs gauze and alcohol wipes, and while they have medical staff present to help her, Marinette isn’t about to let these strangers privy to her face sans mask. She gets assigned a random medical room, and after confirming there were no cameras, undoes her transformation.
“So… That was a difficult battle.” Tikki appears and flutters around Marinette’s body. “The final spell wasn’t completed if you’re still wounded-”
“Tikki. I completed the spell. There’s just a lot at play right now.” Marinette grumbles. Her blood loss had been consistent and while it was originally on her magic suit, it’s now all over her custom brand made dress. The light pink one she wore to her own intervention because her family now thinks she’s hiding alcoholism from them.
Last month they were convinced it was harder drugs, so actually, alcoholism was a step in the right direction as far as her family and friend’s perception was concerned.
Her pink dress now has red spots and Marinette can’t be bothered to be mad. She simply gets out of the dress before more damage can be done and begins to clean her wound.
Taking a photo of it with her phone (ignoring the fifty plus unopened texts that were starting to flood in), she can tell it's a strange pattern of loops and lines and dots. Like a spell circle mixed with morse code, and longitude and latitude lines.
She doesn’t really know how to translate it, and she has the furthest thing from a photographic memory, but something about the look of her new scar is now embedded in her mind. Like it makes sense somehow, even though its in a ‘language’ she doesn’t know. She studies it for a second longer to try to understand what it could mean when a knock comes to the door.
“I’m naked.” She calls back.
“Then get dressed. Masks and clothes have been provided in the left most drawer of the physician’s desk.” A new male voice replies, and Ladybug isn’t sure who it is just yet.
Cautiously, she walks around the room to the space identified, and sweet lord there are sweatshirts and sweatpants and masks in plethora for her to put on. She’s a bit small for even the smallest size available, but she makes it work. The mask fits snuggly on her face and Tikki tucks herself into the large sweatshirt. Marinette grabs her dress and purse, and walks out to meet the eyes of Robin.
Not the red one, but the younger one, just Robin. He looks to be her age despite having the reputation for being the younger of the two. There’s something about his face that she swears she recognizes, but she forces that thought down.
“I assume you dressed your wound.” He announces, and upon seeing her head nod, “Good. I’ve procured a meal for you, let’s get moving.”
“I’m not just going to sit around all day with you all, I need to get back to Paris to strategize-”
“We aren’t inviting you to hang out, you’ll be eating in our conference room while we sort out next steps.” He replies, slightly irate, before calmly adding, “Red Robin thought you might appreciate seeing the statistics for the aid relief we’ve been able to provide thus far.”
“Fine.” She replies with a malcontent tone that matches his own.
He seems to open his mouth to say something else, but closes it soon after. He’s leading her in the direction of food supposedly, and Marinette can’t help but think that all Bat related people must be the worst kind of helpful assholes she’s ever met.
Robin eventually stops at a door and opens it wide for Marinette to step forward, a completely unnecessary gentlemanly gesture. She kind of hates him for it as she steps into the room and sees some of the biggest names in Heroism looking back at her. Wonder Woman specifically.
She knows that she should be amazed to be in the room with them, to be part of their cause, but after the day she’s had she just sees other people who failed to stop the bad guy.
“Ladybug, you bled through your transformation?” Raven asks, approaching her with eyes staring on the dress folding over Marinette’s arm.
“What? You sent me to the med bay, you knew I'd been carved into.” Marinette replies, “Speaking of it, let's discuss what we do know about the spell.”
“Do you think that it might be possible for the Witch to resume it?” Wonder Woman asks loudly from across the room, her arms crossed but the look in her eyes is not as sharp as Marinette had seen on TV.
“That would be starting with something we don’t know. Also it’s not like it has a pending bar, who the heck am I to say if it can be picked back up from where it left off?” Ladybug throws back, in a little bit of disbelief that she’s saying this to Wonder Woman of all people.
“We know it’s a combination of sacred magicks. Lot’s of reliance on the old Egyptian ways, hence the blood.” A cracking British accent voices into the room, appearing from a circle of gold.
“The Laughing magician, just what we needed.” Ladybug barely contains rolling her eyes at the sight of the Hellblazer as he’s more commonly known, “I saw the mention of Hathor, but there was latin, and no doubt a pull from Kronos since she captured my manifested object.”
“Your guardianship, you might recall that your magic isn’t easily captured-” Another heroine, Zatanna now interrupts politely. The title makes Marinette instinctively cringe however, and she knows that the reaction was noted by others in the room.
“But it was. And it was in the form of a Kronos element when she did, so clearly, however much difficulty it was, it was done. And it’s put a time limit on all of this.” She replies back seriously.
“A pending bar until we all die or until the spell fades.” Robin grumbles from her side, which makes Marinette almost jump. She’d forgotten he was here.
“Until half of us die.” Red Robin corrects from the computer in the back corner of the room, she hadn’t noticed him earlier, “Sentiment analysis of social media platforms so far is confirming that people have matching scars.”
“Soulmate marks.” Raven adds.
Robin nudges Marinette on the unscarred side and points with the nod of his head towards a tray of food set out on the conference table. It’s a gesture she’s actually grateful for.
“Great. Soulmate marks.” She sighs, and takes her seat in front of the chicken, mashed potatoes and green peas. It looks like a hospital meal, but it tastes slightly better than one. She’s starving at this point, so that makes it better she supposes. “What do you all know about soulmates?”
“Soul magic isn’t something I touch.” Zatanna immediately adds, her eyes pointedly glaring at the Hell Blazer.
“My soul has been sold into a number of contracts, I’m likely the best source of information on this impasse.” The Hell Blazer explains, living up to his name as he does so.
“My soul is bound to a separate reality.” Raven adds, unhelpful but true.
“I’ve worked with a number of artifacts that supposedly bind to the soul.” Wonder Woman contributes, which seems to take everyone but the Bat boys aback.
“Have you worked with something that binds the soul to the body while unbinding the soul from other tethers?” Ladybug asks, because honestly, what are the odds that there might be a simple solution to this whole thing.
“No.” The odds were so small that they were negative, it turned out. Ladybug takes another bite of her meal while she thinks it over.
“I don’t think we can release the Witch to ask her yet, but that’s something we can do in a few days when we know her motivations-” the hell blazer adds.
“And once we are able to ask more pointed questions that she cannot avoid. Aka some binding spells of our own that she can’t deflect.”
“She’s been working with Klarion.” Robin contributes and it’s actually helpful information.
“The kid?”
“Yes? Do you know of another?”
“I mean… Actually I can’t answer that. But I can handle his spells given the right preparations.”
“To handle a spell is very different than to combat it.” Wonder woman insightfully adds.
“I misspoke then. I can face off with Klarion, that’s nothing I’m worried about.” Marinette clarifies, “I’m worried about approaching her again without all the right context as to why she was trying to kill half of the world. It doesn’t make sense.”
“We’re working on getting you that information.” Red Robin speaks again, but this time gets up from the computer, “Back to the things we do know about the situation, it’s almost certainly soul fated marks. People around the globe are trying to compare and find their match. Social media posting has become completely useless for the flood of images.”
Red robin then opened a powerpoint on the television at the end of the table, and Ladybug wondered how long he’d spent formatting it to look that nice while he did research.
“We know that there are a few focal elements to each carving-” He clicked the slide and an image appeared.
It looked like the same one on Marinette’s side.
It looked like the exact same one.
“Red Robin, where did you get that image?” She cuts him off.
“Hm? Unimportant. What is critical is to understand that there are rings, lines and dots that angle and correspond to-”
“No, Very important. Where did you get that photo? Was it someone publicly online?” Marinette is panicking a little (lot) bit, because what if the spell caster knows how to read these markings? What if this is somehow linked to her identity and she can be found out by some one else’s reckless actions?
“...It was not. Why is it important?” Robin replies from her side. He leaves nothing in his tone for negotiation, clearly demanding her answer…But Marinette was smarter than to just give away free information to these people about her own mark. It was a new way for her to be found now… a new way to twist her identity against her free will.
Marinette quickly tries to hold herself back from screaming, she refocuses the conversation with something only she can share. “The spell was a mixed bag of other people’s magic, so if we can isolate her from any magical items we can prevent further problems from the witch. We don’t know how powerful she is without access to artifacts or goons.”
“Perhaps we could curse her with the inability to see magic.” The hellblazer suggested.
“No… that would only delay the inevitable. We need to keep her isolated, other people would simply bring her what she wanted. She’d recruited goons after all, clearly she’s an extrovert.” Ladybug shares her assessment.
“I suppose we couldn’t just leave her in the mirror?”
“We don’t know her motives.” Robin adds and while it’s pointing out the obvious, it kind of makes something click in her head.
“We need the root cause before we can determine what to do. Any answers on how to remove the spell are going to come from her… if it’s even possible.” Ladybug tries her best not to sound completely defeated despite her negative tone. A new idea comes to mind while the room is mentally handling the gravity of the situation.
“Anyone know a large open space we could let her out in? As little infrastructure around as possible.” Ladybug asks, knowing they probably have a training area somewhere.
Red Robin clicks the remote in his hand and a new slide appears with a photo of a barn and wheat fields. Apparently she wasn’t the only one to come up with some solution.
“Excellent transition Ladybug. Part A of the plan will be to prepare the stage. You can see the small slice of Americana before you and will some finessing we can-” Red robin begins to lecture on the few various routes of letting the magic user out, halting her ability to perform magic and getting her locked into an institution before she can escape.
It was a very rough plan. Red Robin knew more about magic that Marinette had wanted to give him credit for. The Robin beside her offered only a few words of advise, primarily with their approach to non-negotiable combat.
She feels tired exhaustion seeping into her bones, but she picks at her food while helping to strike down or generate ideas.
Red Robin, Raven, the Laughing Magician and herself eventually come to agreements on a plan.
“I see you’ve finished your meal. I can escort you to your sleeping quarters if you are ready.” Robin says, the rest of the heroes already filing out of the room. Red Robin looked like he was going to say something to her, but hearing Robin speak, quickly closed his mouth.
“Are we planning any other contingencies?” She asks to the room, but even Raven gives her a look before walking out.
“I’ll have plans laid out for you in the morning Ladybug. Please go get your rest.” Red Robin looks at her sympathetically, and she can only imagine that he’s running on less sleep than she is.
“I guess I’ll go then.” Marinette sighs, Robin nods his head and stands up from the table.
Its once their walking together in the hall that she finally asks.
“Are you trying to make sure i don’t see more of this super secret boy band base?” Ladybug nearly deadpans.
“Hm? Because I retrieved you from the Medbay and am getting you to a room now?” Robin states the obvious.
“Yeah, Obviously.”
“...I can provide a tour if you’d like. I presumed you would be too tired.”
“No way that’s a real offer- What’s the point?”
“The point of me escorting you now or earlier?” Robin defines the two instances as if she wasn’t trying to get to the point. So annoying.
“Fine be that way. The point of escorting me now.”
“Because you were alarmed at seeing the mark presented earlier on the screen.”
“Alarmed is stretching it.”
“You called it important.”
“It wasn’t remember? I moved on to something else-”
“If I might get to the point, you were alarmed because you recognized it.” Robin states with a soft accusation, but his tone shifts to be a bit softer or perhaps just quieter as he asks his next question, “Does it match your own?”
Marinette can feel her pulse elevate, her cheeks deepen in color as blood rushes to her face, and a sudden sensation of hope take over her. She doesn’t love how ‘hope’ feels in this moment, and she wants to escape this whole interaction without giving anything away.
“...Is this my room?” She nods her head towards the opening door, and Robin steps within the small space.
“Did it match your own mark?” Robin asks plainly and completely seriously. The door auto closes behind him, and for some reason it emboldens her. She’s not sure why, but it makes her less intimidated by the topic, rather than more.
“Why? You want to know how to track down my identity? To use this to identify other heroes?” She quickly replies, ignoring all other implications of the mark. Specifically the ones that make her pulse go off the rails and her attempt to calculate the angle of his jaw line.
“That’s not what-” Robin seems bewildered as he tries to unravel her reply.
“Well explain it then! Because to me this is a clear overstep of-” Marinette doesn’t let him finish just to jump over his words to make him falter and hopefully leave. Or at least leave it alone. Preferably for 24 hours until she can get it reversed. Hopefully.
“The photo was my own.” Robin cuts off all of her thoughts with the simple admission.
Marinette stops speaking. She tries but fails to get words to come out as everything seems to connect in her brain about this. She has a soulmate mark. He has a soulmate mark. She instantly recognized a photo of his mark and knew it matched her own.
Robin is her soulmate.
“I think we need to talk about this later.” Marinette calmly says. She didn’t mean for her voice to sound as small as it did, but something shaking in her throat demanded it of her. Robin seemed to take it in stride.
“...Right. Of course, you must be exhausted. I’ll grab you in the morning to make sure you get breakfast before the mission.” He takes a deep breath before saying.
Marinette nods. He nods back.
Theres a weird energy in the room, neither have moved a muscle, and they’re just staring at one another taking anxious breaths.
“...Do you find it as strange as I do? That we would have never met if not for this incident but are somehow fated to one another?”
“Fate is notoriously cruel… but weird as it is, it’s something we can talk through after the mission.” She sounds it out, its a pretty logical reply as far as magic goes.
“You’re going to stick around for questions?” He sounded skeptical.
“Well, maybe not, but im sure we’ll see each other again… in some capacity or another.” She shrugs, trying to commit as little as possible.
“Not if our soulmarks are removed tomorrow.” Robin states it as the simple true fact that it is. Marinette feels that sensation in the pit of her stomach, like she was 14 and telling Chat Noir no for the first time when he asked that they reveal identities before it was too late.
“Isn’t that the best outcome? Less identities mixed in and all?” She replies, doing what she can to not let her baggage seep through her words.
“I just would’ve figured my soulmate would have more curiosity than that.” He doesn’t seem to believe her.
“Curiosity is secondary to the mission.” She bit back, long having fought Adrien on the matter.
“No, I agree, I suppose I’m most surprised by my own feelings on the matter.” Robin turns away a bit in reflection as he says it. Marinette starts to realize exactly what he means.
“Oh.”
“Exactly. Now, goodnight.” Robin takes a step but she catches him by the arm gently.
“Youre not going to share what you’re feeling?” Marinette doesn’t know why she feels so anxious to ask. Well, she does, but she wants to pretend she doesn’t.
“That hardly seems productive considering you won’t be sticking around.” Robin logically replies.
“...That’s fair. But I promise it’s not anything against you as a person its just-”
“-fear. I understand.”
“It’s healthy to be afraid-” She starts but he cuts her off.
“Not of allies.” He says and it definitely makes her queasy. She pulls her hand back from his arm.
“Good night Robin.”
“And to you, Ladybug.” He leaves, the door automatically closing after him leaving her entirely alone.
She closed her eyes, and for the first time in the-longest-day of her life, she started to hope that something better was coming.
Marinette had weird dreams after that.