#maribat class redemption

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Hi! I love, your work, by the way! I was wondering if I could get a Tim x Adrien story. With a side of childhood friends to lovers? Like Tim and Adri met at one of the Drakes Parties? But also I want a side a relationship reveal, but with Class Field Trip to Gotham City salt. Also, also Tim and Adrien already know each other superhero identities.

Basically all of Lila's lying, Tim x Adrien's relationship, is revealed at one of the Wayne Gala's.

I have never shipped Adrien with anyone because I have zero grasp of his character and I gave this my best shot. I lost control of the plot somewhere and It turned into this monster. I know you guys might ask me to continue this but my answer is no. And Class Redemption because why not?

[Masterlist]

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THE STORY OF THEIR LIVES

Ten-year-old Adrien smiled as the old lady pinched his cheeks. Even in Gotham, he can't escape the obsession old wealthy women has with his ‘chubby’ cheeks.

While she commented on how cute he was (at least that is what Adrien thinks she is talking about, he had slacked in his English lessons a little bit and she was using the English word for cute a lot), he scanned the lavishly decorated ballroom for signs of his mother.

She would be more willing to distract the nice lady than Père while Adrien made his escape. Instead, he locked eyes with another boy around his age.

“Help me!” Adrien mouthed to the other boy in English.

Tim was ecstatic at meeting another child his age at the boring gala his parents made him attend and concerned when they started asking for help.

Once he got a glimpse at who was holding the other boy hostage, he winced in sympathy. Ms. Milson may look like a feeble old lady, albeit dressed in more expensive clothing than your average grandmother, but her hands are like crab pincers which Tim had been the victim of many, many times.

Tim recognised the other boy as Adrien Agreste, French model for his father’s, Gabriel Agreste’s, brand. Said blonde’s cheeks were turning a worryingly red and Ms. Milson took no notice as she continued to coo about how cute he is.

Once Adrien realised that Tim was looking at him, he widened his eyes so comically and mouthed at Tim for help. His pleading green eyes, similar to that of a sad kitten, made Tim cave in to help despite the potential damage Ms. Milson will inflict on his cheeks.

 Tim sighed and tried his best to make sure his smile didn't look like a grimace, “Ms. Milson.”

“Timothy, darling, where have you been hiding? I have been looking for you everywhere …” Ms Milson babbled on as she predictably reached for his cheeks after letting go of Adrien’s. Tim tried to stay still and not flinch at her approach.

Holy crab pincers, Batman. It hurts so bad. Why was he doing this again?

Adrien, behind Ms. Milson, rubbed his cheeks and gave Tim a bright smile in gratitude which made Tim’s stomach feel funny.

Are all models this pretty? Honestly, he could see why Gabriel would openly try to break child labour laws and use such a pretty face.

“... and you have grown so big. Timothy dear, have you met this boy yet? He’s your age. His name is…erm….what was it again, dear?”

“Adrien Agreste, Madam,” he replied.

“Well, Adrien, this is Timothy,” she said as she pulled said boy’s cheek and Tim grimaced from the pain, “and his parents are the one hosting this lovely gala.”

“Oui.”

“Ms. Milson, can Adrien and I go play?”

“Of course, dearie,” She finally released Tim’s cheek from her grip and gave it one last pat, “I remember when my boys were your age. Oh look, there’s Richard. I haven’t seen him in a while. He’s growing up into a rather smart young man. You boys go have fun now.”

By then, Tim had already grabbed Adrien’s hand and dragged him across the room, out of Ms. Milson’s sight.

“Sorry, about dragging you, Adrien. But if we don't get out of there, she will come pinch us again.”

“It’s fine. No cheeks being pinched is good.” Adrien said in a slight mix of French and British accent.

“I was afraid that you might not understand me.”

“I have a family in London so I learn it but there are some things about English that I find confusing.”

“Don’t worry, even Americans sometimes find the language confusing.”

They stood there and stared at each other. Tim used that opportunity to study Adrien. His blonde hair was well-combed and all of his clothes were all obviously Gabriel branded. So another reason for Gabriel coming was to promote his new line. 

“Do you want to be friends?” Adrien bursted out asking.

“Yeah,” Tim absentmindedly answered, deep in thought about his observations of Adrien before registering the question, “Huh, I mean, sure. We can be friends.”

“Adrien, what are you doing here?” A blond woman who is likely to be Adrien’s mother called out due to their resemblance.

“Mama, this is my new friend, Timothy.”

“Nice to meet you, Madam. My name is Timothy Drake. My parents are the hosts of today’s gala. I hope you are enjoying your evening.”

“Such a polite boy. But you don’t need to be like that with me. Are you boys having fun?”

“Timothy was going to show me around.” Adrien exclaimed, before lowering his head and quietly asked, “Can I go with him, Mama?”

Emilie smiled and bent down to pat his head, “Of course, you can, mon cher. Stay inside the mansion at all times. I will be staying in the Ballroom the entire time. Come find me when you want to go back to the hotel.”

“Okay, Mama!” Adrien smiled brightly, causing the funny feeling in Tim’s stomach to increase and his face felt hotter. Tim held out his hand (why was it sweating so much? ) for Adrien to grab.

Emilie tried to resist the urge to squeal as she watched the two boys walk away, giggling like the children they are supposed to be. She was going to persuade Gabriel to let Adrien keep in touch and be friends with the son of the Drakes.

------

Adrien tuned out Lila’s voice as he stared out the airplane window of his first class seat. Lila was also somehow in first-class and she was making as much use of it as she could. As soon as the seatbelt sign was off, she had spent every second of her time sitting next to him, stating that first-class chairs were big enough for two. All of his requests for her to go away fell on deaf ears. (Does she actually have tinnitus or is it selective hearing?)

Many of the other passengers had put in earplugs or headphones to avoid her but Adrien had not much luck as Lila stopped his every attempt to do the same. 

On paper, the class was on their way to Gotham City for their school field trip. As an Agreste, he got a seat in first class and unfortunately along with Lila, who by some miracle managed to get his father to get her in.

The truth was that it was just a cover for the Miraculous Court, who were sitting in business class along with the rest of their classmates, to get into Gotham to escape Shadowmoth’s scrutiny and discuss with the Bats about the Paris situation. For Adrien, it was an excuse to see his boyfriend, Tim Drake-Wayne again. Or also known as Red Robin.

The two boys had kept in contact over the years. Tim began to reach out more after he learned about the akuma situation and patiently endured Adrien’s crush on Ladybug. Luckily, one identity reveal later, Marinette and Adrien decided that they were both better off as friends. Marinette had long moved on from her own crush on ‘Adrien Agreste’ and in the suits, Chat Noir no longer flirted around Ladybug.

Soon after, Tim and Adrien confessed to liking each other and started dating in a long distance relationship.

After a long talk with the rest of the Miraculous Court, they agreed to let Adrien tell Tim about his identity. They thought that as a Wayne, Tim would be able to connect them to Batman and get them the help they needed. It hasn’t been long since the Court was formed and properly established. Between school and the akumas, they don’t have the proper manpower or resources to investigate Shadowmoth.

The second identity reveal was more chaotic than the first.

—--

Adrien, transformed as Chat Noir, was nervously standing in front of his computer screen where a shocked Tim was frozen for the past few minutes.

“Tim?” Adrien asked worriedly, “I know this is a lot to spring it much on you and you might not believe it-”

“No. No. Babe, I believe you. It’s just… wow, my brothers are not going to leave me alone if they find out about this.” Tim looked down thoughtfully and tried to process the fact that his boyfriend wears a leather catsuit on a regular basis to battle.

“Tim, are you okay?”

“I am fine. So you are Chat Noir. I know that but my head can’t seem to get around to that fact.”

“Oh. Wait. Plagg, claws in.” Adrien said and a green light flashed over him. Tim takes a double take as the camembert on Adrien’s desk starts floating.

“On second thought, I think I should get some sleep if I am hallucinating floating cheese.”

“Tim! What have I told you about your sleep schedule.”

“Relax, Adrien,” a nasally voice was heard, “your boyfriend’s fine. He just couldn’t see me because kwamis don’t show up on cameras. Remember Kwami Buster?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Who was that?” Tim asked.

“Plagg, he’s basically a god that allows me to transform into Chat Noir. Cameras can’t seem to work on him and that’s probably why you think that there is a floating cheese besides me.”

“Right. Right.” Tim placed his head in his hands, “So to recap, you are a cat-themed superhero. Specifically one of the main heroes that are fighting that Butterfly Man.”

“Shadowmoth.”

“Okay. And you are powered by an invisible god.”

“He looks like a black chibi cat actually. You can’t see him because of the cameras. I think there’s a picture Marinette drew of him somewhere. Hold on.” Adrien went out of frame for a moment before returning with a sketch of Plagg.

“Wow.”

There were points in Tim’s life when he thought that things can’t get weirder and they did. His boyfriend confesses to being one of the heroes that the JL had been trying to make contact with for the past year but couldn’t, due to a frustrating combination of magic and politics. That is making its way to the top ten weirdest.

“Tim?” Adrien’s hesitant voice brought him back from his thoughts.

“I am fine, Adrien.” Tim reassured, “It was a lot to process but I believe you. You should be glad that I have made this line so secure that even Lex Luthor would have trouble listening in. I don’t think you would like your father knowing about this.”

“Oh thank kwamis. Well, the other reason I am telling you this is because I need your help contacting Batman. As a Wayne, you probably know how to do that. At least I hope you have a way.”

Oh. Tim wanted to laugh.

After many months of failing to get into contact with the Miraculous Court, an opportunity simply landed on Tim’s lap in the form of his boyfriend. Now, he had a decision to make.

“Tim?”

“Adrien, I also have something I have been keeping a secret.”

“It can’t be that you are also a superhero, right?” Adrien joked, “Cause what are the chances that both of us are heroes.”

Adrien’s smile faded, upon seeing Tim’s completely serious face.

“No. No. No. No way. Non. Non.”

“Adrien, I am Red Robin.” Tim interrupted Adrien’s denial session. Cackling was heard through the speakers which Tim assumed was from Adrien’s floating cat god.

Adrien went silent for a moment before asking, “Who’s Red Robin?”

It was Tim’s turn to be shocked into silence. His boyfriend didn’t even know who his hero identity. Granted, he never talked about the Bats of Gotham in detail to Adrien besides mentioning that they ‘save’ him a few times and his family’s alter egos weren’t as public as the Parisian heroes. But still.

Tim slapped his hand to his forehead in despair, “My boyfriend doesn't even know who I am. Granted, I am not that much of a big deal but that hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” Adrien apologised, “I only know about Batman and his sidekick, Robin.”

“I’m fine. Don’t let Damian know that you called Robin a sidekick.”

“Your brother is Robin?”

“My entire family is in on it.”

“Is Alfred Batman then?”

Tim laughed.

“Come on, Tim. I want to know who he is.”

“It’s Bruce.”

Adrien felt his brain trying to process the information. “What?”

“Bruce Wayne is Batman.”

“Are you sure you are not making fun of me for being honest and telling you my superhero identity?”

“Nope. Completely serious. I am the hero, Red Robin. If you search up about the Teen Titans or the Young Justice, you will see my name beside them. I am best friends with the older Superboy and Kid Flash.”

They spent the rest of the call, talking about their alter egos.

—--

After months of planning over video calls to somehow get most of the Miraculous Court out of Paris so they can discuss the Shadowmoth problem. A class trip to Gotham was what they came up with.

Adrien was jealous of Marinette, Kagami and Luka who went ahead of the class a few days prior, using Jagged Stone’s tour as a cover.

Marinette had came clean to her parents about Ladybug and they pulled her out of Dupont to be homeschooled. (The official reason was so she can focus more on her career since Jagged named her his favourite designer and she had more work. The real reason was so she can focus on taking down Shadowmoth.) She was there as Jagged’s costume designer.

Luka had persuaded his father to take a detour in Gotham so it coincided with the class trip and Kagami was a tagalong as Luka’s girlfriend. How they managed to persuade her strict mother Adrien didn’t know. 

Chloe and Zoe had stayed behind, partly because the sisters didn’t want to go to Gotham and partly so there would be someone to hold off the akuma until the others portaled back. The final three members of the Miraculous Court, Alix, Alya and Nino, were in business class with the rest of the class.

“Adrien~” The sickly sweet voice which felt like bugs crawling up his skin, called for his attention, “Can you tell this lady who I am so I can get my drink?”

There was an attendant who looked frustrated and tried her best to hide it behind a professional smile. Adrien knew that look all too well, seeing it on many of his co-workers’ faces when Lila was on set for a photoshoot.

“What seems to be the problem?” Adrien asked the attendant, a practised smile on his face.

“The young lady wants wine but we can’t do that because she’s underage.”

“See, Adrien, she’s being unreasonable. I already told her that I am 18 and I can drink.”

“Lila,” Adrien said gently, “I am sure the nice lady is working hard to make sure you are comfortable but unfortunately, it is the law in America that the drinking age is 21. She doesn’t want you to get in trouble.”

“But, Adrien-”

“ You can drink when we get back. It’s only for a few days. You don’t want to get kicked out of this trip for causing trouble. Right, Lila?”

“Fine. Can you get me a soda then?” Lila asked the attendant, who nodded and walked away in relief. (She was gonna tell the others to be watch out of the entitled girl in first class)

“And can you get out of my seat please?” Adrien interrupted, “I want more leg room to myself right now so I can sleep.”

Lila dropped her smile and her lips began to tremble, preparing to cry and cause a scene.

Adrien looked at where Gorilla was sitting. The bodyguard was getting ready to intervene if Adrien wanted him to. He gestured to show Gorilla that he had it handled.

“This flight will take hours and I think both of us having our own space instead of being cramped in one seat for that long will be more comfortable.”

“But Adrien, I want to be together with you.”

“And I don’t.”

“Adrien, how could you?” Lila started crying.

“Lila, we aren’t even dating. I don’t like you getting into my personal space. I only tolerate you because you are my classmate and for some bizarre reason, my dad deemed you good enough to be my friend.”

“I thought we had something,” Lila sobbed.

“Hey, girly,” a dark-haired man from a seat over snapped, “The guy’s reasonable in wanting his own space so quit your whining and get over your delusions before I drag you back to your seat and gag you.”

Lila immediately went silent and looked at Adrien with an expectant look. He simply tilted his head in the direction of her seat. Lila turned to find the man glaring at her.

Knowing she lost, Lila slowly went back to her seat.

Adrien sighed in relief and turned towards the man with a look of gratitude,

“Thanks a lot for the help.”

“No problem. She was getting on my last nerves too.”

“I am sorry that you had to deal with her.”

“It’s fine. Us bros got to stick together on things like this.”

Finally, peace and quiet. Adrien put on his earphones to listen to the playlist Nino had made for him and enjoy the rest of the flight.

------

Tim rocked his heels nervously as he waited for Adrien and his class to show up. Bruce had put him and Dick in charge of the tour of Wayne Enterprises for the Dupont class. Dick was there to do the actual tour guide duties while Tim was there to pass on the meeting details to the Miraculous Court by discreetly blending in with the class.

And also because he was a sap who missed his boyfriend. Jason and Dick would never stop teasing him about how he spent 40 minutes in the bathroom to get ready. Was it wrong to look good in front of his boyfriend who he hadn’t physically seen in 1 year, 3 months and 23 days?

The bus carrying Adrien and his friends finally arrived. Dick elbowed Tim in his ribs to focus because Tim couldn’t stop staring at his love. Adrien immediately brightened when he spotted Tim besides his brother. Tim had to wonder if Gotham was sunnier than usual.

Unfortunately, their moment was interrupted when a brunette girl latched onto Adrien’s arm, blabbering about why ‘Adrien-boo’ didn’t help her when she needed help getting off the bus. She reminded the Waynes of the gold diggers who would throw themselves at Bruce and only viewed him as a trophy and money dispenser.

Adrien had an uncomfortable smile as he tried in vain to make the girl let go of his arm. She instead doubled down and gripped harder on his arm, making him grimace. The rest of the class was oblivious of Adrien’s pain as they huddled around the two and cooing about how cute they look and underhandedly berating Adrien for not helping Lila out. Thankfully, the one Tim recognised as Adrien’s best friend, Nino, stepped in while his girlfriend, Alya, smoothly redirected the class attention to the tour.

Dick gave them a bright smile and introduced himself as the tour guide. He shook hands with the teachers while Tim made his way towards his boyfriend, careful to not be noticed. He found Nino fussing over the marks on Adrien’s arm a little bit away from the group who were distracted by the fact that they were meeting the eldest Wayne child, Richard Grayson. Seeing the marks, Tim saw red.

Tim was aware about the girl, Lila Rossi.

She was a manipulative liar who had been causing a lot of trouble for the Miraculous Team by trying to isolate Adrien from his friends and slandering the rest of them with false lies. She also nearly got Ladybug akumatized which made the over-stressed Marinette finally decide to tell her parents about the Miraculous to ease the burden. However, once her main target and who she perceived as a ‘rival’, Marinette, was gone, Lila was hell bent on making Adrien hers.

Gabriel, the only person who Tim thinks can beat his parents for ‘Worst parent of the year’, had employed that snake as a model because apparently she was a good influence on Adrien and the reason why Adrien’s actual friends are no longer allowed at his house.

Overall, Lila was a person that should be taken care of immediately. Already, Tim had formulated many plans to get rid of her, preferably somewhere as far from Adrien as possible.

While Dick started the tour and Lila left Adrien in favour of trying to gain favour with a Wayne, Tim sidled up next to his boyfriend who was in the back with his friends.

“Hey, love.”

Adrien lit up and hugged him, “Tim!”

Nino and Alya gave the two thumbs up before shielding the two boys with their bodies to give the couple some privacy and prevent Lila from seeing.

Tim hugged him back and gave him a peck on the lips, “Are you okay?”

“Great. I am doing fine.”

Tim did a small frown at the answer. He laced their fingers together and slowly brought Adrien’s hand up to his lips which made Adrien’s cheeks turn pink at the gesture.

“You made me promise to not lie about not sleeping,” Tim said, “So I wish you won’t lie to me about the wounds that girl inflicted on you.”

“Tim, it’s nothing.” Adrien tried to reassure his boyfriend.

“It’s not. I have seen this kind of thing on a lot of people from Gotham. I don’t want what happened to them happen to you too. People who leave these kinds of marks are bad news. Besides as your boyfriend, I have the right to be worried about anyone who hurt you. I want to unleash hell upon her but I am not doing it now since you guys suspect that she has a way to contact Shadowmoth. So what can I do for you?”

Adrien smiled gently, touched by his boyfriend’s sincerity and squeezed his hand, “I want Lila to leave me alone.” His voice, soft and vulnerable. “Everyone else in the class is pushing for me to be with her. Father is not helping. I wish he didn’t send Lila to breathe down my neck and report back my every move to him. I want to be able to relax without her hounding me when I want to be alone. I don’t want my arm to hurt because of her nails. I want to be able to hang out with my friends without having to sneak around. I wish I could say I love you to you in public and tell people I have a boyfriend without the worry that my father would lock me up in the mansion.”

"As you wish.”

Adrien snorted, “Does that make me Buttercup, Westley?”

“You are beautiful enough for the role,” Tim flirted, making Adrien blush.

The blond cleared his throat to recompose himself, “So about tonight?”

“We will meet you on the rooftop of your hotel.”

“Marinette, Luka and Kagami can portal over with the horse.”

Tim looked towards the group in front of them, “Would they notice if you were gone for a moment?”

“Alya and Nino would cover for me. I can tell Gorilla that I am meeting up with you.” Adrien said, wanting to know what Tim had planned.

“I can tell Tam to not let anyone into my office for a while. My office has a rather comfortable sofa. How about we spend some time catching up,” Tim suggested and he kissed Adrien.

Plagg peeked out of Adrien’s jacket pocket and interrupted them, “Hey, kit, if you are going to go lip-lock with your lover boy, I am going to join Trixx and Wyazz in blogger girl’s fanny pack. I heard that they were going to play cards.”

Adrien spluttered but didn’t refute Plagg’s request.

“Don’t cause trouble and I will leave some cheese for you to eat. Please behave, Plagg.”

“Yeah, yeah, just go enjoy your tryst.”

Adrien tapped Nino’s shoulder to grab his attention as Tim grinned. He texted Dick to drag out the tour as long as possible. 

Was it mean of him to throw his brother to the wolves while he go and make out with his boyfriend?

Yes.

But Tim never had any guilt throwing his brothers under a bus and wasn’t starting now. He dragged Adrien into his office which he had cleaned every surface beforehand in anticipation of this and dear god, Heaven has never tasted so sweet.

—---

Chat Noir paced back and forth nervously on the rooftop. It was easy to slip out when Adrien and Nino shared a room while Alya and Alix were the same and they had stuff pillows under the blankets in case one of the chaperones does a bed check. They managed to get up to the roof, unseen with the help of the Fox miraculous.

There was a slightly muted thud which he heard thanks to his enhanced hearing and alerted Chat Noir to the arrival of the Bats.

“Ti- I mean Red Robin.” Chat Noir ran and hugged his boyfriend.

Until he heard throat-clearing and realised it came from the Batman.

Chat Noir hoped that his embarrassment wasn’t visible as he slightly moved away from Red Robin.

“Ummm, bonjour, Monsieur Batman, sir. I- um We- errr,” Adrien stuttered under the intense gaze from Batman, “So anyways, LB called me and they were a bit late because Shadowmoth had the worst timing. Am I right?” He gave a nervous chuckle, “It’s one of the recurring akuma which are easier to deal with unless Shadowmoth gave them a power up. Which might take a bit longer. But they will definitely be here. Definitely. So um-” Adrien babbled, nervous because while he had experiences with Jack Drake and the Brucie Wayne persona, Batman was on a different level than the other two and he was losing his cool.

“Relax, Batman’s not going to hurt you.” Red Robin rubbed his shoulders.

Just then, like the miracle she is, a blue portal opened to allow three people Chat Noir was very happy to see pass through.

“LB! I am so glad you showed up.” Chat Noir hugged his best friend.

A cough came from where the two other heroes were standing from the sides.

“Sorry, I am glad to see you too. Viperion and Ryuko.”

“Yeah, sorry for being late,” Ladybug said in a professional tone, bringing her hand out towards Batman for a handshake, “Shadowmoth has been very active these days. Anyways, thank you for meeting us.”

Batman accepted it, “The Justice League has been wanting to make contact with you for a while now. Sorry that we haven’t been unable to find out about the situation in Paris until this year. We have monitored you from afar and I see that you have done a great job keeping the akumas under control by yourselves. What can we help you with?”

“Yes. First-” Ladybug stopped mid-sentence as she stared at Robin.

“Ladybug?” Batman asked, confused.

The heroine ignored him and glared at Robin who also looked confused.

“You!” Ladybug pointed at him menacingly, “Al Ghul, you fucking bitch. Why are you still alive?!”

Robin lets out a curse in recognition to which Batman reprimanded with a “Language”. “The same goes for you, Cheng. I thought you blew yourself in Taiwan,” Robin hissed.

“Whatever. You owe me for saving your life.” Ladybug retorted.

Chat Noir made a time-out gesture, “Hold on, you two know each other? And what is this about blowing yourself up, LB?”

Ladybug sighed, “I will give you the long story later but Al Ghul and I do know each other. That’s because we were once engaged.”

“WHAT?!” Everyone looked back and forth between the bird and the ladybug.

“Those weren’t rumours?” Red Hood said, voice filled with disbelief.

“You knew Baby Bat was married?” Nightwing turned his head towards Red Hood.

“I am not married, you idiots. Only engaged. Grandfather wanted to unite the power of the Chengs with ours so he proposed an engagement between the two of us.” Robin explained.

“The old man got too greedy. The engagement got cancelled and our clans had been feuding until the League’s fall.” Ladybug continued.

“Is this a Romeo and Juliet kinda thing?” Rena Rouge asked.

“Fuck no. I think we are cousins, something-times-removed through our grandmother or something.” Ladybug looked disgusted at the idea and Robin had a similar look of disgust on his face.

“And I am not marrying a child,” She added.

Robin scowled, “Just because you are three years older than me, does not mean you can call me a child. But I will express a similar sentiment about not marrying you.”

“That’s effed up. I thought Ra’s can’t get more crazy.” Red Robin shuttered at the thought.

“Hello,” Bunnyx cut in, “I thought we are discussing the Shadowmoth thing and not about what family problems LB and Robin has with the crazy grandpa.”

“Right,” Ladybug cleared her throat and went into details about Paris and what help they required.

—--

“Monsieur Batman, there is one last thing I need to talk to you about,” Ladybug said, her eyes telling him that it was important. The others had left for patrol, joined by a few of the Miraculous Court so the Bats can assess the Court’s ability. The only ones left on the rooftop were Batman, Ladybug, Chat Noir and Red Robin.

“Robin, you can come out,” Ladybug called out.

“Tch.” Robin appeared from where he was hiding after he had done his rounds, mad that he had been discovered.

“Chat, how about you go with Red Robin? It’s not about Shadowmoth.”

“You okay, LB?” Chat Noir gave her a look of concern.

“I am fine, Chat. Just family secrets.” She gave him a small smile as an apology.

“It’s fine. I get it.” Chat Noir reassured her and turned to Red Robin, “So about this place you said you would show me.”

“Oh you are going to love this.” Red Robin grabbed his boyfriend tightly and grappled away.

Once they were out of sight, Ladybug turned back towards the father and son pair, “Okay, I lied. It was about Shadowmoth’s potential identity. I just didn’t want Chat to know about this.”

“And you used me as an excuse to get rid of them?” Robin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“A very convenient one,” Ladybug replied, causing another round of bickering.

“Back to what you were talking about. This information is somehow related to Chat Noir.” Batman cuts in to which Ladybug nodded.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that it was family secrets. This will break Chaton if he knew,” Ladybug nervously said, “Since I started home-schooling and getting the support of my parents, I have been using my free time and family’s resources to investigate who Shadowmoth might be. We already know that he is in regular contact with Lila Rossi and Felix Fathom, Adrien’s cousin, is aware of who he is. There’s not much evidence but the only one with the connection with the two is…” She trailed off.

“You already have a suspect.”

“Gabriel Agreste might be Shadowmoth.” Ladybug revealed before going into more details about her theory.

Somewhere a little far from the rooftop, sitting together on a perch, hidden by the shadows, Chat Noir covered his mouth with his hands as tears flowed down his masked cheeks while Red Robin hugged him tightly to offer comfort.

—--

The saying ‘Curiosity killed the Cat’ could be said of Adrien.

There were many things he wanted to know. Everyone in his life had their own secrets and Adrien had come to learn that secrets were secrets for a reason.

Pushing Ladybug’s boundaries to reveal hers and her unwillingness to tell him anything had cost them their easy-going partnership and broken to the point of Shadowmoth nearly winning. It was then that they had their identity revealed to each other. Their friendship as Marinette and Adrien also took a hit.

Luckily, thanks to the two kwamis’ stubbornness, they were able to build their relationship to the way it was before although there was a bit of tension here and there.

Marinette learned to be more open with Adrien and other people instead of keeping it all to herself and Adrien learned to not be so pushy about revealing them and wait for them to be told when the time comes.

That said, Marinette’s family history is one of the things that everyone in the Court wanted to know about. They knew there was something off and there were times when something didn’t fit quite right with the image of a very friendly family that runs a bakery business. The Dupain-Chengs told all of them to keep it to themselves for their own safety.

However, the interaction between Ladybug and Robin had aroused his curiosity.

“Tim,” Adrien asked as they admired the Gotham skyline, “can you find out what they are talking about?”

“They still have their comms in so I can. I was going to do it anyway because I want to know what their deal is.”

After a few minutes, Ladybug’s voice can be heard through Red Robin’s ear piece which the two boys huddled around.

“...didn’t want Chat to know about this.”

“And you used me as an excuse to get rid of them?”

“A very convenient one.”

“What did LB want me to not know about?” Chat Noir thought out loud as the pair bickered.

“Back to what you were talking about. This information is somehow related to Chat Noir.”

Batman’s gruff voice cuts in.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that it was family secrets. This would break Chaton if he knew. Since I started home-schooling and getting the support of my parents, I have been using my free time and family’s resources to investigate who Shadowmoth might be. We already know that he is in regular contact with Lila Rossi and Felix Fathom, Adrien’s cousin, is somehow aware of who he is. There’s not much evidence but the only one with the connection between the two…”

Tim connected the dots about what the topic was about. He looked over at his boyfriend to find his cat green eyes watery.

“You already have a suspect.”

“Gabriel Agreste might be Shadowmoth.”

Adrien took in a sharp breath and choked. Tears started to fall. Tim caught him before he accidentally pushed himself off the ledge and held Adrien tight. Tim muted the comms and whispered a mantra of ‘It’s going to okay’ as he rubbed soothing circles into Adrien’s back. (A part of him idly wondered why the ones he dated have supervillain daddy issues.)

------

The next day, Adrien met up with Tim at the Gotham Museum of Antiquities. He had told Mme. Bustier and Gorilla that he was expecting to meet with a friend who lives in the city. It took a lot of work and Nino and Alya’s help to convince Lila and the class to leave him alone. Tim showed up in the middle of it and Adrien didn’t like the way Lila’s eyes lit up when Tim introduced himself.

“Adrien~ you didn’t tell me that your friend was a Wayne,” Lila gripped Adrien’s arm and leaned on it, “Why didn’t you want us to meet him?”

Adrien pushed her away and got closer to Tim instead. He positioned them in a way that used Tim as a human shield against Lila.

Tim  grabbed Adrien’s hand behind his back, hidden from the eyes of the class, and squeezed it in reassurance. He gave a glare to Lila who tried to make a grab for his boyfriend.

She took a step back at the sudden show of hostility.

The glare was replaced so quickly, that Lila wondered if she had imagined it, by the polite mask reserved for formal events and interviews.

“That’s on me. I told Adrien not to tell anyone about it. Didn’t want to attract unwanted attention and all that. The price of fame is big as I hope you will understand, Miss.”

“Oh, I am Lila. Lila Rossi. You might have heard of me.”

Tim lets his grin turn sharper, “Oh, I didn’t ask but I am very aware of who you are, Miss Rossi.”

Lila opened her mouth to say something, only to be ignored as Tim turned towards the rest of the class with a charming smile, “And if you guys don’t mind, I would like to join you on the tour.”

As predicted, Lila latched onto Tim while Adrien stuck to Tim’s other side.

Tim dropped his smile and gave her a cold look that can freeze the Sahara, “Miss Rossi, would you mind letting go of me?”

“You don’t mind Adrien touching you.”

“I have known Adrien since I was a kid. You however are a stranger and I don’t like strangers touching me.”

“But you are Adrien’s friend and his friends are also my friends.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t see the same and I feel rather uncomfortable with your advances. My boyfriend might not appreciate you hanging on to me.”

Lila made some excuses about Italians being affectionate and needing support in case she fainted due to her poor health. (No way was Lila letting a golden ticket go that easily. Famous people have paparazzi following them and a break-up might be bound to happen if there are pictures of Wayne with a girl in his arms floating around.)

The class backed her up but Tim wasn’t going to deal with this bullshit. 

“Well, if you are that concerned for your classmate, I have no choice but to help her out.” Tim sighed in defeat. Lila tried not to smile too widely and show her glee at the victory but the smirk on his face gave the girl an uneasy feeling.

The next minute, Lila found herself in a wheelchair pushed around by Gorilla while Adrien and Tim were nowhere to be seen and supposedly exploring the VIP section together which Tim had reserved earlier only just for the two of them.

Tim had gone up to the Receptionist desk and returned with a wheelchair that had an annoying squeaky wheel, muttering about getting better disability aids at the Museum. He managed to reason with the whole class that this was a better way in case Lila passed out and they would just have to bring her back with the wheelchair instead of dragging her unconscious body around.

Lila had tried to stop the boys from separating from the group but Adrien already had permission from his father to go hang out with Tim since Gabriel was not going to miss the chance to be on good terms with a Wayne. There was nothing she could do but sulk as she listened to the boring tour and cursed Timothy Drake-Wayne.

Meanwhile, Tim and Adrien were having a nice time, looking at the exhibition of the history of the entertainment film industry. Tim had used his connections as a Wayne to arrange the exhibition for their date.

After looking around for a fair while, Tim felt that it was safe to approach about what happened last night.

“So did you and Marinette talk it out?” Tim asked as he caressed Adrien’s face which had concealer on to hide his eyebags from crying and little sleep.

When Chat Noir and Red Robin returned, Ladybug immediately knew that they knew and took Adrien away for a private talk.

“I sort of get why she didn’t tell me. Like she said, there was little concrete evidence and it was just a theory. One of the many possibilities but just a little more plausible than the others,” Adrien replied, closing his eyes and resting his head on Tim’s shoulder while Tim wrapped his arm around Adrien to pull him closer. Plagg flew up into Adrien’s hair and purred.

“There is something else that is bugging you, isn’t there?”

“It just- It feels like she doesn’t trust me. Marinette had told me that she does but I can’t help and feel that way.”

“Why?”

“There was time during our first years as heroes and Ladybug thought that my father could be Shadowmoth because we found out that he had the Grimoire in his possession. Ladybug wanted to investigate it and I threw a fit because I didn’t want to believe my father could be the ‘bad guy’. Then, he got akumatized and we dropped the subject.”

“So because of what happened back then, you think Marinette doesn’t trust you.”

“From her point of view, I stopped her from pursuing one of the big leads we had since we began and I am the son of our prime suspect. It’s understandable if she wasn’t able to trust me completely.”

Plagg stopped his purring and somehow gave Tim a look that said, ‘don’t fuck this up’.

“I don’t think she thinks that way.” Tim soothed Adrien, “The way I see it, she kept it from you because she knew you would be hurt if you knew that Shadowmoth might possibly be your father and she was trying to have it confirmed to see if it was true or not by collecting more solid evidence. I would have done the same in her shoes.”

“You think so?”

“We love you, Adrien. Although her love is different from mine,” Tim kissed Adrien and touched their foreheads together, “we just don’t want to see you hurt. I already dated people with supervillain for fathers so this won’t change a thing. I will still love you because you are still Adrien, the one for whom I would give my everything to see you smile.”

“Tim, I love you too.” Adrien whispered as he returned the kiss.

“That’s my cue to leave. It’s getting to lovey-dovey here for my taste,” Plagg grumbled. The kwami was disgruntled to be ignored by the two boys and then took off through halls devoid of people for something to entertain himself with instead.

As time went out, the kisses became longer and heavier.

Adrien thanked Tim’s genius idea to reserve the exhibition just for the two of them. Between the vigilante work, akumas and the thousand miles between Gotham and Paris, they never got to do makeout sessions like this often and they were going to make every moment of it count.

—----

When Tim and Adrien showed up from their own private tour, Adrien looked a little flushed. Alya and Alix wolf-whistled while Nino put his fist out which Tim fist-bumped.

After a few quick whispers, Tim broke off and walked towards Mme. Bustier with whom he exchanged a few words.

“Attention, class,” Mme. Bustier called, “Tim has some exciting news for us.”

“Thank you, Madam. So this is a last minute change to your plans and we weren’t able to confirm it yesterday during your tour of WE but you are all invited to our annual Thomas and Martha Wayne Charity gala this Friday, which is two days from now,” Tim announced, causing the class to burst into excited chatter.

“Since I know that you might not have brought along formal wear, we have arranged a shopping trip tomorrow and contacted your parents or guardians to send you money to buy something to wear. We will also arrange for you to rent something if you want. That is all.”

Alix leaned towards Adrien and whispered, “Dude, your boyfriend is awesome.”

“I know, right?” Adrien agreed.

“Thank kwamis that Fluff made me ask Marinette to make a formal suit for me a month ago.”

“I think my father hoped that something like this might happen and that’s why he made Nathalie pack a tuxedo. Just in case.”

“Do you know why he invited the entire class and not just you?”

Adrien put his index finger on his lips, “You will find out in due time. Tim told me to keep it a secret. But here’s a hint. It starts with a L and ends with an A and rhymes with Liar.”

Alix mock-punched his shoulder, “You are making all the single people jealous.”

Adrien just laughed.

—----

On the day of the gala, Adrien found a suit delivered to his hotel room with a note.

It was from Marinette saying, ‘Tim ordered me to make this in a week. So you better wear it instead of what basic white monochrome piece your father made.’

Nino laughed when he read the note as Adrien opened the package to reveal a red tuxedo jacket with a gold floral pattern. Its collar and inner lining were black. There was a similar vest, a white shirt, a black bowtie and black suit pants. As he examined the suit, he saw robins and cats hidden among the floral designs.

[Dear god, help me how to describe clothes better.]

Adrien blushed when he saw the words ‘Property of Tim Drake-Wayne’ and a downward arrow stitched near the bottom of the jacket’s inner lining. Plagg and Nino both cackled at Adrien who buried his face into the jacket.

“Oh, camembert, Pigtails is evil. This is perfection. Why did Tikki get her and not me?”

“Quiet, Plagg, before someone hears you and comes in.” Adrien admonished him.

Plagg quieted down but snickers still escaped him.

“You have to admit that it’s funny.”

Adrien’s phone dinged and he checked to see it was a text from Marinette, ‘I better see you wearing it because I pulled three all nighters to finish it on time.’

“She must have worked a lot for her to be this pushy about it,” Adrien observed.

After changing their clothes, the boys headed down to the lobby after meeting up with Alya and Alix on the way. (Marinette had also sent the others MDC originals.) Only a few of their classmates were done but they all complimented Adrien on his suit.

The only chaperone following with them to the gala was Gorilla and the rest, including Mme. Bustier, had opted out for a spa day since the gala has good security and nothing to be worried about.

Soon, two limousines arrived and Tim came out of one.

The black-haired boy was wearing a suit, similar to the one Adrien was wearing except his colour scheme was black and the same green shade as Chat Noir’s eyes, instead of Adrien’s red, gold and black. However, his bowtie was a golden-yellow like Chat Noir’s bell. Adrien laughed as he realised that they were wearing each other’s colours.

“Tim!” Adrien happily greeted and hugged his boyfriend.

“Hey, Adrien. Your ride is here.” Tim resisted the urge to kiss Adrien’s hand. He couldn’t yet because of the Plan.

“Wait, we get to ride in a limo?” Kim asked excitedly.

“Courtesy of Wayne Enterprises.” Tim explained and then asked, “Where are the rest of you?”

On cue, the elevator door opened to let Lila and the rest of their noisy classmates out. Their chattering stopped upon seeing what Adrien was wearing.

“Adrien?” Lila sounded angry for some reason.

“Didn’t you say that Gabriel made matching outfits for the two of you to wear to the gala?” Rose piped up, confused.

Ah. So that’s explained a lot. The dress design itself was beautiful, made of purple silk and white laces and elaborate patterns. Adrien could say it was one of his father’s finer pieces. However, it still would have looked better on a mannequin than it would on Lila and just screamed expensive and pretentious. Adrien remembered the suit his father wanted him to wear and realised that it indeed would have matched the dress Lila was currently wearing.

Adrien straightened his suit and with the most innocent and clueless face he could muster, told them, “I was told to wear this one.” 

“Don’t you have another one? A spare one? One that is white?” Lila insisted..

Adrien tapped his chin for a moment as if in thought before replying with a, “Nope.”

Since he had enough fun out of Lila’s reaction, Tim clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention and announced, “Since everyone is present, it’s time for us to go.”

Lila’s complaints were unheard over the cheers of excitement as everyone walked towards the limos.

It went according to Tim’s plan when Lila threw another tantrum about not being in the same car as Adrien and stating there wasn’t enough room on the larger and more spacious limo the class was given while Adrien, Tim, Nino, Alya and Alix went on the other. Tim calmly explained that Adrien had only been allowed to name three people to go in the same car as him and Lila wasn’t on the list. Lila cried about her ‘Adri-boo’ not choosing her as she held Adrien in a desperate grip. However, Adrien had the courage to do whatever he wanted and face no immediate consequences since his father was thousands miles away in another country.

He pushed her off, “Lila, I never said this before but you make me uncomfortable. You may say that it’s because Italians are affectionate people or whatever but it doesn’t change the fact that I hate the feeling of you touching me everywhere. I also don’t like that you go around telling people that we are dating when we are not and you ignore me when I say not to do that. I also have someone else I like.”

“It’s Marinette, isn’t it?” Lila accused him.

Adrien rolled his eyes.

“Marinette isn’t even here. And no, it’s not her. He is someone very special to me.”

The class gasped in surprise at the reveal.

Adrien continued, “He listens to what I want and does everything to make me happy. He doesn’t care about my looks, or money, or fame. He only sees me as Adrien. Not Adrien Agreste the model. And I am very happy that he likes me back. So fuck off, Lila.”

Adrien hurried and got into the car while Lila stood there in shock. Alix, Alya and Nino quickly followed. (trying to hold in their giggles.) Gorilla got into the front passenger seat.

“We will see you at the gala,” Tim cheerfully waved at the class before closing the door and the limo drove off.

-------

Camera lights flashed as they exited the limo and reporters tried to grab their attention. While the Miraculous Team was used to it as heroes, it was different from the attention they were being currently given.

The class later arrived and were mostly flustered by the reception. Lila tried to ignore what had happened at the hotel and just enjoyed the red carpet moment that she believed was for her. However, there was less enthusiasm from the sidelines than she was pleased with. But you have to take what you can get.

Suddenly, the reporters stopped their barrage of light when they were given a piece of news in their earpieces and they rushed to the other end of the carpet near the entrance where Adrien and Tim were posing side by side, with arms wrapped around each other.

Lila’s heart stopped when she realised what the reporters were shouting at the couple,

“Tim and Adrien, is it true? Are you two dating? How long have you been together? Why come out now?”

Tim raised his hand for silence and the reporters quieted down like obedient dogs eager for treats, “You must be talking about that post Adrien made earlier this evening so to answer your questions,” He and Adrien leaned towards each other for a passionate kiss which had Lila screaming internally in rage and the crowd roaring in delight.

“I hope that will suffice.” Adrien threw out before Tim dragged him inside. Nino, Alya and Alix rushed after them to not be caught by the media burning with questions.

Around Lila, the class was in a similar state and interrogating her if she had known or giving her empty words of comfort.

Lila wanted to scream but she didn’t want to look like a mad woman in front of the cameras and tried to hurriedly get the class inside. “We should get inside. Then, we can ask Adrien what this is all about. It was so mean of him to pull a prank like this without telling us.”

The crowd started up again when Jagged Stone exited from the next limo in all his rock and roll glory. He was accompanied by his son, up and coming musician and heartthrob for teenage fans everywhere, Luka and his girlfriend, one of the youngest Olympic gold medalist fencers, Kagami. They were followed by MDC, Jagged’s favourite and mysterious designer, a young prodigy in a fashion world and whom many notorious and tough fashion critics only have praises and compliments for. Many have tried to speculate who she might be but to no avail.

The reporters erupted a flood of flashing lights at the rockstar’s group, Jagged Stone, drawing most of their attention. Lila seethed that she was outshone and the attention she ‘rightfully’ deserved was stolen by someone else. However, since there were cameras everywhere, she couldn’t act out but just continued to smile and wave despite no one focusing on her.

“It’s Jagged Stone!” Ivan pointed out. Most of the class turned around to look at the rockstar behind them who had a look of impatience.

“Can you kids move? You are holding up the line.” Jagged said impatiently.

“Hey, dad. Luka. Kagami. M.” Juleka waved awkwardly from where she was standing next to Rose and Jagged’s face morphed into a smile.

“Jules, my daughter. Why didn’t you tell me you were in Gotham? I would have come to see you if I knew. Anyways, I am glad to see you….” Jagged chattered on as he hugged Juleka who fist-bumped with Luka as a greeting while in her father’s embrace. The rockstar kept on talking about meeting Brucie again.

“Hello, M. Stone.” Rose greeted.

“Rosie, hope you have taken good care of my daughter.”

“Of course. And these are our classmates.”

Luka cleared his throat to get their attention and said, “ Dad, how about we move along so the people behind us can get in?”

The former Kitty Section members felt a little awkward, considering they broke up because Luka didn’t like how the class treated Marinette and falling so easily to Lila’s lies.

“Sure. Let’s go, kiddos.” Jagged walked past the class with one arm around Juleka’s shoulders and the other around Luka’s. Rose and Kagami followed closely behind. MDC, who wore a mask to conceal her identity, didn’t spare a glance to the class as she sashayed past in her gorgeous blood red evening gown.

Lila felt indignant about being ignored and tried not to show it as she followed the other group, cheeks burning from humiliation. Luckily for her, the class was in awe of meeting one of their favourite celebrities to question why Lila wasn’t mentioned at all during the conversation.

And MDC, there was something about the way the designer stare at her throughout the conversation between Jagged and the class that made Lila feel uneasy.

—------

The class stepped into the large ballroom, looking like they had stepped into a movie. Elegant crystal chandeliers hung from the ceilings, a pyramid made of champagne flute glasses, a buffet table laid out with mouth-watering appetisers to snack on, a fountain with a statue of a nearly naked woman pouring out water from her golden pitcher, classical music softly played by musicians from a balcony while rich and fancy danced, chatted and mingled among themselves.

Lila’s mouth was wide open in shock. The events she had been attending as Adrien’s plus one, thanks to Gabriel, weren’t as lavish as the one before her. While Timothy might be out, Bruce Wayne had adopted several over the years and she just needed to catch the attention of one of them. Then, she can go to galas like these all the time. With her becoming a legal adult that year, she won’t have to go through the tedious process of convincing her mother to move here. She could just apply at one of the local colleges.

Lila had unconsciously rubbed her hands together like a typical scheming villain which Sabrina noticed.

“Lila, are you cold?” Sabrina asked worriedly.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you were cold. You seemed to be rubbing your hands together for warmth.”

“Don’t worry. It's just a little chilly. I am fine.”

“Really?”

“Well, the truth to be told, I still can’t believe what Adrien did earlier. What was he thinking?”

“About him being boyfriends with Tim?”

“Yes! He pushed me away and told me that he didn’t like me. Now he is kissing a boy just to prove a point.” Lila covered her eyes as if to hide her tears, “He didn’t have to go that far to hurt me.”

Sabrina pursed her lips and said nothing as she rubbed Lila’s back to comfort her. She exchanged doubtful glances with Mylene.

Adrien’s declaration of not liking Lila had given the class the realisation that they had never considered his feelings when plotting to bring the two of them together. Right now, seeing Adrien contentedly swaying to the music with Tim made them feel guilty about how they treated him and only encouraged Lila to get closer to him.

—---

While the class might be gullible, they weren’t entirely stupid. The Wayne Gala was attended by many famous faces, many of whom the class admired.

After the initial starstruck awe of the situation faded away, it didn’t take long for the class to realise that Lila was ignored the people she claimed to know and have ‘helped’. Ignored wasn’t quite the right word. There was no hint of recognition when they look at Lila. Only smiling and nodding before walking away.

Then, Lila would tell them that the person was busy these days or they had something on their mind or she would backtrack and say that they weren’t as close as she had said. Lila really loved making excuses. Sometimes, the class had to point out who certain people are when Lila once claimed to have known them to be like ‘family’.

There was a sense of dread among the Akuma Class as the night went on. There was voice in the back of their heads that sounded a lot like Marinette whispering, “She lied. She lied to you. She can’t do what she said she can. She lied. She lied and you believed her.”

The doubts and suspicions built up. The class didn’t want to believe Lila would lie to them. If so, was she ever really the nice sweet girl they thought she was? While Lila went around trying to find a Wayne child to suck up to, the class exchanged quiet words about their suspicions.

“Guys, I don’t think Lila is who she says she is.” Sabrina blurted out.

“Oh thank human’s common sense, I thought I was the only one,” Max exclaimed.

He brought out his phone, “I had Markov run searches for if Lila had done anything she had said to have done in the past year based on Markov’s recordings of her claims. There’s nothing.”

“What? What do you mean, Max?”

“There should be at least some traces of Lila on the internet, like paparazzi pictures, a post mentioning or hinting at her involvement, some credit given to prevent copyright lawsuits or news articles on the events Lila said to have attended. There’s nothing. Not a single thing. I even told him to run facial scans on pictures of parties that many celebrities attended. Other than the ones that Gabriel was invited to, there is not even an accidental shot. Either Lila loves her anonymity so much that she will edit herself out of pictures which is unlikely given how much she loves being in the spotlight or she lied to us.”

“Marinette!” Mylene cried out in realisation, “She was telling us the whole time.”

“We should have listened when she told that Lila was lying to us,” Kim added.

“Oh my god, what have we done?! We made her drop out.”

Someone slow clapped, drawing their attention.

“I suppose I didn’t give you enough credit. You aren’t complete morons if you still have enough brain cells to work out that you were being played like puppets on a string.” Tim Drake stood before them, smirking like some evil mastermind about to reveal his schemes.

The class spotted Adrien hanging out with Luka, Kagami, a blonde girl in a stunning purple gown and an Asian girl in a gorgeous midnight blue dress.

“Tim. What are you doing here?”

Tim made a displeased expression and explained, “I was going to introduce you to some of your idols that I invited for this purpose and subtly shift the topic towards Rossi. One by one. So all of you will figure out that Lila Rossi is nothing but a lying snake. No offence to the snakes.”

“How do we know that you didn’t set the whole thing up?”

Tim rolled his eyes, “Oh please, some of these people have enough wealth of their own that I can’t even bribe them. It would just be a waste of everyone’s time. The most I did was just sent some invites and made sure that they would come. Can you believe how hard to was to get a hold of Tony Stark? And he didn’t even show up. I bet if any of you go ask any one of them if they knew Lila Rossi, they will say no. So either a whole lot of people are lying or your ‘friend’ lied to you. I don’t know why. For the popularity.  Fame. Or just some lap dogs she can use to get through school. I don’t know but I know that everything that came out of her mouth is not true.”

“Why are you doing all of this?” Ivan asked.

Tim held up two fingers, “Two reasons. Reason one is of course Adrien. He’s my boyfriend and I don’t want her around him. Reason two is also why I don’t want her around him. But first.”

Red heels clicked across the marble floor as they approached the group.

“Let me introduce you to the lovely Mademoiselle MDC,” Tim gestured behind him towards the masked woman who they saw with Jagged Stone earlier.

She removed her mask, revealing a familiar face that made the class gasp her name.

“Marinette.”

“Hello. It was nice seeing you again,” Marinette said in a way that reminded them of the evil smart assistant to Tim’s evil mastermind.

“We are so sorry,” Mylene apologised, “We drove you away because we didn’t want to believe you about Lila.”

Marinette gave her a small smile that didn’t look forgiving, “Save your apologies until this whole fiasco is over.”

She took out her phone and all of their phone dinged as they all received the link she texted.

“What’s this?” Kim asked as they all opened it. Sabrina dropped her phone in shock at the news articles about Lila’s past victims. Chills went down their spines as they kept scrolling, unable to look away in horror because this was someone they went to school with every day and smiled at them so innocently. They were all playthings to her.

“Lila wouldn’t. She wouldn’t do something like this.”

Marinette’s face remain neutral as she replied, “But she did. She just hadn’t had the chance to go that far yet. I got out before I became one of them.” Marinette pointed to the phones to show what she meant.

Suddenly, Tim and Marinette looked in the same direction and the class followed their gazes to Lila was making her way through a crowd towards them. Marinette put her mask back on and the two blended into the surroundings like they were never there.

Lila grinned, happy that Duke Thomas-Wayne, newest addition to the family, gave her his fake number. He was still a little green and awkward but she can work with it.

Now, today she just got ‘dumped’ by Adrien and got the class’s sympathy. She could play into that and milk it for all it’s worth for the last few months until graduation. Then, she could make an effort of moving on from Adrien and slowly introduce Duke as her new love interest.

The only problem might be Gabriel. He might terminate her modelling contract since she let something like Adrien’s boyfriend slip through. Once she managed to get Duke to be her boyfriend that problem might be easily solved. Bruce Wayne was said to love his kids, going to as far as to built a zoo for one of them as a birthday present. So if one of his kid asked for his girlfriend to get a modelling gig..

Lila sipped the champagne she managed to snatch from a passing waiter and mentally patted herself on her back. She drained the flute and made her way towards the class, a tad wobbly from the alcohol she had. She made sure her face was one of heartbreak and say she drunk out of despair.

However, the atmosphere around her minions were so chilly, that Lila almost immediately sobered up.

“Guys, there you are…” her voice trailed off upon seeing their glares. “What’s going on?” She tried going for meek and confused. The weak ones like Mylene wavered but Kim pointed at her with anger, “We know, Lila. Drop the act.”

“Know? Know what?” Lila tried to think, assessing the risk of keeping the act up or moving to another school and starting all over again.

“Lila, stop. We know that you lied.”

Lila stopped like they asked and grinned so smugly that the class felt like there was someone else instead of Lila in front of them.

Lila opened her mouth and hell broke loose.

------

A year later, Adrien laid in Tim’s arms and sighed in contentment. Finally peaceful days were upon them. With Batman’s vast resources, they were able to confirm Shadowmoth’s identity as Adrien’s father. The final fight was not only physically exhausting but emotionally draining considering who he had to fight. Both Marinette and Tim offered the option for Adrien to sit out since it might be painful for him while Tim fights as Chat Noir on his behalf. To which, Adrien declined.

In the end, he got another closure of what had happened to his mother and buried her. The Waynes helped with the media fallout of him being Shadowmoth’s son. Adrien was seen as Shadowmoth’s naive and sheltered son who had no idea what his father id although there were still some wary eyes when he goes out in public. He had donated most of the wealth Gabriel spent decades accumulating to akuma relief and therapy for the trauma his father caused the whole city. He only kept the amount that was left by his mother for college and savings to use until he found a source of income from a job he likes doing. 

The Miraculous Team announced their retirement but agreed to come back if the Justice League calls on them.

Marinette had gone to the Order’s Temple to complete her guardianship training and kept them updated with a reassuring text once a month. Luka and Kagami were engaged while Alya and Nino were each focusing on their careers and college before deciding to get married or not. Alix was the only one of them still using her Miraculous to do Bunnyx stuff. Chloe and Zoe were kicking ass and taking name as the Bourgeois sisters. A pair more terrifying than their mother.

The Akuma class or the part of the class that listened to Lila were steadily getting their lives back on track after the number the she-devil had inflicted on them.

As for the Italian herself. She was nothing but a distant nightmare.

The night of the gala of where she was exposed, it was attacked by Two-Face and Lila got shot while trying to escape. Luckily for her, she was only shot in the leg and just  needed a surgery and weeks of physical therapy. Lila was very upset about her perfect body being marred and the bloodstain on the expensive dress. The class gave her the cold shoulder so she had no one to help her with her very real disability as she recovered.

Lila’s mother went to the school to complain about how her daughter got shot when she was reassured that Lila would be safe and all of Lila’s lies came to light. Turns out Signora Rossi was aware of her lying habits but not that she had Lila was capable of forging her parent’s signature on documents and doctor’s notes, and the many months she skipped schools. That day, Signora Rossi came home to a anonymous thick manila envelope that contained evidence of Lila bullying and harassing people from the her past school and until now. The akuma fight was a tough battle but the Miraculous Team managed to defeat her within an hour.

By the end of next week, Lila was gone and Tim investigated into the matter to see she had been sent to some disciplinary school.

 Life was peaceful..

Until a portal opened up in front of the couple and spat out a very young black haired kid with green eyes dressed in a cat suit who looked at Tim and Adrien with wide eyes and said, “Papa? Daddy?”

#maribat #maribat fic #ml x dc #mlb x dc #adritim #Timdrien #Tim x Adrien #idk what the ship is called #lila salt #maribat class salt #maribat class redemption

[aliensunflower-fics]

Dating ‘Prince Charming’ Part 2/3

[ Lila is finally starting to learn what its really like to be Adrien Agreste's girlfriend and finding out its not everything she hoped it would be. But while the liar struggles Marinette works toward her goals and meets someone new. ]

[ Prefer AO3? Link HERE! | Part 1 HERE! | Part 3 Coming Soon | Masterlist Link HERE! ]

Chloe made her grand return 3 weeks after Lila and Adrien’s big dating announcement. The bossy blonde had been away in New York with her mother and it was only in retrospect that Marinette briefly wondered if the entire timing of her and Adriens break up and Lila and Adriens announcement had been planned. After all Chloe had not taken well to Marinette dating Adrien and the class president was positive she would not take the news that Lila had swooped in right after their big breakup any better.

As it turns out Marinette had been right at least about Chloe not taking the news well. She’d walked into class early (for her) only to be met with chaos as Chloe and Lila stood opposed and yelling filled the classroom. Despite the fact that Marinette KNEW Chloe would hate whoever dated Adrien the sight was still enough to leave her mildly stunned after all Lila and Chloe had been tag team harassing Marinette since the second she and Adrien had started dating so to see the once allies now locked in a vicious match each using their unique brand of awful against each other… Well it was something. 

Luckily Marinette knew she would not have to lift a finger to fix things. Because this? This was Adrien’s problem. And Marinette had no intention of helping or playing mediator. After all Adrien had let Lila and Chloe stomp all over their relationship when they’d still been dating, heck he’d even asked Marinette to simply deal with it so now he could deal with it and Marinette severely doubted that Lila would be even half as accepting or accommodating as she had been. 

 So while the two wannabe queens duked it out Lila with fake tears and Chloe with vicious mockery Marinette simply glided past the drama and up to her seat where she pulled out her sketchbook and started adding the finishing touches to a sketch of a brand new rock and roll suit for Uncle Jagged. Now that she wasn’t chasing after Adrien 24/7 and making him gifts and worrying about him or Lila or Chloe not to mention trying to keep up with her school work and grades all while also being Ladybug well Marinette had time on her hands and she’d been using it to study, track down Hawkmoth with Alya’s help, spend time with friends but most of all she’d been using that time on her career. 

 As she wrote in what materials she would need to get a certain sheen effect on the outfit, Marinette noticed the green eyes looking up at her desperately from the front of the class. Marinette glanced up noting how Adrien seemed to be trying to plead with her to help as he tried to reign in his dramatic new girlfriend and attack dog childhood friend; she only cocked her head to the side, smiled and offered him a little wave before continuing with her work. Yeah no way was she willingly throwing herself into THAT.

 Sure enough before class could start Adrien managed to drag Lila out of the room and into the hallway no doubt to give her the same speech he had given Marinette when THEY were dating Lila bursting back into the classroom a few minutes later looking like she’d just swallowed a whole lemon only confirmed Marinette’s suspicions. 

 What Marinette had not expected was Lila openly complaining about ADRIEN at lunch, hours after the incidents of that morning. Marinette ate her steamed bun as she watched with mild surprise as the Italian wailed and threw a veritable tantrum as she told the girls all about how Adrien had put Chloe first and had asked Lila to simply deal with it. It was so painfully ironic that Marinette struggled not to roll her eyes. Honestly after the breakup Marinette had for a brief time contemplated revenge because truthfully. She was hurt and mad but Tikki had talked her out of it claiming that karma would have its way Marinette hadn’t believed the little god at the time too lost in her grief and her ice cream but now? Well now Marinette was starting to understand what Tikki meant. Because Lila wanted to be Adrien Agreste’s girlfriend no matter what it took, and she was only now starting to see what that really meant.

 Sure enough in the weeks that followed Lila and Chloe kept each other busy allowing Marinette to for the first time in years relax at school. Of course Lila tried to redirect Chloe’s hatred back at Marinette by telling the blonde about how it had been Marinette who initiated the break up. But Marinette had easily overcome Chloe’s rage with honesty after all she had only broken up with Adrien because she knew they were incompatible and that Adrien would be happier with someone else, something Chloe agreed with though the way in which the blonde agreed made Marinette’s eye twitch just a little.

 And then of course there was Adrien who was still trying to get Marinette to step in and help him handle his childhood friend and girlfriend but Marinette had been able to dodge him for weeks until they were having a class meetup at the park. Chloe was not attending due to wanting to avoid the ‘peasants’ as she so called them and Lila claimed she would be late due to an important meeting with some famous person. Honestly Marinette had not even bothered to pay attention. Adrien had noted the lack of ‘problem people’ and had decided to make a bold move calling Marinette out as they all hung out together to ‘talk to her in private’ yeah like THAT was going to happen. 

 Marinette knew Adrien’s modus operandi very well. He’d call you out, ask to talk to you privately and then lay on the guilt trip. No way was she doing that anymore she’d endured enough of them while they were dating to last a lifetime.

 “Actually I would prefer not to talk to you alone, Adrien. You're publicly dating someone and we never know when your fans or the paparazzi might be around. Besides anything you can say to me in private you can say in front of OUR friends.” 

 Adrien looked like a kicked puppy at her words. But as their classmates quickly took her side and insisted he tell Marinette whatever he needed with them around the blonde was backed into a corner.

 “Well the thing is… I was wondering if you could help? With the whole Lila, Chloe situation?”

 Marinette wasn’t even given a chance to respond. The second the words left Adrien’s mouth the entire class bristled, many giving Adrien looks of confusion and shock as if he’d just spoken pure nonsense and honestly in a way he had. Nathaniel however was the one who said it best.

 “Wait I’m sorry are you seriously asking Marinette to mediate between her long time bully and the girl you started dating not even an hour after your break up with her? Are you serious?!” 

 “W-Well I just thought-”

 “Thought what Agreste? That Marinette should put herself in the worlds worst situation completely ignoring her own feelings just to make your life easier?” 

 Oof Kim going straight for the throat.

 “B-But shes the class president!”

 “So?! That doesn’t make her a genie! She can't just clap her hands and fix everything nor should she have to!”

 Marinette had never heard Rose sound so upset in her life, which is when the young fashion designer knew it was her turn to say her piece and get things back under control.

 “Adrien.” She ignored the hopeful look he shot her. “Not only do I not want to get involved but I don’t think it would help. Chloe doesn’t like me and Lila’s ‘disease’-” she said the word with barely concealed sarcasm “acts up when I’m around. So I’m sorry but no I will not help you with this.”

 “But I’m sure if you just-”

 The look the class shot him was enough to end the conversation and Marinette let out a relieved sigh as her heart filled with warmth she really loved her friends.

 A month after the conversation in the park Lila Rossi got her second harsh wake up call to the ‘true joys’ of being Adrien Agreste’s girlfriend and it was a two for one deal. 

 Lila had seemingly been under the assumption that once she was dating Adrien her own popularity would rise to meet his but she was starting to learn that wasn’t the case. Adrien still got plenty more photo-shoots then she did and most were still solo and since they were fast approaching the spring fashion season Adrien was plenty busy with more and more shoots while Lila was left waiting for her turn in the spotlight.

 Perhaps it was the frustration at not immediately sky rocketing her way up in fame or maybe it was the snide comments from Adrien Fangirls talking about the lack of couples shoots but Lila seemingly came up with the brilliant plan to force the spotlight onto herself by demanding, manipulating and forcing Adrien to take her on big flashy fancy dates where the paparazzi always conveniently found them Marinette had no doubt Lila was the one tipping them off but she kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t her problem.

 However while Lila was enjoying her tabloid paparazzi fueled fame the class and more surprisingly Gabriel Agreste himself were beginning to notice the way it was wearing Adrien down. Between his photo-shoots and busy schedule all of Adrien’s precious free time was being filled up by Lila and her many needy antics and it was starting to show in the way Adrien carried himself and how exhausted he seemed.

 Nino was the one who led the charge just as he had when Lila manipulated the class into thinking her ‘clingy’ but where Marinette had gotten some hurtful but well meaning lectures about her Adrien obsession which in retrospect DID help her realize her love was unhealthy. Lila was not given such a kind well meaning speech instead Nino got mad, something he rarely let himself become.

 As it turns out Lila had worn Adrien down to the point where the blonde was too exhausted to function and he’d nearly passed out while standing and talking to Nino and that mixed with the fact that it had previously been Lila who painted the faux picture of Marinette as the clingy evil girlfriend isolating the boy from his friends was enough for Nino to harshly call her out. The liar did do her best to wriggle out of the situation trying to claim she only wanted ‘some’ private time with her oh so busy boyfriend but Nino was not having it and the class was too happy to back him up.

 The more Lila tried to defend and excuse her actions the angrier Nino got and much to the liars annoyance the young musician had proof and plenty of it. Between his text correspondence with Adrien that revealed the model was constantly being forced to cancel relaxing friend days to take Lila out on flashy dates that always ended with paparazzi and fans swarming the location and forcing Adrien into high stress situations, and an extremely detailed schedule planner that Nino had made to keep track of his best buds work life balance (potential evidence to blackmail Gabriel Agreste if he ever threatened to pull Adrien out of school again apparently). The facts didn’t lie and they were showing that Lila was the real ‘clingy’ girlfriend.

 Things eventually got so heated between Nino and Lila arguing that an akuma appeared to try and take advantage of the situation. Luckily for everyone Ladybug had been patrolling and stopped the naughty little butterfly from making things worse. In the end Lila was forced to grit her teeth and apologize to her darling boyfriend. Though perhaps what upset her more was the way the class proceeded to apologize to Marinette after the fact for ever accusing her of being clingy and taking up too much of Adrien’s free time.

 However Lila still thought she had one last ace up her sleeve, and so after the class luncheon ended the liar proceeded to contact Gabriel hoping to get her new boyfriends dad to reign him in and do her bidding. Unluckily for Lila however Gabriel had been paying attention to the situation and that fact that it had ALMOST led to an akuma made him look even closer into things.

 And he was not happy with what he found. The paparazzi pictures and articles that resulted from Lila and Adrien’s flashy dates had started positively enough with headlines and puff pieces about how cute the couple looked together, how it was nice to see the young Agreste in more casual settings with his girlfriend. But as the dates became more and more frequent and Lila’s constant demands and needs grew the articles slowly began to change soon they were discussing the concerning amount of money Adrien must be spending on his girlfriend, how exhausted and stressed the young Agreste heir looked under his strained smiles and was he eating and sleeping enough?

 The akuma he’d sent had only further confirmed Gabriel’s negative feelings toward Lila though it did make him re-evaluate the young Lahiffe boy. Gabriel had originally thought the wannabe musician might just be interested in Adrien for money but seeing the lengths he went to defend his friend had the designer impressed and even a little grateful. So when Lila phoned to try and throw the boy under the bus and get Gabriel to side with her, well she had another thing coming.

 Marinette heard later from Alya and the rest of the girls that Lila was ‘devastated’ how she’d wailed sobbed and thrown the tantrum of the century as she ranted and raved about Gabriel putting a 1 date a month maximum limit on Adrien and Lila. The two lovebirds could still hang out of course but it would be in the company of the rest of the class or other friends, or if they really wanted some privacy it would be strictly at the Agreste mansion for studying. Lila had told the girls that it was unfair and unjust that Gabriel was trying to get in the way of their love! Alya had relayed to Marinette that while the girls agreed that 1 date a month was a bit rough they all thought Lila’s tantrum was a bit childish especially when they all remembered how Marinette had rarely if ever got to enjoy 1 private date a month with Adrien and never in public.

 Of course just because Lila had been told ‘no’ didn’t mean the liar was going to listen. And so she began trying to find ways to manipulate Adrien into ‘accidental’ dates, bugging the blonde to take her out instead of settling for lunch at school or trying to conveniently separate the two of them from the rest of the group during weekend and after school hang outs. But each time Lila tried Nino thwarted her eventually the Italian had gotten so angry at his meddling that she phoned Gabriel again this time to try and get the musician removed or banned or ANYTHING so that he’d back off, so when she instead learned that Nino had been asked by Gabriel to keep an eye out on for his son and that Adrien knew about it well the liar was furious. 

 Marinette learned later this time from Rose and Juleka that the Italian had tried to go on another tantrum tirade only to be stopped by Alya who would not tolerate anyone badmouthing her lovely boyfriend. Needless to say, Marinette was quick to notice the following Monday how Lila pouted and avoided the Ladyblogger like the plague. Luckily Marinette made sure Alya didn’t dwell on it too much by inviting the girl over to help her brainstorm some new ideas.

 Because while Lila was focusing on leeching the fame and fortune off her boyfriend and being met with endless failures and a very hostile guard dog called Chloe. Marinette had been THRIVING. The suit she’d designed for Jagged had gone viral online and soon Jagged was passing on her contact information to a small selection of celebrities Marinette felt comfortable designing for. The fact that her identity was a secret and she had a very exclusive client list had only caused MDC to soar even higher in popularity with the public making it clear that they too wanted access to MDC fashion. And so Marinette had done her research and with the help of Uncle Jagged and Aunt Penny she’d set up an online store where she would sell ready made clothes. 

 Of course just because Marinette was seeing success didn’t mean she had forgotten about her friends. In fact the entire class minus Lila, Adrien and Chloe knew very well the true identity of the elusive MDC and that was because while Marinette was taking big steps toward her dreams she was helping her friends do just the same. 

 After all it didn’t take long for the internet to learn that the mysterious MDC designed Kitty Sections outfits causing the band to have a surge of free publicity that led to many people discovering their music and falling in love with the band. 

 Then there was Nathanial, Marc and Alya who Marinette or should she say MDC collaborated with while designing her ‘hero hoodie’ fashion collection all of them saw a boost in views with Marc and Nathanial’s comic picking up new readers though it was there brand new all original idea that had really flown off the shelves earning them an online cult following. Alya meanwhile got her blog spotted by Lois Lane herself who was impressed with the young future journalist and contacted Alya for a summer internship the scream Alya had made almost gave Marinette a heart attack.

 And it didn’t end there. When Nino made a short film with Mylene and Kim of all people as his lead actors and uploaded it for free to YouTube MDC who was well known for supporting smaller creatives and signal boosting them on her social media was more than happy to make a tweet linking to the short film. Nino’s short film had been impactful and powerful despite being a comedy satire on Hawkmoth and it had quickly blown up earning Nino a summer internship at a film studio and Mylene and Kim several job offers. Kim had never been particularly interested in acting but after seeing the outpouring of love and support not to mention with the encouragement he got from his lovely girlfriend Ondine he decided to accept a few offers surprising everyone as he developed a new passion that he and Mylene bonded over.

 Max, and Alix were also boosted in a similar way to Nino, Kim and Mylene when MDC retweeted some of their creative endeavors. Alix a video where she had used spray paint to recreate a few classical paintings though that had only acted as a signal boost that allowed the skater to be noticed for her real passion Extreme Sports! When a very exclusive extreme sports training summer camp contacted Alix about her attending she’d squealed almost as loud as Alya had. Max meanwhile had his demo for his work in progress video games retweeted by MDC and saw a huge surge in interest and a few interested investors and publishers even arrived with offers, though before he could agree to anything his popularity ballooned even further when a video of him showing off Markov surfaced. He had later joked to Marinette that while he appreciated the support he wasn’t sure how he felt about suddenly gaining a ‘nerd cult’ as Kim called it. 

 Of course all of Marinette’s friends knew she was largely responsible for their sudden surge of fame and good fortune and many of them tried to dismiss their own talents and give all the credit to Marinette. But the young designer simply threw it back at them. Yes she had signal boosted them and given them a helping hand but at the end of the day the only reason they had gotten so popular and stayed so popular after the brief burst from her influence passed and the internet moved on to the next big thing was because they were talented and amazing without Marinette.

 The only problem with the classes' new found fame. Was that sooner or later Lila was bound to take notice. And take notice she did when Mylene appeared as an extra in one of Lila’s favorite daytime soaps. The liar had been so focused on Adrien and trying to leech her fame off him while beating Chloe back with a stick that she had somehow missed all the major developments. And she was livid. 

 She was supposed to be the most popular girl in school! She was meant to be the star, the one people admired and aspired to be like! The one they envied but loved too much to truly hate! And when she’d finally gotten Marinette and Adrien to break up she thought for sure that all her dreams would come true. But somehow while she’d been busy trying to reign in the pesky little blonde her classmates had all gone and gotten famous without her. Most of them wouldn’t even BE in Paris in the fast approaching summer since many of them either had internships, specialized camps, acting gigs, or in Kitty Sections case a whole music tour with Jagged Stone that for some reason Marinette was also a part of?!? 

 None of it made any sense and when Lila had gone looking for how exactly everything had happened she kept finding herself looking at MDC’s social media. The elusive and private designer was apparently a super sucker or something as every week they would highlight some small time random creator. Honestly it disgusted Lila who just handed out fame like that? Fame and popularity was meant to be exclusive! Earned! Something for only the most beautiful and talented of society. Not for chubby little idiots like Mylene or nerdy freaks like Max. 

 Of course Lila was nothing if not an opportunist. Sure in her opinion none of her talentless, average, classmates actually deserved their new found fame and popularity but the good thing was they were also a bunch of gullible idiots. And if she played her cards right they would surely carry her to the top. She already had the perfect lie, she would simply claim to be best friends with MDC and tell the class that she had been the one to recommend that the designer boost her classmates. 

 It was perfect. Genius really.

 So then why did it fail immediately?

 Lila stood in front of the class, her face frozen in shock as she was stared down by 10 pairs of angry glares. She had expected overwhelming thank you’s and the class bowing at her feet but the second the lie slipped out of her mouth the class instead turned on the liar like a close knit pack of wolves smelling a sheep. Honestly Lila could not understand where she’d gone wrong, and even if she had said something that was an obvious lie wouldn’t the class just normally brush it off as her disease? So why is it that they were acting this way?

 It was Alya who broke the silence first.

 “You want to run that by us again? Lila.” 

 The Italian girl swallowed the lump in her throat and ignored the obvious warning sign that was Alya’s sharp tone. Forcing a charming smile Lila brought out her sweetest voice determined that she could salvage whatever THIS was.

 “I was just saying that I’m so happy for all of you! I didn’t want to say anything at the time BUT me and MDC are such good friends! So when he-”

 “He?” Alix snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah that about confirms it.”

 The entire class seemed to agree with Alix as they all shook their heads and shot Lila disappointed and annoyed looks before returning to their own conversations and or hobbies freezing her out. Ignoring her.

 Oh that? That pissed Lila off like nothing else. Her cheeks grew hot as she stomped her foot angrily, regaining their attention. 

 “You guys think I’m telling lies again! You all promised that you wouldn’t judge me for my disease but you are!” For added effect she started to sniffle and sob expecting the class to do what they always did and feel guilty about their treatment of her and rush to comfort her.

 Instead she was met with even harsher glares.

 “Uhh yeah no duh we think you're lying because you ARE. We” Alix gestured to the people currently in class. “Have all met MDC and SHE not ‘he’ is a wonderful person who helped boost our careers because she thinks we're all super cool and talented not because you asked her too.” 

 Lila felt her face screw up like she’d just sucked a lemon but she quickly worked it to her advantage as she began to loudly sob.

 “T-That’s not fair! You know I can't help my disease!” 

 “Uhh yeah no. I’m stopping you there.” Alya stood up looking down from her perch at Lila with her hands on her hips commanding the room, Lois had been training her well. “We can accept that MAYBE your lying disease makes you claim things when your nervous or scared like how you always accuse Marinette of stuff, and we can MAYBE believe that your disease makes you mix up names and words so you end up giving the wrong information out about charities and celebrities and yes MAYBE we can believe that you sometimes make false claims about yourself when your stressed out like that time with Clara Nightingale stealing your dance moves. Whatever! But Lila that right there? You were not having an ‘oops I lied’ moment you were actively trying to deceive us to make the false claim that YOU are the reason MDC noticed us when we know the truth. And when I gave you a chance to correct yourself you tried to double down. That was intentional. That was malicious.”

 Lila felt her mouth fall open, her eyes blinking in shock. Too late she tried to recover. Tried to explain away the situation and make herself out to be innocent. But the class was done with her and they made it clear in how they iced her out. Eventually she had no choice but to suck it up and sit down at her seat. Not long later Marinette rushed into class followed by Chloe who was latched onto Adrien with Sabrina in tow.

 Soon enough the school year came to an end and Lila watched bitterly through the all seeing eyes of the internet as her classmates left for their internships, job opportunities, highly specialized summer camps, and more. Meanwhile she was stuck at home. Oh sure she got to go on a few out of country photo-shoots with Adrien but her fame was still nothing compared to her boyfriends, and it was quickly becoming less than nothing as her classmates rose in influence and popularity. Come the new school year Lila would need to find some way to force the class back under her heel.

 Marinette was having the best summer of her life! Jagged had taken Kitty Section on tour with him and insisted on Marinette coming with them as their designer. Marinette hadn’t been sure at first worried about the Hawkmoth situation and her own career. But in the end Tikki and her parents had convinced her. Her parents loved the idea of Marinette leaving Paris and going to see the world with her friends for a bit, and Tikki had reminded Marinette that she had the Horse Miraculous and could come home anytime, besides Hawkmoth had been getting lazier and lazier with both his akumas and the amount of them. So in the end Marinette agreed and it had been the BEST decision of her life.

 They visited England before eventually traveling overseas to America. The sights and sounds and new foods were filling Marinette with inspiration and she’d never been so busy sketching. Then of course there was the great company. Uncle Jagged and Aunt Penny were wonderful and quickly ‘adopted’ all of Kitty Section + Marinette. They'd act like doting parents one second and then the next they’d be ordering way too much pizza for the teens to share. 

 Of course everyone missed their friends and family but video call existed and it was only for the summer anyway. Ivan was the one who was probably the worst off pouting over his beloved Mylene but the group was able to cheer him up encouraging him to write a song for his girlfriend, the piece he wrote became a new hit single the second they performed it on stage and Mylene had loved it. 

 The group stopped by Florida first where Jagged took them all to Disney World and then Universal Park, pictures of the rocker wearing mickey mouse ears and a hufflepuff scarf of all things while being followed by a gaggle of teenagers had soon gone viral, after that it was off to New York, and then Metropolis where they spent a bit of time so Alya could see them and hang out. Her internship with Lois Lane was going well but she’d still been relieved to see her friends and get some down time to just chill. After that they went to Gotham, which was Jagged’s home town. Now most parents might veto a place as dangerous as Gotham but seeing as how Paris was under siege by an emotional butterfly themed terrorist and they were from a class particularly used to dealing with deadly akumas on a regular basis well they were able to convince their parents to let it happen. And to Marinette’s surprise Gotham turned out to be her favorite place of the whole trip.

 Sure the city was gloomy but the gothic architecture somehow inspired Marinette, and while the people were not outwardly all smiles and sunshine they were kind in their own way. But the thing Marinette ended up loving most about Gotham was its beautiful parks and famous greenhouses. Thanks to the influence of Poison Ivy and Bruce Wayne the city of Gotham had become the greenest city in all of America and it was a never ending source of inspiration for the young designer. Not to mention it was thanks to all the inspiring greenery that Marinette had met HIM.

 She’d been walking through one of Gotham’s older parks admiring the beautiful blooming wisterias that had been shaped into a long hallway arch when she got bowled over by a massive terrifying but very friendly dog. Marinette had been terrified at first until she noticed the fast wagging tail and happy smile on the dog's face. Tikki had warned her that one side effect of holding the Ladybug miraculous would be extra friendly animals a rather ‘tame’ side effect compared to the super strength, increased speed, and occasional urge to hibernate when cold but still the designer had never expected to be attacked with friendly happy dog kisses, not like THIS anyway. As she squirmed and laughed she tried to gently push the dog off. That was when the dogs owner had come to her rescue. Yanking his dog off of her while admonishing it Marinette was finally able to sit up and begin wiping the dog drool off her cheek with a laugh.

 “Don’t scold the cutie too much I’m okay I swear he didn’t hurt me.”

 “Even if he didn’t hurt you he’s been trained better than that. I’m very sorry, please allow me to help you.”

 The boy’s voice was cool, firmly polite and matter of fact leaving no room for argument. To an untrained ear he might even sound annoyed or angry but Marinette could tell that wasn’t the case. As Marinette accepted the hand the boy offered and let herself be pulled up she suddenly came face to face with the most beautiful pair of green eyes she’d ever seen. 

 Where Adrien’s eyes were bright like a blinding peridot green, these eyes were soft and warm like the green of a pine tree and Marinette could feel herself melt into them. It didn’t help that the rest of the boy's face was also incredibly handsome. The designer quickly shook herself out of her thoughts and glanced away not wanting to stare. Instead she directed her attention to her assailant, the dog was sitting now staring up at her with its tail still wagging wildly. Marinette smiled and reached her hand down letting the dog sniff her before she gave him some soft pets.

 “Such a softy for a big guy. What's his name?” 

 “Titus. And I apologize again. He really is trained better than that. I don’t know what came over him.” 

 Marinette felt a little bad but she couldn’t exactly say that she was the chosen champion of a god and a side effect of that was very friendly animals so instead she shot the boy a smile.

 “Don’t worry I just seem to have that effect on animals. Back home the pigeons and crows have started fighting for dominance of my roof and balcony because they both want my attention.” 

 The boy gave her a stunned look before he made a sound that Marinette believed might be a covered up laugh. She smiled even brighter and offered the boy her hand to shake.

 “By the way my name is Marinette. And it's a pleasure to meet you.”

 The boy looked at her hand for a moment before he eventually grabbed it and shook it awkwardly.

 “Damian… It's nice to meet you too. Though I can tell by that introduction that you're not from here.”

 Marinette snorted at that.

 “Really the introduction was what gave it away but not my accent?” 

 The boy seemed to blush a little at that before he coughed awkwardly. Marinette took pity on him and giggled.

 “You are correct in your deduction mr.detective. I’m visiting from Paris, France with some friends and my uncle.” 

 If Marinette hadn’t been too embarrassed to look him in the eyes she may have noticed the spark of curiosity when she mentioned Paris. And had she known who Damian truly was at the time she would have known that his curiosity came from the fact that Batman and the other supers had recently learned about the situation in Paris thanks to Lois Lane taking on a new intern who ran the Ladyblog. Mayor Bourgeois had been doing a good job hiding the situation but he’d overlooked the civilian journalist. 

 “Hm. We don’t get many tourists. What brought you all the way out here. If I may ask.” 

 Naturally without much thought the pair began to walk through the park together as their conversation flowed. Marinette avoided using Jagged's name not wanting her new very handsome friend to take an interest in her solely for her connections. Instead she told him that Gotham was her uncles hometown and that this was the last stop on what had already been a pretty busy summer vacation. That turned into her telling him a bit about her family in general which got him talking about his family, he complained about his adopted siblings of which there seemed to be many but Marinette could tell he loved them. 

 Talking about family made him admit he’d come to the park to get away from them for a little while which got Marinette talking about the park and all the beautiful nature in Gotham which got the two of them talking about the best parks in Gotham and then Marinette brought up her sketches and suddenly they were talking about art and other hobbies. Before they had even realized it they were sitting at a bench together hidden away in the trees and wisterias chatting away. Marinette didn’t know why but something about Damian made her feel comfortable. Maybe it was the way he gave her his full undivided attention, maybe it was the way he made sure not to invade her space without consent or how he didn’t interrupt her when she spoke. Either way she felt safe, felt warm, almost like she was home. And judging by the way he seemed to relax the longer they spoke, his stiff body unwinding and his gaze softening, she thought maybe he felt just as comfortable with her as she was with him.

 Honestly Marinette could have sat there chatting with Damian all day in fact it had already been several hours when the pair were finally interrupted. Both of their phones began to ring, Marinette’s with the tell-tale alarm of an akuma attack in Paris and Damian’s with an emergency as the Riddler had broken out of Arkham. The teenagers regretfully had to go both citing emergencies before they departed. It wasn’t until later that they realized they had forgotten to exchange phone numbers.

 The akuma back in Paris had turned out to be Lila Rossi, it seems that Adrien’s fangirls had never truly warmed up to the liar and they had been trying to dig up dirt on the girl for months before finally finding there evidence. Alya may have privated the videos of Lila’s lies after finding out about the ‘lying disease’ but apparently someone had copied and saved them beforehand. And those videos had finally made their way out into the public. Luckily no one criticized Alya seeing as how she’d already had the common sense to remove the videos from her blog it helped that Alya also made a post explaining the situation in more detail which led to the general public agreeing that it had not been Alya’s fault when she had a teacher and a principle telling her to believe in a fake ‘lying disease’ clearly it was the adults at fault here not the young girl who had believed in them. 

 Needless to say the public ripped Lila to shreds for being a serial liar with more of her lies coming to light each day now that she had been exposed. And obviously the Italian had not taken it well and gotten akumatized.

 Marinette knew that she should be happy that Lila had been exposed. Her classmates certainly were, but instead Marinette could not help but mope. Damian had been SO kind she really had wanted to get to know him better. The fact she’d completely missed out on getting his number gnawed at her. Little did she know that Damian was across the city thinking the same thing as he sat on a Gargoyle statue. 

 But fate likes to play funny games. A few days later Jagged got a call from Bruce Wayne, a few of his sons namely Tim, Jason and Dick had heard about Jagged being in town and tjat the rocker had brought MDC the famous designer with him. Apparently they were huge fans and had bugged, pleaded, whined, and eventually threatened a hunger strike until Bruce would ask Jagged to pretty please introduce them. So Jagged got the go ahead from Marinette and the gaggle of teenagers plus Jagged and Penny piled into a big van and drove over to the Wayne mansion.

 Seeing it from the outside, Marinette felt only intimidation and dread. It was so huge and they were so rich. What if they were unimpressed when they found out MDC was just some teenage girl? Letting Jagged guide her and her friends push her forward Marinette nervously knocked on the door and let herself be led inside by the kind old man who introduced himself as Alfred.

 Walking through the halls in wonder Marinette slowly felt her fingers twitch with the urge to design. But she suppressed it and focused not wanting to be rude. As the group turned a corner into a large sitting room Marinette’s blue eyes somehow found a pair of familiar green. She gasped, he blinked wide eyed.

 “Marinette?” - “Damian?” 

 They blinked again, shocked. Marinette eventually snorted and laughed. Damian found himself smiling as he approached the small girl. And everyone else? Well they were just confused. Except for Damian’s family they were confused and freaked out. 

 “Is the demon spawn, smiling Dicky bird? Or am I hallucinating?”

 “No I see it too Jason. He looks genuinely happy.”

 “So it's official.” Tim added “we're all hallucinating.”

 After some introductions and explanations things settled down with Marinette happy to take the Wayne’s on as clients. And the Wayne’s in turn being suitably impressed and amazed by the young girls accomplishments though the part they found most amazing was how she interacted with not only them but Damian. She was genuine and kind, no fake smiles or hidden double meanings, nor did she let their money and fame impress or blind her in any way. Jason soon declared her a little sister and Jagged preened and puffed as he gloated about not only Marinette but Kitty Section as well. 

 The rest of the summer spent in Gotham was tons of fun with Jason teaching Juleka and Marinette how to shoot guns and ride motorcycles, Rose and Marinette learning some of Dick’s gymnastics moves, Ivan meanwhile got along well with the quiet Cass and level headed Duke. Eventually Stephanie and Bab’s returned home as well and they also took to the french teens with ease they organized girl nights where they taught the girls how to break and enter something Marinette had a natural affinity for go figure. The most surprising development however was Luka. The slightly older boy had seemingly set his sights on the awkward coffee addicted Tim and had spent the remainder of the summer wooing him. 

 But while Luka was wooing Tim there was one other couple slowly forming. Everyone had seen the spark between Damian and Marinette and soon enough everyone was shipping it. The pair were often ‘conveniently’ left alone or were sent on errands that somehow conveniently became accidental dates. Marinette had been guarding her heart after Adrien had shattered it but Damian made her want to take the risk and fall in love. He was charming, polite, kind, sarcastic, and as she’d learned after telling him about the entire Paris situation akuma’s and all he was protective but without going so far as to undermine Marinette’s strength. He trusted her to be fast and smart and strong enough to defend herself (especially after they did a bit of fight training for fun and she laid him flat on the ground) but he did worry and care about her.

 But still there was something holding back both teens. Something that shattered near the end of the vacation. Marinette had been caught by a villain. Poison Ivy to be exact. The plant villainess had taken note of the new frequent visitor to her greenhouse but what had really gotten her attention was how the plant life reacted to her. And furthermore how the plant life SPOKE about her. Ivy’s curiosity eventually grew too large and so she snatched up the young designer and brought her home. Luckily Marinette wasn’t particularly scared of Ivy or Harley, sure she didn’t like being knocked out but she felt no real fear, in the end Ivy, Harley and Marinette ended up having an unprompted girls day complete with junk food, ranting, bad American tv and more. Ivy eventually figured that Marinette was some kind of Meta one who had a strong influence over plant and animal life and that was enough for her to adopt the small half Asian girl and inject her with her special blend the same one she’d given to Harley to keep her safe in a town full of crazies.

 But while Marinette was perfectly fine hanging out with 2 of the 3 sirens Damian had not taken it so well. He had scoured the city trying to find the sirens newest abode all while he gnawed his lip until it bled. Maybe it was the stress that made him slip up or maybe it was just Marinette being too smart for her own good. But when the young Robin came bursting in through a window yelling Marinette’s name something had immediately clicked and she knew who he was. After she’d calmed the situation down and made sure no one fought anyone else, Marinette thanked Ivy and Harley for the nice day and let Robin carry her away. After talking with Tikki and deciding to be reckless and selfish for once in her life Marinette confronted Damian the next day, revealing her own identity in the process. There was some freaking out and a LOT of talking with Tikki and the rest of the bat clan but in the end it seemed to work out for the best. Ladybug was certainly happy to accept the help anyway even if Chat Noir wasn’t going to be.

 A week later Damian finally asked Marinette out. Two days after that they shared their first kiss on the ferris wheel. And come the end of summer Marinette, Kitty Section and surprise guests Damian and Tim Wayne were all boarding a flight back to Paris.

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#my fic #dating 'prince charming' fic #marinette x damian #maribat #daminette #fanfic #miraculous fanfic #adrien salt #lila salt #lila gets exposed #class sugar #class redemption #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #alya sugar #nino sugar #BAMF Marinette #jealous adrien #mild salt #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #adrien agreste #lila rossi #alya cesaire #alya redemption #nino lahiffe

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We Should have Stayed in Gotham ch 4

(Almost every Maribat fic I read has the akuma class going to Gotham. But tell me which is more likely, a class touring the city of crime, or a class touring the city of lights? So here it is, the Daminette fic that only I asked for, where Gotham goes to Paris, and the poor students have to grapple with the fact that they have competition for the most dangerous city in the world. I wonder what will happen?) (a/n: Warning dark Conversation. Don't be taken off guard.)

ao3 Beginning Previous

Despite what his brothers might say, Damian did not hate fun. He just hated their idiotic brand of fun that usually found them needing Bruce and the WE PR team to bail them out of jail while Barbara laughed at them from the other side of the bars. (He would never forgive Todd from stopping him from freeing the Zoo Animals. They would have gotten away with it if he had just followed orders.) Still, he planned to have fun on this trip, especially at the Louvre. He had always wanted to see the inside of this place, the art, the history, maybe even correct some of the factual errors. A scavenger hunt would not interfere with that, even if it was tedious and pointless.

But then Alix and Kathryn had skated by waving a half-completed work sheet shouting, “You’re falling behind!” Apparently, they had gotten a head start by going through her father’s office. Mendeleiev just groaned as manic grins spread across multiple students’ faces, including Marinette’s.

 And so it was, that before any of the teachers could stop them, the Parisians had grabbed their Gothamite’s hand and took off running through the halls of the most famous museum in the world. Damian didn’t know how to react as Marinette pulled him through wing after wing, her hand holding his in a vice grip, until they stopped in the Egyptian hall. He was surprised to see that she wasn’t panting, even though she had to be running at full speed in order to stay ahead of him.

Instead she just skidded to a stop and began to say in very broken German, “Ok…the first…question…is about…”

Damian cleared his throat, and said in French “You want to win this, right?” Marinette cocked her head but nodded. “Then I think it will be best if we stick to our fluent languages. We can help each other after we finish demolishing your insane classmates.”

Marinette grinned and then said in English, “Very well, but what about your classmates. Won’t they be a problem?”

Damian glanced at his work sheet and raised an eyebrow. “I doubt they will be much help. After all I’m not even sure what this first question means. Is it some sort of riddle?”

Marinette laughed and pulled him deeper into the wing. “Sabrina and your class representative, no you call it president, made this to encourage us to ask questions about each other,” she explained, “‘The scroll that awoke the Pharaoh, and revealed the secret of the Bug,’ is a reference to the akuma Pharaoh. He was a researcher here at the Louver whose theory on resurrection magic was dismissed, so he was akumatized in order to prove it worked. He tried to sacrifice Alya to the god Ra.”

Damian squashed a quip about how that would not have been the worst thing, instead settling on the more pressing question, “And the secret of the Bug?”

Marinette stopped in front of an old papyrus scroll, her smile fond and almost nostalgic as she looked at it. She pointed at the image of a woman with a yoyo in a spotted robe fighting the Pharaoh. “It was during this fight that it was revealed that Ladybug was over five thousand years old.”

Damian nodded as he looked at the scroll with consideration. “I thought the SpotsOn blog said that the title of Ladybug was a mantle passed down.”

“It is,” Marinette said as she scribbled on her work sheet. “But it was this scroll that set the question in motion. Since then scholars have been scouring the artifacts looking for people who could have a Miraculous Holder.”

“So why is it on our work sheet?” Damian asked.

And Marinette once more smiled as if at a fond memory. “I was with Alya when she found this. I got turned into one of the hundred mummies meant to aid in the sacrifice. Believe it or not we were actually good friends back then.”

Damian opened his mouth to say something, but Marinette clapped her hands and spun towards him with a smile. “Alright, the first one was for Paris, the second one should be for Gotham. Alix and Kathryn, have a good head start, but if we run, and take a few short cuts I know, then we should be able to catch up and beat them!”

Damian stifled a grin with a smirk. Her competitive spirit was infectious, and it pulled at his own instincts to push them to victory. And he was so tempted to give into it. He was the Son of the Bat after all, there was no way they could lose. But Grayson was always warning him that he overdid it, so he fought the urge to string trip wire everywhere and looked down at his sheet. His smirk turning devilish. “Are there any bat artifacts in the Chinese Wing?”

Marinette nodded briskly, “Tang Dynasty, this way!” And with that she had grabbed his hand and was once again pulling him through the Louvre at a devastating pace. And as the game went on, Damian stopped denying the genuine and bright smile that was slowly growing on his lips. But even as he gave into his more competitive instincts, he noticed a few interesting details about the Parisians.

For example, the Museum had obviously prepared for them, because they had roped off designated running lanes so the students could go wild without breaking anything or disrupting the other guests. And as they zoomed past, while the tourists stared in shock, the employees and locals laughed and cheered them on. It was strange considering that in Gotham they would have had security called on them ages ago.

Another thing was that all the Parisians were strangely athletic. Even the ones who should have been out of breath at the first sprint, vaulted and laughed as if it was nothing. At the pace he and Marinette were keeping, he expected that she would have to slow down after the first three questions. Instead, she only seemed to gain speed as she pulled him after her in a rush of adrenaline. And she never slowed down. Even when her classmate, the tall Chinese one, barreled toward them with his partner on his back, Marinette never slowed. She just pulled Damian down so that they slid down the slick floor, as the boy vaulted over them with ease.

Leaping to her feet, Marinette continued to pull Damian along even as her peer shouted, “I’m going to get you Mari!”

“In you dreams Kim!” she shouted. She beamed with pure joy, and Damian felt his own adrenaline muddling his senses, because he found himself mirroring her.

“What was that?” He demanded when they reached the Enlightenment Room.

“Hm?” Marinette said even as she searched the artifacts, “Oh, have you ever played the floor is lava?”

Damian grimaced against the memory. Grayson had thought it was a good idea to yell that phrase in the middle of Titan’s Tower, resulting in Jon scooping him up and hovering over the floor. Everyone had laughed as Damian thrashed like a kitten in the bath. It was one of his more embarrassing memories. “Once or twice,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Have you ever played it with real lava?”

Damian cocked his head at the question then nodded his head in understanding, “Lava Boy, he was a level 10 right?”

“You read the list,” Marinette said with a smug smile.

“Tt,” Damian said has he scanned for their opponents. “Of course, I did, I’m not an imbecile.  But what does this have to do with the fact that your entire class seems to be experts in parkour?”

“Not the entire class,” Marinette mused as she jotted down the answer. “Just those who know to pay attention in gym. Parkour became a curriculum requirement after Lava Boy. Every Parisian school teaches it as apart of our Physical Education. Or as we like to call it, ‘Running from Akumas 101.’”

Damian nodded his understanding. It was smart. It made him wonder why Gotham schools didn’t teach self-defense. But then again, maybe they did. He never really paid attention in class. But he had no time to ponder, because Marinette was grabbing his hand again and pulling him to the next artifact.

They ran into Alix and Kathryn twice, and saw that they were catching up, as the pair debated if they should be going towards Modern Art, or Ancient Greece. Which was when Damian noticed something else about Marinette, she was smart. When she had competed with him in languages, he had known that she had intelligence. But now she barely had too look at the clues to know the item they were talking about. And they really were some of the strangest clues, for example, “This Queen’s spear is lauded as Luck’s greatest hand.”

“That could be anything!” Damian exclaimed.      

“Queen Hippolyta’s spear was donated by Wonder Woman back in 1983, as a gift to her adopted city,” Marinette stated and then dashed off.

“Wait how did you know that?” Damian cried as he chased her.

“Hippolyta was the first named Ladybug, although technically she was the second holder. The first was the Oracle of Khepri, although her name was lost to time. We saw her scroll like ten minutes ago.”

Damian just shook his head and followed her without question. And that was another strange thing that he noticed. He didn’t mind following this girl around. Under normal circumstances, he would have demanded the lead. But Marinette just pulled him along as if her leadership was the most natural thing in the world. And as of yet, Damian could not begrudge her for it. And so it was in less time than he thought possible, they were racing back to the teachers with Alix and Kathryn hot on their heels and gaining. Then Marinette pulled out a bag of marbles and scattered them on the floor.

“Hey!” Alix yelled as the two girls were forced to slow down, “That’s cheating!”

“No rule against it!” Marinette shouted back as Damian laughed.

Mlle. Mendeleiev was pinching her nose as the pair skidded to a stop in front of her and handed her their completed work sheets. “I hope,” she said in her stern voice, “That the two of you got to talk at least once during that…escapade?”

“Yes Mlle. Mendeleiev,” Marinette said with her signature bright smile growing even as Damian sunk back into his signature scowl.

“Oh, and what did you learn about each other,” Bustier said with her signature plastered smile and too sweet voice.

“That Damian knows a lot about bats but not a lot about bugs.”

Damian couldn’t help the amused snort, even as the teachers rolled their eyes and took their sheets. But it was one of the Gotham teachers, Miss. Faustus who said, “You finished three hours early. Why don’t you two go back through the museum slower this time? Or perhaps spend time at the museum’s café?”

The two nodded their assent and then waited for Alix and Kathryn to turn in their sheet. “Well,” Marinette said, beaming so brightly, Damian was sure he was going to go blind. “We won!”

“You cheated!” Alix cried in mock annoyance as she skated up to them.

“Tt,” Damian said, “You were the ones with a head start, not to mention you were on skates. If anything, you were the ones that cheated, and yet we still were victorious. I do not know if that proves the depths of your ineptitude or the height of our excellence, but either way, you cannot argue with the results.”

Kathryn face palmed, as Alix stared at him in shock. Suddenly Damian was very aware that offending the wrong person in this city could result in a villain chasing him down. But he refused to back down as he tilted his chin to the girl, daring her to question him. Instead, Alix just turned to Marinette who seemed completely unfazed by his attitude.

At her friend’s questioning look, Marinette smiled gently. “Imagine if Kagami and Chloe were one person, and male. That’s him,” she said jutting her thumb at Damian. He furrowed his brow at the comparison, but faced Alix undaunted all the same.

She however just said “Oh,” as if that made perfect sense and then studied him more critically. Then her face split into the widest, most mischievous grin, Damian had ever seen (and he lived with Jason). A little nervous he took a step back even as Alix leaned forward and said, “We kill Lila!”

“Alix, no!” Marinette cried.

“Alix, yes!” Alix cried grabbing Damian’s shoulders before he could even begin to process what was happening as she said in a hissing voice, “Come! We have murder to plan!”

“No murder!” Marinette cried, even as Damian threw her hands off of him.

“First,” he said coldly, “Never touch me again. Second, I assume you have a strategy?”

Alix cackled and led him to the café even as Marinette screamed in frustration.

---------------------------------------

“So,” Kathryn said once they were all seated at the Museum’s outdoor café, “Who is this Lila and why are we trying to kill her?”

Damian remained silent as he watched the Parisians. They had only ordered drinks, because apparently the best bakery in Paris was catering their “Getting to Know You Party” later. So he sipped his as he watched Marinette tense, and Alix huff in frustration. It seemed, that now her adrenaline from the game was spent, the roller blading menace was ready to be serious. But it was Marinette who began the story.

“Lila,” she said simply, “Is a compulsive liar in our class. The only way to ensure that she didn’t akumatize anyone from Gotham was to pair her with the worst French speaker in your class, because she doesn’t know a lick of English no matter what she might claim.”

“When she first came here,” Alix said anger dripping from her every word, “She would tell all of these crazy stories about the places she’s been, and the celebrities she’s met. Of course, none of us actually believed her. We actually personally know a lot of the celebrities she likes to name drop so we always knew she was lying. We thought it was just some sort of game she liked to play, so we entertained her. It wasn’t doing any harm.”

“I never liked the game,” Marinette said as she stirred her coffee. “So I asked her to stop, and she threatened me. It was the only time she’s ever been completely honest.”

Alix took a deep calming breath, an action which Damian was quickly learning to associate with deep negative emotions from the Parisians. “That’s when her lies became a little less obvious,” she said, “She started sneaking subtler lies in with her obvious ones, slowly turning the class against Marinette. Started framing her for stealing, cheating, and bullying. Things like that.”

“She almost got me expelled,” Marinette said into her cup. And Damian couldn’t stop the shock from spreading across his face.

“Are you saying that your teachers believed her?” Damian demanded. He had only known this girl for an hour and a half, but already he felt that her being anything other than a model student was just preposterous.

But Marinette didn’t seem to register his outrage as she just shrugged and said, “The principle is more worried about funding and press than justice,” she said, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Mlle. Bustier is a bit naive. Mlle. Mendeleiev is great, and she doesn’t let Lila get away with anything. But Mlle. Bustier…”

“That woman needs her license revoked,” Alix said in a huff, “And she probably would have by now if it wasn’t for Hawkmoth.”

“So?” Kathryn said leaning forward, “What happened?”

“Adrien,” Marinette said with a sigh of exhaustion, “Another classmate. Apparently, he talked to her, made a deal with her to back off. He told me about it as if it was this grand gesture on his part. But basically, it boils down to, he lets her do whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t directly target me.” Marinette rolled her eyes, “His heart's in the right place, but his arrows don’t always hit their marks if you know what I mean.” The Gothamites nodded and then gestured for the girls to continue.

“So anyway,” Alix said, “Later, Lila comes forward and admits that she lied. Claims she has a mental disorder that forces her to lie. Only, that night Marinette goes home and does a crap-ton of research on mental illnesses and lying and guess what?”

“There’s no such thing,” Damian said with a sneer.

Marinette just shook her head, “Compulsive lying is a symptom of many different illnesses, mainly OCD and psychopathy. But neither force the individual to lie. The person is always conscious of what they are doing, and can chose differently given that they are actively working towards their mental health.”

“And when Marinette presented her research,” Alix said, “The class basically split in two. The enablers who think the best way to help Lila is to humor her. And the intelligent people, who are just sick and tired of her crap.”

“Me, Chloe, Sabrina, Alix, and Juleka are the most outspoken members of the Intelligent,” Marinette explained. “Alya, Rose, and Mylene are the most outspoken of the Enablers. Everyone else falls on a sliding scale in between. But of course, none of this would even be a problem it is wasn’t for Hawkmoth.”

“Yeah,” Alix said sipping her coffee, “Hawkmoth has everybody thrown out of whack. I mean how do you in good conscious call someone out for being an idiot, when they’re enough of an idiot to let that akumatize them.”

“Next thing you know,” Marinette said, “You're running through the city with a horribly dressed flying fox demon on your tail.”

Both girls groaned and sipped their drinks, as Damian exchanged a look with Kathryn. Finally, Damian asked the question that had been plaguing him since the moment he had heard the name Hawkmoth, “What about the Justice League? Why hasn’t anyone called them in?”

“Screw the League,” a harsh voice called out, and the party turned to see Chloe and Sabrina with Alice and Will following behind.

“Chloe,” Marinette said instantly brighter, “You’re done early. I thought you would be dragging your feet in there.”

“Chloe helped me make the scavenger hunt so she can’t participate,” Sabrina said sliding into the chair beside Marinette. “So, we decided to do a walking tour with our partners instead.”

Everyone then introduced themselves, with Damian being introduced to Chloe last. They stared at each other with narrowed eyes before huffing simultaneously and sipping their drinks. The rest of the group giggled at that before Alice said, “What do you mean, ‘screw the League?’ I know some of them are blowhards, but they do have some powerful magic users. They can help.”

Chloe sniffed derisively, but the rest of the Parisians became somber. They looked to Chloe almost as if asking for her permission before she nodded. Then Marinette cleared her throat and said,

“It was three years ago, at the beginning of this…mess. At first all of the akumas were level 1-4s. Powerful and scary but not dangerous. No casualties, and they always had limited goals. It was very rare for them to effect more than ten people. Then…then we got our first level eight, Dark Cupid.”

“I saw him in my research,” Damian said stiffly, “I couldn’t understand why he was put so high, all of the other level eights had a death count in the high thousands, but his wasn’t even in the high hundreds.”

Sabrina nodded emphatically, her face contorted with pain, “Yes. The akumas are categorized by the damage they do. Which means that the higher akumas are rated by their death count. 5 is 1-1,000. 6 is 1,000-10,000. 7 is 10,000-1 million. 8 is 1 million-10 million. 9 is 10 million to 1 billion. and 10 is anything high than a billion.”

“But there are other kinds of damage that rank just as high as death,” Marinette said as she reached over to grip Chloe’s hand which was starting to shake. “When those akumas happen on a wide scale, they are usually ranked higher.”

“And Dark Cupid was one of those?” Kathryn asked.

“I read about him too,” Alice said leaning forward. “There weren’t any fight videos of him on the blog, but it said that he made people feel the opposite of their true emotions. What does that even mean?”

The girls took a deep breath and looked to Chloe again. She just nodded as she stared numbly into her coffee. It was Alix who spoke, “Dark Cupid was a boy whose Valentine humiliated him. So he made people feel the opposite of their true emotions. Love turned to hate. Hate turned to love.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Damian said, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Oh!” Will cried, horror etched over his face. “Oh, that…that’s awful!”

“What?” Kathryn demanded.

Marinette sighed and looked them in the eyes. There was something hard and cold in her gaze, and it seeped into her voice as she said, “Imagine the person you love the most. The person you trust the most, parent, sibling, partner, spouse, being struck with a black arrow and then turning against you. They are consumed with a burning obsessive hatred for you and everything else they love. What do you think would happen?”

Damian paled at the thought. He could imagine it. He didn’t want to, but he could see it happening. His family sitting down to dinner, suddenly struck from behind…and then turning on him. It was a horrible image and he wanted to forget he ever saw it, but Marinette was not done.

“Now, imagine the person you hate. You’re worst enemy, and the same thing happens to them. Except now, with love. Or perhaps more accurately…lust. You’re enemy filled with an obsessive drive to ‘love’ you, just as your loved ones are filled with an obsessive drive to hate you. What do you think happens then?”

Damian was suddenly very glad that he had not eaten anything, because he was going to throw up. The images that Marinette was painting for them. They were horrible. They were gruesome, and disgusting on so many levels. And…and they had lived through that. He looked up and saw it. All four of these girls had faced that. Spouses turning on their partners. Parents turning on their children. Friends turning on their friends. All on a day when they were supposed to be celebrating their love and trust. And then to add their enemies into the mix…

“Only 136 dead,” Sabrina said solemnly, “But over three million reports of assault and battery, and over ten thousand reported rapes, and sexual assaults. And those were just the people who came forward.”

“We called the Justice League,” Chloe said as a single tear fell down her quivering jaw. “We broke their website begging for help, once the Miraculous Cure passed through. But they never answered.”

“Three more akumas were created because of that,” Marinette said squeezing Chloe’s hand as Sabrina wrapped her arms around her. “Eventually Ladybug gave a press release saying she got in contact with an International member, but she didn’t say whom. Here,” Marinette pulled up a video on YouTube and showed it to them. “You can watch that later. It basically says that miraculous matters are miraculous matters, and the Justice League will not be coming unless it’s a level 11 akuma.”

“Level 11?” Kathryn squeaked.

“Yeah,” Alix said with an amused huff, “Otherwise known as the ‘How in God’s Name are You Still Alive!’ Protocol.”

“If either Ladybug, or Chat Noir ever lose their Miraculous to Hawkmoth. Then the other is to retreat and go into hiding, while every citizen still alive in Paris spams the Justice Leagues number until someone shows up,” Marinette said with a small smile. “It hasn’t happened yet, but we’ll be prepared if it does.”

“Were you?” Alice looked at the shaking Chloe, her voice hesitant and soft. “I’m sorry but you told me that you used to have a lot of enemies. So…were you…um…”

Chloe sniffed and straightened, she was as rigid as a bored, but her chin was up and her jaw was set. Her eyes had not lost their fire as she scoffed and said, “Kwami no, no one touched me during Dark Cupid. I was the bitch who caused the whole thing.”

The Gothamites blinked. “What?” Damian demanded.

“You heard me,” Chloe said firmly squeezing Marinette’s hand. “Dark Cupid. The most emotionally scaring akuma aside from Sand Boy. I caused him. I was the dumb bitch who humiliated the boy and made Valentines day banned in Paris! It was my fault.”

“Chloe—” Sabrina began, but the heiress silenced her by leaning forward and growling,

“I caused more akumas, and suffering in this city, then Joker has probably done in a year. Everyday I wake up knowing that I am probably the most despicable being on the planet. But you know what? Everyday I wake up and decide to change that. It will never be enough. I will never undo the damage I did to Paris. But damn it, I’m trying! And I’m not alone.

“This is Paris. If you haven’t been an akuma, you’ve caused one, and no one is immune. Not even angels who are too good for this world like, Sabrina and Marinette heaven help them! So everyday we wake up knowing that we are villains! But every day we wake up and we swear we are going to do better. We make amends and we try. We’re all monsters, but we all have one enemy, and that’s the idiot who thinks he can put chains on monsters and not get bit!”

Chloe was seething now. Her teeth bared. Her eye wide. But she was still in control, and she stared them all down with the deadly force of a lioness. It quelled any arguments, pinning the Gothamites to there seats. As she roughly wiped the tears from her eyes, she declared,

“So yeah, screw the Justice League. As far as I’m concerned, they can all go and suck it! This is Paris, and we clean up our own messes. Besides even if they did show up, there’s nothing they can do. Ladybug is right, this is a Miraculous problem to be solved by Miraculous Holders.”

“Besides,” Sabrina said in a far gentler tone, “Do any of you really want to see and akumatized Superman? Or Batman?”

Everyone shivered at the thought, even Damian. He then drew in on himself as he thought about everything they had said. Lila. Hawkmoth. Dark Cupid. Chloe. The Justice League. Not all of his questions were answered, not by a long shot. But then he remembered the scavenger hunt. The pure joy radiating off of the Paris Class as they ran through the Museum. The genuine laughter of the employees at seeing their antics. The bright smiles of the civilians as they walked with their heads held high down the streets. They had been through hell, like Gotham never had. But where Gothamites scurried and scowled they…smiled.

Even now as he looked up to study the four girls before them, they were smiling. Bright, genuine, pure smiles. They laughed as they pulled the Gothamites out of their horror. They cheered as more of their friends joined them from within the museum. It was strange. It was confounding, confusing, and impossible for Damian to comprehend. It was…miraculous.

And so Damian whispered to himself in his heart, "I swear on mantle as Robin, and on my title as the Son of the Bat, and the Demon's Heir, I will do everything in my power to defeat Hawkmoth."

Next   

@night-ngale @annastasha @ev-cupcake @hammalammadamdam @laydeekrayzee @itsemmylie @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks  @doglover82 @raven-ette @atiredartistandacat

#maribat #miraculous x dc #dc x miraculous #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #marinette dupen chang #badass marinette #batman #dcu fic #daminette #marinette x damian #damian x marinette #damian wayne #chloe redemption #lila salt #class salt #gothamite #gotham goes to paris #fanfic #fanfiction #ladybug #miraculous ladybug

[comics-and-fanworks]

ML Career Choice Part 3

Hi! I still don’t know how to tag so here’s my best attempt!

@its-maemain, @yasmin-rdz, @marsrize, @pasteile,

@

vixen-uchiha

TW for disasters and mentions of death, and Jason Todd swearing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Marinette had never moved so fast in her life. She arrived to see her beloved city in ruins, and their was nothing her Miracle Cure could do.  Buildings had collapsed, sinkholes had split open, and parts of the city had flooded. She could hear people screaming, crying, and everything in between. Buildings burned from electrical fires, and she felt like she was looking at hell on earth. People were dead, she knew it, it would be naïve to assume that no one died in an event like this. Her mind was already kicking into overdrive. People would need to be rescued, the dead will need to be buried, the injured treated, debris cleared, weakened buildings would need to be demolished, plans must be drawn and contractors must be hired. Gotham would get through this she’d make sure of it, so Marinette did what she does best, and made a plan.

Phase one was to take out unnecessary variables, so it was time for Hawkmoth, Mayura, and Chat Noir to go. With help from Tim she was able to hack into Paris’s CCTV cameras, and what she saw surprised her. Hawkmoth, Mayura, and Chat Noir all lived under the same roof, what were the chances. It didn’t surprise her that Adrien was Chat, when she thought about it the two were incredibly similar and were always defending each other relentlessly. She suspected he used his Chat Noir persona as an outlet to behave in ways he never could as Adrien. Jason was still furious, and she resolved to take Chat’s ring first (she did not need more destruction, and a large part of her brain was telling her that Jason would look amazing in a catsuit). Mayura would be second, and Hawkmoth would be last.

Pega-Bug had teleported into the Agreste Manor with the Red Hood at her side. The two quietly made their way through the maze of a house, Tim had disabled the house’s security systems and cameras, but the two still had to be careful. They were about to enter Adrien’s room, when a certain black cat kwamii met them holding a ring. Mayura’s pin was easy enough, she was passed out exhausted. Gabriel turned out to be tougher, as he hid the butterfly broach. After many minutes of searching, they found it hidden in a drawer full of plans on ways to restore his company. “He needs to let it go. His days in the spotlight are over after the shit he’s pulled,” Jason muttered. Nodding, Pega-Bug opened a portal back to Gothem, and the two left just as the sun was beginning to rise and the former cat was beginning to wake.

Marinette never thought she would do something like this, but with barely 24 hours after the disaster, she needed to make sure Gotham’s villains wouldn’t cause problems. In the abandoned shipping warehouse she stood before Bane, the Sirens, Penguin, and Killer Croc. She wasn’t in costume, she faced them as Marinette, not Ladybug. She could feel her husband’s eyes on her back, ready to swoop in the moment he thought she was in danger. Gotham was still well, Gotham. Supervillains were as common as the rain, and she had to make sure she could rebuild Gotham in peace.

“So why’d you call us here lady,” The penguin sneered. Marinette had to be quick, or Jason would start shooting. Mari took a breath, “As you all know, Gotham is in ruins right now, and I need people I can count on to keep the rest of the rogues under control until we can rebuild.” The villains looked at each other, unsure if they should trust the newest Wayne. “What’s in it for us,” Poison Ivy’s eyes narrowed, the Sirens were more inclined to help seeing as Selina and Bruce were sort of dating, but she knew the others would take more convincing. Ivy had a soft spot for the newest Wayne due to her push for more eco-friendly architecture.

“We’ll rebuild the botanical gardens since they sustained major damage, The Iceberg Lounge is currently underwater so we’ll raise that. Museums are refusing to send artifacts to Gotham so unless you wanna relocate Selina, we’ll have to fix those, Harley for you I’ll condemn Joker’s amusement park and remake it into Harley’s Fun Land. The sewers also have collapsed so Croc you have no way of moving undetected, and Bane your fighting rings are currently broken beyond repair and will need fixing. I can take care of all of that. I just need you all to take care of the rogues that don’t care, like Joker and Scarecrow.” They couldn’t deny that she had a point. After a moment of deliberation, Marinette and the Penguin shook hands. The Gotham Rogues would help her, as long as she kept her part of the deal. Almost as soon as she was out of the warehouse, she was scooped up by her husband, and spent the rest of the night reassuring him that she was okay.

Phase two was clearing the rubble and rescuing trapped people. Marinette was surprised with how smoothly this process was going, since multiple heroes (and even some villains with morals) arrived in Gotham to help. It took a major load off of her shoulders, because what would take a crew of 500 to clear in a month, Wonder Woman could clear in a day. She was also relieved to find out there were minimal casualties. Gothamites’ unique ability to sense oncoming Rogue attacks seemed to work with natural disasters as well. That didn’t mean there were no injuries. Thousands of people were hurt, ranging from scrapes and bruises to broken bones and everything outside and in between. This was nothing that Zatanna and the other magic users couldn’t handle, and Marinette found herself adding to the list of heroes and villains she would be sending gift baskets to.

It was at this time that the League of Assassins decided she should be kidnapped. Of course, with everything going on surely no one would miss her. SURELY she had nothing better to do with her time then sit tied to a chair with a sword to her neck and threats of death if she didn’t rebuild the city the way the League wanted it. She wasn’t really paying attention, so she may have missed parts of it. What she didn’t miss was that the Lazarus Pit was critically damaged. What would that do if it leaked into the soil? Apparently Ra’s al Ghul kept the original plans for the Lazarus Pit, but did not think to use it to keep the original architect alive. Marinette was debating on if this should be her problem or not, when her youngest Brother-in-Law and husband busted in. Damian was getting into a screaming match with his mother and grandfather, while Jason was checking on his wife. Marinette was so caught up in everything that she didn’t even realize her scuffle with the League of Assassins led to a broken arm, Tikki was gonna kill her.

Eventually, she got tired of the arguing and Jason freaking out. “THAT’S ENOUGH! I have too much on my plate as it is! Unless the Lazarus Pit is going to leak out into the environment and make the city a wasteland you’ll need to get someone else to fix it!” Everyone stood silent as Marinette crossed her arms and began to tap her foot impatiently. Talia nods. “That’s exactly what will happen.” Marinette sighed and marched over to the assassin holding the plans. She took the plans and began flipping through them, before pausing, “Did you really have to kidnap me? You couldn’t have started with that?” She sighed. They better have coffee down here, she was going to need it.

Three days later the Lazarus Pit was restored, but the same could not be said about Damian’s relationship with his mother. He was still upset about the League kidnapping his favorite Sister-in-Law, and Talia was furious that he was more loyal to Marinette than the League. Mari was the first person who really encouraged him to pursue his own interests and help him find his own path. She knew what it was like to have a lot to live up to in terms of being a Guardian and also being a hero, and she understood the pressure Damian was under. She didn’t want him to make the same mistakes she did, and decided to help him when she could. She helped him realize that his life was his, and he didn’t have to live to only fulfill others’ expectations. She was happy he was much more confident than she was at his age, and knew he wouldn’t end up falling into the “Everyday Ladybug” trap she did.

Speaking of the past, many of her old classmates reached out to offer help in redesigning and rebuilding Gotham. They were appalled that Gotham was abandoned, Alya in particular got in contact with Lois Lane, and the two made sure the story never left the headlines. The others helped the best they could too, using the influence they gained in their respective careers to hold fundraisers and supply drives to send to Gotham. Chloe even pitched in (she and Marinette and come to a truce in high school) and convinced her mother to make a new clothing line, and donate half the proceeds to the Rebuild Gotham Fund, “Dupain-Cheng, I mean Todd-Wayne- Marinette will want to work with someone when she makes her return to the fashion world. Would you rather that be you, the Style Queen, or another major fashion house? Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!” Tom and Sabine were also determined to help their daughter, and with a little help from Nadja Chamack, The line outside their bakery was always wrapped around the block.

Only three people in Paris were refusing to help, and they were all currently holed up in the Agreste Mansion. Lila was still furious that she was thrown out of Marinette’s wedding reception (that she and the others crashed). How could this happen to her?! She, Lila Rossi, was supposed to be the successful and famous one! She was supposed to be married to a Wayne! SHE was supposed to be the one the world adored! Not Marinette! Unlike the other people in the room, Lila knew that after the stunt she pulled, she had no way of wiggling back into Marinette’s good graces. She also knew that since the public knew about what she did, it would be hard for her to run in the famous social circles she wanted to be in, since her reputation had been ruined and no matter how much damage control she did it would most likely stay that way. Lila was smart, and she always knew when to abandon a sinking ship, and she felt that now would be the perfect time to abandon the S.S. Agreste.

Gabriel was in a daze. His Miraculouses (Miraculousi???) were gone. He’d turned the Mansion upside down looking for the peacock broach and butterfly pin, but they were gone. What he did find in their place was a note, with two simple words on it: ‘I know.’ It was signed ‘L,’ and there was no doubt in his mind that L was Ladybug. He was also dealing with the PR nightmare that was his model, his son, and himself being thrown out of the wedding reception they crashed, not to mention the restraining order they got as well. The Wayne lawyers were a stone wall of legality, and no matter how hard he or his lawyers tried, they refused to budge and refused to let him try and smooth things over with Marinette. Unless something major happened his company would be bankrupt by the end of the year. For once in his life, he did not feel like he was in control.

Adrien was fully in denial as he sat in his messy room. He woke up to find his Miraculous gone, and a note from Plagg. It read, ‘Kid, when I first met you I thought you would be a great cat, and for a while you were. Things started going downhill fast though, you wouldn’t listen or work with Ladybug, you’d harass her constantly, and you would often refuse to help if you didn’t get your way. I tried to tell you, but you refused to listen. Then Lila came along and you chose to sit back and watch as she destroyed Marinette’s life, hell, you helped her. I thought you cared about Pigtails? I thought she was your friend? You sure didn’t treat her like one. You threw her to the wolves, helped destroy her career, then when the consequences of your, Lila, and your father’s actions came back to bite you, you continued to harass Pigtails to fix it. YOU CRASHED HER WEDDING RECEPTION AND DEMANDED SHE FIX YOUR MESS. That’s messed up. Don’t get started on that ‘She’s our Everyday Ladybug’ bs either. Just because someone’s a good person, doesn’t mean you can treat them like crap and expect them to take it with a smile. I’m leaving, of my own accord. Ladybug’s coming to pick me up, and I guess it doesn’t matter now so I’ll tell you this: Marinette and Ladybug are one in the same. You managed to treat the same woman like crap in two different personas. I’m happy Bug’s in Gotham now, and I’m happy she’s found herself a better cat.’ Plagg left him. Marinette was Ladybug. She left him. His Lady and his Everyday Ladybug were the same person, and she was married to someone else. A part of him knew he should never have told Marinette to take the high road, a part of him knew he should have acted better with Ladybug. He had always assumed that both Ladybug and Marinette would always forgive him, and that they adored him so it didn’t really matter, but now he could see how wrong he really was. As he watched Marinette and Jason helping at one of the makeshift hospitals set up in Gotham, he couldn’t help but notice a familiar ring on Jason’s finger. ‘Maybe she really has found a better cat.’

Phase Three was finally ready to begin! Some buildings were able to survive the earthquake, so those had been repaired first, but most of Gotham was lost in the damage. It had taken weeks (and a small graveyard’s worth of pencils) but Marinette had finally drawn up new plans for the city! It was difficult, but she was able to combine Gotham’s iconic gothic architecture with more sturdy, eco-friendly building components. When she pitched her idea to the city, it was a hit. Gothamites refused to be so reliant on the rest of the country anymore, since it was clear that in a crisis, they would not be helped. With people around the world chipping into a construction fund, they had the budget needed to make the dream happen, so with employees hired, the journey to rebuild Gotham finally began. 

Marinette also made sure to keep her promises to the rogues she allied with as well. The botanical gardens were the first thing she tackled, and under a very happy Poison Ivy’s supervision she was able to rebuild and expand the gardens. She brought in wonderful plants from all over the world, and the building had some nice new laboratories as well. It’s crowning jewel was an exhibit of rare orchids from around the world. Next, she decided to tackle the Iceberg Lounge. After deciding that the old building was the lost cause, she rebuilt it, and improved upon the original idea. She added many flourishes like a beautiful crystal grand staircase, and a massive island bar with an aquarium inside. The top was made of strong glass, and acted as a main stage while there were smaller ones along the side. On the ceiling she added light blue lights and a mist maker, which gave the hanging crystals a sparkly, ice-like affect. When the Penguin saw it he shook her hand and said he should have hired her to design the first one as well. It quickly became the coolest club on the east coast. The Gotham Museum got some nice upgrades as well. The building had survived the earthquake with minimal damage, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t need some work. Marinette expanded it, and added a gemstone exhibit, a massive Ancient Egypt exhibit, and a famous jewelry exhibit. The last one was so she could keep an eye out for any missing Miraculous that might show up, but there was another reason as well. She was able to convince many museums to send artifacts, gemstones and jewelry citing Catwoman as the main reason. “It would certainly draw a crowd if you had a piece that was stolen by the most famous thief in the world,” she’d tell them. Sure enough, it worked like a charm.

The Joker put up quite a fight about his amusement park being destroyed, however he was no match for the new Gotham hero Lady Miracle (whom everyone suspected was Paris’s Ladybug) the Bat Fam, and a large chunk of Gotham’s Rogues. He was quickly defeated and returned to Arkham, which had thankfully survived the disaster. By now the city was about 50% complete, and she began work on Harley’s Fun Land. She added coasters, games, rides, a cruelty-free circus, and anything else Harley could think of. There was carnival food, bumper cars, a waterpark, and a Pie the Clown attraction. If you hit all of the dummies that looked like the Joker, you’d win a replica of Harley’s hammer. She was even there when Harley got to cut the ribbon and welcome Gothamites into their new theme park, and she and Jason got to have a romantic ferris wheel moment. She rebuilt the sewers, and added some improvements for Killer Croc. They were now deep enough for him to comfortably swim in, and had multiple entrances he could fit through all over the city. Much to his surprise and delight, she added a nice living space for him, and she even through in some comforts like a TV with various subscriptions, and some consoles with controllers he could use. Bane’s fighting rings were her final project, and she decided she wanted to help him branch into legal fights. Sure supervillains would still duke it out, but now it was regulated and there were safety standards, so he now had a legal source of income. This also meant she could expand the small rings, into an arena. They called it the Colosseum, and in no time at all fighters were lined up hoping to take on Bane. Opening Night’s main fight was Bane vs Kalibak, the Son of Darkseid. No one quite knew how she pulled that off, but she did get him to agree not to go to war with Earth if he lost. The packed house roared as Bane defeated Kalibak after an incredibly long and close fight. The king was back, and stronger than ever. With Marinette’s side of the deal fulfilled, the Rogues who had helped her made a pact amongst themselves: If Marinette needed help in the future, they would help her, and they’d make sure NO ONE harmed their favorite business partner.

After many months, Marinette, Jason, and the rest of the Wayne family stood proudly looking at the new Gotham. The rising sun shone and reflected off of the glass of the new buildings, and many more gargoyles stood watch over the city. It took everything they had, but Gotham was restored, a shining example of just what Gothamites were capable of, of what Marinette was capable of. In Marinette’s purse, Tikki was beaming with pride at her holder. Her Baby Bug has come so far, and still has so much to do. She was so happy her Chosen hadn’t given up, and that she had found her Cat. Tikki could practically hear Plagg purring in Jason’s pocket. As the Wayne’s press conference began, Marinette was given the mic to speak. She spoke of how difficult it was, but that they did it. The resilience of Gotham and the determination to heal, and how she was honored to help the city that had accepted her as one of its own. Finally, she ended her speech with, 

“Well with that, Jason and I have some exciting news to share. I can’t see myself slowing down anytime soon, although it won’t be engineering, architecture, and fashion that’ll be keeping me busy. What I’m trying to say is... I’m pregnant!” And the excited cheers of the Gothamites rang out, the city couldn’t wait to be introduced to the newest, already beloved Wayne.

~~~~~~

Sorry it took me so long! I’m currently a college student so things have been a bit busy! Also thank you so much to all the people who have followed me, liked my work, commented, and reblogged! It means the world to me and I appreciate Y’all so much! Lemme know if I need to change anything or if I didn’t tag correctly!

#marinette deserves better #marinette dupen chang #lila salt #gabriel salt #adrien salt #class redemption #maribat #jasonette

[goggles-mcgee]

A Little Birdy Told Me 19

Beginning

Last Chapter           Next Chapter

Summary:  Just another day at Gotham Academy, well, Damian wished it was. His acquaintances seem to like to make it anything but.

Damian was not having a good day despite his father’s wishes. For the record, he did try to have a good day, it’s not like he purposefully went into the school with the intent to not, but it seemed like any good luck he had had in the last couple of days (which wasn’t much mind you) ran out. The whispers were what had tipped him off to begin with, usually he could brush them off as nonsensical youth gossip and carry on but the stares coupled with the whispers put him a bit on edge. He hadn’t done anything to his knowledge to warrant the behavior he had observed when he walked in but he didn’t let it show that anything was amiss. He merely strode to his locker and dropped off his afternoon class books before shutting it and locking it swiftly. Damian had tried to be nonchalant about his locker in the beginning, but when it had been broken into in his first week he had been livid, and upgraded the security courtesy of Drake. Apparently some schoolmates just wanted a peek into the newest Wayne’s locker and see if there was anything damning they could use against his Father to sell to some tacky tabloid. Needless to say, he and his father had been less than amused and in Damian’s case, hopeful that he would not have to stay in the ridiculous establishment. 

As he had said, luck was not on his side back then, so why would it be now? 

“Oh our favorite and sometimes benevolent Ice Prince of Gotham Academy.” an annoyingly familiar voice sang out as the body it belonged to slumped against the locker next to Damian’s. “Have you heard the latest gossip, my liege?” 

“Hardy. How many times have I told you I do not listen to drivel?” Damian replied in the most monotone voice he could pull-off. The one that made Drake throw pillows at him because he disliked how robotic it made him sound. 

“Oh, of course, of course Milord. But…this “drivel” as you call it has to do with you.” Claude Hardy, active member of their drama club, well-liked, class clown and as always an avid gossiper told Damian. Damian didn’t talk to him a lot, or well, it was better to say he tried not to. With Hardy came Allegra Vogel: accomplished flutist, ballerina, the queen of gossip and his class’ president, Alan Lopez: writer, soccer player and like his friends Hardy and Vogel, a gossip and Sebastian Allaway: one of the school’s best track members and whose parents own and run The Cottage, the restaurant that replaced Bamonte’s Restaurant after Don Maroni died and The Maroni Family dissolved (assumedly). An odd group of…almost friends, more so associates maybe to him, he wasn’t sure yet if they were friends but Damian would admit they were entertaining at the least.

“Can you never just get to the point, Claude?” The newest addition to the friend group, and Damian’s associate circle asked dramatically. Damian’s gaze shifted to look over at Gotham Academy’s latest transfer Chloé Bourgeois. Nicknamed Queen Bee by the friend group, but Damian noticed she always smiled sadly when she was called that. Perhaps her friends noticed too because Queen Bee quickly shortened to just Queenie. Both nicknames were ridiculous if you asked Damian, he somewhat disliked nicknames. It was fine when Dick did it, because he did it out of affection, Jason did it to be a dick and Tim did it to be annoying. Well that was his theory in any case. 

“You missed it too Queenie!” Hardy helpfully pointed out. 

“Traffic was worse than usual but I’m not that late Drama King. English hasn’t even begun.” Bourgeois snarked back.

“Bourgeois has a point. The school day has barely begun, how have we missed anything vital?” Damian asked with a furrowed brow as he closed his locker and led the group in the direction of their English class. 

“It’s sad how you both don’t get here early enough to socialize like proper socialites,” Hardy sighed dramatically before he perked up and looked at them with a glint in his eye. One Damian was not a fan of as it often painted trouble for him. “That class exchange thing, the one Damian’s father is funding, the class arrived the other day and oh boy was Headmaster Hammer not amused!”

Damian stiffened but kept walking, the news startled him but he was not going to let it show. He could not let anyone know he knew about the class already and especially not about Marinette. “Oh? I thought they were supposed to start next week? That’s what Father said. I would also like to point out that one cannot be late to gossip as I was not here to begin with.”

“Exactly. At least Wayne has brain cells that work.” Bourgeois teased. 

“Are we teasing Claude?” And now another person was walking with them and Damian had to resist the urge to sigh loudly. It was too early to be this social. 

“Don’t we always Allegra?” Bourgeois asked as though the answer was obvious which to be fair it was. The group did tease Claude an absurd amount, but he just made it so easy. 

“Oh yes of course. How silly of me to forget.” The other blonde responded with a teasing laugh.

“Why are you guys so cruel? I’m just here, existing. I’m just a little guy.” Claude pouted. 

“You are taller than us.” Damian pointed out a bit bitterly. He was of average height for his age but it seemed like a lot of his male classmates surpassed average in grade school. 

“ANYWAY. Sir Ice Prince and Queenie, you both weren’t here on Friday-” 

“I had an appointment, I told the group this on Thursday.” Bourgeois interjected.

“I didn’t want to leave Richard alone after what happened at Wayne Tower on Thursday so my father excused me from class.” Damian threw in, in some way it was the truth. Dick had been rather…wound up after the situation at the Tower and the run in with Brat Chat hadn’t helped anything. He may be playing it off but Damian knew his older brother well and he knew that Dick was holding everything in still. So it was no surprise that Dick was sticking around Marinette more than the rest of them. He was worried about the girl, that much was clear and it didn’t take a genius to guess it was because he felt responsible for her being Fear Toxined when he was there and able to do something, but the fact of the matter was there really wasn’t much he could have done. Dick was stubborn though and would continue to blame himself until Dupain-Cheng was safe or until Damian could beat sense into him. He had no problem exercising the second option. Dick was too hard on himself. 

“That’s understandable. How is he doing?” Vogel asked softly. 

“Better.” He replied honestly. 

“I’m glad Dick is doing better, but you and Chloé really did miss one hell of an…interesting day.” Hardy continued. Damian merely hummed in response, he knew it was futile to try and argue that he was not interested because Hardy didn’t care. Or just didn’t believe him; either option was equally annoying. “Like I said, that French class the school is doing the exchange with arrived on Friday. Like the whole class. I can tell you guys now, they did not make a good impression on our dear schoolmates.”

“Oh…yeah…the class exchange. You said they’re French?” Bourgeois asked nonchalantly, though Damian could see her body stiffen as stutter as they walked before she collected herself. 

“Yeah. I thought they’d be nice to speak with. Especially this small group that had been discussing music but…” Vogel scrunched her nose up, it made her distaste well-known. Though, Vogel was not one to hide how she felt to begin with so the expression wasn’t a surprise. Especially to Damian who had knowledge of the class already and he knew he wouldn’t like most, if not all of them. “Instead of telling me about their songs and band and such they only spoke about this girl in their class. I swear, you would think she was newly Sainted or the like with how they looked at her and talked about her. It was like experiencing a cult without actually being in the cult.”

“Oh yeah. It was some real Jim Jones’ shit.” Hardy readily agreed.

“Language.” Damian couldn’t help but quip. He was too used to telling Jason, Tim and Steph that so they would have to add to Alfred’s ‘Swear Jar.’ 

“And the teacher acted like their behavior was normal!” Hardy continued as though he hadn’t heard Damian. Brat. “She acted like they were perfect little angels.”

“It was disturbing.” Vogul shook her head.

“The teacher…” Bourgeois was inspecting her nails, feigning disinterest but Damian could see the subtle shake in her hand. “What was her name?”

“Why? Think it might be your old one Queenie?” Hardy asked with a smile but the twitch of his brows told Damian he was worried about the answer Bourgeois might give. “What are the chances of that?”

“Just- What was her name, Claude?” 

“Uh, something with a ‘B.’”

“You’re beyond help Claude. How do you not remember?” Vogel asked.

“Look. In my defense, I don’t like her and I don’t pay attention to things I don’t like nor care for.”

“You’re horrible. Her name was Caline Bustier. Her class was supposed to be placed in ours but apparently now, that’s not even certain. I think I heard someone say Headmaster Hammer was not at all pleased with how they came in and demanded their schedules. I guess their class president was supposed to be present but she was not there. Word on the street and from the horse’s mouth is that she went missing after the whole Two-Face, Scarecrow situation at The Tower.” Vogel was as connected as ever. Damian was impressed she had all that info already given it had only been a few days since everything went down. Not to mention a weekend passed, which meant some of her sources were not available to talk with, or so Damian assumed. She probably had them all on speed dial for all he knew.

Another thing he observed? All of them looked at him like he had answers. He did, but he wasn’t going to say anything, it was for Marinette’s safety after all. So he sighed like he did best, “Even if I knew something, I wouldn’t tell you.”

They nodded. “Fair.” Hardy said with a shrug, he was used to those kinds of answers. He would have to be since he had been bugging Damian since he started at Gotham Academy. 

Bourgeois had stopped walking and though he wanted to just head into the classroom, it was quite literally fifteen steps away from them and if he went ahead it would be incredibly rude to ignore whatever was bothering the girl. Alfred impressed upon him how a gentleman behaved and leaving Bourgeois in this situation was most definitely against Alfred’s teachings. As though the man himself was watching him, Damian stopped walking and barely held in his complaints. His grandpa was terrifying when he wanted to be, especially when it came to manners. Damian shuddered at the memories of Alfred’s etiquette training but managed to hide it as he turned to face Bourgeois who honestly looked close to passing out right there in the middle of the hallway. “Bustier?” She gasped.

“Chloe?” Vogel asked as she placed a hand on the other blonde’s shoulder. 

“Oh my god, they are your old class.” It was a statement rather than a question from Hardy. The Style Queen Heiress’s reaction was all the answer they needed but she did give a stiff nod. The answer was…interesting to say the least but it also put Damian on edge. If that was her old class then she must have known about Lila Rossi, granted she had been at their school for about a year now but due to the family’s research, Damian knew the Lila situation had been going on for about four years. So Bourgeois had been in that class when it was happening, Damian knew the school sounded familiar, he just couldn’t remember why. He, of course, had done his own research into Chloé Bourgeois when she had been announced as the new transfer student but admittedly he hadn’t dug too far as Dick and Alfred told him that was not the way to make friends. He couldn’t help being cautious, it was a skill he had to learn very early in the League, so anyone new that came into his life he couldn't help but be suspicious of.

Honestly, he did the bare basics of a background research on Bourgeois that the fact he was being surprised by a fact he could have found out if it weren’t for ‘manners’ and ‘courtesy’, he would have found out about Bustier’s class before the exchange program was finalized. He could have prevented so many annoyances by arguing with his father about them. Though that would have meant never meeting Dupain-Cheng… he didn’t know how to feel about that. “We can speak about this after class. The bell is about to ring and I for one would rather not be counted late while I have the ability to be on time in mere steps.” Damian announces as he walked on, he would gather whatever information he could from Bourgeois at lunch, he had time. 

_______________________

[LUNCH]

Chloé took a deep breath in to calm herself for what felt like the millionth time that day. Ever since she found out her former class was the one that won the spot for the Gotham Education Exchange she had felt like her heart was about to beat out of her chest all day. She didn’t want to face them, she wasn’t ready to face them, ever since her move to Gotham Chloé had changed and she knew it was for the better. There was no Hawkmoth in Gotham, so no reason to not feel, and well, Jean-Claude made her go to therapy and though she found it ridiculous to begin with, she had to admit it did actually help if you put the work in. It was the end of collège for her when she realized just how absolutely miserable she was. Her parents’ fighting had gotten worse, her classmates were all sheep, she knew that before but she thought they had grown some kind of backbone when Marinette started standing up for herself but then that liar joined the class and things changed. It was terrifying to see just how fast everyone turned on the person they called their ‘Everyday Ladybug’. If they turned on her that fast, what would happen to Chloé? 

What happened was nothing she hadn’t expected. Much like Dupain-Cheng she had been sent to the back, at first she had been there with Sabrina but by 4’eme* the redhead had left her. She had the mercy of not being targeted by some of the classmates “pranks” like Dupain-Cheng had been but no one spoke to her, no one acknowledged her unless they absolutely had to. Chloé had tried to get her dad to do something about it but that was when he and her mother’s fights started getting bad and they paid less attention to her. The only one who seemed to care what was happening to her was Jean-Claude, he tried to help as best he could but there was only so much he could do. She thought Mme Bustier would do something as she had always been on her side but when Chloé tried to complain she was hit with that good old infamous ‘good example’ bullshit. It was like a slap to the face. Usually hearing that would have brought a smug smile to her face because it wasn’t her getting that talk, she was the one who got her way and the others were supposed to be the ‘good examples’. 

It threw her for a fucking loop is what it did and it sent her in a deep depression. She was so used to getting her way by throwing tantrums, throwing money or just in general throwing something someone’s way, then all of a sudden she couldn’t get her way by doing what she used to do and she was lost, utterly lost. Her mother and dad kept fighting, sometimes she expected it to get physical with how close both got to one another while shouting and maybe that was the one saving grace that never happened but she never wanted to see her mother throw her heels at her dad ever again. That was as physical as it had gotten and it scared her because one of those times one of the heels almost hit her when she tried to enter the room and beg them to stop fighting. That was the last time she tried. By her last year, 3’eme, they had at least taken to fighting with each other through their assistants and poor Jean-Claude in a ridiculous imitation of Mlle Sancoeur (she never did like when Chloé called her by her first name despite the fact she has known her since Chloé was in diapers.) But when they got lawyers involved they didn’t fight over one thing, one important thing, her. 

No. She was thrown around like the shared house furniture trying to be divided, except where they argued about who kept what piece of furniture, they argued why the other should keep her. They did it with her in the room. It was then that she realized that neither of her parents’ really loved her, oh she always knew with her mother there was never any love, but when her dad didn’t fight for her? It hurt more than she cared to admit and that was the day of her final akumatization, Folk-Tail. From pictures she had seen her hair had grown down to her feet in its ponytail but it took on the likeness of a scorpion’s tail, her skin had turned gray but it looked like she had cried after just putting on mascara that was definitely not waterproof since she had black streaks starting from her eyes going down her face, she wore what she always imagined Princess Potentilla wore when she was made to live in the small house by her jealous mother and on top of her ponytail sat a crown of forget-me-nots. The tale of Princess Potentilla and Prince Narcissus had always been her favorite fairytale. It was no surprise that her akuma had been fairytale based since at that moment in time all she had wanted was for her life to be like the fairytales Jean-Claude had often read to her. She just wanted a happy ending. 

Apparently her power was to assign roles to people, roles of famous fairy tale characters or creatures that she felt they reflected. Since she herself had been a sad reflection of Potentilla, her father was of course King Cloverleaf and her mother Queen Frivola. Those she did not personally know were given basic roles like a villager or the like. She had gotten to most of her class given they were hanging out at the park that day in celebration of their last year of collège. It was no surprise that she found out Lila had been turned into the Big Bad Wolf, what did surprise her was that she had hit Dupain-Cheng and the girl had become Melinette, the helpful, powerful fairy from her favorite story. It shouldn’t have been so surprising and yet it was. It was after she had been defeated that she reflected on it all, her akuma had been surprisingly truthful with what she herself felt but was too scared to acknowledge. Her father was only interested in what had his attention like the glory of being Mayor and his true love running his hotel much like King Cloverleaf loved being King but only because it gave him the means to hunt to his full pleasure. Her mother was a vain woman who cared too much about her reputation much like Queen Frivola who thought herself the most beautiful woman and threw the most lavish balls but when she saw the beauty of her daughter, she hid her from the kingdom out of jealousy. She had no Prince Narcissus. Yet she had Marinette, determined, helpful, kind Marinette who was very much like Melinette, the fairy who raised the Prince. 

If she had hit Hawkmoth with her ‘tail’ he for sure would have been Grumedan the Evil Enchanter. It was that akumatization and everything else going on around her that made her snap. She didn’t want to be like her mother or her father. Hell, she had spent so many years trying to be like her mother in an attempt to get the woman to just get her name right! Chloé didn’t even know who she really was but she wanted to find out and she knew that wouldn’t happen in Paris. She broke down to Jean-Claude about it all, she cried for the first time in a long time, she didn’t care if she got akumatized again, she wanted to cry, she needed to cry. That was when Jean-Claude took charge, he yelled at her parents, demanded a meeting with them and the lawyers outside of Paris because he knew emotions would be high and he demanded parental rights over Chloé. In some ways it shocked her and at the same time it didn’t because he was always the one taking care of her. He wanted her. He cared for her. Chloé had zoned out after his demand because she was just so overwhelmed, someone actually wanted her; she missed the fight and following negotiations. Since her parents didn’t want to take care of her Jean-Claude would be her parent, they wouldn’t change her name since Jean-Claude fully expected her parents to still provide for her.

Oh she knew they fought that with everything they had but Jean-Claude told her after the fact that he essentially blackmailed them. If they provided for her by sending money to her and Jean-Claude after their move and if they kept her as their heir for their respective businesses until she was old enough to decide if she wanted to take over either business, then he wouldn’t go to the media with some illegal stuff he knew had gone on and absolute neglect the put their child through. They folded quickly since there was nothing more important to Audrey and André Bourgeois than their reputations. Before she knew it, after all the necessary paperwork was completed, she and Jean-Claude moved in with his sister Margot in Gotham, New Jersey. It was quite the move and it was hard to adjust but Jean-Claude was patient with her but firm, they arrived in the summer which was the perfect time for her to start therapy apparently. She thought it would be hard adjusting to Gotham and its unique brand of crime but it really wasn’t. Costumed weirdos running around causing havoc? Old news. No Miraculous Cure? Now that, that was scary and took time getting used to. 

All in all she thought she was getting better and growing. She had friends, actual friends! She liked hanging out with them, listening to them, just in general being with them, she didn’t have to fake anything around them. Sure she had a hard time with Damian but that was just because he was so standoffish and kind of reminded her of Felix which wasn’t great but she was starting to separate the two in her mind. Though both boys were fond of their families, Damian wasn’t as conniving as Felix nor as fake, he was simply blunt and in some way it was refreshing. She liked their little odd group of friends and one acquaintance who was becoming a friend and she didn’t want anything ruining it. Especially not her old class but she was still fragile and they had the power to set her back and she didn’t want that at all. But Chloé Bourgeois was not someone who bowed to anyone and she wouldn’t start now but…she would talk to Jean-Claude about it all and maybe see if her therapist would be available for more sessions or even on speed dial. 

“Chloé?” Allegra’s voice tore through the murky fog that her thoughts had become and she finally realized she had somehow made it to their table. 

“Hey. You okay Chlo?” Sebastian asked. 

“This is about your former class, is it not?” Damian asked but the way he said it made it sound like it wasn’t a question. It made her wince.

“Damian. A little more tact next time please.” Allegra said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“But he’s not wrong is he?” Claude asked next. 

Chloé looked at her friends and tried to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat, her hands clenched and unclenched around her lunch tray that she hadn’t noticed she didn’t set down and she took in another deep breath. “I am…I’m scared. I was not the best person to them as I’ve told you all before, I was a bully. But towards the end of my years with that class things changed. They changed. They didn’t speak to me. At all. Me and Mari-another classmate, we were isolated, basically banished to the back to be all but forgotten. Well…I was. Dupai-the other classmate, she wasn’t as…fortunate?”

“Fortunate?” Allan echoed.

Chloé nodded. “I would take my fate over hers any day. I was forgotten in a way, but they did bad talk me and insult me when they knew I could hear but they never acknowledged my existence. It was like I wasn’t there in the room while they were talking. But Ma-my classmate, they bullied her, worse than I ever did and I admit I bullied her for years. While I did it out of jealousy and to just get her mad or in trouble, they did it to break her. I did nothing to help. I was going through things, yes, but that’s no excuse and I don’t know how I’m going to face any of them.” 

It was quiet. Awkwardly quiet. Chloé was close to just pushing away from the table and just storming out because everything she was feeling was too much but a small yet loud ‘Hm’ stopped her and called her attention. It came from Damian who was staring at her with his calculating eyes that gave her the creeps from time to time. It was like he was trying to pull your secrets out of you with his eyes. She stared back at him as he stared at her and leaned his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers and resting his face on his hands. “So you know Lila Rossi. Tell me about her and everything she’s done to Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” 

Well that was not what Chloé expected him to say.

________________________

Chloe Bourgeois

@Bee-utifulMe

School is barely halfway over and I’m already ready to call my therapist.

#imdonewithtoday #gothamacademy #itsbarelynoon 

💞MAPS💞

@ImTheMapImTheMap

RE: Chloe Bourgeois

       @Bee-utifulMe

[School is barely halfway over and I’m already ready…]

Mood.

#Iwasnotpreparedforthatenglishtest #TTuTT 

Notes: 

*4'eme (3'eme) are the last two level of schooling in college (French schooling). College typically goes from ages 11-15, 4'eme is for those 13-14, 3'eme is 14-15.

Prince Narcissus and The Princess Potentilla is a fairy tale that you can read here if you would like context -> HERE

Next Chapter

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#a little birdy told me #a little birdy told me au #albtm #maribat #MLDC #ml x dc #ml x dc crossover #mldccrossover #ml salt fic #mldccrossover Damian Wayne | Robin #mldccrossover Chloe Bourgeois #mldccrossover quantic kids #mldccrossover mentioned Marinette #marinette dupain-cheng deserves better #adrien agreste salt #ml class salt #lila rossi salt #oh is that a protective damian I see? #is that a chloe redemption i see? #yes to both

[alien-slushie]

Hi! If it's okay, can you write a maribat Damian X Marinette with class salt, Alya salt, Adrien salt, Lila salt and Bustier salt based on this prompt please? 🙂 (I send you a link 'cause the prompt is a bit long sorry! ^^')

https://at.tumblr.com/sayuricorner/maribat-salt-prompt-adopted-sisterenigma-au/xcl9fupxbi9s

Disclaimer: I don't hate any MLB characters, salt drama is just funny, and I want to get my writing enthusiasm back. Don't like, don't read. And any hate comments that are not constructive criticism will be laughed at and then ignored so don't waste your own time.

Thank you for the prompt, this was a lot to read and comprehend, and I wanted to include as much as I could from what was provided in the prompt, but this turned out pretty messy and bad, so I am so sorry if this isn't how you imagined. Anyway, let's get into this.

Contains: Batman crossover, (Mild)Class, (Mild)Adrian, Lila, and Bustier Salt, cannon typical violence, brief mention of child abandonment, Daminette, Le Coin de Sayuri's OC as a Main Character(as the prompt asks), Not beta read, (kinda)implied past Batman x Riddler.

-----------------------

Title: The Weird Life fo Jade Dupain-Cheng

Jade Dupain-Cheng, the older daughter of Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng. In complete honesty she was adopted, though for your own safety you shouldn't bring it up as a slight towards her. Jade had come to terms with her birth, how she was found, by chance, in a Gotham dumpster as a baby by her grandma Gina and was adopted by her parents, so her adoption being brought up never really bothered her. Her parents loved her, her sister loved her, her extended family loved her, and that was enough for her. But the Dupain-Cheng family was tight knit, and proud and did not take shots fired at their family lightly, and while they didn't try to hide the adoption or anything so absurd, Jade was as much their blood and Marinette was. But no matter what the Gotham snark seemed to be ingrained into her blood.

Oh Jade was every bit as golden hearted as her sister, but she had every shred of snark and scrappy intelligence that was needed to survive the streets of Gotham. She was smart, and wordsy, she could twist and tangle anything anyone said to make them embarrass themselves. Though, she was too well raised to use it against anyone that didn't deserve it(ie, anyone who slighted herself, her sister, or her family). And though she was only born four months before Marinette(to the day, hilariously enough, born March 9th), she took her role as Marinette's big sister very seriously.

They were in separate classes, the school feeling that pairing siblings together encouraged in fighting, cheating, and/or co-dependance. It did little to curb Jade's involvement with her sister's class however. She loved her sister, truly she did, but she was a naturally hard worker on the best of days and a supreme over achiever on the worse, she just didn't know how or when to stop herself, As a result Jade had a rather bland feeling towards Marinette's class. She didn't necessarily like them, but she also didn't hate them. She did wish they showed Marinette proper appreciation from time to time but while rude, they weren't doing it from a place of malice. There was the issue with her crush on Adrian that Jade had to deal with, what with Marinette's female classmates fanning the flames into borderline obsession, but Marinette was always one to be talked down, and the harsh tongue lashing the girls got after the Beaver Incident(do NOT ask) but a swift end to that mess. And do not get her started on the Ladybug situation. Jade hated Hawkmoth /before/ she knew Ladybug was her sister, but afterwards she was determined to see him burn. Initially she was in shocked, as anyone would be, but looking back it had been pretty obvious, and after sitting in a borderline comatose state for three hours, Jade was extremely proud of her sister and for her sake, and maybe her own, never spoke a single word about knowing, not even a few weeks later when Ladybug appeared in her room.

After finding out Marinette was Ladybug everyone else sort of fell into place and she was able to connect who everyone else was, except for Chat Noir, as he had been chosen by someone else and not Marinette. Because of that, Jade was somewhat unsurprised when the spotted hero appeared at her window with a Miraculous. She knew that things were tense between Marinette and Alya, so while the fox being replaced wasn't a surprise to her, her being the replacement had been. And thus, Silver Fox was born.

And through it all she had only ever been akumatized once, after she found out about the idiot storm that had overtaken her sister's class. Marinette hadn't spoke a word to her about Lila. Oh she knew Marinette had been unfairly expelled, and while pissed she had let the matter go for Marinette's sake once the matter was cleared up, and then she was asked to go to the nurse's office to escort Marinette home. Marinette was quick to assure her that it was an accident, she had gotten into a fight with Alya and the girl had shoved her down in a moment of anger, but kept pushing and it all came out. The lies, the betrayal, the slights made towards Marinette by the people who were supposed to be her friends. Her anger and frustration had consumed her, and in her moment of weakness, she took the butterfly. Her time as an akuma had been short, she would never willingly hurt her sister, possessed by a butterfly or not, but it did happen. Using her akumafication as an excuse Jade pushed to be moved to Marinette's class, and while the teacher, Bustier especially, were hesitant, Sabine Dupain-Cheng made it happen. With her presence in class Marinette became outcast but no dared hurt or bad mouth her.

Not all was bad though, Chloe did seem to be making a turn for the better. While the would-be princess was by no means friends with them, she had sloppily apologized. She still obviously had a long way to go, but it was a start, no matter how minimal it was. Marinette's crush on Adrien also slowly dried up, and one night the girls spent carefully removing her collages off the walls before breaking into the ice cream tub.

And then the Cultural Exchange Program was announced. Jade was surprised on where they would be going. Gotham was /the/ most dangerous city in all of America, why would any teacher from anywhere agree for a class of 13-14 year olds to go there of all places, school necessity or not? According to Marinette, Ms. Bustier used it as an example and Lila had latched onto the idea, and Marinette had been out voted. Jade was even more surprised the parents agreed, Marinette and Jade were only permitted because Jade was curious about her birth city and their grandma Gina would be in the city to watch over them, even then they were given strict rules they had to follow, such as: not going out at night, no going anywhere without their safety keychains(equip with: bear mace, a mini taser, body alarm/gps, seatbelt cutter, whistle, foldable knife, and window breaker, both customized with little yarn dolls, curtesy of Marinette), and calling them every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, no matter the time difference. Though from a few whispers she gathered the other students didn't tell their parents where they were going, or outright lied because they knew they wouldn't be allowed to go.

Something told her the exchange was going to interesting.

------------------------

The Cultural Exchange Program was to las three months, and for the first month everything was fine. There was a slight language barrier, Jade and Marinette was stuck having to deal with the class 24/7, and culture shock was real, but other than that things were generally going very smoothly, they were roomed together and other than a confusing couple of times they were ambushed by rogues, only to see Jade and turn tail for some reason(?), the Americans seemed nice enough. Damian Wayne had been a right pain in the butt, but Marinette fully body flipping him to the ground in Gym class seemed to turn his whole opinion around, for them at least, as he went from pain in the butt to rude but somewhat polite.

Yes Jade laughed when he awkwardly asked her on a date. Yes Jade laughed when Marinette agreed and he turned 50 shades of red all at once. And yes Jade tore Adrien Agreste apart when he got on Marinette's case for "agreeing to date Damien just to out Lila as a liar!", followed by another ripping to shreds of Lila when she claimed, "Marinette is a no good, boyfriend stealing has been that would amount to nothing." Neither Adrien or Lila were very popular with the class after that, seemingly coming to their senses a little too late.

But everything came crashing down when she and Marinette came face to face with the Riddler. It had been like looking into a funhouse mirror, she looked so much like him, but also so different. She could map out their similarities, even the inflections in their voices were similar! The Riddler fled and Marinette guided a shocked Jade back to their dorm.

The next morning Jade contacted Poison Ivy, a rogue who had taken a liking to Marinette, and together they were able to meet with the Riddler again. With Marinette's hand gripped tightly in her own she explained the circumstances of her birth and they got a blood test drafted. It took a few heart wrenching days, but they got the results back.

Positive.

There was only a 1% chance the Ribbler, Edward Nygma, was not her father.

When Jade called their parents that night, she told them everything and was reassured that if she wanted a relationship with her father that it was okay with them, and they just hoped she'd keep them updated. Jade cried wrapped in her siters arms while on call with her parents, and later set up another meeting.

Meeting her birth father again was awkward, especially when Batman dropped by to check over the situation. Jade was unsure of the relationship between the two, but it was somehow more awkward than her own relationship with the estranged Rogue. According to Robin, who dropped by with Batman and was chatting Marinette, suspiciously enough, there used to be some serious tension between the two, and while it was still tense it was now more just awkward. But as Jade sat back and took in everything that had happened in her life, no matter how weird or crazy, she actually quite enjoyed it.

#miraculous ladybug salt prompt #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #lila salt #maribat #daminette #lila rossi salt #class salt #bustier salt #Adrian salt #chloe redemption

[angellyslion]

BioDad Bruce Wayne

Marinette est épuisée entre ses commandes, ses missions de déléguées de classe, préparer les cours de mademoiselle Bustier et ses activités parascolaires. Elle dort quelques heures par semaine.Le traitement de sa classe n'arrange pas sa situation entre les moqueries, les insultes et les coups bas. Elle ne veut plus faire d'effort pour eux. Elle a fini d'être la douce et gentille Marinette que tout le monde aime et connait. Plus de babysitting gratuit et à la dernière minute, plus de commission, plus de banderole d'encouragement et plus de pâtisserie provenant de la boulangerie de sa famille.

Marinette va finir son année scolaire. Il lui reste une dernière semaine avant qu'elle ne puisse quitter l'atmosphère toxique dans laquelle, elle est depuis deux ans.L'héroïne de Paris sera avec sa vraie famille. Elle n'aura plus besoin de cacher qui elle est.Comme à son habitude, elle est assise au fond de la classe esquissant sa tenue pour Clara pour son prochain clip vidéo.Depuis que Jagged, Clara, les Waynes, Oliver Queen et la famille Kent ont parlé de ses tenues incroyables sa notoriété est montée et elle est devenue MW. Bien entendue Lila prétendait sortir avec elle, au grand désespoir de Marinette et Chloé.

« Bonjour Mari-Bug, salut Chlo

- Bonjour Chlo ! Pourquoi es-tu de si bonne humeur en ce lundi matin ?

- Une petite surprise qui attend Lie-la.

- Qu'a tu préparé ? Cela ne me dit rien qui vaille !

- Ne t'en fais pas, tu vas adorer ce que j'ai en réserve. La fille du maire sourit d'un air malicieux.

- Étrangement Queenie, tu me fais peur !

- Tu me blesses Mari-Gold ! Je suis un petit ange !

- N...

- Bonjour tout le monde, intervient Miss Bustier coupant les deux filles dans leur conversation. J'ai besoin de votre attention quelques minutes. Nous recevons Monsieur Wayne ainsi que ses deux plus jeunes fils. Vous aurez le droit de leur poser des questions mais interdiction de filmer ou de prendre des photos.

- Si Bruce vient, c'est grâce à moi ! Vous savez qu'il me considère presque comme sa fille. Après tout je suis la meilleure amie de sa fille Martha et je sors avec son plus jeune fils Damian, ment une nouvelle fois Lila.

- Je pourrais avoir une interview Lila de comment tu les as rencontrés ? Tu pourras aussi les invités !

- Alya je pourrais t'accorder ton interview mais je ne suis pas sûre qui puisse se libérer !

- Retiens-moi Chloé, je vais la tuer ! Murmure la porteuse de la chance, n'ayant pas remarqué qu'une partie de sa famille est arrivée. Lila tu trompes MW ? La semaine dernière tu sortais avec lui ?

- Non, j'ai dit que je sortais avec MW avant qu'il ne devient célèbre. En plus j'ai aidé Batman à arrêter le Joker !

- Mademoiselle je vous prierai de ne pas mentir !

- Monsieur Wayne, je ne vous attends pas si tôt !

- Pourtant je vous ai prévenue que je passerai durant votre première heure de cours.

- Monsieur Wayne, vous êtes là pour voir Lila ?

- Qui ?

- La meilleure amie de votre fille qui est aussi la petite amie de votre fils Damian ? L'Italienne se fait toute petite.

- Désolé de vous décevoir mais la meilleure amie de ma fille est Chloé et mon fils sort avec Jon.

- Lila tu nous as menti ?

- Désolé ma maladie du mensonge a encore fait des siennes. J'ai dû aussi tout me mélanger. Avec mes problèmes de mémoire ce n'est pas facile de voir clair dans mes souvenirs.

- Ne t'excuse pas ma fille ce n'est pas grave. Ce n'est pas de ta faute.

- Mademoiselle Rossi, ce n'est pas bien de mentir, j'ai invité quelques amis pour vous poursuivre en justice pour mensonges et calomnies envers ma famille et intimidation et harcèlement envers ma fille et cela vaut pour toute la classe à l'exception de Chloé. Pour vous Mademoiselle Césaire, je vous conseillerai de supprimer votre blog !

- Quoi ? Mais pourquoi ?

- Vous avez répandu des rumeurs sur bon nombre de personnes et de plus vous n'avez pas vérifié vos sources.

- Je te dis que c'est ici ! provient une voix dans le couloir.

- Moi non ! La bleuette regarde son amie blonde d'un air perplexe reconnaissant la voix.

- Qu'as-tu fait Chlo ?

- J'ai peut-être sous-entendu que tu étais harcelée à cause d'une renarde et tout le monde a voulu aidera à se débarrasser de celle-ci. Même ta mère.

- Tu veux que tout Paris meure ?

- Non !

- J'avais raison !

- Jagged Stone et Clara Nightingale ! Vous êtes venus pour Lila ?

- Oui et c'est pour la poursuivre en justice !

- Elle a sauvé ton chaton d'un avion et tu as écrit une chanson sur elle !

- Césaire, Penny et moi sommes allergiques aux poils de chats. De plus je me demande qui laisserait une enfant sur le tarmac à moins que cela soit des incompétents. J'aurais été traité de pédophilie si j'avais composé cette chanson. De plus j'ai Fang avec moi depuis plus de vingt ans.

- Lila sur quoi tu as dit la vérité ?

- Je peux répondre à sa place, tout ce qu'elle a dit depuis le début ce sont des mensonges. Vous n'avez qu'à chercher sur internet. Déclare Marinette. La classe sort pour vérifier les faits pour remarquer que seule le lady blog apparaît.

- Marinette, je t'ai dit de prendre la grande route et de ne pas révéler les mensonges de Lila. Cela ne faisait de mal à personne !

- De mal n'a personne ? Tout le monde a raté des opportunités en or à cause de Lie-la. Alya a été radiée de toutes les écoles des journalismes et a été mise sur la liste noire. Rien que la semaine dernière, j'ai failli être akumatisée une dizaine de fois. Et à cause d'elle car j'ai essayé de les prévenir tout le monde m'a tourné le dos ! Elle m'a accusé de chose que je n'ai même pas faite ! J'ai été intimidée et harcelée par ceux que je pensais être mes amis. J'ai failli être virée car elle était jalouse ! J'en ai fini avec cette classe ! Papa, je rentre à la maison avec vous. Je ne resterai pas ici ! Chlo vient quand tu veux à la maison. Et Agrest je n'ai rien fait pour ton information c'est Chloé qui a organisé ceci et non moi. La prochaine fois avant d'accuser quelqu'un vérifie tes sources !

- Marinette tu n'as pas le droit de quitter la classe sans l'accord de tes parents. Et je suis ton professeur tu me dois le respect !

- D'une je vous respecterai quand vous serez juste, de deux j'ai arrêté d'être le bon exemple c'est à vous de le faire, de trois vous êtes virée pour votre incompétence comme Monsieur Damoclès et de quatre je ne fais plus partie de cette école. Et avant que j'oublie je suis Martha Wayne connu aussi sous le nom de MW !

Marinette quitte la classe suivie par sa famille sous les hurlements des autres.

- Merci pour l'aide, Clara j'ai fini ta robe ainsi que ta tenue pour ton clip tu veux les voir ?

- Bien sûr Mari ! L'adolescente lui tend son carnet. Elles sont super, je les adore !

- Merci Clara, je les commencerai à Gotham vu que j'aurai le temps !

Petit bonus

- Oui Chlo ?

- Suite à la bombe que tu as lâchée, madame Mendeleïev est notre nouvelle professeure. Tout le monde s'en prend à Lila et me harcèle pour avoir ton numéro de téléphone. Voyant cela madame Mendeleïev m'a permis de sortir et de retourner à l'hôtel. J'attends juste quelqu'un vienne me chercher ! Bien sûre j'ai tout filmé, je te le montrerai à l'hôtel. Bonne idée d'avoir demandé à Green Lanterne et Zatana d'ériger un mur magique pour éviter toute akumatisation à l'école, je pense que sans ça toute la classe aurait été akumatisée. Et Adrien a eu aussi le droit à des remontrances venant de la classe, il savait et n'a rien dit !

- Il a eu ce qu'il méritait !

#biodad au #bio dad bruce wayne #Bio Dad Batman #maribat #miraculous lb #Salt class #Saltclass #Redemption Chloé #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug

[trashyangelic]

₊° For what I do for prompts mainly MLB, the requirements I will accept *♦̮̑ɜ

Here are the list I will accept if I will be doing prompt requests by others.

Lila Salt

Alya Salt

Adrien Salt (it's his 'high road' advice that pissed me off)

Bustier & Damocles Salt

Akuma Class Salt (except Nathaniel, Nino, Alix, Juleka, Rose)

Chloe Redemption (but no salt I don't do it)

Marinette Deserves Better (but no salt I don't do it)

Felix Fathom Redemption

Felinette, Chlonette, Lukanette, Kagaminette, Ninonette

Feligami, Lukloe, Julerose, Chlolix

Good Tom Dupain & Sabine Cheng (but no salt I don't do it)

Gabenath

Gabriel & Nathalie Redemption (but no salt I don't do it)

Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste

Bad Teacher Caline Bustier

Anymore? Oh I forgot I can't do Maribat that I've seen so far. I haven't watch any batman series/cartoon/movies at all so no, I'm not doing it. But I can request one who does Maribat/Daminette/etc prompts stuffs.

#prompt request #announcement #miraculous ladybug #lila salt #alya salt #marinette deserves better #adrien salt #chloe redemption #bustier salt #felinette #damocles salt #akuma class salt #nino sugar #juleka sugar #rose sugar #nathaniel sugar #alix sugar #felix x marinette #felix graham de vanily redemption #no lila rossi demption

[dizzying-faust]

So now that I got polls, I wanna ask this

#c's thoughts #ml fandom salt #polls

[ao3feed-ladynoir]

We Can't Have One Normal Class Trip, Can We

We can't have one normal class trip, can we by Night ngale

The annual class trip abroad was just announced.

It was Gotham.

Why is the class going to gotham of all places!??

Words: 961, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Gen, Multi

Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Alya Césaire, Nino Lahiffe, Chloé Bourgeois, Max Kanté, Markov, Plagg, Tikki, Kwami(s), Luka Couffaine, Kagami Tsurugi, Ivan Bruel, Mylène Haprèle, Juleka Couffaine, Rose Lavillant, Sabrina Raincomprix, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon, Jagged Stone, Penny Rolling, Alfred Pennyworth, Clara Nightingale, Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Marc Anciel

Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Kwami(s), Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Ivan Bruel/Mylène Haprèle, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r

Additional Tags: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug is Called MDC, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Is a Mess, Guardian Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Badass Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Badass Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Badass Alya Césaire, Badass Nino Lahiffe, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Mentioned Gabriel Agreste, Mentioned Nathalie Sancoeur, MariBat, Akuma Class Goes to Gotham, they kick ass and take names, Batfam is confused, who are these kids, and how the fuck did they take down scarecrow

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39003957

#AO3 Feed #FanFiction #AO3 Adrien & Marinette #💚 #💖 #❤️ #Adrien #Marinette #DJWifi #Miraculous Ladybug #♦ #A:Night Ngale #Crossover

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

Following Your Arrow Might Not Be So Easy

by StormOfWolves This is 1) A saltfic, 2) A found family fic, 3) Verrryyy self indulgent. Marinette gets a gift from Jagged, kicked out of her parent's home, and finds a new family all in a short time (I kinda suck at summaries so...please give it a chance?) Words: 501, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Series: Part 1 of Self-Indulgent Fics Fandoms: Miraculous Ladybug, Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Markov (Miraculous Ladybug), Alix Kubdel, Nino Lahiffe, Kagami Tsurugi, Luka Couffaine, Marc Anciel, Max Kanté, Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Félix (Miraculous Ladybug PV), Sabrina Raincomprix, Juleka Couffaine, Lê Chiến Kim, Chloé Bourgeois, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Jason Todd, Chloé Bourgeois & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Cassandra Cain & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Stephanie Brown & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Dick Grayson, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Max Kanté, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Markov, Juleka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Alix Kubdel, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nino Lahiffe, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Lê Chiến Kim, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Sabrina Raincomprix, Marc Anciel & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Nathaniel Kurtzberg Additional Tags: Miraculous Side Effects, Protective Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Plagg is a Little Shit (Miraculous Ladybug), Supportive Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Original Akuma (Miraculous Ladybug), Lesbian Juleka Couffaine, Bisexual Chloé Bourgeois, Bisexual Kagami Tsurugi, Pansexual Luka Couffaine, Bisexual Nino Lahiffe, Sabine Cheng and Tom Dupain Bashing, Lila Rossi Bashing, Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed, Evil Lila Rossi, class salt, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, Adrien salt, Marinette owns a teashop, Dead Master Fu (Miraculous Ladybug), Guardian of the Miraculous Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Bee Chloé Bourgeois | Queen Bee, Fox Juleka Couffaine, Ladybug Kagami Tsurugi, Black Cat/Mouse Marinette, Rabbit/Snake Luka, Badass Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette can use all the miraculous, Jasonette bromance, Timari bromance, Daminette bromance, Chaotic Marinette, Supportive Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne is Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug's Biological Parent, This is a self indulgent crackfic via https://ift.tt/MfYSX9I

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the dark knight #the caped crusader #gotham #dcu #dc #ao3 #ao3feed

[aliensunflower-fics]

CHANGING FACES Chapter 6: Arrival

[ Prefer to read on Archive of Our Own? Link HERE! ]

[ Previous Chapter - Next Chapter ]

After years of dealing with each other Lila Rossi win’s when she  convinces Hawkmoth that Marinette is Ladybug. In order to throw off  suspicion and keep the Miracle Box safe Marinette and her supportive parents leave Paris and head to Gotham of all places. In this new place  away from her friends and her unhealthy routines Marinette is forced to  confront herself and change for the better. Helping her on her journey  is a surprising new friend and potential ally. When Alya missing her  friend learns about the chance to win a free trip to Gotham she  convinces the class to work hard to qualify. When her new life clashes  with her old one will Marinette be able to hold on strong to her new  confidence or will she crumble under the pressure?

( This fic will be for the most part comedic, fluffy, and sweet, with only a bit of seriousness to tie it together. With only the mildest salt  because I don’t think the class or Adrien are bad people just that they  can be naive and selfish thanks to the canon writing. I hope you enjoy  reading this work and have fun with me on this journey. )

CHAPTER 6:

Arrival

Marinette had never been so happy to be on solid ground. The plane ride had been… Turbulent to say the least not to mention long leaving Marinette to agonize and worry the entire time that maybe while she was busy up in the sky Hawkmoth would strike luckily the freak of a villain seemed busy and so the flight passed without the need to use Kaalki which was a great thing as Marinette was unsure just how precise the power of voyage was. 

As the small family of 3 disembarked from the plane with their meager belongings Marinette breathed in the fresh air with relief it was chilly and barely light out … She was tired, yes, but she was also giddy and a strange sense of freedom was filling her with every step she took. There was no Hawkmoth here, no purple butterflies no constant need to lock her own emotions into vault, no more need to lie to her parents, no more Bustier telling her to be the classes shining example, no more Lila whispering lies behind her back, no more Adrien too shoot her longing puppy dog stares as he waited for her to ‘forgive him’ when he had never bothered to apologize. 

She was free. She was safe? … Well as safe as one could be moving to a city known for its killer clowns and freaks in masks. Not that Marinette wasn’t prepared for that, her training with her own mother and the Amazon’s of Themyscira for the last few years had transformed her small unassuming body into a weapon. Not to mention the new magical training the Kwamis were giving her, Tikki especially pushed for more training once she started learning just how awful some of the villains of Gotham were and she made Marinette promise that if the Joker so much as even looked at her she would not hesitate to transform him into a cockroach. Technically it wasn’t murder so she figured Batman would be fine with it.

As they moved through the airport presenting their documentation to the necessary people Marinette’s excitement only grew with her fingers twitching with anticipation as the polite woman welcomed them to their new home and they exited the security clearance area into the wider airport. Her eyes scanned the crowd eagerly until they landed on the group of 3 men chatting amongst themselves. She let out a squeal and started running, catching the men’s attention as she flung herself at them in joy. Jason however acted fast and caught her first wrapping her into a tight brotherly hug and lifting her off the ground and away from Dick and Alfred.

“Woah there jelly bean you trying to take the old man out? Lucky I caught you huh!” 

Marinette snorted and rolled her eyes trying to squirm out of Jason’s grasp so she could hug Alfred and Dick who was looking rather put out.

“Oh please Alfred’s not frail he’s like Grandma Gina he will live forever at this rate and be healthier then all of us.” 

Tom and Sabine chuckled at the scene as they walked over with their meager bags and proceeded to hug Alfred and catch up while Dick tried to pry Marinette free from Jason in order to get his hug that Jason had so rudely stolen. Marinette meanwhile dangled from Jason’s arms with an amused and exasperated look on her face. She’d missed her ‘brothers’ greatly and was happy to see them again. There was just one thing, one tiny little thing…

“When did you freaks get so tall!”

The sudden comment had both boys stopping as they seemingly for the first time paused to take in Marinette’s appearance. Sure they had seen pictures of her and video chatted plenty of times but this was the first time in years where they had physically been around her and now that they were… 

“I think the better question here is why are you so short.” Marinette gasped in faux offense squirmed out of Jason’s grasp clutching her heart in mock betrayal. 

“How could you say such a thing… Dick is my favorite now.”

The oldest Wayne grinned and accepted his hug while sticking his tongue out at Jason who was playing the part of the dramatically betrayed. 

However now that Dick was hugging his little sister he could not help but blurt out. “God you really are short.” 

Marinette squawked indignantly at the comment. “What no! I’m normal it's you two who are the-” She gestured at them with waving arms. “Alfred! What have you been feeding them and where can I get some!” 

Alfred chuckled and opened his arms calmly to accept the warm hug of his god daughter. “I’m afraid I haven’t been feeding them anything unusual; they simply sprung up like weeds.”

Marinette huffed and puffed up her cheeks. Stupid genetics.

“Ah don’t feel too bad jelly bean Dickie here isn’t even THAT tall, just wait till you meet Kori in the flesh now that's tall.” 

As the group moved its way out of the airport Marinette recalled the measurements she’d received when designing Kori’s wedding dress, not to mention the pictures that showed the beautiful tan woman towering a full head over Dick at the altar. Maybe it was something in the water of Gotham that made people tall. Considering all the supervillains she would not doubt it.

“When will I finally get to meet Kori and Mar’i face to face anyway? I wanna hug my cute little niece already!!!”

“Why? Because she’s the only one not taller than you?” Jason snickered before letting out a surprised yelp as Marinette playfully punched him in his side with a pout. She had some surprising strength in that arm of hers.

“Later in the week, they wanted to come pick you up with us but it was so early and your parents told us your new school was giving you a week off to adjust to the new timezone before classes start.” Honestly it had been a hectic night with Mar’i refusing to sleep determined to go with Dick to the airport but eventually she fell asleep clutching Silkie and so Dick had left alone.

“What school are you going to anyway, jelly bean? Maybe I can come pick you up sometime after school for some lessons in self defense at my gym.” Mostly he wanted to see her flatten some of the men twice her size; he knew Sabine had been training Marinette since she was young and he was eager to see what his little sis was capable of.

Marinette smiled at the thought. “That sounds nice, as for my new school mom and Alfred arranged it for me, I think it's called Gotham Academy.”

Marinette missed the way Dick and Jason whipped their heads around to glare at Alfred. Gotham Academy wasn’t a bad school, in fact one could easily say the opposite: it had great staff, good facilities, and it had accepted Marinette on a full ride scholarship thanks to her high grades and many achievements. The problem was the school was also full of a bunch of rich leeches, but worst of all it had Damian. Now both older Wayne’s could admit they loved there little brother even if Jason would deny it to keep his cool reputation but Damian had a bit of a bad track record with first impressions. Not to mention the fact that the 3 Wayne’s had already discussed how best to introduce the Dupain-Chengs to the rest of the family so they could all be one bigger happier family and they had agreed to wait and while and let them settle in before dropping the bomb that was the Wayne family and more specifically BRUCE on to them but if Marinette met Damian at school and got a bad idea of him… Things would get complicated.

Alfred however unlike the younger two Wayne men was not worried. He had a feeling that Marinette and Damian were just what the other needed right now. Yes, he’d heard many things about Marinette’s situation from her parents. What she needed now was someone to bring out that bold Marinette he knew was waiting for a chance to shine. And as for his youngest grandson while he had been doing much better and had made friends he was still hostile and wary Marinette however might be just what he needed. The old man chuckled with a warm smile. 

“I think you will like Gotham Academy very much, Marinette.”

—-----------------------------------

Damian Wayne had a reputation. Since his first ever day at school at the age of 10 after he’d moved in with his father the young heir had… Problems with other students. His personality was icey and his training too deeply ingrained that school and him had not gone well. Yet his father refused to let him skip or be homeschooled, determined that with time school would help him develop his social skills. For the first few years Damian was alone he shoved people away and did only what was required waiting for the day when finally his father would see that school was beneath him and he could achieve so much more without it.

At 13 that reputation evolved. And not for the better. Damian had been so sure of his own intelligence and his own superiority that he failed to notice that viper slinking through the grass. A girl, the same age as him, unlike other girls who had failed to approach him due to the obvious attempts, Lila had been more subtle. Instead of acting interested in him she acted unfazed she even began dating Jon the only person his age Damian was close to. He’d let his guard down thinking that she was nothing but a simple sweet girl. But he had never been more wrong. 

Somehow the viper had found his weakness, somehow she knew that deep down under all his posturing he felt insecure, unloved, unwanted, and she prayed on it. She made him feel strong, she made him feel special, she made him feel wanted, she used lies to paint Jon the villain and herself the victim so that Damian would save her and fall deeper into the strange infatuation that clouded his mind. She was a snake. And worst of all he had not even discovered her lies himself; it had been sheer dumb luck overhearing her plot her schemes that had revealed the truth to him.

But by that point it was too late. The vipers poison had already spread and Damian Wayne’s reputation fell from just ‘ice king’ to ‘monster’ even after the lawsuit even after proving her lies and sending the snakes father to jail. Even after he had proven himself innocent… The reputation clung to him. It was a stain that would not wash off, even after Dick convinced him to go to therapy and his attitude improved, even after he fixed the broken relationship with his family, even after he broke out of his shell and made friends in his school, the stain was still there and every action he did and didn’t take only made it worse.

It's not that Damian wasn’t trying, because he was really. He tried to be polite and courteous; he tried to make a good impression. But somehow someway it often seemed to go wrong, though it did not help that his peers were a bunch of rich kids who tended to be overly sensitive, at least in Damian’s eyes. It did not help that Damian was self admittedly a little… Overly blunt and honest not to mention how sensitive he was about girls flirting with him, he knew he’d not fully recovered from the Vipers poison and so even now 3 years after she was gone he was on high alert constantly on the lookout for lies and manipulation. And this… alertness of his had led to again more then a few terrible first impressions. 

To put it simply, Damian was aware that whenever a new student was joining the school bets were made on how fast Damian Wayne would manage to offend them. So when the teacher announced that come next Monday a new student would be joining the class a young girl all the way from France no less a ripple of excitement went through the class as once more bets were being made. This time however Damian Wayne was determined to make them all lose. He would be polite, and courteous he would not snap, not say anything un-intentionally mean, he would be normal, he would simply ignore the new girl and all would be well.

Which is why of course his Teachers asked him to give the new girl the school tour. He was one of the few who spoke French and they were unsure how good the girl's English was so they wanted to play it safe and coincidentally all the other students who could speak French just so happened to be too busy to help the new student. Damian seethed he knew it was a lie, they just wanted to force him to interact with her for their little bets. Fine then! A Wayne is not so easily defeated. He would be a perfect gentleman, he would not offend the girl, it would be fine. He would prove to himself and everyone else that Damian Wayne might be the Ice Prince of Gotham but he was no brute. Bring it on Monday Damian Wayne was ready to meet the new girl.

( Thank you again for all the patience and support! I tend to update slowly due to well... The need to keep food on the table and my finances have been especially tight lately so I was struggling but things are getting better now so hopefully I can write more often in the near future. This first chapter was more to establish some stuff I know its a little short but it felt good to get back into this fic with something a little neater sweeter and smaller. Hopefully I have more up soon! )

[ Wanna Support Me? Donate HERE! ]

[ Wanna Read More? Masterlist HERE! ]

#daminette #maribat #my fic #Marinette deserves better #BAMF Marinette #lila salt #Changing Faces Fic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfic #miraculous fanfiction #class redemption

[aksartisticlife]

<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22273138"><strong>The Heroes’ Game</strong></a> (77365 words) by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catthhay"><strong>Catthhay</strong></a><br />Chapters: 19/?<br />Fandom: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Miraculous%20Ladybug">Miraculous Ladybug</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Batman%20-%20All%20Media%20Types">Batman - All Media Types</a><br />Rating: Not Rated<br />Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply<br />Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne<br />Characters: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Alya Césaire, Lila Rossi, you know the drill - Character, everyone is in here - Character<br />Additional Tags: Daminette, MariBat, Soulmate AU, i am out of practice tagging, So this is pretty bad but oh well, i fell down the rabbit hole, Daminette has consumed me, class salt, not anti-Adrien, Plenty Of Lila and Alya salt tho, Chloè redemption, Alix is still cool, but everyone else sucks, I like Alix okay?, The ACB Of friendship, Adrien Alix and Chloe Bourgeois, Minor Adrien/Kagami, Kagami and Luka are still cool, but they don’t show up much, Absolute Mess Marinette, Ice King Damian, They work so well though, Bamf marinette, BAMF Damian Wayne, you know Damian falls for her fighting first and looks second, Slow Burn, Well - Freeform, slow burn for a soulmate story anyway, so not super slow, more like a simmer, heh, apparently I like plot twists more than I realized.<br />Summary: <p>Soulmate AU</p><p>In a world where soulmates are real but the form that a soulbond can take is as numerous as the stars in the sky, Marinette has no physical mark on her body that might be a soul bond. No such mark has ever appeared. And after witnessing the only other person in her class without a visible soul mark— her long time crush Adrien Agreste— form a romantic soul bond right in front of her eyes... </p><p>Well. She would be a lot worse off if she hadn’t unexpectedly formed her own just a few short months later. Too bad the Universe seems to be treating this whole thing, both their secret identities and their bond, as nothing but one big game.</p><p>**edit: this story now has a tumblr at soulmate-game.tumblr.com**</p>

[comics-and-fanworks]

Miraculous Master Post

Hello! Here’s the master list of all my stuff! I have no idea if I’m doing this right so if I’m not, please let me know and I’ll try to fix it!

Miraculous College AU:

Part 1

Contains class salt, Lila salt, and Adrien salt

Miraculous Career Choice AU:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 (Jasonette child) coming soon

Contains minor class salt, Lila salt, Gabriel salt, Adrien salt, and Maribat Jasonette

Bio Mom Au 

Starfire Part 1

Starfire Part 2

Zatanna Part 1 coming soon

Contains class salt, Lila salt, Adrien salt, Minor Chloe salt, and potentially more salt to be added.

Requests: Organized by ships or other stuff

Timinette:

New Phone Who Dis?

Contains class salt, Lila salt, Adrien salt, Alya salt, Chloe redemption, and probably more I don’t remember.

Daminette:

Revenge Never Looked So Good

Contains class salt, Lila salt, Adrien salt, Alya salt, a lotta salt.

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Panthère de Nuit

Contains class salt, Lila salt, Adrien salt, Alya salt, a lotta salt. This is super long so I suggest taking an intermission, stretching your legs, and going to the bathroom around the sewing machine part. 

Edit: Fixed tagging

#ml #masterlist #miraculous ladybug #vixen-uchiha

[sayuricorner]

Maribat salt prompt: Adopted sister!Enigma AU

Warning: English is not my first language so sorry if it’s confusing.

Warning 2: This prompt content salt don’t like don’t read!

Hey everyone! ^^ I’m back with a new Maribat prompt! :D

This prompt will be about this question: What if Riddler’s daughter, Enigma, was adopted by the Dupain-Cheng when she was a baby?

UPDATE: New miraculous unification added for Jade.(From an idea proposed by Fregreg from AO3 thank you for the idea! ^^)

If you want to use this prompt you can! just credite and tag me in return please! :)

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So in this prompt, Riddler got a one night stand with a woman(how this one night stand happen is up to whoever who use this prompt) and the woman get pregnant afterward.

The woman didn’t want to keep the baby but when she found out she was a few months in the pregnancy, so once the baby, a little girl, was born, the woman abandoned her in a dumpster in a dark alleyway.

The intentions of wanting the baby not to be found and to just “disappear” was clear since usually no one in their right mind would willingly go check in a alleyway in Gotham, even if they hear a baby cry.

But the baby’s cries did attract someone’s intention, this someone being Gina Dupain. 

She was in Gotham while on a trip in the States and when she heard the baby’s cries, despite knowing it was usually not a good idea to go in a alleyway in Gotham, her guts told her that something wasn’t right and checked, which lead her to found the baby.

Gina took the baby to the hospital and contacted the authorities, the child was unharmed but unfortunately the police was unable to find the mother or any relative, so the police got no other choice but to call CPS to had the baby placed into the system.

Gina wanted to help the baby since there’s risks for her to not be adopted, especially since she’s from Gotham.When she talked about her dilemma to Tom and Sabine, who was pregnant with Marinette at the time, on the phone, the couple, being the kind hearted people they are, decided to try to adopt the little girl and with Gina’s help buy two tickets and fly to Gotham.

When they first met the baby, the Dupain-Cheng couple were charmed by how adorable the baby was and became even more determinated to adopt her.

After having take care of all the adoption procedure, Jade Dupain-Cheng was officially adopted into the Dupain-Cheng household and send to live in Paris with her new family.

Jade is raised by the Dupain-Cheng with all their love and care and became the big sister by a few months of Marinette.She turn out to be very smart and good with computer and as a teenager even became a white hat hacker know as “Enigma”.

However, this peaceful life was turned upside down with the apparition of Hawkmoth and his akumas and of the heroic duo, Ladybug and Chat Noir.

And as if the akumas weren’t enough, even more mess came in the Dupain-Cheng household in the form of Lila Rossi.With her lies, Lila put the akuma class and miss Bustier under her thumb and turned them against Marinette.

Seeing her sister this miserable really pissed off Jade ‘cause no one hurt her sister NO ONE!So with her hacking skills she search as many infos as possible about Lila, gathering all the evidence against the liar that she could find, working in the shadows and awaiting the opportunity to take her down.

An opportunity which seem to be presented the akuma class is selected for a cultural exchange at Gotham Academy in the city of Gotham, where Jade was born.But what Jade ignored is that this trip to her “hometown” will brough events which will change her life forever, not only for her and for Marinette but also for a good bunch of people, including an certain infamous riddles obsessed criminal.

Prompt details:

-Setting: Take place after season 3, season 4 didn’t happen.

-Class salt

-Bustier salt/bad teacher Bustier

-Adrien salt or Adrien sugar(it’s up to whoever use this prompt)

-Lila salt

-Chloe redemption

-Class redemption, a part having a redemption or none of them having a redemption(you choose).

-BAMF Marinette

-Maribat

-Permanent miraculous user Luka

-Permanent miraculous user Kagami

-Permanent miraculous user Jade

->Jade Dupain-Cheng’s(aka Enigma) personality: She’s a very sarcastic teenager who doesn’t like being around those she saw as “idiots”, in fact she’s the opposite of a social butterfly and only had a few friends. 

-Think of her as a mix of a sort of “Light Edward Nygma(Riddler) version” who grow up in a healthy and loving family and who was encouraged to develop her intellectual potential and by so doesn’t had the obsessive need to prove herself and to seeking validation and of a bit of Daria Morgendorffer.

-She doesn’t walk on eggshells when speaking and tend to always say what she think.

-She’s VERY protective of her loved ones, especially of her sister.

-Jade is nice, or at least civil, toward those who are nice/polite in return, toward someone who is outright rude/mean she throw every civilness through the window ‘cause in her logic “why making the efforts to be civil toward rude people?”.

-When someone try to mess with her, Jade use their logic/words/stupidity against them to make them a fool of themself and embarrassing them. 

-Ex: Chloe tried one time to bully her about the fact she was adopted and to mock her about everything about her and Jade’s response was to embarrass Chloe in a “Cyrano de Bergerac’s nose speech” style.

-Drama Queen Jade.

-Genious Jade

-Jade’s opinion about Marinette’s classmates/friends: Outside of a few she somewhat appreciate ‘cause they’re old friends of Marinette and/or because they truly act as friends(ex:Nino), she just tolerate them most of the time, though she doesn’t appreciate the fact the rest of the classmates begined to being “friends” with Marinette only when the latter stood up against Chloe when they basically ignored her existence for a long time before that.

-When Lila turned the class against Marinette the littlest of “respect” Jade had for the class vanished and she’s very frustrated to see people being “so stupid and guillible”.

-Jade’s opinion about Lila: She despite Lila, to her the liar is a “pathetic girl” with her need to lie to gain attention from others and when she begins to make Marinette’s life a living hell, Jade ends up really hating her.

-Jade’s opinion about Bustier and Damoclès: She had absolutly NO respect for them, to her they are “two of the biggest idiotic, weak simpletons that she met in her whole life”.

->Jade’s opinion about Marinette’s crush for Adrien: At first Jade didn’t minded Marinette’s crush for Adrien, to her it was a simple teen crush but when Marinette’s crush became too much, even borderline obsessive, Jade don’t waste time to enter in “big sister mode” and had talks with Marinette before she do something really stupid because of her crush, Jade even called out Alya and the girls squad times to times for encouraging this behavior and for treating Marinette’s crush as if it was their favorite ship from a tv show or something which must become canon.

-When Marinette decided after “Miracle Queen” to move on from Adrien, Jade supported her decision.

-Jade knowing that Ladybug is Marinette: She found out by chance by seeing Marinette de-transforming after a fight against an akuma and decided to act as if she didn’t know to protect Marinette.

-Hero fox Jade: She became the new fox miraculous holder after Alya lost Marinette’s trust.

-Miraculous unification fox/horse hero Jade: With Marinette's consent, Jade sometimes unify the fox and the horse miraculous to sit outside of the danger zone and make strategic attacks and when Chat or Ladybug are in danger she could use the horse to get them out and the fox to hide them while they recharge. However she doesn't use the unification often as since she's an new and inexperienced miraculous user using a miraculous unification for too long and way too often would cause her damages.

-Akumatized Jade: She end up akumatized once times before the trip to Gotham, she was akumatized ‘cause the stupidity of the class and their treatment toward Marinette, she was even injured by them, frustrated and angered her to the point it became unbearable.

-Lila getting exposed during the trip to Gotham

-Dork squad(Mad Hatter, Scarecrow and Riddler)

-Mad Hatter: the Batman the animated serie version

-Mad Hatter and Scarecrow being the first Rogues to actually meet Jade when the two formers were disguised as civils and were really shocked ‘cause Jade look a lot like Edward(Riddler) and quickly left, leaving Jade very confused.

-Riddler being at first in big denial when Mad Hatter and Scarecrow told him about a “young girl looking like him”.

-Others Rogues, who are some or less in “civil matter” with Riddler, “seeing” Jade when she and Marinette get trapped in rogues attacks and get shocked when seeing she look very much like Riddler and this just add foil to the “potential Riddler’s hidden daughter” rumors among the Rogues.

-Riddler getting a mental breakdown/crisis after he get to “meet” Jade during one of his attacks, during which she easely answer his riddles, and after one of the scientist rogues get a DNA sample from Jade when the occasion showed up and the DNA test confirmed that Jade was his daughter.

-Bruce Wayne being a good father/tutor but having issues.

-The batfam when hearing the rumors of Jade being potentially Edward Nygma’s hidden daughter, keeping a close eye on her “in case of”(Batman paranoia) and also to protect her from any potential rogue who would try to hurt her because of who her bio father is. *cough*Joker*cough*

-White hat hacker Jade aka “Enigma”: She test security systems with other white hat hackers to help many enterprises to re-enforce their security system. She even worked with Wayne Enterprise once.

-Poison Ivy putting a “no one hurt her” warning about Marinette to the other Rogues when she found out that the plants in Gotham seem to be more lively and “happy” ever since Marinette came.(ladybug miraculous effect)

-Marinette and Jade getting close with the Wayne.

-”Weird tension” between Batman and Riddler.

-Jade being in total shock when she found out who her bio father is.

-Marinette being a moral support for Jade.

-Lila trying to use the fact that Jade is born in Gotham to paint her as a bad person but this come bite her back.

-Very awkward moments between Jade and Riddler ever since both find out that they were father and daughter.

-Some of the craziest/extrovert rogues who had “good relations” with Riddler  (ex: Mad Hatter or Harley Queen) being extasic to learn that they are “uncles/aunts”.

-Marinette and Jade as Ladybug and the new hero fox getting help from the Batfam to fight Hawkmoth.

-How this prompt end is up to whoever who use it!

-Ship: Maribat ship, Batman x Riddler(just implied or becoming official at one point, you choose), for other ships you do the ship you want.

#ml salt #miraculous ladybug #maribat #ml salt prompt #crossover #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #enigma #edward nygma #BatFam #akuma class #lila rossi #caline bustier #adrien agreste #class salt #lila salt #bustier salt #caline bustier salt #Chloe redemption #adrien salt #adrien sugar #you choose #Marinette deserves better

[itsnothappening]

the story of love: epilogue | daminette

summary: a peek into the future.

ao3 | wattpad | masterlist | prompts | series masterlist

first - previous - next

Marinette beamed at her green-eyed son - his eyes were just like his father’s - as he took his first steps.

“Damian,” she called out into the apartment. “Hurry up, Elijah’s taking his first steps!”

Within seconds, her husband of five years was by her side, grinning at their son.

Elijah turned his big forest-green eyes at the two of them, as he held out his hands, trying to catch them.

Marinette smiled giddily at him, cooing as he took shaky steps towards her.

“Come on, mon cheri , you can do it!”

Elijah grinned at her toothily, attempting to walk faster now.

All of a sudden, he tripped over a stray toy and was about to fall flat on his face when strong arms caught him.

“Nice try, Eli,” Damian cradled Elijah in his arms. “Amazing for the first time.”

Marinette beamed at the almost-identical pair, snapping  a picture of them both.

Elijah gurgled happily and laughed as Damian tickled him.

Awwing, Marinette huffed slightly when her phone rang.

“Hello?” she asked, still snapping pictures of Damian and Elijah.

Chloe Bourgeois’s haughty voice was heard over the phone. Damn, Marinette hadn’t spoken to her in years. “Wayne. Turn on the news channel right now.”

Shooting an odd look at the phone, Marinette groped for the remote, switching on the TV.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Alya Cesaire yelled loudly as the police escorted her from the mental hospital.

“You can’t do this-” She was yelling furiously, struggling. “I am a reporter and have every right to-”

The captain crossed his arms and glared at the so-called reporter. “Actually, Mdm. Cesaire, we have every right to, especially after the four warnings we have issued. As of now, Alya Cesaire you are under arrest.”

Alya gaped at the man in front of her, protests momentarily stopped. “ What? But you can’t arrest me-”

She blinked owlishly as the flash of a camera was used on her. A mildly but still qualified reporter held the microphone out to her and asked questions in rapid succession. “Mdm. Cesaire, how does it feel to be-”

“That’s enough.” The captain said sternly, ordering his men to take the prisoner to the van.

Alya was still blinking as she was shoved into the van, handcuffs tightened on her wrists.

How-how did it even come to this?

In high-school, she was famous for her blog, not infamous. Millions of people followed her blog daily, Alya was on her way to become a famous reporter.

Then Lila came. And she had so many amazing stories to share, and Alya shared it for her. She didn’t understand why no one would believe her.

Lila would never lie to her… wouldn’t she ?

◇─◇──◇─◇

Nino Lahiffe sighed as Alya was dragged off by the police. To be honest, he never really understood how Alya could still believe Lila after Marinette blew up at them like that.

After that, he looked up everything she had told him - and only god knows why he hadn’t done it before. Every single thing she had told him was a lie and Nino knew he had completely and utterly destroyed his relationship with the single-most kind person in his class.

Obviously, seeing  as Marinette was going to take time to forgive him - they would never be friends after this - Nino just sent her a sincere apology through a voice message. She sent him a reply after a few months and Nino left it at that.

She was a famous designer now and Nino was making his way up the music industry, his previous progress restored.

He still kept in touch with his previous classmates, checking in every now and then with them, but he had a new group of friends now, people who had the same interests as him.

Sighing as he switched the TV off, Nino put his headphones back on and started to work again.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Mylene nudged Ivan as they sorted the books out on their table quietly.

“Look who’s on the national news.”

Ivan looked up from labelling the books and rolled his eyes at the familiar woman on the screen. “Honestly, when will she come to her senses? For god’s sake, Rossi’s checked into a mental hospital.”

Mylene shrugged, not really caring about it anymore. Although she hadn’t achieved her dreams at the scale she wanted to, it was enough and she was happy.

At least Lila didn’t take that away from them. She had torn their class to pieces - all of them were too guilty of what they did to look each other in the eyes.

The memories were too overwhelming.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Juleka scoffed as she took a sip of water, muttering under her breath, “What an idiot.”

Rose looked up, her eyes also hardening when she saw Alya on the screen. She was thrashing around, her eyes wild and unfocused. “She should get chucked in the mental hospital with Lila.”

Nodding her agreement, Juleka slipped on the outfit she was going to model into - thankfully, Lila didn’t have much of an effect on her and Rose - and kissed her wife on the cheek. “I’ll see you later?”

Rose smiled at her, the thrashing girl on the screen completely forgotten.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Marc furrowed his eyebrows as he stared at the computer screen. “Hey, Nath, love, isn’t that Alya?”

Nathaniel looked up from the sketch he was shading. “Who now?”

“Alya,” Marc repeated, “Alya Cesaire?”

Paying attention to what Marc was talking about now, Nathaniel shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t really remember her, to be honest.”

Marc rolled his eyes fondly, kissing his boyfriend on the forehead. “You have the worst memory.”

Nathaniel smiled teasingly at him. “But you still love me.”

“That I do, but sometimes, I wonder why.” Marc said fondly.

◇─◇──◇─��

Alix paused in her usual exercises when she saw the TV screen in front of her.

“Hey guys,” she said, uncertainly - her memory was terrible. “Isn’t that Alya?”

Max turned his head and pushed his glasses up his nose, holding his laptop carefully. “Yes, I believe that is her.”

Kim scoffed, chugging down a bottle of water. “What a maniac. She still hasn’t seen that Lila was lying.”

Alix rolled her eyes and nodded her agreement. How she was blinded by Lila’s lies she would never know.

Although Lila had made a dent in her skating progress, Alix still managed to fix it and push ahead and now, she was making a name for herself in the skating world.

Max was repairing his reputation as a computer programmer, the trust of his clients slowly being restored.

Kim was the one who was affected the worst out of the three of them, but he was also moving forward now. He had won some championships in swimming, and was slowly making his way to the top.

Lila had left her scars on all of them, and Alix didn’t care for Alya if she still believed her.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Adrien Agreste shook his head in amazement as Alya was dragged away by the police.

He turned to the Gorilla, his only companion from his teenage years, and asked him, “Do you think I should help her?”

The Gorilla sighed and shook his head firmly.

Leaning back, so the makeup artist could wipe his face, Adrien wondered when Alya would realize she was in the wrong.

He certainly did over the years. First he lost all of his friends. Then his miraculous - and later, Adrien would realize how much he obsessed over Ladybug. And finally, two of the three parental figures in his life.

Adrien did some serious thinking and looked for a therapist. He certainly wasn’t perfect - he never would be - but he was getting better.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Caline Bustier sighed as she mopped the floors of the school.

The teacher in the class next to hers was speaking to the students, teaching them, much like she did years ago.

After the whole Lila Rossi debacle, she was fired and spent 6 months in jail.

Her teaching career was practically incinerated after that, and in order to have a small piece of her dream, Caline worked as a cleaner in a school.

She had no other credits to her name other than her teaching diploma and after that was gone, there was no choice anyway.

Her phone rang with an alert, and Caline sighed as she saw her former student being dragged away by the police.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Lila Rossi grit her teeth in anger as the nurse came back and checked her vitals.

Screaming to be set free, her eyes glowed with hate and loathing. The nurse sighed again, mumbling something like, “Not again.”

Incensed even more, Lila banged her hands on the window separating them after she attacked the last one. “Let me out! Let me out - my friend, Alya, Alya Cesaire is there to check me out-”

“Mdm. Cesaire,” the nurse said, backing away from the insane woman. “Has been arrested for trespassing.”

Disbelievingly, Lila banged her fists again, shaking her head in refusal. “Impossible, impossible -”

The nurse turned on the TV and as Alya was dragged away, Lila Rossi howled in anger, stuck in the room she deserved to be in.

◇─◇──◇─◇

Chloe Bourgeois smirked as Cesaire was dragged off into the vehicle. She’d have to thank the nurse for letting her know what was going to happen.

#maridami #daminette #alya salt #adrien redemption #class redemption #lila salt #lila rossi bashing #lila rossi #chloe bourgeois #juleka couffaine #juleka x rose #rose lavillant #nino lahiffe #alya cesaire #kim le chien #redemption #epilogue #maribat #mlb x dc #dc x mlb