#I’m going to draw more of this dude (and probably the Batfamily too because i love Dick Grayson) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mochegato · 4 years

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Pixie Spy

Chapter 5

Chapter 1 Chapter 4

Marinette laid on Nino’s living room floor studying the stolen Grimoire files on her tablet. She had been staring at the same page for the last two hours, making little progress. Just because she could translate the ancient text, it didn’t mean it was easy or quick. In fact, it was headache inducing and with Adrien focusing on keeping them caught up on homework while she and Chloe were otherwise occupied, she was translating alone. She knew there were amazing secrets held in the texts, the drawings promised amazing new powers for each of the miraculous, she just needed to decode them.

She scrunched her eyes closed and rubbed them to clear her vision that had started crossing. Now, she decided, was a perfect time to take a break. She looked around the room for a distraction. Adrien was near her on the floor, leaning against the couch and working on the physics assignment they had received that day, having already finished the calculus assignment. Alya, having already passed her research onto Chloe, was on the couch working on the French Lit homework. Nino was sprawled out on the couch with his feet propped up on Alya’s lap, not working on anything, staring off into space with a furrowed brow instead.

Everyone was working quietly except for Chloe who was making her discontent with her surroundings abundantly clear through her frequent huffs and exaggerated movements. She was sitting in a chair making notes in a notebook referencing her laptop occasionally. She huffed and wiggled uncomfortably in the chair, “Tell me again why we have to do this here?” Chloe demanded, not bothering to mask her disgust with the middle class surroundings.

“We can’t meet in the hotel because we can’t take the chance the Waynes would see Marinette walking in the lobby or the hallway. We can’t meet at Adrien’s place because Asshole Dad. We can’t meet at Marinette’s in case they’ve made her already. That leaves my place or here and my place has the twins who are currently both grounded and bored so… that leaves here.” Alya explained calmly, not bothering to look up from her homework.

“Yeah, yeah, but couldn’t we have met at like a nice café or pub?” Chloe whined, rubbing her arms as though contact with the chair fabric were scratching her.

“And take the texts outside?” Adrien asked with a raised brow motioning toward Marinette.

“Plus until we know how much they know, it is probably best I’m not seen out more than absolutely necessary, hence the…” she indicated the oversized hoodie she had stolen from Kim some time ago she had been wearing all day, mostly with her hood up, completely enveloping her head.

“I thought that was so you could hide from Laurence…” Alya said with a sly grin.

“Or Noelle,” Adrien threw in.

“Or Ignace…” Chloe added, keeping her focus on her laptop.

“Okay stop. Really, Chloe? Wouldn’t you much rather talk about the throngs of people throwing themselves at you?” Marinette attempted to divert her to one of her favorite topics, herself.

“Oh sweetie, we don’t have that kind of time.” Chloe said throwing her ponytail over her shoulder. “We’re just talking about the ten or twenty we know about willing to let you tie them up and beat them like a piñata then thank you for the privilege.”

“That sounds like a regular Saturday night for you, Chlo,” Alya grinned.

“I…I don’t know how to react to that.” Marinette scrunched her face in confusion. “My first inclination is to say she’s exaggerating, but it’s Chloe and if anything she would underplay it. Plus I am extremely not happy with that little insight into Chloe’s bedroom, so… I’m going to ignore this entire conversation.” Marinette said turning back to her tablet.

Adrien looked up from his notes for a few moments staring in thought at nothing, “Valid,” he nodded, turning back to his work as well.

Nino had stayed silent throughout the conversation staring instead unfocused at a spot on the floor for the past few minutes. Adrien glanced back at him with curiosity. “Hey,” he smacked his hand into Nino’s leg, “you okay there? You completely missed us teasing Marinette about her fans. That’s one of your favorite topics.”

“Ahhh, Laurence… yeah, that dude makes me nervous. Michel is cute though. I could see that.” Marinette gave an affronted squawk. Nino continued without acknowledging her, “No, I was just thinking… we know Batman’s secret identity.”

“Yeah,” Adrien said uncertainly.

“And he doesn’t know ours.” Nino continued.

“Right,” Adrien encouraged still not sure where the conversation was going.

“And we have you and Chloe, both pretty famous and could easily end up at a party or event with at least one of them…” Nino mused thinking out loud.

“True.”

“So… how much can we mess with him about it without getting killed?” Nino asked raising his brow with a playful glint in his eyes.

“Dude!” Adrien exclaimed excitedly, his eyes lighting up at the thought.

“You want us to prank the Dark Knight?” Alya looked at him like he was crazy.

“Really?” Marinette deadpanned.

“Yeah, you’re right. It is potentially fraught with danger. We might need to bring Alix and Max in on this.” Nino nodded still thinking about how he could manage it.

Alya dropped her head into her hands, “Idiot.” She muttered shaking her head in her hands, not entirely sure if he was joking or not. Honestly, either option was possible.

“Well, that makes you two perfect for each other,” Chloe deadpanned still focused on writing something down in her notebook missing the withering look Alya shot her.

“Okay Kim,” Marinette rolled her eyes at Nino. She looked uncertain for a moment then pushed herself back until she was sitting on her heels and spoke hesitantly, “Or… we could discuss if we are still certain we don’t want the Batfamily here. Are we sure we don’t want their help?”

“Yes, yes we are,” Alya replied, her voice bordering on disbelief that Marinette would even ask. “We know what the Justice League is like. We know what they’ve done and we have a damn good idea what they could do given half the chance. We gave in on Constantine and look what happened. We cannot trust them.”

“Think about the last few weeks, Marinette. Think how much worse they would have been if those people had powers to begin with and understood the extent of their powers, how to push them, how to exploit them. What to ask for from Hawkmoth to do the most damage?” Nino added.

“The bats don’t have superpowers.” Marinette defended.

“But they work with people who do. They have strategized attack plans around people who have powers. They understand them and what’s most effective…” Chloe added barely looking up from her notepad.

“And they are incredibly well trained in combat and strategic planning… It would be hard enough without them having super powers. With them, we would be fucked.” Adrien added cutting in on Chloe’s statement.

“We are barely keeping up as it is. If one of the bats of Justice League were to get akumatized…” Nino let the statement trail off, allowing everyone to use their imagination to fill in the rest.

“Exactly! We are barely keeping up. Do we need to consider getting help? From someone with more experience and different skills? From someone with experience using superpowers against an opponent?” Marinette ran a hand over her face, “I’m just… I’m getting scared. And I don’t know if that is because I’m seeing a pattern or if I’m just frustrated with where we are and desperate for any change. And the more distance I have from it, the more I wonder if Constantine was right. Is it time to bring someone in, but we’re just too scared to try something different?”

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by a banal, obvious statement,” she glared at Adrien, “they have a good understanding of powers, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to strategize around them, which would make them powerful akumas, or incredibly advantageous assets against an akuma.” Everyone stared at her in surprise. “Stunned looks terrible on you.” She said making clear she was directing it to all of them. “The silent awe of me is appropriate though.” She said sitting back in her chair only to immediately grunt and start squirming against the fabric again.

“It isn’t just the powers, I don’t trust them, especially Batman. If we give them half the chance, I’m afraid they will try to take the miraculous because they think they could wield them and protect them better.” Adrien admitted.

The group took a second to let both sides of the argument sink in, unsure how to move forward. Both outcomes could lead to horrific outcomes that nobody wanted to allow. They were all afraid and they knew they were, but like Marinette, they didn’t know if the fear was holding them back from making a mistake or from having a breakthrough.

After a few moments of quiet, Nino broke the quiet in a soothing voice, “We have no way to know which way things will tilt. Let’s see what we get from the files and reassess then. No reason to introduce more chaos until we know what we have to work with already. Have you found anything yet?”

“A bit. Ugh,” she said accepting the change of topic and looking at her notebook with disgust, “this would be so much easier if the kwamis could just tell us all the possible uses of the miraculous were and the ways they could be combined.”

“Yeah, but then Hawkmoth would have known too… and Mayura and Argus.” Tikki pointed out.

“That’s a horrifying thought. I don’t think we could have taken Hawkmoth and Mayura when we started if they had known all their options.” Adrien shuttered thinking about it.

“That’s why they created the rule that kwami could only tell the very basic powers and responsibilities. Anything more than that can only come from the Order, so if anyone stole a miraculous, they wouldn’t be able to effectively wield it, making it easier for trained wielders to get it back.” Trixx said.

“A bit more effective back when there was an Order and masters who actually trained wielders, but you know, times change,” Plagg shrugged with a thinly disguised disgust.

“Okay but let me just say not having known this,” Marinette turned the tablet around for them to see the image of the dragon miraculous she had been studying, “was an option is extremely upsetting.”

“Dibs!” Nino called out, jumping up from the couch before anyone else could call it.

“Fuck you, I saw it first. I’ve got dibs. I’ve got plans for it.” Marinette blew him off.

“No way, you’re going to see all of them first.” Nino pouted.

Marinette grinned at him, “Guardian” she singsonged.

Trixx floated up closer to the tablet. “Oh that one. Yeah, everyone likes that one. It’s actually just a variation of the power you know already so it is a lot easier to pick up than it looks.”

Plagg floated next to her to check it out too. “If you like that one, just wait until you find out about…” his sentence was cut off by an overflow of green bubbles falling out of his mouth, causing him to glare at nothing and everything at the same time.

“Okay enough of that. My turn.” Chloe announced turning her laptop to display pictures of each of the Waynes and their alter egos.

Adrien leaned forward to get a closer look at the images and suddenly his eyes got huge and he gasped, “Oh my God… in the name of all that is holy and good in this world, please tell me the one in the godawful, Red Skull wannabe mask is the one you were making heart eyes at all night. Please, please, please…” Adrien begged Marinette.

Marinette refused to meet his eyes and pursed her lips, focusing intently on the laptop. “No comment.”

“It is him! Can I please, please be there when you ‘discuss’ that mask with him before we kick him out?” Adrien said shaking with delight at the thought of it.

Marinette glared at him, “We are going to be focusing on getting them out of Paris without drawing further curiosity or ire, not their wardrobe.” She pointed out turning to Chloe with an expectant look trying to prompt her to continue but couldn’t stop herself from whipping back toward Adrien, “And, I don’t even know if he was even interested in me at all. It’s far more likely they are concerned about the situation than he is about getting a date.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, “You’re not that stupid, Dupain-Cheng. The honeypotting wouldn’t have worked if he wasn’t interested.”

“I did NOT honeypot him…. And I still don’t know what that means!” Marinette yelled exasperated.

“Yeah, yeah. But I get to be there right?” Adrien implored ignoring her annoyance and still not giving her a definition. At this point, it was a matter of pride… or comedy. Either way, he was dedicated to never telling her what it meant.

“Oooooo and me too,” Alya jumped in.

“You should just leave your com on so we can all hear.” Chloe commented with feigned disinterest.

“We should put it on speaker. The kwamis will want to hear it too.” Nino agreed with a grin.

“I hate all of you,” Marinette grumbled crossing her arms in front of her as she pouted.

Adrien chuckled at her before putting her out of her misery, “Okay, Chlo. What did you figure out?”

“So, I focused on Bruce Wayne, Richard Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne. I couldn’t get an identity on Spoiler and there is no public information on Cassandra Cain, who is probably Batgirl, so I could only look at her vigilante work. But if Constantine is right, they are both still in Shanghai. It is unlikely they would have brought them in just to talk with us. So for tonight, they don’t matter.” Chloe explained before continuing with her analysis.

“The rest of the Wayne family are a treasure trove of insecurities, pressure points, and triggers. I’m just going to go over the biggest ones since we hopefully will only have to deal with them for a few minutes at the most. These unstable assholes are definitely Hawkmoth’s wet dream. Extremely well trained and no control over their emotions. All have extreme versions of insecurity complexes, but react differently.

“Bruce Thomas Wayne is a control freak. His public persona isn’t much help. As far as I can tell, most of it is a mask. He pretends to be a drunk, irresponsible, billionaire playboy but we know he’s Batman so all that is bullshit. What isn’t is that he is a good negotiator and actor, all of which means he can be a good manipulator and we know from his experience as Batman that he is extremely strategic. Be suspect of anything he tells you. His intentions appear to stem from a genuine concern with making lives better, but how much he is willing to listen to other people’s opinion of what constitutes better is questionable, especially after what we know of the Justice League’s actions. He has a history of enforcing his vision onto other people, whether they want it or not, of taking control. He needs to be in control, or feel like he is so he can prepare for what is coming and make sure it doesn’t turn against him.

“The oldest, Richard John Grayson, has a martyr complex. He’s so devoted to the saving people thing he became a cop in his civilian life as well, by all accounts an uncorrupt one, and that’s saying something in Gotham and Blüdhaven. Takes on too much at one time trying to fix everything and feels responsible for every bad thing that happens, even if he wasn’t there… especially if he wasn’t there, to stop it. If he only would have done whatever, then the bad thing wouldn’t have happened. If only he was better, blah, blah, blah. Sound familiar?” she looks pointedly at Marinette. “That’s his weakest spot. He takes the blame.

“The next, Jason Peter Todd has abandonment issues. He’s constantly waiting for people to walk away from him like his parents did. There is something more there, I know there is, like whatever happened when he disappeared for a few years, but we don’t have access to that information. Ridiculously protective of kids on the street, I think because he essentially grew up on them himself. But, here’s the catch, he became a crime lord in order to protect them. He is willing to go dark to protect people, so they never have to feel like he did and never have to do what he had to do. He’s straightforward and aggressive. He feels like everyone is going to walk away from him because he isn’t enough for them to stay. He’s dangerous.

“The next, Timothy Jackson Drake has inadequacy issues. Wealthy, absentee parents who likely never treated him like anything more than a business asset.” She looked sympathetically at Adrien. “He is a certified genius. Started running Wayne Enterprises a few years ago. He likes a challenge and is an incredible negotiator. He likes working things out on his own. He’s smart and curious. He knows exactly what to ask in order to get the information he needs without you even knowing that’s what he did. Be careful answering any questions or reacting to any statements from him. He is constantly trying to prove himself so people will love him. He takes any failure extremely personally because it means he doesn’t deserve love and a reminder that he isn’t who he thought he was and therefore not worthy.

“The youngest, Damian Wayne, known as the Ice Prince in Gotham, has a superiority complex. Nobody gets close to him and nobody wants to. He showed up in Gotham at age 10 with a fully-fledged attitude. Everyone and everything is beneath him. He also drives himself to extremes in order to confirm his superiority. He insults and belittles others because he believes he should be superior to everyone around him, but he is afraid he isn’t and if he isn’t better, then he is significantly worse.”

The rest of the room looked at her sympathetically. They all knew she wasn’t just talking about Damian. That was her up until a few years ago. She needed to believe she was better than everyone else and needed everyone around her to believe it too. If she was better then she deserved her parents’ love. If she had everyone else’s love, it made it easier to fool herself into believing her parents loved her as well, or blunt the feeling when she would realize just how much they didn’t. But years of therapy, a higher purpose, and real friends that truly wanted the best for her but refused to take any shit from her, made her realize she didn’t need to be that person to deserve love.

“Also keep in mind there are likely significant trust issues going on here.” Chloe continued ignoring the looks from the rest of the room. “There are a lot of reports of violence between Red Hood and Red Robin, Red Hood and Robin, Red Hood and… everyone actually, as well as Robin and Red Robin. Based on fact that violence is higher immediately after a changing of the guard, I’d say the passing of the mantle from one Robin to another has never been consensual and likely contributed to their complexes. They are held together by the thinnest of threads. We can snap that if we need to… but I don’t think we want to go that far. If we snap that… I don’t know how much damage that will do or if they will come back from it.” She cautioned hesitantly.

“Agreed. I don’t want to go there. There is plenty to use without going into the family issues, without causing irreparable damage.” Marinette concurred. They didn’t want the Bat family in Paris but they didn’t want to destroy them either. She wasn’t willing to let herself or her team become monsters in order to stop them. At the end of the day, they were ultimately all on the same team, they all wanted the same outcome, they just had different ways they wanted to get there… and different ideas about who got to decide that… and who should lead it…

“God these people need a hug not whatever that ‘family’ of theirs is providing each other.” Nino said aghast at the report.

“Marinette’s already on top of that, at least for one of them…” Alya smirked.

“Fuck you, bitch.” Marinette narrowed her eyes at her.

“I’m on top of that one,” Nino grinned, raising his hand.

“Oh God. Seriously we need to investigate that brain bleach thing,” Marinette groaned squeezing her eyes shut trying to keep that image from appearing.

“Okay,” Adrien announced over everyone, “we all agree after this whole Hawkmoth thing is over, I get to kick Constantine’s ass and we all portal over to the Batcave and hug the insecure, unfairly cute, prickly, little echidnas until they feel better, right?” Adrien asked solemnly.

“Ugh, fine but I’m not hugging the gremlin. Someone else gets that one,” Chloe called out throwing out her arms.

The room stilled as everyone else looked at each other, “Not it!” they all called at almost the exact same moment.

“Damn it,” Nino cried as he realized he had been a few seconds slower than everyone else.

“That’s what you get for being a turtle. When the confrontation happens, I got the pampered rich kid.” Chloe announced. This was her area. She knew just where to push kids like that, like her. She knew exactly what to say to get them, her, to hit them at their most vulnerable. To push just enough to make an impact without breaking them.

“No, Chloe. We don’t want to tip our hand and we need you guys to stand sentry. I want you, Alya, and Nino to hang back acting as scouts. This is likely to go bad and I need you guys in a triangular formation a block out watching for akumas. Adrien and I will talk to them.”

“Alone?” Nino asked tentatively. His job was to protect. He didn’t like the idea of not being close enough to act if they should need it.

“They aren’t going to attack us, at least not physically. And we will take an extra miraculous each.” Marinette smiled gently to placate him.

“Are you sure two is enough, m’lady?” Adrien asked curiously.

“You sure you aren’t just trying to keep it a bit more intimate for you and your boy?” Alya waggled her eyebrows.

Marinette glared at her, “Two should be enough.” She said ignoring the previous statement, “Combined with your two, we should be able to cover what we need to. It’s just the Batfamily. We should be able to handle them with just one each even if they wanted to attack us.” She grinned at Adrien. “Magic, gotta love it.”

“Okay but when he calls you incompetent, which he will, you need to push back. Point out the ways he’s failed. He isn’t better than us, no matter what he thinks and the sooner you make him realize that, the sooner the real conversation can start.” Chloe warned.

“He is all of, what, 13? We are not going to try to emotionally damage a child.” Nino stated flatly.

“As long as he thinks he is better than us, he won’t take us seriously.” Chloe warned. Nino just glared back at her, not willing to give in on this. “Fine, if you don’t want to point out his failings, then point out the most impressive things we’ve done that they haven’t. That should suffice. Not as effective, but it should get you there.”

“Okay, if we’re going to start discussing strategy, we’re going to need some sustenance. Let’s get dinner ready so we can start discussing the plan for tonight,” Alya said throwing Nino’s legs off her lap. Marinette and Nino followed her to the kitchen leaving Chloe and Adrien behind.

“You know, I noticed something with your analysis, Chloe,” Adrien started quietly keeping his eyes on their friends.

“I would hope you noticed more than just one thing,” Chloe chided him.

“Cute,” he said rolling his eyes, “Jason was the only one you said was dangerous, why is that?

“I thought it was obvious? The others have a limit. I don’t know that he does. And Marinette likes him, a lot. He has a power to hurt her that the others don’t. And they are very different. They are both willing to go as far as necessary to help others, but to her that means killing herself, to him that means killing everyone else and himself,” She looked at him uncertainly, “and I’m not sure how she will react to that.”

“You think he would do that if we let him stay here?”

“I don’t know enough about him to predict what he will do. He dialed it back to work with the bats again but… There really isn’t that much on him. I can tell you what Red Hood has done and that is bad, but not Jason Todd. Since he disappeared, presumed dead, hell maybe he was, who knows what happens in Gotham, there is nothing on Jason Todd. If you want me to try to predict, you can hop on down to Africa and see if you can borrow the kwami of prediction. Until then, it’s all guesswork. I need to see him. See how he acts before I could even try.”

He stared at her for a few seconds a look of utter confusion on his face, “You think the kwami of prediction is in Africa?”

“Do you ever hear any miraculous related shit doing down in Africa?” she fixed him with a knowing stare.

“No,” he said cautiously

“Exactly, because they know what’s coming and they do their fucking jobs.” She winked at him and walked away.

<><><><><>

Bruce, Jason, Tim, and Damian sat in the living area of Bruce’s hotel room in various states of suited up for the night. They had barely had time to throw their bags in their rooms before meeting up to prepare for the night. Damian was completely dressed and ready to go on a moment’s notice, as always more than ready to focus on business. Bruce and Tim were in everything but their masks, choosing comfort until they had to leave. Jason was sitting in a large chair in just his pants and shirt, attempting to look relaxed and nonchalant about them being so close to the girl he met at the gala. They were all staring at a massive screen linking them to Dick, Alfred, and Selina in the Batcave.

“So, how’s Paris, boys?” Selina asked from her position lounging in one of the chairs. “Meet any interesting people yet? Jason?” She added with a smirk.

“You know Bruce, all work and no play. We haven’t gotten a chance to get out and meet anyone. Doing this instead.” Jason shrugged with a practiced indifference, forcing himself to recline further back into the chair in an effort to seem casual.

“Haven’t even gotten to see the Eiffel Tower yet?” She asked in mock sympathy.

“Oh, no, we saw it… from the plane.” Jason played along.

“You really should make sure to visit the Eiffel Tower while there, Master Bruce.” Alfred threw in trying to downplay his amused smile.

“It’s not as impressive as you think it will be,” Tim muttered to nobody in particular.

“We’re here for a reason, Jason. If we don’t want to lose today, we need to get started immediately…” Bruce admonished him but upon looking up and seeing Alfred’s unimpressed look added, “We can get lunch near the Eiffel Tower tomorrow. Better?” He looked to Alfred who switched to small smile instead. Taking that as approval, Bruce nodded to Tim indicating they were ready for him to start his presentation.

Tim nodded to Bruce and moved to the front of the group and pulled up an image from the Ladyblog displaying five superheroes and their names on half of the screen. “I’ve found a few local resources on the heroes we couldn’t see back home and have downloaded their contents and sent them back to you guys,” he said nodding toward the half of the screen displaying the cave, “so you can look through the information as well. I’m not sure what is preventing the data from being accessible from America, but I suspect magic.” He glared at the screen like it personally offended him, “I hate magic.

“I’ve only had about 30 minutes to prepare so this is going to be brief. I mainly focused on… well actually I mainly focused on figuring out the best resources for information, downloading copies of the site content, and sending a copy back to the batcomputer. But after that, I mainly focused on figuring out who the heroes are so we know who we might run into and who to look for tonight.

“The available information indicates a villain named Hawkmoth appeared in Paris roughly five years ago…”

“Huh. Where have I heard that before?” Jason muttered from his seat.

“… and the heroes Ladybug and Chat Noir appeared at the same time.” Tim continued a bit louder this time. “There appear to be five regular heroes and a few heroes that appear from time to time. Here are images of the heroes we know about,” he nodded to the image on the screen. He switched briefly to another image displaying the lesser known heroes before returning to the image of the main five heroes. “Not every battle is caught on camera and of the battles that are caught, most of the actual fighting is not caught, making it easy to miss heroes and villains in the fight. The resources make it clear there likely are more heroes that we don’t know about, which I would say is a definite since your girlfriend didn’t appear on any of the sites.” He nodded toward Jason who just huffed and crossed his arms in response, not willing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

“The primary heroes are Ladybug and Chat Noir, with Ladybug as the leader. Those are the two we need to convince if we want any information. We know a few identities of past heroes, including a girl who lives in this hotel, Chloe Bourgeois. She was a bee themed heroine named Queen Bee. Since then another bee themed heroine has appeared and is one of the 5 regulars.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at the screen, “It looks like the same person. Could it be her in a different costume?”

“I don’t think so,” Tim answered shaking his head, “When I was looking at her page on the sites I think I saw that she has been seen at the same time as the new bee hero. I can analyze it more when I get more time, but the local experts don’t appear to think they are. We don’t know the identity of the new bee.”

“You think they look similar?” Dick asked incredulously. “You’re crazy. Their costume, hair color, eye color, height, everything is different.” Jason looked between Dick and the image of the two bee wielders a few times. One of them was crazy, he just wasn’t sure which one of them it was.

“Figure out where she lives then you should arrange to run into her tomorrow.” Bruce said nodding toward Tim.

Tim gave a single nod to Bruce accepting the assignment. “There seems to have been a massive overhaul of heroes about a year into the fight. All of the heroes except Ladybug and Chat Noir were replaced with new heroes. No explanation was given… or maybe there is one I just haven’t found it yet.”

Damian scoffed, “There’s one villain and five or more heroes and they haven’t been able to take him down? Pathetic. These are the people entrusted with objects capable to destroying the world?”

“I haven’t been able to get much information yet so we don’t know exactly what is going on but it looks like there is more than just Hawkmoth. He might be a leader or mastermind behind the villains. I’ve seen at least a few other villain names mentioned when looking up the heroes.”

“Do we think they all have a miraculous as well?” Dick asked.

“Not sure. I haven’t gotten that far yet, but it stands to reason.” Tim nodded absentmindedly.

Jason moved closer to the screen staring intently at the pictures of Ladybug from different years. There was something familiar about her but there was something else sitting on the edge of his consciousness, he just needed to figure out what his subconscious was trying to tell him. His eyebrows furrowed and he narrowed his eyes trying to block out anything but the images. His eyes widened as the realization suddenly hit him, “Mother fucker!” He whipped around to Tim, “Do we have any indication of how old these heroes are? They look like babies in those older pictures.”

Tim shrugged, “Haven’t gotten that far yet so, not sure. But I glanced at a section on Ladybug and Chat Noir throughout history so at least for them, somewhere between 5 and 5000. I should have a better idea tomorrow after I’ve had a chance to read a bit more.” He squinted at the pictures, “You think they look young?”

“You don’t?” Jason asked incredulously.

Damian examined the images a bit harder as well. “They do seem around my age in the first images.”

“Really? I’m with Tim, I can’t tell either. I can’t get a good feel for age when I look at the pictures.” Dick’s voice came over the speaker. “That’s strange. Their faces are at least partially exposed. I should be able to get an idea at least.” He paused for a few seconds. “Do you think the magic is helping conceal their identities as well?”

Tim stared at the images as well, moving slowly closer to them, “Maybe,” he nodded subconsciously, “I can’t get a feel either. The longer I stare at them the harder it is to tell anything.”

“Magic.” Bruce shook his head in disgust. “Anything else to tell us tonight, Tim?”

Tim shook his head “Not today. I’ll have more tomorrow.”

Bruce nodded a thanks and switched places with Tim. Damian scowled at Tim and moved to put some distance between him and Tim. Tim fought off rolling his eyes in annoyance, but only just managed it. Bruce turned to the rest of the team, “Okay, as soon as we are done here, we’ll start scouting the city to see if we can make contact. We are not looking to be too subtle with this. We want them to know we are here. If you catch sight of them, let the rest of us know we will send someone to talk to them about a meeting later tonight or tomorrow. I want to make this very clear. Our goal today is to meet the local heroes and set up a meeting in the next few days in order to gather more information. The primary mission is recon. We have no idea what exactly is going on here or how dangerous it is. We are not engaging tonight. We want them to trust us, think we’re on their side, and get as much information out of them as we can, on the situation and the miraculous.”

“If we want them to trust us, we should leave the rabid squirrel here. Or better yet, send his petty ass home. He’s only going to cause trouble.” Jason griped, motioning toward Damian. Tim did roll his eyes this time. It was a stupid fight to pick. Damian wasn’t going anywhere. Damian wanted to come and Bruce gave in. They were just on containment duty now, trying to minimize the damage Damian would do.

“You’ve made your feelings more than abundantly clear on the matter, Little Wing, frequently. Damian is there now. Deal with it.” Dick reprimanded him, tired of this conversation. Jason hadn’t gotten his way in their discussion in the Batcave. He hadn’t gotten his way discussing it the next day. He hadn’t gotten his way in the car on the way to the airport or boarding the plane or on the plane or deplaning or while checking into the hotel, he wasn’t going to get Damian kicked off the mission now.

“Someone needs to be there to make sure you don’t tell them all our secrets trying to impress some vapid, philistine harpy.” Damian snapped turning his back to Jason.

It was a small miscalculation, but in this family that is all that is needed. By moving away from Tim, he had placed himself close to Jason and by turning, he had left himself open to Jason’s much longer arm reach. Jason grabbed Damian’s cape and yanked back sharply. “Watch your mouth, you puerile, creepy, little shit.” Damian let out a startled grunt before landing with a loud thump on the ground. He growled at Jason and tensed to pounce on him.

“Jason!” Bruce admonished moving between the two boys. “Let’s focus on the mission.”

Jason rolled his eyes. Of fucking course that would be Bruce’s reaction. “Right. Don’t want to prevent the oncoming disaster if it’s coming from inside the house.” He leaned back in the chair with a huff. “You want to focus on the mission, Old Man? Fine. Coming at them with an almost full team that includes this asshole,” he motioned toward Damian, “doesn’t exactly scream ‘trust us’, does it? Do we really want everyone to show up to this thing? Maybe one or two of you should stay in the room.”

“Considering your girlfriend threatened to leave us bloody and broken, more is probably a safer bet. We probably should have insisted on Dick coming as well, maybe have the girls meet us here too. And do you really want to leave Damian unsupervised?” Tim asked with a raised brow fully facing him. The only way to attempt to contain Damian at this point was to keep him close and Jason knew it.

“You could stay with him. We weren’t planning on actually having a discussion tonight anyway. That way you could get more research done and someone could watch the child.” Jason reasoned. Tim nodded in thought. Not a bad idea at all. He would like more time to research before they actually interacted with any of the heroes. But it came from Jason so there must be something wrong with it. He just needed to figure out what it was.

Damian growled at the description. “I am not a child.”

Jason scoffed back at him, “You act like one.”

Damian jumped at him flipping midair and unsheathing his katana, landing with it a few centimeters from Jason’s jugular, “Could a child do that?”

“One just did.” Jason glowered at him, hitting the sword away.

“Jason has a point.” Dick spoke up, breaking the tension. Damian whipped his head to Dick’s image on the screen his face giving away a flash of hurt before almost immediately schooling his expression into a blank look.

“Did that hurt to say?” Jason asked with a smirk, “It looked like it hurt. That’s okay sometimes the most satisfying things do.”

“Yeah, that’s healthy,” Tim muttered to himself.

Dick rolled his eyes and continued on, ignoring Jason, “Sending so many, especially hostile ones, looks like a power play. It looks like you’re trying to intimidate them.”

“We are,” Damian snapped at him.

“You aren’t.” Dick corrected him. “You’re trying to get them on your side. You are trying to get them to trust you. Not scare them.”

“We won’t all show up to meet them. I’ll take the lead along with Tim. Jason and Damian will hold back and watch.” Bruce clarified. “For tonight I want everyone out and about so we can cover more ground and hopefully either run into one of the heroes or make our presence known enough to get their attention for tomorrow.”

“If this” Damian indicated all of them in the room, “is all it takes to scare them, they need our help more than we thought.”

“He didn’t say it would scare them, he said it looks like we are trying to scare them.” Jason responded with a sharp edge to his voice.

“You’re welcome to stay back in the room.” Tim offered annoyed with the conversation.

“I have information I want too” Jason growled at him.

“We are not here to get information on that woman.” Tim rebuked him.

“You aren’t” Jason muttered turning away.

“Jason” Bruce said sternly, “We are here to collect data on the miraculous and the heroes and see how much danger we and the world are in and if something needs to be done.”

“Not get you a date with a girl you don’t know and don’t even know if she is interested.” Tim taunted him.

“This is not about getting a date,” Jason defended himself.

Tim, Dick, and Damian all scoffed in unison while Bruce and Alfred gave Jason a skeptical look. Selina sat in the background with an amused smile. Really, the only result she was interested in from this mission was Jason finding his girl.

Jason glared at him before turning to Bruce, “I know what we’re here for…” He wouldn’t turn a date down if it should come up and if he managed to find her, he was definitely going to ask her. But, his priority was to help her, which meant both finding her and getting information on the miraculous. If he wanted to achieve both of his goals, he first needed to focus on that the family wanted… for now, so they would be distracted and he could focus on his other mission alone. “What exactly were you thinking might need to be done?”

“Whatever we have to.” Bruce responded calmly but with steel in his eyes.

Jason furrowed his brows at Bruce. That explanation was significantly more hostile than the original mission statement. Not that he was surprised, but Bruce stating it so plainly meant he considered it a higher probability. “That’s a far cry from the ‘we’re just gathering information’ mission you extolled earlier.” Jason gritted out.

“It’s all related.” Bruce stated.

“Why do you think we’re here, Todd? We need to figure out if we need to acquire the miraculous and how to do so.” Damian snapped at him.

“You’re planning on taking the miraculous?” Tim rounded on Bruce, his confusion evident, having come to the same conclusion as Jason. “You said over and over again you didn’t think we needed to worry about the girl that broke into the cave and now you’re planning on stealing their miraculous?”

“We are not going to steal their miraculous!” Jason exclaimed. What the hell was going on? He had thought they were making progress. Bruce agreed to investigate and offer help fight Paris’ villain and now they were planning on taking out the heroes themselves.

“We are going to assess the situation.” Bruce clarified trying to pacify them and bring emotions down to a quiet rumbling rather than a full out roar. Completely content was never an option and Bruce knew it.

“We wouldn’t steal Green Lantern’s ring, we shouldn’t even be thinking about touching theirs.” Jason yelled.

“We would if he were evil.” Dick reasoned, not at all surprised by the turn of events and long past getting upset when Bruce made plans like these. Bruce liked to be prepared. The Paris heroes might not ever do anything evil. They might become allies, but that wouldn’t stop Bruce from figuring out their weaknesses and how to take them down should the need arise.

“If they were evil, Constantine wouldn’t be helping them.” Jason argued back, his face starting to turn red, “Not wanting to have you interfere doesn’t make them evil B.” Jason argued back.

“We are not planning on taking anything, but we need to be prepared if things go bad. We don’t know enough to even begin to guess what could go wrong to cause us to step in. At this stage, we are just trying to get an idea what is going on so we can get a better idea of what to ask later so we can make a plan.” Bruce started moving toward the balcony doors as he pulled on his cowl, “Now finish suiting up. Let’s go.”

“Oh this is going to go just fucking swimmingly,” Jason muttered under his breath as he pulled on his jacket and grabbed his helmet. Tim hummed in agreement and started bracing for the worst, which was standard practice at this point.

Chapter 5

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Note: *Sigh* I honestly thought they would meet again, kinda, in this chapter, but then they didn’t, the unruly bastards. So very sorry. Next chapter I promise! I swear it is the next scene.

#maribat #jasonette #Pixie Spy

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