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rosesgonerogue · 4 years

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Let the Sunshine In - Chapter One

AO3

Three Years Later

Awareness came in waves. There was a constant drumming that was enough to drive someone insane, as well as someone breathing heavily. It sounded wrong, and even worse, it felt wrong. For some reason it gave him the visceral urge--no, the need to hurt, to maim, to kill.

After the sound came the pain, the feeling of needles dancing across his skin, of circulation resuming in disused limbs. Soon after came the smell of sulfur, of something rotten. Finally a toxic green light filtered into his vision, the unnatural shade looking infinitely distasteful.

What was this? Where was he? His mind felt broken, fractured--the information he needed was all there, somewhere, the pieces just didn’t fit together, and it pissed him off.

He was in some kind of disgusting, green water, and outside the water a whole host of people waited. The pounding grew faster as his eyes flicked around. A part of him swore to find whoever was responsible for the drumming and acquaint their face with a wall.

“-odd, we simply want to--”

“Who the hell are you?” The extremely rusty voice surprised him. It was his. Something about that felt important. “What happened, where am I?”

“You are Jason Todd,” a stern man said primly. “And I am R’as al Ghul, an acquaintance of your previous mentor. We are at the Lazarus Pits.”

The pounding got louder and he--Jason--clenched his fists, ready to kill someone to make the heartbeat sto--

Heartbeat. It was his heartbeat.

The heartbeat he shouldn’t have.

A rush of memories assaulted his brain; a crowbar descending, unhinged laughter, an explosion, but most of all, pain. Pain and fear.

This wasn't right. His hands sank into his hair, ready to pull it out as he stumbled backwards, unable to process everything. He was dead--or he should be. He wanted to still be dead.

The man, Ra’s, advanced, speaking calmly and slowly, like Jason was a wild animal. “If you would follow me, we can--”

Jason rushed the man with a strangled cry, bludgeoning the man with his fists, elbows, feet, fighting however he could. He heard a few distinct snaps, but he didn’t stop until the man was a bloody mess at his feet.

He still quivered with rage, his entire body feeling like it was about to explode.

“You should have left me dead,” he growled before barrelling through the mass of people that moved to surround him. His feet carried him out of the cave he had been in and out into the night that waited. After being dead, apparently even starlight was a little bright for his eyes--if it had been daylight, he might have just gone blind right then.

Something inside him dictated where his feet carried him. He felt a distinct pull to… something. It felt important, so Jason began trudging along.

**************

“I think that’s the last box, sweetie,” Sabine said, following her husband in.

“Thank you guys for helping so much, it really means a lot,” Marinette said with a smile to her parents.

Tom set the box down carefully, eyes already filled with tears. “I can’t believe my little girl has a place of her own. It seems like just yesterday I was teaching her to make macarons for the first time.”

“Oh, don’t you start crying, Tom, or I’ll start crying too,” Sabine said, swatting her husband with a sniff.

In a few short weeks Marinette would be starting her studies at the best fashion program in all of Europe. Like many of her classmates, she was staying in Paris for at least the near future. She had originally planned on staying at her parents’ house for at least the first year of the program, but the perfect opportunity presented itself, and Marinette just couldn’t say no.

Marinette’s beloved grandmother, Gina, had decided to bike around the world. This was pretty much how she spent her life anyway, but now her granddaughter was legally an adult, which meant she could grant said granddaughter some much needed freedom.

Despite how little time Gina actually spent in Paris, she was the proud owner of an adorable little house. She had already willed the house over to her fairy, but now she could tell Marinette to move in under the pretense of having her house-sit. Gina paid for the utilities still, and her only stipulation was that Marinette had to keep a room clean and ready for her, should Gina show up unexpectedly.

The thought of having her own house, free of charge, even, was mind-boggling, but at the same time it was everything Marinette hadn’t known she needed. There was the natural yearning all young adults had to try things on their own, but this solutions came with the ultimate safety net. Even more importantly, it came with the privacy that she desperately needed.

While she waited for her program to begin, Marinette had spent the majority of her time at the bakery. It was fun, being with her parents and taking care of deliveries whenever Luka had a gig. It also made keeping a secret identity secret nearly impossible. This way Marinette was still close enough to help at the bakery when she needed to, but her parents weren’t constantly barging in at inopportune moments.

As they set up, somehow her things fit in perfectly alongside Gina’s like it was meant to be. The last thing the family had to do was go grocery shopping so Marinette had something to eat other than the copious amounts of pastries her parents had forced on her.

When the deed was done, it was time for her parents to leave, even though none of them were really quite ready for that.

“You’re not used to being alone,” Sabine fussed. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend just one more night at home?”

“Or we could spend the night here with you,” Tom said hopefully.

“No, I’ll be fine,” Marinette said with a smile. “I’ll be sad, but we’ve got to start somewhere, right?”

Staring at his daughter, Tom couldn’t hold it in any longer-- he started crying. “Don’t forget to call us, sweetheart, and write too! We’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“Tom, she’s moving twelve blocks away. If she doesn’t have time to visit us, we can just pop in on her, right?”

“Right,” Marinette confirmed, eyes completely dry. “I’ll make sure to visit often.”

Finally she was able to bid farewell to her parents, closing the door to her house behind them. She milled around looking for something to do, finally settling on turning the TV on for background noise and getting to work on her latest commision.

Just as she was getting into the groove and making real progress, Marinette’s phone rang. She sighed, finishing the last little bit of handwork on that section before answering the video call.

“My little Marinetta, how are you?” Gina asked. As far as Marinette could tell, her grandmother was somewhere tropical at the moment. Where exactly was anyone’s guess.

“Good, Nona, just getting settled in!”

“Are you just sitting around at home?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, I’m working on a commission and--”

“I didn’t leave you the house to just sit around, my fairy. You need to be young and free, even if it’s only occasionally. This is your first place of your own, so go celebrate! Go out to dinner, go get ice cream, find a party to go to, I don’t care, just go do something!” Gina commanded.

“Yes, Nona,” Marinette said, knowing it was useless to resist.

“I’ll be waiting to see a picture of whatever you do,” Gina said firmly.

“Yes, Nona.”

Gina kept chatting for a while longer, but before she hung up, she reminded Marinette one more time that she needed to go celebrate somehow. Afterwards Marinette attempted to keep working on her commision, but it was fruitless knowing that her Nona expected her to go have fun.

Even though they had just bought groceries, Marinette didn’t really feel like cooking after all the day’s activities, so she decided to walk over to one of her favorite cafes. It was a ways away, but she didn’t have much else to do with her time, so she decided to simply enjoy the weather. She ate a light dinner at one of the outside tables, made sure to send a picture of it to Nona, and once she was finished, she swung by one of the nearby farmer’s markets on impulse. Yes, she had the groceries she had gotten earlier, but no grocery store could beat fresh produce like this.

The farmer’s market was closing soon, which meant that a good majority of the things that were high in demand were already sold out. There was one vendor that had one frozen chicken that she really didn’t want to take back home, so Marinette got a really good price on it.

It was nearing dusk as she made her way back to the house, but she couldn’t help but feel uneasy. There was something in the air that just felt wrong. It was kind of similar to the feeling she got from akumas, but also not. It was familiar, but twisted, corrupted inextricably. As she walked the feeling only got worse, and Marinette didn’t know if she should go find out what it was, or if she should just run away as fast as she could.

In the end, the urge to investigate won out. She was Ladybug, it was her responsibility to see to the safety of Paris as a whole. On edge from the unsettling feeling, Marinette moved through the streets discreetly and carefully.

Her instincts took her to the opening of an alleyway in a fairly quiet part of town. The feeling of wrongness was pervasive as she edged forward. It took everything in her not to gasp at what she saw.

A boy who looked about her age stood at the back of the alley was surrounded by three cloaked assailants. He could almost be mistaken for an akuma because he didn’t actually wear clothes, he was only covered by ragged bandages, almost like a mummy. The poor boy was gaunt, he looked like he was only a few steps away from death. He couldn’t be an akuma, because in all this time, Marinette had never seen one so feral.

“I have to help him,” Marinette whispered, hand tightening on the handle of the bag her chicken was in. “Tikki, spo-”

“No Marinette!” Tikki hissed waving her arms frantically. “Don’t transform. We should leave, this is dangerous.”

“What are you talking about, Tikki? That boy clearly needs help.” Marinette’s claim was only emphasized when one of the assailants drew a sword-- and actual sword being used by someone who was not akumatized.

“If you transform he’ll hurt you! We really should leave,” Tikki said, trying to pull her away. “I’ll explain at home, but we need to leave.”

Something about the boy was deeply unnerving to Marinette. His very existence felt wrong. But something about this made her think of Robin, who she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for quite some time now.

“No,” she said with steel in her voice. “I’m not abandoning someone who is scared and alone.”

“Marinette, you’ll get hurt!”

“Not if I’m lucky,” the girl said with a smile that held far too much venom.

The boy was already faltering when Marinette entered the alleyway. His eyes latched onto her for the briefest of moments, but that only caused for one of the assailants to get even closer, knife grazing the boy’s arm.

Years of being Ladybug had taught Marinette to move nearly silently, as well as where to hit to take down an opponent quickly. The first man was taken down by sheer luck--she somehow managed to hit the pressure point at the juncture of his neck despite being hooded. He fell down, immediately unconscious from her assault. The one who didn’t have a knife in hand glanced over, only to be met face first with a swinging frozen chicken.

By the time the third man turned to see her, the chicken was already swinging to knock the knife out of the man’s hand, potentially breaking some fingers as it swung. Marinette had already cracked the man across the face before the knife had clattered to the ground, leaving only her and the boy conscious in the alleyway.

He looked at her with crazed blue eyes, his pupils blown as he fixated on her. “You!” he snarled, leaping forward. “You had something to do with this!”

“No, I just wanted to help, let me--”

Before Marinette had to do anything in the way of restraining him, the strange boy staggered forward a few unsteady steps before collapsing right onto her. She hadn’t noticed the way that he towered over her before, but supporting his entire body weight helped her realize just how absurdly large this boy was. With that in mind, she should probably stop mentally referring to him as a boy.

“Marinette, this is really dangerous. He could hurt you, he already tried to!” Tikki said, once again trying to pull her away.

“Tikki, he needs my help,” Marinette said, stubbornly shouldering the boy. “I’ll keep myself safe, but I won’t leave him here!”

“You promise you’ll do everything you can to keep yourself safe?” Tikki asked, eyes baring into Marinette’s soul.

“I swear.”

“Fine,” Tikki sighed, wilting a bit. “Go ahead and transform, it will be easier and faster to carry everything that way.”

*********************

Be warned, this is just going to be me ranting about Batman lore for far too long.

Okay, so even in AUs like this that are clearly distanced from canon, I like to research and make it as close to canon as possible. For those of you that don’t know, doing research on anything related to Batman is a MESS. I’ve read “Death in the Family,” the original Batman issue where Jason dies, I’ve watched “Under the Red Hood,” just because I wanted to get a really good sense of Jason and what the whole alive again experience was like for him. I also looked into the Lazarus Pits for placement questions, and apparently there are little Lazarus pits all over the world, including in Switzerland. Switzerland is close enough to France that I just went with it.

Now for the part that REALLY kills me. I recently also watched Son of Batman, and in it, Ra’s is killed, but apparently he was too dead for the Lazarus Pits to work. However, upon looking into Jason, it is revealed that he was brought back to life after being dead for a few YEARS. I’m not even going to go into the fact that Jason’s body was complete even though he died not by crowbar, but by an explosion. I’m not touching that. Additionally, Jason was still really short and pretty scrawny from being malnourished when he died, and he somehow comes back as a beefy twenty-something year old.

TLDR; the Batman canon is a mess, so when writing fanfiction I can do what I want and it’s still canon compliant.

Let me know what you guys think!

Taglist:

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#jasonette #maribat #Let the Sunshine In #LtSI

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