#Bartadrien

[ethelphantom]

Like You Could Be Family

And I’m back with new soulmate AUs. This is my Maribat Secret Santa contribution to @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry​. I hope you like it even though it seems my brain took some liberties with the instructions. There shouldn’t be anything you specifically said you didn’t want, though. I think. So yeah. I hope you like it. (It’s Timari, by the way). There’s also a piece of art of one of the scenes that I ended up doing bc I’ve got absolutely no self-control at the end so don’t miss it!

Ao3 | Part 2 | Part 3

“Dick, are you seriously trying to model on the cheese shelf? I swear I’m going to disown you as soon as we get home— hey, miss, do you want a new embarrassing brother? You look like you could actually be family anyway.”

Marinette stared at her wrist. Of all the things she was expecting to read on her skin once she turned 18, she wasn’t— it really was not, well, whatever the hell this was.

She massaged her temples, trying to make sense of the sentence her soulmate would say to her as the first thing after today. She could not believe that she would actually have to see someone modeling on the cheese shelf in a grocery store judging by how it all sounded like.

Yeah… What if she just didn’t go on her trip to the States with Uncle Jagged like she had meant to? After all, the sentence was in English — in all likeliness, she was going to meet her soulmate there. Marinette most certainly was not ready.

Then again, fate had a funny way of making things happen anyway, so it wasn’t like she could just avoid it. Besides, she did want to meet her soulmate, so maybe she just should resign to her fate and go regardless of how much she was not waiting for it to happen.

So. Everyone got to see the first words their soulmate would say to them after their 18th birthday, and as it was, it was Marinette’s 18th birthday. She had earlier that day heard from Uncle Jagged that he was going to take her with him to the States to go around the country and to perhaps meet new people that might want to commission her or possibly sponsor her. It was very sweet of him and Marinette really did want to go with him — after all, she was finally able to travel since there was no longer a threat of akumas because Gabriel Agreste had been arrested; He could just rot in prison for all she cared because of how he had treated Adrien and for endangering the entire City of Lights for so very long — but she really was not ready to meet her soulmate, not so soon.

Especially not if this was how she was supposed to meet them instead of a peaceful, not so strange situation.

But, as all things always went with Uncle Jagged, she gave into him and told her parents she would be gone for the summer at least. Maybe longer, since if she got enough commission work or someone to sponsor her, there was a chance she’s stay. Then there was the fact she might meet her soulmate, which also meant there was a chance she’d stay with them.

Really, she just didn’t know if she would even come home after this or if she’d start a new home there, but she told her parents that too. Her maman and papa just smiled at her and embraced her, telling her that it was fine, that they would support her no matter what. She just needed to tell them where she was going to live so they could visit.

And as she had guessed (and hoped), they were there too on the day she left, stood in front of the aeroport and told her their goodbyes and shed a few tears. They wanted to wait with her for her uncle. After all, she would be travelling with him and Aunt Penny. And Fang, obviously. One must never forget Fang. Oh, yes, she couldn’t leave Adrien out either — Uncle Jagged had insister he come with them since he was her best friend, his aunt had given the go-ahead when they asked after hearing Marinette was going as well, and he really didn’t have a family outside the Graham de Vanilys and Dupain-Chengs.

Her parents hugged her and told her she would always be welcome home, as was Adrien, and that they loved her more than anything. Marinette smiled back and told them she was going to miss them. Then they — along with his aunt Amilie — made sure they hugged Adrien as well and told him he was like the son they never had (well, Amilie did not say that) and that they all loved him, too. Marinette was glad, seeing he now had a family as well.

That’s how their journey began.

Adrien was, as one might have guessed, excited about the trip. He hadn’t gotten out much in the years before this and now he was actually free from his father — no, just Gabriel; That man did not deserve the title of a father — and allowed to actually travel with his best friend and his idol. There was no Gabriel to stop him from actually living. He too had received a soulmark (“I doubt he would. So, your best friend is the soulmate of mine, huh? Wait… that’s weird, I could’ve almost sworn— It’s you??”) a year earlier, on his eighteenth birthday, and as that too was in English, there was  good chance they’d both meet their soulmates on the trip. The average age for meeting one’s soulmate tended to be between ages 10 and 23, after all.

Thank god both of them had oddly specific things on their wrists; it would make recognising their soulmates a whole lot easier.

They ended up visiting many beautiful cities (New York City, Los Angeles, Charlestown, Metropolis, Salt Lake City, St Louis and Portland) before Jagged decided he wanted to show his niece and her best friend his home city. Adrien was excited. Marinette was a little excited, but knowing Jagged, also suspicious. Penny tried her best to convince him out of it, but no. That did not help.

(If you asked Marinette, it was because she was weak when it came to Jagged being actually excited about something, and since it wasn’t messing with any actual schedules, she ended up giving in to him.)

And just like that, they were headed to Gotham.

“Listen up kiddos! I managed to contact my friend whose oldest kids I used to take to different places to have fun whenever I could, and he says he’s got room for us all! How does that sound like to you?” he asked, basically bouncing on the balls of his feet as they were on their way towards the aeroport. He had switched to French to make it easier for them to talk about it — it was a big decision to make, after all. On one hand, that person was Uncle Jagged’s friend, and to both Marinette and Adrien that meant it was unlikely they were going to run into another Gabriel Agreste. On the other hand, in reality they knew nothing about him and all those years spent as superheroes had taught them to be cautious of anything new. New could always be good, but the problem was, new could also mean a bunch of evil butterflies attacking the city, possessing people and torturing absolutely everyone in the city for years.

“Well, Chaton, it’s your call. I’m going to trust Uncle Jagged not to have chosen a serial killer to take us in—” Adrien snorted at that, “—but you’re the one who’s gone though more shittiness from rich people than I have, so yeah. I’m making this your choice. Please don’t feel pressured to say yes.”

Adrien looked thoughtful for a second before nodding. “Yes. I want this. I want to see new people that could maybe prove me wrong about what rich people are like.”

Marinette grinned. “That’s the spirit! Though, Chaton, I have to say, you are a rich person, Jagged is a rich person, Kagami is a rich person. I think you’ve got rich and not horrible people around you as well, and all of them also happen to be close with you. But yeah, I think I get what you mean.”

Adrien punched her in the shoulder lightly, grinning back at her. Marinette almost had to cover her eyes because it looked like he was brighter than the sunshine itself as he beamed.

Jagged seemed ecstatic to find out they wanted to try meeting his friend and spend time with said friend’s children. Penny rolled her eyes fondly at her husbands enthusiasm and excitement, but went along. After all, someone needed to make sure all of them got there alive.

Once they arrived at Gotham, Marinette was surprised to find the first thing they did was not going to whoever Uncle Jagged had said was his friend but to go to a grocery store.

To buy the ingredients to the favourite food of the mysterious friend was apparently the reason why. Marinette hoped the friend’s taste was better than Jagged’s, she could not handle another week of weird smelling, suspicious foods that Jagged wanted (thank heavens for Penny and the fact she had made ordering edible food an art of mastery.)

Marinette sighed, resigning to her fate. She snatched the shopping list from her uncle’s hands and dragged Adrien along before anyone could protest. “Alright, so we gotta get all of this… Could you please go find the vegetables? And actually the rice, too. I’ll text you which vegetables are needed in just a second, okay?”

Upon receiving a positive answer as Adrien nodded and walked off, Marinette went to search for the meat. It turned out to be a task more difficult than she would have liked to admit — the store was rather big and she didn’t even know where to start.

Finally she found her way to the milk products, proud of herself since usually milk products were placed somewhere near the meat. It wasn’t good enough just yet, though, so once she noticed a small group of guys goofing around (This is what it means boys will be boys, she thought, not when they don’t leave a girl alone even after she tells them no). She was just about to ask them if they knew where the meat was when she saw one of them walk to one of the shelves and lie down, propping one leg up as he posed himself to look like he was…

Modeling.

God, did Marinette wish this was not was she thought it was.

Marinette sighed and walked closer to them, watching as one of the shorter ones in the group groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Dick, are you seriously trying to model on the cheese shelf?” he asked. Marinette’s eyes widened but she walked even closer, not sure if she really had heard right. She needed to know whether she’d heard him right. “I swear, I’m going to disown you as soon as we get home—” The man turned around and looked Marinette up and down before putting a smile on his face. Then he walked to her and spoke as though what he was saying was completely normal and not weird at all. “Hey, miss, do you want a new embarrassing brother? You look like you could actually be family anyway.”

The man still lying on the shelf laughed. “You’re right about that, Timmers. Blalck hair and blue eyes, fits the picture. We gotta keep Bruce from adopting her somehow. You don’t happen to have a tragic backstory, kid?”

Marinette was still staring at them in shock, mouth hanging slightly open before she took a quick glance at her wrist. Indeed. She had heard right. Then she looked at the man who had first spoken to her and, summoning willpower and confidence she didn’t even know she had right now, spoke up. “I don’t think disowning him is even necessary to make him my brother, and it seems there’s a chance we might become family regardless of whether this Bruce adopts me or not,” she blurted out, grimacing at her strong accent. She knew she spoke better and with cleared English, but the shock of meeting her soulmate had her relapse to the accent of her natice tongue.

All of the laughter quieted down as though cut off and their smiles fell, all four of them now looking at her like they had seen a ghost. The first to recover was a guy a little taller than her with auburn hair and — were those eyes yellow? — whose smile was probably brighter than what she’d ever seen on Adrien , and well. Adrien was the literal sunshine personified. She had barely even managed to blink before he was standing in front of her, having shoved her soulmate away.

“It’s great to meet you, miss! We were wondering already when we’d get to meet you, if he’d try to hide you from us or if he’d let us meet you right away,” he said laughing and winked. “Turns out, we got to meet you at the same time as he did! I’m Bart!”

With a light tilt of her head, Marinette smiled back at him. “Marinette, it’s lovely to meet you as well.”

The man still lying on the shelf was the second to collect himself (the other two guys who weren’t her soulmate seemed to recover as soon as he got up, but both of them stayed silent). He stood up (god he was tall, she didn’t deserve this. Marinette seriously wished the rest of the family would not be as tall so she wouldn’t need to look up to be able to talk to them easily — she had enough of that with Adrien) and was in front of her with a few graceful strides. He too greeted her with a smile on his face.

“Name’s Richard, though I have to say, please do not call me that. Especially family should call me Dick. And, since you’re apparently the soulmate of Timmy here, welcome to the family. I’m his oldest big brother, and that scowling kid (“I’m not a kid, Grayson!”) over there is our little brother, Damian. There are a whole lot more of us though, but you’ll meet them later (“Not if I can help it she won’t”). Actually. You don’t happen to be free tonight, do you? We’re having dinner with the whole family for a change today, it’d be great to have you there as well.”

“You are aware Father invited his old friend and his companions to the manor today, aren’t you, Grayson?” the scowling kid — Damian, wasn’t he? — asked from behind them, arms crossed over his chest.

“Well, yes, but I strongly doubt Bruce would mind at all if we invited Timmy’s soulmate over as well. His freaking soulmate, Damian. It’s more likely that he will be happy we did so.”

“Er, I’m sorry, but my uncle wants me to be with him, his wife and my best friend today,” Marinette said, hopefully cutting off whatever argument was starting to form between the two. She was still standing in the same place, not completely sure how to act. She had never thought there would be this many people who were important in her soulmate’s life near at once. It was overwhelming — after all, it meant she had to manage to make a good first impression right away.

The last of them, the one who had yet to speak, was still staring at her, though now he no longer looked like he was shocked to see her. No, now he was scowling, glaring, looking like he was examining her. Marinette took a step away from him and closer to her soulmate unconsciously, her eyes never leaving him. Yet another thing years of fighting villains had taught her: do not let your guard down near people that looked even the slightest bit threatening — which this guy definitely look like.

She really wished she didn't need to be alone here.

“Maribug! What are you standing around for?”

Thank heavens for Adrien and his timing.

Adrien threw an arm around her shoulders and leaned forwards a little, whispering “I’m sorry it took so long to get here, my hearing and smell aren’t as good when in this form. Did they try to do anything to you?” in French.

She found it sweet that once he’d understood why flirting with her so much was not okay, he’d researched sexual harassment thoroughtly and now was quick to act and make sure she was okay if things ever looked like there was even the slightest chance someone was harassing her, just like she did with him and his fangirls (especially Lila.) Dear god did she love her best friend.

“No, there’s no problem. Thanks Chaton”, she replied, shaking her head. Adrien squeezed her lightly before he let go, now apparently having a staredown with the kind of scary guy. Marinette let out a quiet laugh before tugging him by the hand to look the other way, to her soulmate. “Adrien, I’d like you to meet my soulmate,” she said, easily switching back to English. That seemed to finally shake him — she recalled Dick calling him Timmy and Timmers, so his name was probably Tim — out of his trance. He shook his head and stretched his hand out to Adrien.

“Hi. I think I might’ve seen you before somewhere. I’m Tim, her soulmate,” he said, smiling at the two of them.

“I’m Adrien, her best friend. You better take good care of her.”

“Adrien!”

Tim just laughed. “It’s fine, I suppose mine will try to have that conversation with you later as well. I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself to you earlier either. Like said, I’m Tim Drake, it’s wonderful to meet you. I love your outfit, is it an MDC?”

Okay, wow. He recognised her outfit as an MDC — which, of course, was her own brand so it just meant she’d made her clothes herself, but it wasn’t like she had made her identity public information yet anyway. This guy was a keeper. “Ah, yes, it is! How did you know?”

Now that he had made it clear he knew who MDC was, she started examining his outfit for anything familiar — of, wait, his shirt. She’d made it as a commission as few years back. She was also pretty sure that the hoodie Bart was sporting was from her autumn line based on superheroes from last year.

Adrien shot her a knowing look and a smirk which had her want to just flip him off before he turned to look at Bart who was making his way to Adrien.

“The signature on the hem kind of revealed it,” Tim replied.

Marinette arched an eyebrow. “But it’s almost invisible. It couldn't be that easy.”

“I know how to look for details. I love MDC by the way, I have a few of her designs as well.”

“I noticed. The shirt is hers, isn’t it?”

“Yeah! I commissioned it from her a while… back…” Tim’s voice trailed off. “...how exactly did you realise it was hers? I know for a fact the signature is hidden and on the flip side, so that cannot be it.”

It seemed Adrien had been listening to their conversation instead of talking with Bart as it didn’t take him even a second to chime in. “Yeah, that’s because she made it. Oh, and I might look familiar because I tend to model most of MDC’s — Marinette’s — designs for men for her website. If you like MDC and are that familiar with her work, that’s probably were you’d know me.”

“Well, there goes that secret. Hi, I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng, better known as MDC. I’m glad to hear you like my designs.”

“Wait. Timmers, you got MDC as your soulmate? That is so unfair,” Dick said, leaning against Tim’s shoulder.

Tim didn’t even grace that with a reply. He was — once again — staring at Marinette, his mouth hanging open. It was a miracle he’d even managed to shove Dick away. Marinette just smiled sheepishly and shrugged, letting her gaze wander to the side and the suddenly very interesting floor.

The man who still had said nothing walked to them, placed a finger under Tim’s chin and closed it. “He’s just a big fan — as is a big portion of their family, apparently — couldn’t stop talking about how ‘amazing it was that MDC accepted his commission’ at all for weeks at the time. Hi, I’m Conner, also one of his best friends. You better treat him well, or…”

“Yeah, that’s enough, Kon, let’s not threaten her too much so she won’t run away. I think he’d probably like to keep her,” Dick snorted. “You can give her the shovel talk once they start dating — if they start dating, that is.”

Marinette didn’ t know what to say, so she just kept silent and smiled, instead opting to listen to Adrien talking with Bart next to her. It helped her ground a little, knowing her best friend was right there with her.

“Nah, sure I love her, but just platonically. She’s my best friend, like a sister to me, so he doesn’t need to worry about me coming in between them. Well, unless he hurts her, that is.”

In front of her, Conner stopped talking with Dick and turned to look at the two. Tim did the same. Marinette soon understood why, as well.

“I doubt he would,” Bart replied, an obvious smile echoing in his voice. “So, your best friend is the soulmate of mine, huh?” Marinette’s smile fell and she turned to look at her best friend, who seemed to recognise the far too familiar words coming out of Bart’s mouth as well. Bart was looking at his wrist, now mumbling. “Wait… that’s weird, I could’ve almost sworn—” Then his gaze snapped to Adrien. “It’s you??”

“Oh mon dieu.”

“Oh mon dieu vraiment.”

With a quick glance, it seemed that everyone was now looking at Adrien and Bart. There was a smile growing on both their faces, though it was there far faster on Bart’s definitely. Grinning, Adrien turned to Marinette.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and started speaking in rapid-fire French. Understandable, it was much easier to both of them to deal with feelings in. “I cannot believe this! We both got to meet our soulmates on this trip, almost at the same time, and in Gotham of all places! I swear this was the last place I would have expected to find them at and I am so happy about this and just look at him he’s so adorable and precious I can’t even! I have known him for all of three minutes but I already love him. Oh my god, Jagged is not going to believe this—”

“Oh my god, Uncle Jagged. And I forgot the meat. We have to hurry, we can’t let him and Penny and his friend wait for us too long. Please tell me you didn’t forget anything I asked you to find.” Thankfully, Adrien shook his head.

Of course she had forgotten something. Now, it meant that she was starting to panic. “I am so very sorry, but I forgot that I was supposed to find ingredients for my uncle and I have to go now. I’m so sorry. We’ll still be in Gotham for some time, maybe I’ll run into you later again? Bye!” And with that, she dragged Adrien with her, leaving both her and Adrien’s soulmates behind. Adrien just waved to them before running beside her.

She left them behind having completely forgotten about asking for any means to contact any of them.

This she, obviously, only realised when she was in the car with Uncle Jagged, Aunt Penny and Adrien, already on their way to Jagged’s friend.

“I cannot believe I forgot to ask for his number or anything. I had to clear my inbox a while back, too, so it’s going to take me ages to find even his email address,” she moaned and buried her face in her hands. Adrien just patted her head, trying to comfort her. Yeah, that’s right, she had dragged Adrien away from his soulmate as well. That made her even worse.

“Wait, who are you talking about, kid? Whose number did you forget to ask? A potential new client?” Jagged asked, confused about what his niece was on about.

Marinette lifted her head for a moment to answer him. There were tear streaks on her face, she realised, when the air was a little too cool at only some places on her cheeks and hands. “No, my soulmate’s. I finally met him but then I realised I was late and Adrien met his soulmate as well but I just dragged him away too and oh god I’m such a horrible friend.” Then she let her head fall into her hands again.

“You met your soulmates? In Gotham?” Jagged gasped. “I’m so happy you met them here.”

“Jagged, you do realise this is Gotham, one of the most crime-ridden cities in the world, right?”

“But Penny, I’m sure these kiddos’ soulmates aren’t bad! They are so pure, not even fate would be so cruel! Anyway, kid, you should have stayed with him or asked him to join us! There’s nothing as rock and roll as meeting your soulmate! I would have been fine with waiting for you so you could get his number.”

“His brother actually asked me to come over to his place and have a dinner with his family. I said no because I was supposed to come with you to your friend’s place.”

“You should’ve said yes, Mari! I could have told Bruce you weren’t able to come ‘cuz you met your soulmate and he would’ve been okay with it!”

“What’s done is done, Uncle Jagged. Can we forget about this now? I want to wallow in self-pity.”

Adrien just shook his head and took her hands to his. “No, and you’re not a bad friend, Buginette. I know how you get like when things start becoming hectic, but one, I’m already used to it, and two, maybe we’ll see him again. He lives here and he told you his name, didn’t he? And you told him yours? You can probably try to find him tomorrow. I’m sure you will. And, once you find him, I’ll get to mine as well because he said they were best friends. There’s really nothing to worry about, Mari.”

“You’re way too good for me. I don’t deserve you.”

“Yes you do. Now take this tissue, dry your face and we can go inside.”

Oh. They’d already arrived at the manor Jagged’s friend lived in. Marinette took the tissue Adrien handed her, wiped the tears off her face and then stepped out of the car, Adrien following right behind her. There was a man with a white streak in his otherwise black hair waiting at the door, a cigar in his hands.

“Hi Jagged. B said you were coming soon. Get in. It’s a little chaotic right now, babybird apparently met his soulmate and then lost her just about immediately, so he also invited his friends over,” the man said, drawing a breath out of his cigar. It seemed he recognised Jagged immediately, which was probably a good sign.

“Seems like we’er not the only ones with soulmate problems today,” Adrien whispered to her. Marinette just nodded. While she wasn’t one to take joy in others’ problems, she was kind of a little glad to hear that they weren’t the only ones who had to suffer with them right now.

“Well, hello Jay-lad, you’re alive again!” Jagged exclaimed as though being alive again was totally normal and squeezed the man. What the hell. When Marinette looked at Penny, hoping for some sort of an explanation for this, she just shrugged. “Great to see you’ve grown into a big boy now. These are Marinette and Adrien, my niece and her best friend. Oh, and Penny, my wife.”

“Oh give it a rest, won’t you, I wasn’t actually that small back then either. Where’s Fang?”

“Left him in my brother’s care.”

“The one that works at Arkham?”

“That one. He said he’s gonna take him with him to work today.”

“Great, let’s hope he bites Joker’s head or at least hand off. But yeah, good to see you’ve gotten yourself a family now so you don’t need to borrow me or Dick to have children anymore. Now, get in, it’s not too warm a night.” Once Adrien and Marinette got near him, he nodded as greeting. “I’m Jason, B’s second son and the kid Jagged used to borrow every now and then when he wanted to take a kid to concerts or the amusement park or somethin’.”

Adrien snorted next to Marinette who just chuckled. “Sounds like something Uncle Jagged would totally do. He basically adopted me as his niece after I designed him an atrocious pair of glasses,” Marinette laughed. “And Adrien got in because his father is an ass, and my family has joint custody of him with his aunt, which then led to Jagged wanting to take him with us as well.”

“Of course he did. Only Jagged and B would, I swear. Only them.”

They followed Jason inside (Jagged had already taken the liberty to just march in like he owned the place and announce he was back in Gotham, dragging Penny with him), marvelling at how gorgeous and beautiful everything looked. Even Adrien, who had grown up in a similar house, did, perhaps because while this manor was as big (if not far bigger) and just about as decorated as the Agreste Mansion had been, this was also warm and felt like home, like someone actually lived there instead of just… occupying the space. It was amazing.

A broad-shouldered man walked to them to welcome them in. It was probably B (Bruce? Marinette was pretty sure that was what Jagged had called him), based on how Jason greeted him, punching him lightly in the shoulder while he just ruffled Jason’s hair.

“It’s wonderful to meet the family Jagged speaks so fondly of finally. I’m Bruce Wayne. Come inside, I’d like you two to meet my children,” he said, smiling warmly at the two of them. Adrien was a little wary, but followed him anyway, never leaving Marinette’s side and his hand in hers. It wasn’t surprising and Marinette didn’t judge him for it — after all, as far as Adrien was aware, this man could be just like Gabriel (even if by all likelihood he wasn’t).

Jason snorted behind them. “He speaks of his children like there are only a handful of us instead of like, a million, like there in reality are. He’s a serial adopter, I swear. Be careful or he adopts the both of you — Blondie Locks sounds like he has a tragic backstory, and you have at the very least the blue eyes and black hair.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, somewhat ready to meet new people. But, once they actually got to the living room, they weren’t met with a bunch of unfamiliar faces, no. Instead, Marinette immediately recognised four of them, one of which was her soulmate.

How else. Fate had a funny way of doing things, making sure you couldn't avoid your soulmate.

Not that she wasn’t glad about it for this once.

Bart looked up and basically appeared next to Adrien — how fast was he anyway? — who then immediately hugged him. Well. If Bart was here and he was indeed every bit the precious sunshine he seemed to be and Adrien claimed he was, Marinette could safely leave Adrien to him. She squeezed Adrien’s hand once more before making her way towards Tim who met her halfway.

She smiled sheepishly at him. “Sorry, I kind of tend to get stuck in my head when things start to get hectic and forgot to ask you for your contact information,” she chuckled, tilting her head.

Tim just smiled at her, arching an eyebrow. “Well, we got to meet this soon anyway, so I think I can forgive you that this once.”

“Hey!”

He just laughed at her and crossed his arms over his chest. “Besides, you told me you were MDC — I would have been able to get in contact with you rather easily,” he reminded her.

Oh yeah. That too.

“It’s wonderful to meet you again, Tim. I can’t wait to get to know you better.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth, Marinette. I’m glad I got to meet you, soulmate.”

Marinette opened her arms slightly, and once Tim nodded and she got the go-ahead, she hugged him tight. Glancing at her wrist and the odd words written on it, the corners of her lips quirked upwards.

Perhaps, perhaps it wasn’t that bad to have “Dick, are you seriously trying to model on the cheese shelf? I swear I’m going to disown you as soon as we get home— hey, miss, do you want a new embarrassing brother? You look like you could actually be family anyway.” written on her body permanently.

After all, those words led her to the young man called Tim she could already tell was a wonderful person, and later on, Marinette couldn't have been happier to call him her beloved soulmate.

(click for better quality)

_____

@kris-pines04​ @thethirdwheelfriend​ @daminett4life​

[incorrect-maribat]

Adrien, dressing up in his better clothing, having just agreed to go on a date with Marinette's boyfriend's friend: I can't believe I let you talk me into this.

Marinette, having just convinced Adrien to agree to a double date with her and Tim: I literally said "I have an idea" and you just went with it without question. So much convincing you took.

[ethelphantom]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa Nieri I love it! And you created BartAdrien too!! Such a great thing to see this morning like goodness gracious!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

And here we are for the @maribat-secret-santa-2020 ! Did not expect to participate, did expect even less who my giftee was tbh... @ethelphantom this is for you! Merry Christmas, fren 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

Truth be told Constagami is not my fav, but Eth, you love it and I thought it would be the perfect gift, also bc you're the main fanart creator and it would be nice to not have fanart made by you :))) I really do hope you like it!!!!!

And since it's Constagami, I can't not tag @persephonescat :) Hi fren, thankies for walking with me through this madness :)

[ethelphantom]

Always Been The Missing Piece

This is, uh, a sequel to the Maribat Secret Santa thing I wrote for @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry because Ailelie over at Ao3 gave me a good idea in the comments for an identity reveal fic because obviously they don't know the other isn't a civilian. So. Uh. I am planning at least one more sequel after this because I was given a perfect idea for BartAdrien identity reveal on the Maribat discord server and I need to write that too. Just, don't expect it to turn as long as either of these. And seriously, you really should read this only after Like You Could Be Family, because I seriously doubt this will make much sense without, but it's not like I will be able to actually stop you so....

(Also how the hell did I get to 13k? This has got to be the longest one-shot I've ever written please help me I have a problem)

Ao3 || First part | Third part

This is Maribat -- Don’t like; don’t read.

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“I don’t think disowning him is even necessary to make him my brother, and it seems there’s a chance we might become family regardless of whether this Bruce adopts me or not.”

Tim stared at the words written permanently on his wrist, rubbing the skin as though to see if they would smudge and leave. They did not. He had never truly thought of even getting a soulmate when he was young.

(Well, obviously he’d thought about it, rather often too. It was just that he always thought he wasn’t going to get one — either because his parents didn’t have one and he would surely be just like them, and then later, once he became Robin and later Red Robin, he thought that even if it wasn’t going to be because of his parents, then he wouldn’t get a soulmate because he wasn’t going to make it alive to 18.)

But, as all things that had anything to do with Fate always did, it didn’t go as he thought. After all, Fate was never quite so simple.

As it turned out, he made it to 18 and got a soulmark.

There was someone in the world Fate thought was the perfect match for him.

Then he for the longest time believed he would meet them while he was in the vigilante business because if his soulmate was a civilian, what would he even do? There was always a high chance of death because of what he did on a nightly basis, and it was certain he would have to disappear on multiple nights and occasions just to be Red Robin — no way he was going to give that up. That meant, that if he had a civilian romantic soulmate, they might accuse him of cheating, and then his life could be ruined because he was the damn CEO of Waye Enterprises and thus in the public eye all of the time. The words written on his wristed also sounded both like they could be romantic or platonic soulmates, since usually soulmates considered one another family of some sorts automatically — it didn’t necessarily mean his soulmate was speaking about one of his brothers becoming their brother-in-law. They all knew there was a chance Bruce would adopt his soulmate one day (no matter what they said about that being unnecessary.)

Then he actually met his soulmate.

He met Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

A sweet young woman almost his age, perhaps around a year younger than him (turns out he was right when she told him of herself later before he managed to go and search her up), with black hair the shade of midnight sky, her eyes blue as Morning Glories. She was kind, thoughtful, great at baking (she could so some pastries better than Alfred could, and that said a lot about her skills), and she shared Tim’s love of coffee (Dick had been horrified when he found her pouring energy drinks into extra strong black coffee after the first night she spent at the manor).

She was also MDC, Tim’s all-time favourite designer, and it was suddenly much easier to commission her when she could just show him the designs in person and talk about them — why she wanted this thing here and that thing somewhere else. Tim was also much more eager to pay her a whole lot more than what she ever asked for, even if that was partly because Marinette was trying her hardest to lower her prices for him.

Yeah no, that didn’t work with him at all — she was fantastic at what she did and he’d be damned if he let her do the work underpaid.

She never pushed his boundaries too far, only enough to have him open up a little, but because she never made him feel uncomfortable or like she was trying to use him, it was fine; He was horrible at opening up himself and wouldn’t have done it without her. It was clear she knew what was alright and what was not — most of the time anyway. And even when she did push his boundaries too far, it was because she tried to show her appreciation to him or got too excited, and when he or someone else pointed it out to her (because she was bad at noticing it herself), she immediately stopped doing the thing and apologised over and over because she never meant to violate his boundaries.

And then she made sure to never overstep it again unless he gave her the explicit permission to do so.

That told him more about her than many other things did or even could.

She was also intelligent, sassy and sarcastic when she wanted to be, had a strong sense of justice and he knew for a fact she knew how to fight and well. She’d mentioned having done martial arts for quite some time and because she made a complaint about having nearly no opponents on her level, Jason asked her if she wanted to try and spar with him. She agreed and won two out of three matches, and though there was a chance he was just holding back (unlikely, considering how much Jason had talked about it on patrol that night), Damian had challenged her after that and they came to a tie. Twice. Damian then won the last round, probably when he finally stopped underestimating her and holding back. There was no way she wasn’t good.

Marinette always tried to help people in need if she could and wouldn’t take no for an answer when she decided that a person beaten to a bloody pulp was in no condition to walk home, especially not alone. If she had to pay for the taxi to get them home, well, she did, never expecting anyone to pay back.

She was absolutely perfect, if you asked Tim.

The problem was, she was a civilian regardless of how well she fought or how intelligent she was. He could never risk her safety by being in a close relationship with her in case someone found out his identity and decided to use her against him. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened in vigilante business. It had given him enough of a heart attack to be with her while in civvies and get caught by the Riddler because of course he had to be there and there was nothing Tim could do to help her himself — the small and young CEO was not supposed to be able to punch a guy’s teeth in.

And then she’d gone and insulted his fashion taste. Tim agreed, definitely, that green and purple three-piece suit was atrocious, but it was a horrible idea if you were a civilian because the Riddler was extremely sensitive about his fashion choices and a villain and he had hardly any rules as to what he did and to whom, unlike some of the Rogues. Marinette didn’t even have any protective gear against him.

So yeah.

An almost-heart attack.

Turns out, she solved all of his riddles rather quickly, some of them with Tim once the Riddler noticed him, and in the end they all got out safely and unharmed.

At least half of the credit of that definitely went to Marinette.

The best course of action would either be to tell her, or cut ties with her, make her hate him or anything that got her out of the danger zone that came with being in a close relationship with him.

The second option was definitely not what he wanted.

And that was what led him to here, sitting at the table in the apartment he used (especially) when he needed an escape from his dear but way too invasive family with Kon and Bart.

“It’s just, I don’t know what to do! I like her, I really do, but I can hardly pursue a relationship with a civilian. I might endanger her life! We’ve seen that happen with enough many of us. Someone figures out our identity, kidnaps a loved one and puts them at risk. Or sees us too close to a civilian while in the suit and decides they’ll put the loved one at risk anyway. I can’t risk my soulmate’s life for something like that, she doesn’t deserve it,” Tim exclaimed, groaning as his head hit the table. Thank heavens Bart had pulled the plate from under him just in time before his forehead would have ended up in his food.

(Though it was likely he was going to lose half of his food to Bart as well, it was likely he was going to eat Tim’s food while Tim wasn’t there to protect it. Asshole friends and all that.)

Sure, Kon and Bart would have probably had fun watching him ruin his looks (and hair, especially his hair) because of the tomato sauce and spaghetti he somehow had not managed to burn, but maybe they were pitying him enough for his soulmate problems to not just let it  happen for this one time. That, and he’d gotten injured in their latest fight and he would not honestly be surprised if they blamed themselves for it at least a little — that was what Tim kept doing if any of his teammates got injured when he was there and even theoretically could have helped.

“Tell her?” Bart suggested, shrugging as he filled his mouth with the spaghetti. From Tim’s plate. Oh well. Telling him to stop would probably not really help and it’s not like Tim couldn’t just steal Kon’s food later. Bart continued speaking as soon as his mouth was empty. “I don’t see why not. If she’s as amazing as you make her out to be, I can’t see a reason why you shouldn’t tell her. I’m gonna tell Adrien, by the way.”

“Do you have any idea when you’re going to do it?”

“Nope, but not yet ‘cause I don’t think it’s fair or appropriate since Paris just declared their heroes dead ‘cause they haven’t made any appearances — but that’s not to say they don’t know where the bodies are, perhaps they’re just protecting them? — in quite the while, but I will soon enough. Wouldn’t be fair to him to keep it a secret, right?” he chuckled and chewed on his (Tim’s) food.

Oh yeah. Paris’ heroes, the ones that were apparently dead. The heroes they had thought didn’t actually exist and were just a make-believe story to entertain people until Paris held a public memorial for them because they were nowhere to be found and told the people they just hadn’t found their corpses, but maybe that was just to protect their identities. The reminder they hadn’t helped them with their villain felt like a punch in the gut to Tim now, even if he hadn’t been the one to make the decision to not help.

He shook the thoughts away. This was not the time for blaming himself or anyone else for it, he could very well do that later.

“Kon?”

“I agree with Bart. If you think she’s good for you, I think it’s better if you just told her. It’s not like you would want to just cut ties with her to protect her and hurt the both of you at the process. It would definitely be like you, but I know you don’t want to do that to the one person meant for you.”

Tim sighed and stole his plate back. It was significantly emptier than it had been two minutes ago. Damn Bart. As a last-ditch effort, he stole Kon’s plate and scooped some of his food to his own plate, ignoring the rather offended look on Kon’s face. His fault, he hadn’t protected Tim’s food from Bart. Besides, Tim needed to eat something proper, after all. It might have been a little too long since the last time he ate more than an energy bar… so probably around three days since.

No wonder he was the smallest of them.

Munching on his food, he sunk back into his thoughts while Bart and Kon chatted animatedly, the few words he picked up indicating the conversation was about soulmates and Adrien in particular.

It had been a few weeks since he and Bart met their soulmates, but both of them were definitely interested in them — likely romantically, but only time would tell for sure. Marinette was amazing and sweet and Adrien must have been the only one as much of a sunshine child as Bart was, though according to Marinette, he could be a little shit when he felt like it. Then Bart and Kon had overheard Marinette discussing Adrien’s father with someone and turns out, Bart was ready to run to Paris and kick the man’s ass himself, regardless of whether he was in prison for being a supervillain and terrorising the city for years or not. Not that Tim would have stopped him. After all, Stephanie too had decided to ruin his father’s plans when it turned out he’d become a villain.

...That was something Adrien could probably bond over with Stephanie at some point. Maybe they’d found the “my dad’s a supervillain and I had nothing to do with it” club.

(“The list of bad dads just grows and grows,” Tim swore he’d heard Bart say afterwards with a suspicious grin on his face. Tim wouldn’t disagree with him though, he could name quite the number of them himself as well, one of them being his very own father.)

Then Marinette had heard Bart declare war on Gabriel Agreste and immediately told him she was joining — according to her, he didn’t have a choice in the matter because she really wanted to kick his ass again.

(Again? When had she managed to do it in the first place?)

So yeah. Having a civilian soulmate was difficult.

Then again… What if he made her a vigilante? She did possess all of the necessary qualities and even more to become a good vigilante that he could think of. Perhaps he should ask her if she’d like to do that. After all, she was now family, both Bruce and Dick had declared so (rather clearly and Dick loudly), accompanied by Alfred’s nods, Jason’s approving humming (and the way he started treating her better than he did most of the family), Cass’ silent approval visible in her smile as she looked at Marinette, and a little reluctant Damian as well.

It wouldn’t matter she didn’t have any superpowers like some people did — none of the family did, and they were all great at what they did, even if Gotham was nearly impossible to save at this point anymore. She was already good at martial arts, knew how to take care of herself (if it didn’t mean her inability to eat when she was supposed to or her reluctance to go to sleep (nightmares, perhaps?), but she knew how to defend herself and others.) She would make a good vigilante, especially with some special and personalised training. Now he only needed it approved by the rest of the family because she could and would put two and two together and realise all of them were involved with the vigilante business if he came clean to her as one.

Actually, that sounded like a good idea.

Then his phone chimed on the coffee table in the living room and he all but ran there, injuries be damned.

“Hey, careful there, you wouldn’t want us to tell Alfred you need new stitches,” Kon called after him before turning to Bart. “How much do you want to bet that was Marinette messaging him right there?”

“Nope, not betting anything when we both know full well it was Mari. There’s no one else he’d practically dive out of the table for and leave his food unguarded with us. Speaking of...”

“Bart! Do not even think about eating my food while I’m gone! It better be still there untouched when I come back, or so help me god I will kick your ass back to the next millennium!”

Bart just snickered.

God, why was he even friends with Bart?

Oh yeah, because he didn’t know how to live on without him (or Kon) anymore anyway.

⬷۵⤐

Marinette paced around her room in the Manor, panic clearly showing on her face. Adrien sat on the bed placed near the wall, leaning to it, seemingly unconcerned. He was mostly waiting for Marinette to calm down enough to stay still and just listen for a second in between her freak outs.

Thank kwamii for the fact they had gotten Wayzz to secure the room and create a shell in which they could talk without needing to worry whether someone heard them or not. No one would. They were safe.

...They also wouldn’t disturb anyone with it since it was way past midnight already.

“But this ruins everything!” Marinette exclaimed, finally standing in one place long enough for Adrien to decide paying attention to her would be worth it. Or, could be worth it.

Adrien rested his chin on his palm, tilting his head. “Now, Buginette, I love you and all,  but this is getting ridiculous, utterly ridiculous (“Don’t you dare sound like Chloé right now, Adrien!”) Are you sure you need to panic about all this? As far as I see it, you could just, I don’t know, tell him. Gabriel isn’t a threat anymore, and even if he was, we aren’t in Paris,” he said, and plopped down on the bed, propping one leg on his knee. Plagg seated himself on Adrien’s head, ready to take a nap, while Tikki had nestled on Marinette’s shoulder. It was amazing how she was so used to Marinette freaking out that she could just stay calm on even a pacing Marinette.

“I know I could tell him because Gabriel is behind bars, and I should tell Tim because otherwise it won’t be fair to him and I like him, probably romantically soon, and I can’t let myself pursue a romantic relationship with anyone that doesn’t know because it’s too much to keep a secret, but I have no idea how to! What if I scare him off because right now it looks like the both of us are staying here in Gotham — or at least the States — and knowing the two of us, we won’t be able to just quit hero work either! Speaking of which, we have to design ourselves new suits because Paris just declared us dead like a week ago. Not Marinette and Adrien, obviously, but Chat Noir and Ladybug. Understandable, we just disappeared after the fight with Papillon and there’s no way anyone would believe him if he said he didn’t hurt us so why would they believe he didn’t also kill us and—”

“Nette, please, try to breathe and calm down. It’s not that serious of a situation,” Adrien tried but Marinette had resumed pacing around and it was clear as day she was freaking out. It was also clear she wasn’t listening to a word he said anymore, and barely even paid attention to the fact she wasn’t, in fact, alone in the room in general. He sighed and stood up, grabbing his best friend by the shoulders. Plagg shrieked before he shut his mouth because of his holder’s sudden movement.

Now that had her stop and concentrate her attention on him again.

“I know it’s difficult for you to reveal your identity to anyone, including me even long after I realised my behaviour was a big no-no and apologised to you, and that’s fine. It just means you’re being responsible. But. This is your soulmate we’re talking about. There are so many reasons why you should tell him and you know that if you don’t, whatever relationship you might end up in with Tim might go horribly wrong if all the while you’re keeping a secret such as this from him.” Adrien took a deep breath and looked Marinette directly in the eyes. “I am well aware you like him like, a lot, so there’s no way you’d want to risk losing him in either way — by putting him in danger or by having him tell he can’t take you disappearing on him all the time anymore.”

Damnit. Adrien was right. Marinette hated it when Adrien was right. Mostly, because usually when Adrien was right and even she had to admit it because it was so obvious, it meant that the kwamii also agreed with him. And well. When Tikki, the literal miniature goddess of creation, said something should be done, her word was final. She had no way out of this, now did she?

“Nope!” said Tikki from next to her ear.

Oh. She’d said that out loud. For crying out loud.

But yeah, she truly did like Tim, a lot. He was smart, could banter with her rather easily without ever making her uncomfortable by doing so, was never put off by sarcasm (which was, unfortunately, quite rare nowadays and that meant she found it rather refreshing), and he was kind. Also, he had a huge sweet-tooth and mostly a good taste which meant she could freely bake a lot and Tim would likely enjoy any and all of it. She could use him to test new recipes, too.

She also liked his appearance — a lot. His looks were definitely nothing to scoff at. His hair was black and silky, and his eyes were so enchantingly blue (as were many of his brothers’ and Conner’s, if she was being honest, but his were her favourites) and she couldn't help but just drown in them. He genuinely liked her designs (he says he loves them, her mind not so helpfully reminded her, because that made it even better and even harder to let go of him if the need be), he wasn’t pretending to do so because they were soulmates. Tim also had such great ideas for new clothing sometimes — he had been a massive help with the design for her latest dress that she was planning on making for the up-coming Wayne Gala where he (and the rest of the family) had invited her.

Yeah, and Tim knew how to paint nails a little too well. Marinette was certainly going to use that little fact to her advantage and have him do her nails at some point.

Marinette also truly enjoyed spending time with his family and him. All of them respected her at least on some level (gave her the basic respect Jagged had taught everyone was supposed to give her automatically unless she actually did something to warrant them to lose said respect) and didn't try to have her bake or design clothes for them or have her do their chores they were supposed to do because they wanted a little more time to themselves — especially not for free. Never for free. And, even if they did ask her to do something for them (usually it was Jay or Dick doing so), they never failed to remind her she could say no and that depending on what they asked her to do they’d compensate it to her as soon as possible in whatever form she wanted — whether that be money or new fabric or favours or them helping her the next time she baked something.

They didn’t take her for granted, and that was freeing.

She was genuinely happy to spend time with them. Their presence, especially Tim’s, was comforting to her, with him it was safe for her to just be herself.

Yeah, she was too far gone for one Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne and definitely did not want to lose him. She could only hope she was someone Tim could be himself with as well.

Honestly, her biggest problem with all and any of this was that Tim was a civilian and in case someone found out he was close to her, it would be no good for him to know. If the threat was magical, there was no way he could fight it off even if he was anything like his brothers when it came to fighting (she just didn’t know, but she did suspect he was). She herself could get out of problematic situations rather easily, but there was no telling just how bad situation could get until Tim would no longer have any way to get away. She figured he had to have at least some kind of basic training because so many in his family seemed to know martial arts, he lived in Gotham and was a CEO, but she had no idea to what extent he could protect himself.

And indeed, because the miraculous considered her an adult now and she no longer had a time limit after she used her special ability (whatever it was depending on the miraculous), it meant there was no way she would even consider stopping. Of course, she still tried not to push too far after she did use that ability as to not exhaust the kwami she was using too much and she’d made it her point to wear multiple miraculouses at once at all times so even if she had to detransform to let one kwami rest, she wouldn’t need to stop fighting right away or wait until they recharged.

In a city like Gotham where she could be needed, this all meant she could not stop being a hero. (Though, she knew that Batman wasn’t known for being too fond of magic users, or metas, whatever it was they called them, so she would need to have him somehow accept her presence or prepare to fight him and perhaps also all of his team that seemed to actually be his family — especially Robin seemed to still be a little child, younger than her when she received her miraculous.) Not since they had seemed to decide they were going nowhere from there, most of all not Paris.  

They were never going to return, they really didn’t want to do so, what with the entire city being full of traumatic memories to them. Maybe they’d visit Kagami and Luka and her parents, maybe his aunt and cousin, but otherwise, no. Besides, their soulmates were both here, they had hardly any people they had good relationships with in Paris anymore because they’d both eventually stood up to their class, Gabriel was in prison — which, in turn, meant that the majority of Paris blamed Papillon’s actions on Adrien at least on some level. It didn’t matter to them that he had said that no, he had nothing to do with his father’s actions, and that his father actually abused him and he was glad to be finally free from him.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have a list of excuses to stay.

(Marinette wasn’t going to admit it any time soon, but she had an actual list of the excuses to stay written down in case someone asked her and her brain wouldn’t agree on cooperating at that time. It was also partly in case she ended up mentioning there were many, many, many reasons for them to stay and someone asked for a list; This way she could literally provide them with one. It was both on multiple papers and notebooks and on her phone — after all, back-up copies were very useful.)

Yet another reason as to why she should tell Tim — even though her Miraculous Cure healed and restored almost anything, it had mostly stopped working on her as it drew its energy from both her and Tikki, and now she was full of scars. Sure, it mostly healed the biggest injuries so she was rarely limping or bleeding long, and they never became devastating, but well. It still wasn’t any good that she had to keep covering some of the scars behind layers of makeup or hide them under clothing. Thank kwami Adrien had yet to report the same was happening to him.

There was no way Tim wouldn’t discover the scars’ existence at some point, regardless of whether their soulbond was romantic or platonic (although she certainly hoped it was romantic), so it would be far better to just come clean about it before he eventually found out about them on his own anyway.

So yeah.

She also had a long list of very good reasons to tell Tim.

The problem here was, she had no idea how.

She could hardly just walk up to him and blurt out she was Ladybug when it had just been announced that Ladybug (and Chat Noir at that, but it was up to Adrien to decide whether he wanted to tell his identity to anyone aside from Bart — he likely wanted to tell him) were dead, she would have to come up with a better plan to that. A lot better plan.

But perhaps… perhaps if she presented him with a miraculous and asked him to fight alongside her and Adrien… Maybe Bart could be there as well if Adrien considered it a good idea?

“Hey, Adrien, what do you think? Would Tim be a good miraculous user? And how about Bart?” she asked. Fiddling with the mouse necklace she was wearing, Marinette turned to look at Adrien who had, at some point, left from her side. Mullo was sleeping somewhere inside her hood.  “They both seem like people that would like to help others if they could — I mean, Tim already tries as a CEO and I simply don’t know Bart that well yet — but I don’t know. I want to hear your opinion on this as well because even if I am now the guardian and could technically just do whatever the hell I wanted, you’re still my partner in crime… fighting, and since some of my previous choices weren’t too good…”

Yeah, she did mean Alya and Nino. Also others, but those she’d trusted the most, so…

“Are you seriously asking me if I’d like to have both our soulmates by our side if— no, when we are fighting possibly magic-based crime in Gotham or elsewhere in the States?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. She nodded slowly. Adrien arched an eyebrow as he looked at her like she had made the stupidest question he had ever heard in his life before. “Duh, obviously, of course I want them there. Bart would be good. He’s so fast already — no, seriously, I swear, he’s quicker at doing things than Plagg is at eating camembert —, he’s a quick thinker and okay, he’s a little impulsive, but most of the time his ideas haven’t been that horrible, so a miraculous could probably enhance all of it in a good way.”

“And Tim’s got a good sense of justice and he’s one of the smartest people I’ve met. He’d be great at any strategic positions and— you know, I think he could work either the snake or the dragon miraculous really well.”

Adrien nodded enthusiastically. “Now you’re talking my language. Mayhaps the fox miraculous would be good for Bart, he’d get to be creative and I’m sure if he got up to any mischief, Trixx would only be more than happy to help. Or maybe the horse— actually, no, forget about that, I don’t think that’s a good idea because he might get the idea to send us all to anywhere in the world because it seemed like a good idea to him for all of two seconds and that’s the one thing that would make everything really problematic.” Adrien sunk into his thought for a moment, tapping his nose with his finger absent-mindedly as he tried to think of something else. Then his eyes brightened as he came up with an idea.

“Oh, the turtle! He’s quick so it wouldn’t take him long to protect those in need of it, and maybe in some moments when he’s too impulsive, Wayzz could be there as a voice of reason and common sense in his head. I don’t actually mind his impulsiveness at all but sometimes all of us could use a Wayzz to help us slow down a little.”

Wayzz himself looked torn between agreeing, and strongly disagreeing and escaping before Adrien could convince Marinette to give him to Bart.

“I’m seriously considering this now. I have no idea how to give them one, though. It isn’t as simple as it would have been in Papillon’s Paris — we don’t have a Miraculous threat here and no one knows us. I mean, they’ve probably heard of the deceased Ladybug and Chat Noir, but not the ones we’re going to become. We can hardly just swing up to them and be like “hey have you ever wanted to be a hero? Well, here’s a miraculous that will transform you into a magical superhero with the help of jewellery and a god like in some anime—” God damn it Adrien, now I consider transforming into LB the same kind of thing as your anime’s girls with objects to make them magically transform.”

“They’re magical girls, actually. And well, I have to say, we kind of are magical girls, you know. Magical transformation, magic, magic provided superpowers, magical healing, double lives, way too obvious costumes for anyone to not figure out our identity yet none of them do it anyway… Oh, and we have specific words to transform us along with magical accessories or jewellery and we have a literal transformation choreography! Clearly magical girls!”

“Magical girls, then, whatever. Never compare us to them again.”

Adrien just snickered.

“Ugh, shut up, will you?”

“Of course. But yeah, you’re right, we can’t just appear behind their windows and give them a miraculous. That would be just stupid and irresponsible, now wouldn’t it?”

“Why do you sound so sarcastic?”

“That might be because I kind of am.”

“Go away.”

She had no idea how she could still stand Adrien. Why was he her best friend again?

Oh yeah.

Because he was the one who had stood right there by her side through thick and thin.

That’s why.

⬷۵⤐

“So. Let me get this straight—”

“In this family?”

“Shut up, Jaybird. So, what you’re saying is, you want to reveal us all to your girlfriend because you don’t want to keep secrets this big from her?”

Tim sighed and ran a hand down his face, exasperated. Hadn’t he just explained this? “No, Dick, first of all, she’s not my girlfriend — at least yet. What I’m asking is if it’s okay to everyone I tell her I’m Red Robin and get her to start training so she can become a vigilante as well. She’d be good at it. I don’t want to keep my identity from her in case we do start dating because then what if she thinks I’m cheating on her or up to some other not-good stuff when I keep sneaking out in the middle of the night and can’t even tell her what for.”

“And why do you want her to be a vigilante? You know it’s dangerous.”

“Then why is any of us doing it? It would anyway be her choice. Besides, if she was fighting beside me, she wouldn’t even need to worry about me that much because she could technically probably see me and not have to stay at home, you know? I know I can see there’s something in her that reminds me a lot of most of us, the need to fight for justice and for those in need of help because no one else does either. I can see the crave to fight in her.”

Dick sighed and tilted his head, his expression hard as steel. “You really thought this through, didn’t you?”

“Obviously. And as to why I’m asking you is because she’s actually smart and would definitely put two and two together when I tell her I’m Red Robin; The likeliness of Robin, Red Robin, Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood — yes, Jason, you too, have you seen the giant red bat on your chest you insist on wearing even though you claim to detest us half the time because we all can see it —, Black Bat, the Signal and the rest of us being close with each other, if not family, is quite high. Basically, she would most likely connect you all to the vigilantes running around.”

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and shot him the Batdad-Look™, and if he hadn’t been so determined to get them to agree, it would have probably made him a… little too nervous to keep on talking. Alas, it wasn’t going to make him stop because he really, really wanted Marinette to fight beside him and if it meant he needed to bear with Bruce’s Batdad-Looks™, then so be it. He was not about to go down without first putting up a fight.

Tim couldn’t even explain how grateful he was for the fact Bruce stayed quiet despite the expression on his face. It helped his situation a little.

Instead, it did not help that he could feel Cass’ eyes on his back. She was sitting on the ground a small distance away from them, probably reading all of them like they were open books. He decided to ignore it for now — there was really nothing else he could do.

“And you know she’s a good fighter — you saw her spar with Jason! You saw how she fought against Damian who actually, officially challenged her, like she were equal. He doesn’t do that too often. We all also know neither of them wasn’t holding back too much on second matched anymore, if at all in the in the third one. She only lost once they stopped holding back and even then she put up a good fight — the matches weren’t over in minutes. Like, we’ve all gotten training from at least the Bat himself, likely from many others too. She has not. That makes it an impressive feat. With training, she could probably be one of the best of us!”

Steph lifted her hands above her head as to surrender and to draw attention to herself. “Alright, I’m cool with it. Timmy’s passionate about his cause and also I like Mari. It could be fun to have her in the team.”

Thank goodness, at least someone was on his side.

Dick’s phone chimes and he looks at the message, groaning when he reads it. “Babs told me to tell you all that she also says yes, that she trusts Marinette with all of this if others are fine with it as well,” he says slowly, before he puts his phone away. It’s strange seeing him not cheerful, but Tim can’t afford to care about it too much now .

Another voice spoke up softly. “I think… Marinette makes a good fighter,” Cass said from her spot, resting her body weight on her arms with the flats of her palms on the ground. She seemed thoughtful. Her words carried a meaning all of them understood, even if she didn’t say it out loud — she liked her too and wanted her in, but that she too would like Marinette to get some training first before letting her out.

Just in case.

They knew she wanted to lose people just as much as the rest of them — which meant, she didn't want to lose any more people she cared about.

Then, a sigh. “Yeah, gotta agree. Could be nice to have her on our side, she’s fun. And Timber’s right, she does seem like she’s achin’ to go fight a bitch. It’d be better if we made sure she’s got the necessary skills and stuff, and I’d rather not have to fight her because one of us considers her an enemy or because she thinks that of us. Girl’s got some mad skills. Also, B, if you think about it for a second longer, I’m sure you’d realise that if there’s a chance she is going out anyway, I’m sure you’d prefer she followed your rules, too, right?”

Tim… wasn’t sure when the last time he’d been grateful for Jason’s input had last occurred, but he was certainly ready to let Jason do whatever the hell he wanted with criminals during their next patrol together, that’s how grateful he was. Yes, even if it meant Jason shooting them in the fucking kneecaps.

“Yes, but she’s still—”

“She’s what, Grayson? She put up a respectable fight even thought she’s still clearly inferior to me, but I do not doubt she could do the same in the field. Her skills most certainly require improvement and bettering, and she needs to fine her techniques if she wants to hold her own out there without getting killed, but I’m certain she’s more than capable of getting to Todd’s level with guidance.”

Okay, wow. Damian was defending Marinette. He definitely needed to tell this to her — he was sure she’s appreciate hearing the little demon of the family respected her enough to speak up against Dick and his father, the only ones of them he’d ever openly admitted held his respect, even if he didn’t necessarily word it as “I respect you” or “you have my respect.” It seemed Marinette got the honor of being the third one, and she had been family for all of some weeks. She’d even gotten him to use the word “respectable” when talking about her.

She got him admitting to all of them, all of them, that he thought she was good and worth his respect. Now that was something.

So, Tim also appreciated him speaking up. This tiny (alright so he may not have been that tiny anymore and there’s a chance Damian was now taller than Tim, but who cared, he would always be tiny to Tim) teenager was still the only biological child of Bruce and also one of the hardest of them to impress, so if he said something of this sort about anyone (the last time it was something about Jon but Tim hadn’t cared enough to remember what it actually was about anymore), everyone would at least listen to him before simply jumping to decisions.

So yeah. If there ever was a time Tim wanted nothing more than to take his little brother out and let him find a few new animals to keep as pets, even if they weren’t good as pets, it was now. It certainly was now.

“I’m siding with Tim here — don’t give me that look, Dick, the ones already sided with him are scarier and more dangerous than you and Bruce together, so even if I didn’t agree, his side would be the wiser choice—”, Duke starts, shrugging, though there was a clear smile on his face. “But like, Marinette’s nice, like actually nice, and if she’s going to become family anyway, I don’t see why we couldn’t have her in this as well. Tim has a good point — several good points, actually, so the logic is also on his side.”

Yeah, Tim certainly couldn’t hide his smile any longer. Only Dick and Bruce were yet to say yes. Maybe he could actually do this.

Of course, he was not going to go through with any of this if all of them didn’t agree. He could risk his own identity to his soulmate, but there was no way he was going to force anyone else to do so for anyone, least of all for someone that wasn’t literally linked to them by their very soul. He would never compromise all of them for one person.

“Okay, fine. It seems everyone else is saying yes, so I guess I’m outvoted here. I just want every one of you to stay safe, you know? I don’t want this to end up being the reason any of you gets hurt.”

Yes, Tim knew that. Regardless of how annoying Dick managed to get a lot of the time, or how frustratingly stubborn he always was, or how his attitude was irritatingly similar to Bruce’s even when their personalities weren’t even remotely similar most of the time (that one was probably causation of Bruce taking care of Dick for like a decade), there was never any doubt his love or concern for any of them wasn’t genuine. That much was more than obvious.

He managed to give Dick a small smile, hoping it would convey he was grateful he finally said yes.

Now there was only one left to convince.

The most difficult of them (if you didn’t count Damian in, anyway) to convert.

Bruce was stubborn as hell when he wanted to, but seeing as he was stubborn even if he wasn’t trying to be, this could either be easy or the most difficult thing Tim had ever done. It had taken him a while to convince Bruce to make him Robin, but back then all he was trying was to have him take himself in and train him; Back then Tim wasn’t planning on telling his identity to someone who didn’t know yet, someone who could figure out the rest of them as well, and then have her trained to become one of them. Tim knew it, it was a lot to ask, but he wanted to do it anyway. It was important to him, alright?

Tim turned to look at Bruce. “Well? How is it?” He placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head, waiting for an answer. Any answer, really.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Tim. What if something happens to her? Or what if something happens to you? Or any of your siblings?”

“But what if something happens to her because I didn’t tell her? And besides, something could happen to any of us at any given time, given what we all do on nightly basis. We could have also just not done it, but we are doing it anyway and like hell is any of us going to just quit. Out world is full of what-ifs, we cannot help them, and I’ll be damned if I let them make me lose the one person actually made for me, the one person that I was tailored to.”

“With all due respect, Master Bruce, I must say, you have told your identity — even if only subtly hinted at it with a very specific set of words so that it’s enough for them to make the connection — so many times that I think you can hardly be against this. None of them were even your soulmate. Need I remind you of who everyone knew or found out without ever even becoming one of us? At least Master Tim is planning on bringing her in on all of this and planning to have her properly trained,” Alfred said, appearing in the doorway behind Bruce.

So sure, Cass and Damian knew exactly how to seemingly just appear and reappear without anyone noticing as though they could teleport, sure, Commissioner Gordon always complained about Batman doing it, and sure, the rest of them knew how to blend in with the shadows (they just didn’t always do it), but Alfred also seemed to possess this skill — better than most of them, anyway. Tim had absolutely no idea how, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Besides, it was Alfred, so it wasn’t surprising. Honestly, was there anything the man couldn’t do?

But the thing is, Alfred was also right. He had let Rachel Dawes find out. He let commissioner Gordon find out. Mr. Fox knew because Bruce had asked for help and equipment he then used as Batman while he was being Bruce Wayne — now that right there had never even seen subtle hinting. A whole lot of other people knew as well, though many had found out on their own — such as Tim, while some found out because of other, not so lovely circumstances, like Selina.

So, all in all, Bruce was the worst of them to say anything about it. True, he was mostly protective of them, always thinking up the worst-case scenarios about everything, something Tim himself did as well because that was the easiest way to make sure they were prepared for absolutely anything and everything, but Tim trusted Marinette. He wanted to trust her, just like Bruce had trusted some people. And in any case, he’d rather trust than live his life in suspicion of most people, like some people he knew did. Like Bruce.

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but as nothing came out, he just closed it again. A defeated sigh slipped past his lips and he let go of the tensity in his shoulders, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine, I can see when I’ve lost. I want to meet her soon after you tell her, maybe right away after it, though, regardless of whether she makes the connection or not. I would prefer if all of you were here then,” he said, motioning at all of them before he placed his hand on Tim’s shoulder. “And that you—” he cast a pointed look at Tim, “—tell us when you are going to do it. I trust that you understand what you’re doing. I do not want to find out Ms. Dupain-Cheng is a danger to any of you, but especially you.”

“Of course. I take full responsibility of her and her training—”

“No you won’t. I’ll do that, although I do expect you to be there for her and to be a major help. I’m still your father and I don’t care if you’re already 19, because I’m not letting my children be that much of adults just yet.”

“Hey!”

Bruce just smiled (a tense smile, one that was half-forced on his face) and left all of them (except Cass whom Tim couldn’t see anywhere anymore) behind, gaping.

“Did he just—”

“Oh my god he totally did!”

“Please tell me someone recorded B calling himself a father and calling us his children.”

Tim had a vague suspicion that Cass had indeed recorded it, was going to send it to all of them, and then, depending on the reactions to it, would send a voice message of her laughing to their group chat.

Well, that definitely went better than he thought.

⬷۵⤐

“You know, I’m glad I have you as my soulmate,” Marinette began around a week later as they were sitting in the living room of the Wayne Manor. She snuggled closer to him and Tim wrapped an arm around her, comfortable and relaxed for the first time in a few days. “I’ve known you for not that long, but I already know I don’t want to lose you.”

She reached for his hand and took it in her own. Tim squeezed her hand back.

“Me neither.” Tim saw this as an opening — after all, most, if not all, of his reasons to tell Marinette who he was and all his plans about how exactly he should do it were born from the idea that he didn’t want to lose her. And so, he stood up, still holding her hand, and pressed a light kiss on it. “I need to show you something important. Will you follow me?”

A soft laughed escaped from Marinette as she replied, smiling, “Always, to the ends of the world.”

Marinette let herself be pulled up to her feet and led through the endless dark hallways of the manor. He quickly shot a message (“I’m prepared to do it, I’m taking her down now. Be there in five”) to the group chat before putting his phone away. When it vibrates in his pocket, he first looked at Marinette as though to make sure it was fine with her if he checked and possibly answered — after all, he knew it wasn’t too urgent or they would have called, and as far as Marinette was aware, this was supposed to be their time together to get to know each other better and all, not time for either of them to spend talking to other people via phone —, the corners of his lips turning upwards at her when she nodded with a smile on her face.

It seemed smiles liked to creep up on his face a lot more now that Marinette was around.

The message was from Jason, and Tim rolled his eyes fondly at it.

I thought you were supposed to tell her instead of fighting her, babybird.

shut up jason

You know pwefectly well what taking her down means int his case

Oh yes, I most definitely do.

It’s just so much fun reminding you of the existence of double meanings you either use to insult people or forget about completely.

But yeah, we’ll be ready.

“One of your brothers?”

“Yep. Jason is being a cumberworld.”

“And him being a cumberworld definitely makes you grin and roll your eyes as though he merely made a stupid joke and you, unfortunately, thought it rather amusing. Got it.”

“Wait. You actually know what it means?”

“Duh, obviously. After listening to you and your family for a while, it seemed like a good idea to do some research on different English insults so they wouldn’t fly by me all the time.”

Tim snorted. Of course. Only Marinette would. Only her. Everyone else outside of their family seemed to give up on trying to understand after a little while, but noooo, this girl decided she was going to spend extra time doing some research just to be able to understand — that, and also most likely to be able to laugh at them. She definitely fit in just fine.

It didn’t take them too long after that to get to the main study in the manor that Tim had earlier told her was Bruce’s and told her not to go in. Maybe that was why Marinette now looked quite nervous and anxious as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, motioning for her to go in.

“Are you sure we can go in here? Mr Wayne— I mean, Bruce, isn’t going to get mad at us? And you aren’t about to kill me, right?” she laughed, trying to mask her nervousness with humour, but walked in anyway. She relaxed a little and the tensity in her shoulders slipped away the slightest bit as Tim shook his head as no.

He walked to the grandfather clock in the room and let go of Marinette’s hand in order to be able to turn the hands of the clock. The clock hit 10:48 (Tim had always thought there was no one more grim than the Batman but then he actually met Bruce Wayne and found out you needed to turn the clock to show the time Bruce’s parents had been murdered, and was just like that forced to change his view on the matter) and the panel unlocked, opening the door hidden from view behind the clock.

Marinette’s jaw dropped open. This was most certainly not what she had been expecting, that much was sure.

“Well then, my fair lady, shall we enter?” he asked, grinning at Marinette’s flabbergasted expression even as she walked closer and tried to figure out where the entrance would take them.

She could keep trying; he was not about to tell her just yet.

The elevator took them down and soon enough, they were in the cave. He stepped out of the doors and waited for Marinette to follow him.

“...Where are we?” she asked, her voice a little strained.

“Uh.”

“Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, where in the world exactly did you take me?”

It seemed actually telling her turned out a little more difficult than he thought. Well, no use crying now — he couldn’t just brush off all of this like he hadn’t just taken his soulmate down to the Batcave either.

“Alright. So, this might come as a shock and for the love of all that’s still holy and sacred in this world please do not freak out. I just decided I needed to tell you this before we consider pursuing any relationship on a deeper and closer level than what we have now, regardless of in what sense it would be.

Marinette nodded slowly, encouraging him to go on even as she seemed suspicious (and anxious) about what was going on. Perhaps that was a good thing since they were in Gotham, in the city where you never knew who the person in front of you was or what they did in their free time (or at night).

Tim took a deep breath before dropping the bomb on her. “I am Red Robin, one of the vigilantes of Gotham.”

At his declaration, her jaw dropped. Again. “You— I— What?”

“I’m Red Robin,” he repeated and pulled out the domino mask he had taken with him and slipped into his pocket, putting it on his face. Thank heavens for Marinette and her need to give him big pockets whenever he commissioned her (and there was any reason to put pockets to said commissioned clothing) because of that one offhand comment complaining about too small pockets some of his clothes had. He scratched his chin awkwardly before realising what he was doing and pulled his hand down, pressing his nails to his skin to keep himself from bringing it up again. “I was also thinking, you’d make a good vigilante if that’s what you wanted to do. Obviously, I would need to train you first to make sure you’d be ready for Gotham’s streets, but I thought it could help you not to worry about me if you saw me in action and actually had the chance to help me if necessary?”

That… wasn’t supposed to come out as a question. Why did it come out as one?

But Marinette’s silence was worrying him. It would be understandable not to get an answer now, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she would be mindlessly rambling at this point if it were merely shock she was experiencing.

“You… You aren’t a villain or planning on becoming one, right? Because even if you were my soulmate, that would mean I’d have to take you down.” Almost certain he could feel Dick’s pointed (and amused, definitely amused) look on his back, he added, “I’m not about to go down the Batman-Catwoman route with this.”

That startled Marinette out of her shock and as she stared him dead in the eye, she blurted out, “Spots on!”

Tim could have almost sworn he heard an exasperated and quiet “Marinette, why couldn't you just tell him like we agreed?” as bright pink light enveloped her and soon revealed that in her place there stood a young woman in a red suit with black spots.

And a spotted mask.

Which made it a ladybug suit.

Or the Ladybug suit.

On his soulmate that came from Paris.

Paris’ Ladybug…

“Oh my god. You’re Ladybug. My soulmate is Ladybug. This is a thing now, apparently. Aren’t you supposed to be dead? Actually, no, I’ve seen enough people that were resurrected, it wouldn’t even be that surprising. How were you—”

Ladybug’s shoulders lifted to her ears and she smiled sheepishly. “Hi? I’m not a villain as you can see?”

It was Tim’s turn to simply stare at Marinette. He— he was not expecting this turn of events. He sighed and waved his hand a little in a “come here” gesture, knowing they were there and that they’d seen her transform anyway. That would mean there was no secret identity problem anymore as her identity wasn’t really a secret anymore, per se. Besides, since she was a hero already, they could very well just introduce themselves to her already.

He had to admit, this was absolutely wonderful as it meant she fit in perfectly — it was as though she had always been the missing piece of the puzzle that was his life and family.

Of course, though he was expecting fate to be a jerk and give him a civilian soulmate, Fate instead decided to cut him some slack and just give him someone that could actually keep up with him and the family he wasn’t going to get rid of anyway, no matter what he tried or wanted (not that he wanted to get rid of them most of the time).

But well. A soulmate was supposed to suit you perfectly, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising.

Ladybug didn’t seem to notice his family approaching them as she kept on rambling and tried to explain herself. “I’m also not dead and never was. Chat Noir isn’t dead either though he has died multiple times during akuma attacks and was resurrected by my Miraculous Cure. Paris just happens to have a tendency to get overdramatic and jump to conclusions, and Chaton and I decided we didn’t want the Ladyblogger on our backs any longer. Neither of us is too fond of her, especially not after the phenomenon that is Lila Rossi,” she said, sighing as she cocked her hip. Ladybug shook her head and turned her eyes to the side. It seemed the name meant a lot, just not in any good way. “Wait. If you’re Red Robin, then—”

“Hiii!”

Aaandd it seemed that Dick had taken that as his cue to make his presence known. How lovely.

Ladybug turned to Dick and then back to Tim, arching an eyebrow. “Since you’re Red Robin, I’m going to go ahead and suppose this is your family. Am I right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

“They’re not going to try and fight me or drive me out of your city for having powers, right?”

Batgirl cuffed him upside the head as she skipped to them, walked past Tim and then looked Ladybug up and down before nodding approvingly. “Definitely approve, though that suit… Am I seriously supposed to believe you’re our sweet, wonderful, talented fashion designer? Also no, even if B-Man or Dickiebird over there tried, Timmers, Damian and I would fight for you. You’re staying because I like you. We all like you.”

Ladybug flushed lightly at the compliments and the otherwise sweet words, but to her credit, her voice didn’t even waver when she replied (unlike usually), “I just haven’t had the energy and time to change it yet. It’s magic, can’t change it that easily.”

“Oh, okay. Well, try and see if you can recognise all of us!”

Ladybug bit her lip and looked at each and every one of them separately, her calculating eyes feeling like they could see right through all of them. She walked between them and around them, a sly grin appearing on her face.

“Well, Bats here is probably Mr Wayne. He’s the oldest of all and I strongly doubt any of you could be doing what you are if he didn’t know — unless, of course, it was Alfred, and I don’t doubt Alfred’s skills at all, but I’m pretty sure that back when Robin wasn’t there yet, someone needed to look after Batman and I honestly think only Alfred could have that much power on him. So. Mr Wayne.”

Batman took off his cowl, indeed revealing Bruce himself.

As she moved on to Nightwing, she winked and laughed with an “I did do my homework on the flight here. Seriously, did you think I wouldn’t?” Then she turned to look Nightwing in the eye (or, would have looked him in the eye if not for his domino. “I’m going to say Dick. I’ve been watching you all while I’ve been here — in both forms, it seems —, and I doubt any of you could pull some of the moves, or the attitude, Nightwing does, except for Dick. Don’t give me that look, you did jump from the balcony at some point last week, landing safely on the ground after showing off and doing like a million spins and somersaults.”

Tim laughed. “Dick, I told you, someone else besides me was going to recognise you for your somersaults one day.”

“You too?”

“Oh yeah, I worked out Dick’s, Bruce’s and then Jason’s original identities because of Dick’s quadruple-somersault when I was a kid. Nightwing’s identity wasn’t difficult either since, well, it was obviously the previous Robin.”

“Of course you would.”

Then she turned to Oracle in her wheelchair. “Anyway. I know you’re Barbara, and I’m so glad to see you here too, but I’m nor sure about you alias,” she said, her voice clearly apologetic for the fact.

“It’s alright,” Barbara comforted her and gave her a smile, “I wasn’t expecting you to know it. I’m Oracle, it’s nice to meet you. I’ll probably get you on the comms at some point as well because managing things is what I do now. The woman in the chair, if you will,” she continued, making Marinette chuckle. Tim loved the sound.

“Then the big bad Red Helmet over there is Jason — no, seriously, Jay, why in the world are you the Red Hood if you aren’t even wearing one?” she asked, her face twisting as she looked at him. God, Tim loved this girl, she would happily stab any of their fashion sense with a smile on her face, and honestly, the helmet was horrible. Her words earned her snickers from all around the room. She was obviously pleased with herself as Jason took off his mask and gaped at her, offended.

She didn’t even pay him attention too much, continuing on with her list. “The scowling Robin over there is definitely Damian, only he could pull off those expression with a hint of Bat in them, and the current Batgirl is obviously Stephanie. Duke is the Signal — that was your name, right? Oh, and Cass, you’re Black Bat, aren’t you?” At Cass’ nod and her revealing her face, Marinette let out a sigh of relief. “You’re one of the only ones here with an acceptable suit.”

Ladybug transformed back into Marinette, a small creature appearing from her… earrings? before hiding inside her jacket. Tim decided to ignore it, maybe it was nothing. Marinette turned around, spinning on her heel to face Bruce. “Like, I know you need protection because there’s no magic to do so, but you could have protection with suits that looked less ridiculous and atrocious than this,” she said, motioning at their clothing. “That actually goes to most of you. I especially hope there’s a really good reason and a story behind Robin’s colours, because otherwise I will not possibly be able to understand why anyone would go around as a vigilante in colours this bright.”

“There is a reason behind the color choices,” Dick said disturbingly quietly from where he was standing. “They were my family’s colors.”

Marinette winced lightly — she too knew what had happened to them on that fateful night. “Alright. That’s a good reason, even if they’re still horrible colour choices. That would make you the first Robin, right?” Dick nodded. “It’s understandable for you to want to use your family’s colours.” Her solemn tone indicated she accepted Dick’s reason for it completely, telling them all she felt bad for saying they were horrible but knew she wouldn’t back off — and they wouldn’t blame her for that either —, and they all knew she was going to leave arguing and pressing for explanations away completely. Her limitless capability of empathy was admirable.

Then she turned back to Tim. “Is that offer about training still on the table? I’d love to take it if so. I could probably win any of you as Ladybug because magic and a goddess in my pocket, also known as Tikki— Oh, actually! Tikki, come on out, come say hi to Tim!”

A small red, ladybug-like creature flew from under her jacket to Tim, smiling brightly. He immediately recognised it as the fairy he’s seen earlier. “Hi! I’m Tikki, the goddess — or as we like to call ourselves, the kwami — of creation. It’s lovely to finally meet my holder’s soulmate!”

“It’s, uh, nice to meet you as well, I guess? I take it you’re the one that helps Marinette transform,” Tim said, a little confused by the flying, speaking creature.

“Yup, I’m an ancient being, older than anything and everything else, so while she’s not the only one I’ve helped — the history is full of Ladybugs —, she’s my current holder. Remember that if you hurt her, while Adrien can do a lot of destruction and damage —” there seemed to be a double meaning behind those words but he just couldn’t figure out what it was. “—I will be the one you actually want to look out for!”

Tikki’s words were single handedly the single most terrifying thing Tim had ever heard, and it did not help at all that she was smiling all through it, her voice gentle and kind, her entire demeanour bright even when she was threatening him. He didn’t even want to know what a goddess of creation could do as retaliation.

“If I hurt her, I’d let you do whatever you wanted,” Tim finally heard himself say. Those words were surprisingly true and ran deep, he realised. It… should honestly have been alarming. It was not.

“Good, you understood quickly. This one’s good, let’s keep him.” Tikki patted his head — and such a weird image it must have been, a creature maybe the size of his hand patting his head —, bringing Tim comfort for some reason. He had absolutely no idea how she managed it, being terrifying and so sweet and safe at the same time. He could totally see where Marinette got it from. “Also, some of you have definitely been in close — too close — touch with the Lazarus Pit, this place reeks of it. Marinette, tell me, why haven’t we already taken Plagg with us to the Lazarus Pit and gotten rid of it for good?”

Marinette shrugged, unaware of what was happening in the background behind her — Jason gaping, Bruce in shock, Damian just staring at them like he had seen a ghost, which was a rather disturbing picture because sometimes it seemed the boy could get fazed by nothing. The rest looked just confused. Maybe he should just leave them be and try to focus on Marinette and Tikki right now. “Jeez, Tikki, I have no idea. Maybe, maybe it’s because this has got to be the first time I hear about them and honestly, it should be more disturbing than it is that I, for some reason I don’t want to know, actually know what you’re talking about. Is that a guardian thing?”

Tikki nodded before speaking. “Well, we have to do it at some point. Let’s take the cat with us as well, I’m sure he’d prefer not to be left alone if we’re taking Plagg with us anyway. For now, though, I’m sure we can talk about it later.”

Tim shook his head, trying to concentrate. “Yeah, the offer is still on the table. I’d be happy to train you. You’d also get training from the Bat himself if you wanted — he actually insisted on it before this,” he laughed. “But yeah, I’ll be there anyway. Fun soulmate bonding and all that, right? Fighting, training and sparring until we can no longer stand on our own two feet, that’s all anyone could ever want,” he mused, odd warmth filling his chest as Marinette chuckled at his comment.

“Yes, you get it. Finally someone gets it — looking at you, Chat. Having said that, I do have to tell you it’s a little awkward and a huge coincidence you happened to ask me if I wanted to become a vigilante, as I was kind of going to ask you the same.”

“Huh?”

“You just beat me to revealing your identity and asking. I was wondering if you’d like to try using a miraculous, you know? It’s so much fun unless you’re trying to save an entire city that’s flooding and your partner is not doing what he’s supposed to and you have maybe five minutes left after you use your special ability but other than that, it’s great. I know you sometimes get even magical threats here, and I’m sure you’d rather be able to deal with them yourself instead of having to get the magic users not from here involved every single time since it’s your city. Also, since I’m not going to quit being Ladybug, and I will be out there doing my thing, I’d like to have my soulmate in the team sometimes as well, by my side. Obviously, you can refuse, but like, I could see you being a good snake. Sass would like you.”

Tikki nodded, clearly agreeing with Marinette. He knew better than to ask if they realised what sass meant, or to tell them that he was already familiar with sass, since it was probable this Sass was one of the Kwamies. Kwamiis. Kwamii? He had no idea.

Then she turned around to face the others whose attention — all of it — went immediately to her when she focused hers at them. “It could also be fun to see how any of you work with a miraculous once I get to know you better and know which kwamii would fit to each of you — I do have quite many of them travelling with me, after all,” she said, and the smile playing on her lips was easy to hear from her words. Come the next words (and the jab at most of them), Tim also knew for sure there was a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes. “That, and the kwamii come up with alright costumes most of the time even if you have no idea how to design a good one yourself. The suits are much safer than yours, too, because again, magic . And god-given powers, quite literally.”

The little fairy — kwami, wasn’t it? ... she. Something. — settled herself on Marinette’s head while Marinette took out a small box from her purse, opening it. A bright light with a yellowish or orange hue appeared in front of her as another one of the kwamii took form. Marinette put on a necklace that looked like a fox’s tail, which honestly looked logical as it resembled the kwami as well — if they had something to do with each other, that is.

“Heya Marinette! What is it today? Ooohhh, there are more people to mess with today! The cat isn’t here, I see… Wait, is this the soulmate thing you and Chat discussed? Is one of them your soulmate? Do I actually get to meet him before any of the others do?” The fox looking kwami seemed excited and it was a little bothersome to realise how much the kwami reminded him of Bart. They would probably get along, if they ever got the chance to meet. Probably not.

“Well, Tikki met him already, but yes, you’ll get to gloat about this to Plagg, Wayzz, Mullo, Longg and the others. Except for Duusu, that’s forbidden. She’s not in a good enough mental state for that yet. But anyway, Trixx, Tim is my soulmate, the one that’s probably standing right behind me right now unless he actually somehow managed to stay still even in the presence of something new he doesn’t understand just yet,” she said and pulled out two cookies, handing one to each kwamii present. Tim flushed as he realised she knew exactly where he was and why he was there.

Marinette didn’t pay any attention to any of them anymore, only the kwami in front of her.

“Besides, you complained about not having gotten to patrol in a long while last night and as it seems they don’t hate the idea of a miraculous user here, yet anyway — not that it would stop me, honestly, you guys need to get out and be used sometimes and as the guardian, it’s kind of my responsibility —, they might even let me patrol with them and thus give you a chance to go around. Chaton and Plagg won’t be there, though, and I’m not going to tell him about them, so keep your mouth shut. I know you love knowing things others don’t, but you don’t get to tell them because then you won’t be able to keep the knowledge of more heroes to yourself, and I’d honestly rather have Chat and Plagg only know I’ve told my soulmate now so he’s free to tell his. Also, they—”, she pointed at his family, “—Get to keep their secrets, so there’s that too.”

It felt a little too familiar to hear Marinette call someone Chaton, and it irritated Tim to no ends to know that he knew the one Marinette had called Chaton earlier by name, but yet could still only connect it to Chat Noir and Chat Noir only.

Trixx flew around Tim’s head a few times until deciding on landing on top of it. The kwami started to eat the cookie, still there on top of his head, damnit, leaving cookie crumbles in his hair. “Hello there, Marinette’s soulmate! You seem rather interesting. Are you going to be trying to use one of us? It’s going to be so much fun seeing what kind of a hero you could become with our help!”

But, just as Tim was about to answer, an alarm went off in the cave. They all knew it was a villain attack, and soon all of them got notifications of said attack to their phones, computers, tablets, clocks, anything they had promised to carry around everywhere for this specific thing. Tim groaned and ran a hand down his face.

Not now, we don’t have time for this.

Even so, Tim ran off to put on his suit. There was a big chance Marinette would be coming along since she was, apparently, already used to villains (even if quite different from theirs), and he wanted to be there to see it.

At least Trixx let him leave without following.

⬷۵⤐

Marinette watched in wonder as everyone got a move on the second the alarm went off. It was so different from Paris. She hoped the civilians had more basic common sense than Parisians did, too, and would try to escape the danger zone instead of trying to get into it.

Barbara went to get a small piece of technology before wheeling to her. She took Marinette’s hand and pressed it on her palm. “Here. This is a comm. I want you to wear it when you’re out in the field at all times so you’ll be able to contact everyone, me included, at any time you need. They can also contact you if they’re in need of help or something. That, and I’ll be able to locate you at any point I want or need to, so yes, you have to use it,” she told her, but Marinette gave it back. Under Barbara’s rather scary and very unimpressed glare, she decided to give in. After all, she was — even bound to a wheelchair — one of the scariest of them. She was also one of Marinette’s favourites in the family and would probably admit this to any of them at any given time, so she reasoned that played a part in her decision as well.

“Fine, I’ll take it, but I need to transform first or it will disappear, though I’m pretty sure I could actually connect my own, safer communicator to yours,” she said before stepping back. “You might want to close your eyes, the light can be blinding. Tikki, spots on!”

Once the bright light went away, she got ready to unify Trixx and Tikki together. It would take her a lot of energy, but the stealth abilities Trixx came with were useful, as were the illusions, especially in a city such as Gotham, and Tikki, well, Marinette knew how to work with her the best, and the Miraculous Cure Tikki provided was the best thing ever since it could repair anything and everything if she was involved in it with the miraculous (and better yet, no one would need to pay for said repairs.) “Tikki, Trixx, unify!”

“Alright, I’m done now. I can take the comm now if you so insist,” she said, opening her palm and waiting for Barbara to hand it to her again. “You can call me Lady Vixen for now until I come up with a better name, Oracle.”

Oracle smiled at her and dropped the comm on Lady Vixen’s palm. She put it on, adjusting it until it no longer felt uncomfortable in her ear. Red Robin had just finished suiting up by then as well, and with a grin on his face, he stepped to her side. He brushed over her wrist with his fingers and she did the same to him, because even with their suits covering up the skin of their wrists, it made them more comfortable, more at ease, more focused. Happier. They turned to look at the rest of the family, waiting for the go-ahead since she still needed one from at least Batman.

After Batman nodded to her and smiled (which honestly was not a smile and looked more like a grimace, like seriously, Mr Wayne needed some help with how to smile), Nightwing gave her a bright smile (like, an actual smile, unlike Batman’s) and said, “Welcome to the team!”

She didn't reply, she knew she didn’t need to, and decided that swinging off with her soulmate was going to be enough.

Yeah, she was happy to be a part of the team, a part of the family.

Especially if her soulmate was going to be there for her and stay at her side through all of it.

____

@the-navistar-carol @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life

[incorrect-maribat]

Bart & Adrien: --2, 1! Happy New Year! [Kisses]

Tim and Marinette, exasperated: Guys it's not even midnight yet! Stop making out every time the microwave goes off!

[ethelphantom]

Form A Family Of Our Own

Just silliness and fluff and lots of romance and attempts at humour here, and absolutely no angst. You’re welcome! It’s a continuation to the Timari Soulmates Secret Santa I created for @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry, though I’m just skipping things in the chronological order (aka the BartAdrien reveal but we all knew that was going to happen so it’s fine. This is also my Maribat March day 9, Sleepover at the same time. Have fun!

Ao3 | Part 1 | Part 2

This is Maribat -- don’t like; don’t read

_____________________

“Does everyone have everything they need? No one needs to use Mari to use the puppy eyes to get Dick to go to the store?”

Marinette laughed at Tim’s words while the others shook their heads. They had checked they had everything at least thrice already, it wasn’t going to change no matter how many times he wanted them to make sure of it. When Tim still didn’t look convinced, Marinette simply grabbed his wrist and stroked the skin with her thumb to help him calm down, just like he sometimes did for her.

After all, touching your soulmate’s mark would always be a comforting feeling.

Tim’s shoulders slumped a little as he relaxed before he turned to her and smiled gently. Marinette recognised this as a silent thank you, and so she beamed in response.

“Are we ready to ruin everyone else’s day now?” Conner then asked, leaning against the doorframe. He seemed to be trying to look relaxed and not in the least excited for this, but they all knew better, considering he seemed to be itching to go do just that.

“Oh yeah. I’ve got the cameras and the scavenger lists. Two teams of three, soulmates in the opposite—” Cassie began, but after she got the puppy face from both Bart and Adrien, she sighed in resignation. “Fine, soulmates in the same team. This is why I’m not supposed to look at either of them while giving orders. Damn it.”

Tim rolled his eyes. All of their friends were idiots (“Like you aren’t as well,” an accusing voice said in his head, and it was a bit concerning how much it sounded like Marinette), but they were also the best — Tim wouldn’t change them for the world.

“I love how the rule is supposed to be ‘no metas in Gotham’, but we’re getting like three metas and two that technically count as metas because Miraculous coming anyway to the home of the one that actually originally set said rule in place,” Adrien mused, remembering what he’d been told at some point after the reveal. And after they had already met Cassie.

Marinette let out an amused laugh. “Oh yeah. Anyway. Could someone please get our bags to the Manor so we can just start with the scavenger hunt?”

“On it!”

There was a flash as all their bags, Conner and Bart disappeared and Cassie took out a clock. She watched it tick for a few seconds before she lifted her gaze again to find her missing friends. “You’re slow. It took you two nearly ten seconds. We’re not even outside the city boundaries, boys.”

“Well, fuck you too, we were carrying five bags each because some of us don’t know how to pack small.”

Cassie simply flipped Conner off before she handed him a scavenger list. “You wanna be with Tim and Mari or Bart and Adrien? I’m fine with either one, just decide fast.”

“Bart. And Adrien, I guess.”

“HEY! ”

Idiots, the lot of them.

It didn’t take them long to sort out into teams and get to the centre of the city. Mari, Tim and Cassie stood on one side, looking down at the people that were all a lot taller than them. Mari cocked her hips and tilted her head, her dark blue sundress following the movement.

“Oh, you’re going down, Chaton.”

“I don’t think so, Buginette — I’m not sacrificing my win even if I’d sacrifice my life for you.”

“Okay, too far too soon, go away.”

Their lists were as followed:

Ask a cashier for the nutritional value of an inedible thing

Act like a stranger were famous and ask for their autograph

+1 if you can get them to take a picture with you

Offer a stranger a penny for their thoughts

Ask a stranger to sign your petition against the euthanasia of rabid puppies

+1 if you can get them to sign your palm

Lie in the grass next to a road and pretend to be making snow angels

Ask the opposite gender if they believe in fate

Ask a stranger where the closest local Christmas festival is

+1 if/when they say they don’t know, ask them how else do they appease the gods

Ask if you can get a discount on a thing that costs less than a dollar

+1 if you pronounce it horribly wrong

+1 if you buy the product with pennies

Ask a stranger if they have seen your cat and proceed to describe a full-grown tiger

Knock on someone’s door and sing them a Christmas song

+1 if the person is a stranger

+1 if you sing Frozen’s Let It Go after you’ve said you’re going to sing a Christmas song

Fake a cheesy proposal in a public place

Ask a cashier if dentists recommend using a toothbrush

Ask a cashier if they have healthy cigarettes

+1 if they say no, you yell “you’re lying” and run away dramatically

Ask a stranger if they can see anyone and point to an empty spot

“You’ve got two hours. The clock starts now,” Tim announced, set an alarm in their group chat so everyone would hear, and then they were all running to get things done.

❋❋❋

“Alright, Bart, go on. You’re the first.”

“You’re not allowed to complain if you wanted to do the same thing, then.”

“Remember, if it involves talking with someone, you can’t be going on your own pace, especially not with a civilian! The camera won’t be able to catch it!”

“Well, your cameras suck!”

With a blink, Bart was standing in front of a door and knocked on it. Adrien, who was right behind Kon, had to contain his laughter somehow because he knew that to Bart whoever lived there was taking ages, even if it was less than a minute — and thus bearable — to him.  

When the door was finally opened, Bart immediately started speaking. “Hello, are you interested in hearing Christmas carols?”

“...In the middle of the summer?”

“I know what I said.”

“Uh, no thank you. Have a nice day.”

Bart returned to them pouting. “They didn’t even give me a chance. I’m not that horrible of a singer,” he huffed, crossing his arms.

Adrien took Bart’s hand in his own and pressed a light kiss on his fingers. “Don’t worry, we still have plenty of time, and I doubt it was because of your singing voice. It’s just a weird thing to ask this time of the year. Try again.”

He did. Fortunately for Bart, the next-door neighbour opened their door much faster than the previous one.

“Hiya, are you interested in hearing Christmas carols?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess. Sure, go ahead.”

And then Bart proceeded to sing Let It Go off-key. The person listening to him even applauded his singing and gave him a candy (that Kon forced him to throw away or at least not eat until Tim could do a check up on it in case someone was trying to poison him or something. The Bat paranoia was getting to all of them.) It was fun.

“So, three points for us. That was a great start, Bart!” Adrien said, checking the boxes on the list. “You did film it, right Kon?”

“Obviously. I wouldn’t accidentally not. Hold the camera, Adrien. We’re going to a shop now and annoy the heck out of everyone. Tim is so not going to be happy when he realises some of us might get banned from the shop forever,” he snickered.

“I’m already feeling sorry for the employees.”

“At least we aren’t about to be assholes, really.”

“No, just weird as hell. Maybe they’ll get a story or two to tell others and discuss in the break room when they’re talking about the weirdest and worst customers they’ve had.”

“Do they really do that?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Damn.”

It didn’t take them too long to arrive at the store. Adrien and Bart went in first, pretending to be actually considering buying something when Kon came in and looked around for a moment. Then he walked to an unsuspecting employee. “Excuse me, do you have any of those clairvoyance foes? I was thinking of getting one.”

“I must ask you to repeat what you asked for, sir, I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch it,” the woman working said.

“It’s alright. I meant classical woes.”

“I’m so sorry, sir, I must say I don’t understand what exactly you mean by that.”

“Clarification folds, miss.”

“Oh, do you perhaps mean classification folders?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“...Of course, sir. Yes, we do have those. Do you want me to show you where they are, or would you like me to just point you in the correct direction, sir?”

“If you could show me where they are, that would be great.”

“Of course, sir. This way.”

The woman led him through the shop as Kon glanced behind himself and saw Adrien following them from a safe distance. Bart looked like he was practically vibrating, like he wanted to do something, but all he could do was jerking aborted movements. Actually, scratch that, he probably was vibrating. Of course.

“Here they are. Is there anything else I could help you with?”

“Is it possible to get a discount on these?”

“I— I’m afraid not, sir, but they’re only a dollar so…”

“That’s fine. Thank you for your help anyway.”

“It was no problem.”

Once the woman was gone, Adrien and Bart walked to him. “Oh my kwami, I pity her so much. I’m genuinely sorry she had to deal with you and I’m kind of considering going to find her and give her a tip for dealing with you,” Adrien snorted after he cut off the filming. “I don’t even care that’s not a custom in stores, I still want to do it.”

Bart laughed. “I’m gonna go do just that if you give me some money.”

Adrien did. He gave him twenty dollars. He could almost feel Wayzz shaking his head at the two of them even despite the fact Wayzz was with Marinette at the very moment.

“I hope you’re ready to keep recording cuz I ain’t done yet,” Kon said, earning an eye roll from Adrien.

“Sure. Let’s do this.”

Adrien kept his distance while they were walking to the checkout, Bart appearing next to him at some point. Adrien bumped his shoulder against Bart’s to express he knew he was there, the act soon returned. A smile made its way to his lips. They only started paying attention to what Kon was doing when they heard him speaking to the cashier.

“Excuse me, mister, but what is the nutritional value of this thing?”

“I’m sorry to inform you, but folders aren’t edible.”

“I am aware. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have nutritional value.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what it is, sir. I’d only be able to find out if they had given me a list, but unfortunately, they did not.”

“Oh, alright. Well, I’d like to purchase it anyway.”

“That makes one dollar.”

“Sure, wait a second.”

Kon pulled out his wallet and went through his money, counting it silently and quickly. Then he offered the cashier a handful of coins — all of them pennies. The disbelieving face on the cashier’s face, as he started counting, was miserable and a little sad to see, but no helping it now. Thankfully the product only cost a dollar, it didn’t take him that long to do it.

After paying, he went back to the end of the line, waited it, and asked the same person if they had healthy cigarettes. The cashier looked rather resigned at that point but stayed polite and told him that no, they didn’t have those because those didn’t really exist, and “are you sure you’re old enough in the first place?”

Kon gasped loudly. “You’re lying!” he yelled and ran dramatically out. The other customers didn’t even pay attention to him as if it was just another day. It probably was. This was Gotham, after all. Bart and Adrien made their way out behind him, slipping a twenty-dollar bill to the man behind the checkout and quickly apologised he had to deal with that, “please accept this.”

Then they were out and laughing, even if still feeling bad for doing it.

“Mari would kill me if she had to see that, honestly. She used to do this at their bakery and god, the stories she sometimes tells me,” Adrien said, shaking his head. “I hope that paying for them for suffering because of us was good enough. I don’t really know what else I could have done to compensate for having to deal with us.”

“No one does!” Bart told him before he snatched the camera from him. “Go on, your turn, Sunflower!”

The nickname was kind of fitting — blond hair and being a bit taller than Bart tended to do that. Adrien blushed a little at the pet name and then forced himself to get his thoughts back on the trail.

He buried his head in his hands before taking a look at the list. Then he grinned, getting a wonderful idea. Hopefully, he wouldn’t hurt anyone by doing it. If he was lucky (for once, considering he was the Bad Luck incarnated), he would end up finding someone who would ake it more as a joke.

Stopping someone who didn’t look like she was in any hurry, Adrien asked, “Excuse me, but do you believe in fate?”

“Yeah, I guess. Why?” she responded. Adrien visibly slumped in relief.

“Oh thank god.”

“...What is it.”

“My soulmate and I were just arguing about it a second ago and I needed a new opinion. Now I can tell him he’s very very wrong, and that we clearly belong together ”

The girl looked at him like he was a ghost. For a second, Adrien was afraid he’d hurt her feelings and was ready to apologise, but then she burst out laughing and doubled over.

“Oh my god. That’s wonderful and so hilarious! God, I was afraid you were about to flirt with me, dude, but that’s so much better. I wish you and your soulmate the best of luck. Buy him his favourite food, maybe he’ll then accept that you’re meant to be,” she said smiling and winked. Then she punched him lightly in the arm. “Go on, dude, your perfect happy ending is waiting for you!”

Adrien could feel a wide smile spread on his face. “Thanks, I will! You go get your happy ending as well, whether you’ll find it in a passion, person or a pet!” They exchanged numbers and names (her name was Zoanne, and Adrien had a feeling they’d become good friends over time), both excited about it, and parted in good spirits. Adrien waved to her as he walked to where Bart was staring at them.

Once he actually paid attention to how both Conner and Bart looked like (staring at him, Conner not even focusing on the camera), he tilted his head and arched his eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Dude.”

“What?”

“Duuuudde.”

“What?”

“Only you. Only you could make a friend while doing a scavenger hunt task and basically also pranking her. Wow.”

Adrien just shrugged. He wondered how the girls and Tim were doing.

❋❋❋

Tim was the only one of them who still had any sense of shame or embarrassment at this point (and they’d already completed most of the points on the list between the two young women), but he was determined to win and actually do something for the win as well so he wouldn’t be able to care. Soon enough, he was walking up to a stranger as Marinette was filming.

“Excuse me, miss, but have you seen my cat? She’s a sweetheart and I lost her when I was out with my friends.”

“Oh, you have a cat? I’m sorry, I don’t think so, but what does she look like? I could try to pay attention in hopes to see her later.”

“She’s a beautiful orange with white in her face, chest, belly and the underside of her tail, she’s about this tall,” he put his hand at about his waist, “and she’s got a lot of black stripes. Also, she’s a bit loud when she decides she wants to talk, but it’s not that bad.”

The woman backed off slowly as he was talking with a concerned look on her face. She was gone before Tim finished talking.

Marinette shook her head fondly and placed the camera in Tim’s hands as he returned. “Have fun trying not to laugh behind the camera!”

She wondered around like she was looking for something worriedly. When someone came to ask her what was wrong, she internally congratulated herself.

“Well, Monsieur, I was looking for the nearest local Christmas festival. Do you know where one might be?” she asked, looking innocently at him. “I really do need to find one, preferably close.”

“In July? Yeah, I don’t think I know where one would be at this time of the year.”

Marinette adopted a horrified expression on her face. “But— But— How do you appease the gods you might have angered, then?”

“The what?”

“The gods, obviously.”

“What gods?”

“Those,” she said and pointed behind the man. When the man turned around, he was greeted by the violet eyes of the fox god of mischief and trickery as well as the orange eyes of the pink tiger goddess of stealth and the brown eyes of the small but way too enthusiastic monkey god of jubilation. On any other occasion, she wouldn’t let civilians see kwamii, but this was an exception and she had Wayzz hide them from the view of every other person that didn’t know of their existence already, so it was fine. The most likely case was, the man would forget about meeting the kwamii or think of it as a hallucination of sorts later on.

When the man looked back to where Marinette had been, she was already gone. It was too much fun to mess with people a little bit. She knew the kwamii would be following her and perfectly capable of keeping themselves hidden when she told them so, so she didn’t worry about them.

Cassie snickered as Tim signed she was done filming. “That was amazing. I’ll go next!”

She walked to another stranger, Tim and Mari following her from a distance. Tim already had his camera recording. “Oh my god!” she gasped when she noticed a young person standing alone at the corner of a clothing shop. “It’s you! God, I never thought I’d meet you in real life!” When she ran to them and jumped a little as though she was excited, she also let out a squeal.

The person looked at her weirdly. “Excuse me? Have we met?”

“No, but now we have and it’s the most amazing thing! I’m such a huge fan. Can I please have your autograph? I want to show all my friends I met you!”

“Uhh…. Sure.”

Cassie handed them a piece of paper and a pen (which, where did she even get them?) and watched in anticipation as they wrote their name on it. Then she pulled out her phone. “Could I take a selfie with you? Please? I’m not going to put it all over the social media if you want to keep your whereabouts private, but I just want a picture.”

The person seemed to be already done with her, and probably guessed that this was the quickest way to get rid of her. They agreed and crouched a little to fit in the same picture easily. Cassie did a little peace sign, acting her role of an enthusiastic fan with all her heart. It took Tim and Mari their everything to keep from laughing.

When Cassie returned to them, flipping her hair, Tim handed her the camera. “Film this as closely as you can,” he said in passing and walked where there were as many people as possible, to the park nearby, Marinette and Cassie following in his wake. When Marinette was close enough, he made his way to her and swiped strands of hair behind her ear.

“Marinette, my dear, I love you more than anything in this world, you know that, right?” At Marinette’s slow but still a little confused nod, he continued. “I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I’ve decided I would like to take the next big step in our relationship,” he said loud enough for the people nearby to hear.  

“Every time I look in your eyes, I get a peaceful feeling. When I am around you, everything seems perfect. I promise that I will always be there for you in whatever you do and support you in ups and downs as long as I live. You give my life meaning and make it worth living. You’re the shoulder I can always trust to be there for me to lean on when I need it, you’re the one who I can always count on to be by my side. You were made for me, and I was made for you, and no matter what our souls are made of, mine and yours are the same.” Tim took a deep breath and looked at Marinette, whose eyes seemed to be glimmering as she bit her lip.

“In case you ever foolishly forget this one truth, let me declare it out loud for you, in front of all these people who are here to witness this: I am always thinking about you. I want to form a family of our own with you. Your words are written on my skin for the world to see who I belong to, a reminder for you should you ever doubt it. Feel free to doubt this world — doubt the stars are fire; Doubt that the Sun does move; doubt the truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. I certainly have never had even a moment’s doubt of that. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. You’re the answer to all those lonely prayers at night when I wished for someone to be there one day, and every day I thank God or Fate or whoever gave me you that you’re here now.”

By then Marinette was openly crying and she had covered her mouth with her hands, but Tim kept on going. He was not done, and he was determined to make this proposal the cheesiest he possibly could. As the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, people were bound to notice, and he only had one shot at it. “And I will love you against all odds in this world. Let me defy fate, let me defy stars. Let me defy everyone and anyone who may deny love, who may deny our love. Above all, you are my love, you are my stars, you’re my galaxy.” Tim lowered himself on the ground, now on one knee in front of his soulmate, his Marinette. He produced a ring box from his pocket and held it open for her. “So, as my best friend and the love of my life, will you be my one and only or my everything?”

“Are you— Is this for real?” Marinette whispered, tears glimmering on her eyelashes and staining her cheeks. Tim nodded, biting his lip. He knew it was one of the things on the scavenger list, so he hoped Marinette wouldn’t take this as only one of them.

Marinette swallowed and smiled brightly. “Yes!” she breathed out and fell on her knees next to Tim, not really caring if the action had her scrape her knees. Tim placed the ruby ring with a diamond halo on her ring finger and pressed a kiss on her fingers before Marinette lost her patience, cupped his face and kissed him on the lips.

When they broke apart, they could hear the cheering of the crowd. Tim looked to the side to Cassie who gave him a thumbs-up, the camera still in hand, probably recording as well. Bart, Conner, Adrien and the entire family, as well as Jagged and Penny, were all standing behind them. Thank god he’d half-planned this and told them to get themselves over there at a specific time and to stay behind Cassie so they wouldn’t bother or distract him.  

Adrien just ran to Marinette once they locked eyes and hugged her, congratulating her for the engagement. Bart slapped Tim’s back and did the same. When Tim got nothing from Conner, he raised his eyebrow because there was no way Conner stayed quiet about this without a very good reason.

“What is it.”

“Well. Technically, this can’t be counted as a point since you didn’t fake a proposal.”

“Fuck off.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Go away you overgrown toddler with too many leather jackets.”

“That’s such a creative insult you’ve got there, Timmy. Sounds like you had it memorised, even. How long have you been waiting for a time to use it?”

Tim just stuck out his tongue at Kon as Marinette and Cassie laughed at them.

Kwami, did Mari love her friends (and fiancé — she was never getting over being able to call him that.)

❋❋❋

“Alright. We gotta do something that is like, something people do at actual sleepovers,” Cassie announced as she flopped down on the mattress they had dragged into the biggest guestroom in the Manor they could find. The mattresses were all in a circle around their snacks so that it would be easy for them to talk and eat. Two of the mattresses were also bigger so Marinette could share with Tim and Bart could share his with Adrien. “I don’t know, like, trade secrets or gossip or… Oh, I know! Let’s play Never Have I Ever!”

The sly smirk on Cassie’s face did little to assure Mari or Tim this was a safe idea, but they were going to do it anyway, weren’t they.

“You did bring the shot glasses, didn’t you, Kon? Get them out, like, now. We gotta do this properly! And Adrien, you got the tequila, right? Please tell me it’s not flavoured.”

Adrien took out the bottles from his bag. “They are flavoured. Coconut, mango and chipotle.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Marinette saw it as a good moment to butt in. “Yeah, that works. Tim, choose the flavour.” She looked at her beloved next to her, poking his side when he didn’t answer.

“Huh? Oh. Uh, mango?”

“Alright, we’re going with that then. Adrien, can you please open the bottle?”

He did, and the game began. To the surprise of exactly no one, Cassie was the one to start. “Never have I ever ‘cleaned up’ by piling everything into a closet or pushing everything under my bed.”

She smiled as Tim, Bart and Marinette reached for the bottle with various states of grumbling, filling their glasses and downing them.

This evening was definitely going to end with them drunk. The only reason some of them wouldn’t be was if they were simply damn tolerant, which was basically what all of them except for Tim were — Adrien and Marinette because of the long use of the miraculous, Cassie because she was half goddess and technically an Amazon, Bart simply because of his fast digestion (damned Speedster), and well. Kon was Kon.

This was not going to end well, now was it.

“Alright, I’ll go next. Never have I ever lied to a police officer,” Adrien said. Marinette looked at him like he was crazy before it turned sour as she reached out for the bottle once again at the same time as the rest of them did. “Wait, how have you all lied to a police officer?”

“Well, Kitty, it might be because half of the police officers were corrupt in Paris during Papillon's time of reign, and it was simply safer. That's one thing. A better question would be, how have you never lied to a police officer?”

Tim rested his head on Marinette’s shoulder as he explained his own reasoning. “Then there's the fact my brother happens to be a police officer. I've totally lied to him multiple times. Same with Commissioner Gordon at least once or twice.”

The rest of them nodded along. “Yup, lied to Nightwing, which means, lied to Police Officer Grayson. No regrets, 5/5, would recommend, he's too much of a mother hen sometimes,” Cassie stated.

It was probably good she stated it then and not a minute later, because only a moment after that, the door flew open and Jason marched in. Marinette and Tim buried their heads in their hands or the mattress, Adrien just shook his head, and the three others were staring at Jason like this was somehow that much of a surprise. A minute later, a mattress was pushed inside the room as well.

“Hey kids!” he yelled as he settled in and had Cassie, and Bart and Adrien move themselves away from one another so he could push his mattress between them.

“Jason, what are you doing here.”

The deadpan question shot at him was said in a tone with such an irritated undertone that Jason mock-winced.

“Well. Our dick of a brother—” Jason motioned at himself and Tim, “—sent me here to be a babysitter for a bunch of kids over the fragile age of 21.”

“Dick! ”

Dick looked inside from the door and immediately got thrown pillows at. He scrunched up his nose and looked at them with disappointment. That got him six disappointed eyes staring at him from around the room. “Well, you can’t actually blame me! There are two couples sleeping in the same room and oh my god also on the same mattresses and I am worried and concerned and this is my safety measure to make sure we get no babies after this night.”

“You do know Tim and I are getting married, right?”

“Precisely, you just made my point.”

“Besides, we wouldn’t do it in the same room with these guys anyway, and also Bart and Adrien can’t get children because neither has a womb?”

“Still.”

Marinette sighed. “Fine. As long as you stay away for the rest of the night. At least Jace could be fun. You, instead, are not fun when you’re trying to mother hen us at the same time.”

“Rude much.”

“Now go or I’ll throw you with Jace.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would, and I could, in the transformed form anyway. I’ve thrown Chaton across the city, don’t test me.”

Dick huffed and closed the door. Jason laughed at Marinette’s words and patted her head after reaching towards her a little bit, over all their snacks and food.

“So, whatcha doin’? Drinking games?”

“Yeah. Never have I ever. You in?”

“Am I in? Oh, definitely. You couldn’t stop me even if you tried.”

“Sounds like trouble. I’m already regretting letting him in.”

A chorus of “same” echoed around the room.

“Alright, so…” Kon looked around the room before his eyes landed on Tim and a smirk tugged on his lips. “Never have I ever sneaked out of my house in the middle of the night alone.”

Tim frowned and drank a new shot. Marinette sighed, elbowed Adrien and took the bottle from Tim’s hands.

“Okay, Pixie, explain. You, sneakin’ out of the house, let alone in the middle of the night? Impossible.”

“Nuh-uh. Need I remind you, Ladybug. Papillon hardly cared about our sleeping schedule. Had to sneak out at night multiple times to save the city. Same with Adrien.”

Adrien nodded, agreeing with her. “‘S not like we had a choice in the matter, it was our sleep or the safety and lives of over two million people. Ga-bitch didn’t leave us much of a choice.”

It was Tim’s turn to interrupt. “And how have you never sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night? You, Mr. ‘I do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want, fuck Batman’?”

“Well, with B it was easier to sneak away when it was the middle of the day and he thought I was somewhere else, and in the Alley, it was safer to either stay inside or stay outside through the night, not both. Also, no house to sneak out of at one point.”

“Oof.”

“Never have I ever died,” Tim shot with a pointed look at his brother and his best friends. Yeah, he was still a little bitter even if it technically wasn’t their fault, so sue him.

“Low blow, dude,” Adrien said as he downed the glass. Marinette shuffled next to him and the next thing he saw was her stealing Adrien’s newly filled shot glass.

He was, least to say, shocked when he saw everyone take a shot, his fiancée included.

“Akumas. To be exact, Desperada and Time Breaker, at the very least. Probably some others too. He’s never been that good at not dying, and there was one time when he had to witness me die like, 25 thousand times.”

“25,913 times, Buginette.”

“Sorry, 25,913 times. He saw me die that many times, and I remember exactly none of them. He probably remembers most.”

“Holy shit.”

After everyone had had time to think over it and let the realisation that two out of their three sunshines had died god knows how many times and had had to witness one another die as many times sink in, Jason simply grabbed the chipotle vodka and took a few gulps. “I need more alcohol to deal with this” had been his explanation, and when he’d been told he’d die if he drank too much, no one realised the mistake until it was too late, because…

“Been there, done that.”

Cue them groaning and hiding their faces in their pillows all the while Jason just laughed.

“Okay, back to the game. Never have I ever been related to a supervillain.”

“Fuck you too Jason.”

Both Conner and Adrien took a shot as they glared at Jason, and Kon gave him the finger.

The rest of the game went in the same style. Everyone was flabbergasted at how many times both Adrien and Marinette had to drink. Those happened with, for example, Bart’s question of drinking before the age of 21 (“We grew up in France, he was a rich ass bitch, what else did you expect? Besides, legal drinking age is 18 there.”), Jay’s of whether someone had peeked at another person in the shower (“Well, I suppose it could be called that. Chaton pretended to be in the shower every time I came over during an Akuma that came for his or Gabritch’s head, nevermind the fact he always had clothes on. It’s not like I knew.”), Cassie’s “never have I ever fantasized about a real person” (“I mean, I was a teenager with a huge crush on Ladybug…” “Gross, Chaton, gross.” “Don’t try and deny having a crush on me as well.” “Well, fuck you too.” “I think I’ll leave that for your fiancé.” “Oh my god, Adrien.”) It just went on and on.

After a few hours of different things, such as hide and seek in the dark (it went as expected — Adrien won. Damn that night vision of his even in civilian form), truth and dare (they were all superheroes or vigilantes, there was hardly anything they wouldn’t say or do in relatively safe company, especially when they were at least tipsy), strip poker (this one Adrien lost because he couldn’t stop making puns, Bart came second last because he couldn’t keep a straight face (“Well, it’s not like anything else about me is straight either.”), which, to everyone’s surprise, Marinette won (“Whaatt? I had to get really creative and good at bluffing during school and Papillon, why is this so shocking to you all?”). They stopped when the next thing to go would’ve been someone’s underwear), and they were definitely glad to finally just lie down and rest.

Then Adrien’s phone went off. He surged out from under the covers and unlocked his phone. In the darkness of the room, the phone lit up his face rather well. He was smiling. Bart pushed the covers aside and sat up next to Adrien.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Texting to a friend.”

“Oh, is that your new friend? The one you met while scavenging?” Bart sounded excited and got closer to be able to see the messages. Adrien just placed his phone so that Bart could see them more easily.

“Yeah, it is.”

Marinette sat up as well. Smiling, she asked, “Oh, you made a friend while scavenging? That’s so wonderful, though only you, Kitty. Only you could manage to do that.”

“Kon said the same thing right after it.”

“Of course he did. What’s her name?”

“Zoanne.”

Beside Marinette, Tim went still and paled. He swallowed audibly and forced himself to look at Adrien. “Do you know her surname?”

“Yeah, it’s Wilkins. Why?”

Tim buried his face in Marinette’s knees and thighs, whining. “Oh god. Kill me now, please. Maybe borrow the Cat Miraculous to do it. Or Jason’s guns.”

“Why? What happened?”

“She’s my ex and I might’ve left her in rather an unfortunate situation.”

Adrien stared at him. Then frowned. Then honest to god scowled. “Are you fucking kidding me.”

“Oh my god, Adrien swore.”

“She’s dating again, by the way. Some girl named Ariana.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“Fuck.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at him. “Let me guess. You also dated Ariana.”

“Yeah.”

An amused sigh fell of Marinette’s lips as she stroked Tim’s hair. “You’re hopeless.”

Tim scrunched up his nose. “No, I’m not.”

Marinette gave him a look.  

“Okay, yeah, I am. Please kill me now. I can’t have you two be friends with nearly all my exes.”

“What do you mean nearly all your exes?”

“Cassie and Steph, and considering Adrien is friends with Zoanne, you’ll probably be soon too, and I’m sure you’re going to call Ariana your friend soon enough as well.”

“You’re forgetting I’m also friends with Tam.”

“Fuck.”

Jason just snorted. “Fuck, Babybird, you’ve got a ton of exes, and your fiancée and her best friend are friends with like, all of them. Damn.”

“Shut up, Jay.”

The next morning, both Tim and Jason were hungover, and Adrien and Marinette could definitely feel themselves having drunk the night before.

They thanked the kwamii they didn’t need to suffer as many or horrible consequences for the drinking and bought and or baked a ton of food for Plagg and Tikki.

___________

@the-navistar-carol @caffeinetheory @jardimazul @captainartsypants @marinettepotterandplagg @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life @abrx2002 @persephonebutkore @rebecarojas07 @corabeth11 @freshbark @maribat-march2020 @catsandfanfic @fertileleaf @eat0crow @cutechip

[maribat-guide]

@flightfoot Yes, I think I get what you mean. Honestly, while I was personally drawn into the crossover ship and fandom because of salt, at this point, over a year later, I have to mute any channels in the official Maribat Discord as well as avoid any salt in general (outside of, well. Gabriel and Tomoe and some other bad parents) because it does not seem good with me anymore, and again, I find it understandable that the salt would put you off. I would have been put off by it had I not been in a salty mode towards some of the characters already, and even then as I read the fics, I did see characters acting way out of how they, in my personal opinion, should or even ever would. 

Even so, it has been a way of coping for a lot of the people in the fandom to write and read salt, so I am not going to judge them that much. I will just... avoid it personally. 

Anyhow! I do know some fics you could perhaps read that aren’t salt, and I will try to keep it non-Marinette centric as well as possible! 

#OnlyInGotham by @eat0crow

People of Gotham think Mari’s the newest Wayne child. Social media fic, and there is no salt (and it’s platonic btw). In general, Alya is an amazing friend, and I love her here so much, she’s the best.

Who Needs Paperwork? also by @eat0crow 

Bruce finds a new kid to adopt. It’s not like he and Clark couldn’t have more kids than Dick and Conner. He... might have skipped a step or a million while he was at it. 

In This Class We Stan A Friend also by @eat0crow (Okay so maybe I’ve read too many of her fics by now)

Alya is the best friend and might break a... few laws while she’s at it. But hey, what wouldn’t a girl do to get her best friend a boyfriend? (Timari, but Alya centric)

Not finished, but The Bat and the Peahen by LittleKittyKanny on Ao3

I haven’t actually gotten around to reading much of this but Mari&Adrien friendship, the main ship is Emlilie/Bruce, and Gabriel is still a terrible dad. Also contains AdriJon and Daminette.

Kan’s Maribat March 2020 by LittleKittyKanny on Ao3

Contains multiple (aka, 31) shorter, individual fics, some of them might contain salt but definitely not all. A lot of different pairings, both containing Mari and not.

Other than that, I know of some other fics that don’t contain Mari or aren’t Mari centric (and even these are sorta, I suppose) and aren’t salty (easier to find just, not salt), so if you are interested, there are pairings such as BartAdrien, AdriJon, Constantine/Kagami and Bart/Kagami that might have fics of just them without being Mari centric. 

Hope any of them interests you!

Hi, i know it’s probably annoying to keeping getting question on this but I truly just want to understand everyone’s perspective on this topic. I personally don’t like the Daminette ship fanfics anymore because it’s pretty toxic and hate on mlb characters but I do still enjoy some where the characters are hated on. Would you read a fic where it’s more adrienette mentoring other DC characters and it’s platonic or do you not enjoy the crossover as a whole?

Adrienette mentoring some DC characters would actually be pretty cool! Just so long as it has no relation to Chameleon or any reference to any Alya, Adrien, Class, Tom, Sabine, etc. salt, it probably wouldn’t be abhorrent to me at least. I actually searched through some DC crossover fics for a bit because I enjoy the crossover in and of itself, I think there’s a lot of cool potential for it. I was just disgusted by the salt.

Also at this point I’d VASTLY prefer for Marinette to not be the focus of such a fic, because I’m just reeeeally wary when I see her be the focus of a DC crossover fic. (which is pretty much always).

[ethelphantom]

The Greatest Miracle

This fandom does not have enough BartAdrien content like, seriously. They're the cutest thing to ever exist. Two sunshine children. Please love them. Please love my greatest creation. Anyway, have some cuteness and fluff and (possible? I have no idea if it is funny) humour for a change! Maribat March day 22, rare pair

Ao3

This is Maribat -- Don’t like; Don’t read

____________________________

“Please don’t.”

“Oh, Adrien. I totally will.”

❋❋❋

“Hey, Bart, give my tablet back! I need it for my speech!”

“Nooopppe! I may not be able to open it but I know what kind of things there are! Kon, catch!”

“Thanks, Bart. Have fun. You forgot I’m also doing the speech. You literally asked me to.”

“Dang it.”

❋❋❋

Marinette snorted as Adrien took one look at her before burying his face in his hands as she stood up, Tim and Conner following suit. She grabbed the microphone from the stand nearby and blew a kiss at Adrien, winking.

“Good afternoon everyone! It’s a beautiful day, even more beautiful than Adrien’s hair, and we all know how beautiful his hair is, soooo… Anyway, before I actually get to any important part, I need to say that I asked Adrien if there was anything that I shouldn’t say in any case, and well. He didn’t say anything in particular, I swear. To everyone else, I’m sorry if this makes your idea of Adrien’s supposed put-togetherness just vanish in front of your eyes. I can promise you, it never existed in the first place.

“I can’t believe this day actually came, seeing Adrien get married to someone,” Marinette said, smiling when she heard the quiet “rude much?” coming from Adrien’s direction. “Oh yeah. In case some of you didn’t know, I’m Marinette, Adrien’s best friend, though I’m pretty sure the only ones who don’t know that are from Bart’s side as Adrien has somehow managed to introduce me to his entire family, all of his few friends — and Adrien, before you say anything, you met most of your friends through me, don’t try — and we went to the same school so there’s that as well. Honestly, I think he’s even dragged me to a few family reunions during the years.”

There was laughter in the crowd but it quieted down as soon as Marinette began talking again.

“Adrien and I have gone through thick and thin. There have been liars, bullies, gold-diggers, over-eager wannabe journalists… Well, we’ve probably seen anything you can imagine. We’re siblings in all but blood, rather literally. My parents even adopted him after Gabitch — I mean, Gabriel, all parents of little children, you did not hear that, and neither did you, Bart, Wally and Dick, but like seriously, if there's anyone that deserves to be called out for being a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad father in a wedding, it's that man —, was arrested. It was easier since that meant he wouldn’t need to transfer schools.”

Marinette tilted her head and bit the inside of her cheek. “Wait a second. Tim, dear, did you have the tablet connected to the projector already? I want the photos, like, five minutes ago.”

Tim laughed at her. “Cuppie, you started the speech less than three minutes ago. But yeah, it’s connected.”

“Shush, you. Thanks! I’ll say when I want the pictures. Anyway. I met Adrien when we were like, 13, and it really didn’t start great. I hated him at first. Like, honest to God hated him. You can imagine how the rest of the day went. Somehow, he cleared the idea I had of him within a few hours though, so we became friends. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had, always been there for me through everything.

“I don’t think I’ve got too much time to speak even though I’d absolutely love to do that for the rest of the day because Adrien’s gonna murder me if I try, so I’ll just tell you one of my favourite things with him. Who everyone knew him on some level when he was 17?”

Maybe a quarter of the room raised their hands.

“Great. How many of you noticed he had a crush then?”

Less than half of those people raised their hands, though rather hesitant.

“Fine, Adrien, you win, but that just means they didn’t spend enough time with you. Anyway. He had a crush on our dear Bart over here though he kept denying it for ages. Tim, the pictures, please? Because I’ve got a compilation of how he looked like when I felt like pointing the fact out to him and after I had actually informed him of his crush. I have no idea how he didn’t realise it right away.”

There were pictures of clearly lovesick Adrien, looking at something (a lot of the time it seemed to be his phone) the same way he had looked at Bart only some time earlier.

Someone in the crowd yelled “he was so whipped oh my god, did he really not realise?” when they got to the fifth photo.

Adrien had hidden his face in Bart’s hair.

He was lucky Bart’s hair was like it was.

Bart, though, he was laughing.

“Yeah, yeah he was, and me neither. He literally had a gay panic after he met Bart for the first time — trust me when I say that he was royally screwed already from day one. And yet. Yet. Considering Adrien had known me for only a day or two when he decided he was in love with me when we were like 13 and actually declared this in front of a whole bunch of people, it’s so funny how it took him actual months to admit he was actually in love with Bart. Fun fact, the three of us—” Marinette pointed at herself and then at Tim and Kon on her left, “still have a group chat full of plans to get those two together because they were so oblivious, especially Adrien, and also idiots. God, do I love them, but I swear they caused me more grey hair than the wild kid I babysat as a teenager ever did.”

Tim snatched the microphone from Marinette’s hands, pecking her cheek quickly. Marinette stuck her tongue out at him but didn’t complain about the interruption. It wasn’t like she had anything important left to say anyway. For now.

“Yes, listen to my beautiful and wonderful wife over here. They were so frustrating, always talking about the other like they had hung the moon and the stars on the night sky but neither realised they liked the other until it was pointed out to them. Well. According to Mari, it took until Kon and I got Bart to realise he liked Adrien, which eventually led to him confessing, that Adrien recognised his own feelings. It’s ridiculous, but oh so amusing to tell now.

“So, hello everyone, I’m Tim, one of Bart’s best friends — the other is over there being a loser. I met Bart through Dick and Wally maybe half a year after Bruce started watching over me because my parents were never there, so we must have been seven or eight. I had troubles with befriending other people back then—”

“You still do, Tim.”

“Mari, this is my speech, yours ended already.”

“Yeah, because you stole the mic.”

“Technicalities, technicalities. Anyhow, I had trouble with getting friends around that time, but it was somehow easy to befriend Bart. He was so open, friendly, positive, full of light and determined to befriend you that it was actually impossible to avoid it. After I befriended him, though, I noticed I started getting other friends as well because he made it easier. That’s actually also how I met Mari, the love of my life and my wife, which has me forever thankful to Bart, but that’s a story for another time. Right now, I’m here to tell you how great Bart is and also make fun of him, because isn’t that what best friends are for.

“So, like Mari already said, we had a group chat just because of those two. Favourite ship ever. Not gonna lie, we all shipped them together since the moment we realised how well they would fit together and the only reason today didn’t happen sooner is because this guy here—” Tim pointed at Adrien, “—refused to admit he liked Bart and scoffed every time we tried to suggest it. Yet, every time he made a terrible pun, and we all know he makes a lot of those, it was Bart he looked at first to see if it made him laugh. Always. Not his best friend, Mari. It was Bart.”

That was when Tim lost the microphone — Kon had walked up to them, now behind Tim, and just took it out of his hands. Tim tilted his head backwards and frowned at Kon.

“And Bart. Bart laughed every. Single. Time. Like, regardless of how horrible the pun was that time, and how it should have not made anyone laugh, Bart laughed because he knew it made Adrien smile, and happy Adrien equalled happy Bart equalled happy Adrien. This is why it was so strange they didn’t realise, and this is why them dancing around one another drove me up the wall. Tim and Mari too, I suppose. By the way. Here’s a list of pictures and videos where the aforementioned situation is shown multiple times so that you’ll understand what I mean.”

The (seemingly endless, if Adrien’s mortification was anything to go by) videos and pictures were projected onto a big screen and it seemed that no matter what Adrien thought, everyone else thought them adorable and heart-warming. Everyone. Especially Bart, who had not been aware of said pictures or videos’ existence and was now beaming and nearly jumping up and down in his seat. Marinette could almost swear he was vibrating.

Once they were done showing them, and the roomful of people had stopped cooing at Adrien like he was still that starry-eyed, adorable, baby-faced fool so very in love with Bart (he was), Kon brought the microphone to his lips again. “So yeah. We all had to suffer. And because of that, now you two had to suffer a little too,” he said, snorting.

Shaking his head fondly at the newlywed couple, he smiled. “You know, I have known Bart for nearly my entire life, and I never thought there would come a day I would meet anyone that was as much of a sunshine child as he was. Then we met Adrien.”

Tim nodded in the background, clearly agreeing. Marinette hummed. Kon handed her the microphone as she tapped her foot against the floor with her heel. “Yeah, same here, though the other way around — I thought there couldn’t be anyone I’d call sunshine incarnate other than Adrien, and then there I was, face to face with Bart who I swear glowed when I met him for the first time.”

Marinette sighed, smiled, and walked to Adrien and Bart. “So, Adrien, Bart, I am so immensely proud of you two. I can’t help but be happy whenever I think about you both overcoming so much and deciding to dedicate yourselves to one another and believe me when I say, I am so glad I got to witness you exchanging vows today. I wish all the best for you, as do those two dorks, and remember that we’re all going to be there for you both. You have two souls but a single thought, and two hearts that beat as one. This is the day that now belongs to one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life and I could not be happier to have gotten to see it happen.” She raised her glass. “A toast to these two fools and to their union! May you always be satisfied!”

Marinette returned to her seat next to Tim and rested her head against his shoulder as he ran his fingers through her hair.

“I’m happy for them,” Marinette whispered, watching as Adrien danced with Bart, leading him, before Bart grabbed Adrien and picked him up before running around the room, presenting him like the greatest miracle ever granted for the humankind to everyone. Marinette squeezed Tim’s hand, smiling at their best friends.

“Same, Cuppie. Same here.”

_____________________________________

@kris-pines04​ @thethirdwheelfriend​ @maribat-is-lifeblood​ @abrx2002​ @persephonebutkore​ @rebecarojas07​ @corabeth11​ @kadmeread @silverwhiteraven​ @freshbark @maribat-march2020 @catsandfanfic @fertileleaf @eat0crow @cutechip

[ethelphantom]

My Every First Will Be Yours

Would you look at that, I’m back on my bullshit. This time it’s Maribat March. Am I the only one who’s like, way too excited for it? I am? Oh, okay. This one’s for day 1, firsts though, and it took me embarrassingly long to realise that the first day was firsts. Oh well.

Anyway, I think there's going to be something during my Maribat March for everyone, because I'll at least have a lot of Timari and Dickinette, rather much Jasonette, some Daminette, one StephMari (well, the last two are there if I manage to write them in time), and some platonic prompts. There's going to be AUs, angst, fluff, my horrible attempts at humour, big sister Mari, BartAdrien, Mari meeting the Amazons, friends teasing (and making fun of) friends, more angst (what did you expect? It's me we're talking about), and yeah. Also yes, I can tag you to the month (or all Maribat content, but specify, thanks) if you ask me to, either in the comments or via an ask or message. Anything works. 

Ao3

This is Maribat -- don’t like, don’t read

_______________

❋❋❋

And this was precisely why she despised getting into fights, especially out of suit. It wasn’t like she couldn’t do it, or that she minded injuries that much, but her knuckles were hurting after she delivered a punch a bit wrong because she’d been cornered and didn’t have enough space to get into a good position.

Besides, there were multiple people that were trying to attack her. Her best guess was harassment or an attempt at kidnapping or rape, but she couldn’t be too sure. Regardless, whatever it was, they were there, she was alone against four or five people, and she was scared, and a scared person too used to having defend herself in a fight against people (or things) bigger than her fought back without really thinking about it more than that. So, it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that once Marinette cleared her way past them and away from the alleyway and someone tried to grab her, her first reaction was to punch them in the face. The person backed off immediately to hold their nose that was now bleeding (and oh god, she’d probably broken their nose, but then again if they were trying to help those other guys, they did deserve it), and there was no way she was risking anything by staying.

The obvious thing to do was to run away, and run she did.

❋❋❋

Oh god. Marinette was ready to murder Dick, no doubts. He’d told her that he had a date organised for her and someone else he knew, assuring her that the person was a good person. While she trusted Dick, meeting the person whose nose she’d broken a few weeks earlier was not a good basis for a date.

Because no, while she hadn’t actually recognised the person sitting in front of her, he had, and he’d just immediately blurted out something along the lines of “oh shit, you’re the girl that punched me in the face a few weeks ago.”

So yeah. That did not go too well.

She ended up finding out that he’d witnessed the fight and tried to help her because she’d been trembling on her feet and looked ready to pass out but she had just freaked out so she'd punched him (miraculously, Tim didn't even blame her for it), Dick was his brother, his name was Tim Wayne, and it took her an embarrassingly long time to realise that yes, Tim was in fact the third son of that Bruce Wayne, and if Dick was his brother, then that meant he too was a Wayne. Tim had simply laughed when she brought that up.

Regardless of how awfully their first meeting had gone, Marinette ended up having a wonderful time. Tim was a wonderful conversationalist, he was intelligent, a good person, and was the CEO of his father’s company already at the age of 19 — had apparently been for quite the while already. They exchanged numbers and decided when they’d go out again, though both agreed they’d prefer a place more quiet and peaceful.

They met only a few days later again, and Dick positively beamed when he heard they got along well.

❋❋❋

Clutching Tim’s dirtied jacket in her hands, Marinette cried and buried her face in Tim’s chest. Tim brought his arms around her and held her tight, rocking her in his embrace as she sobbed. One would have imagined it was Marinette that had gotten hurt.

Tim had been kidnapped. He’d been gone for five weeks and they weren’t able to find him. World’s greatest detectives, her ass — Marinette could hardly like Tim’s family when most of them just let the fact Tim had disappeared be for two weeks until they realised there was someone asking for a ransom, and even then it took them ages to pay said ransom because they were determined to use the following two and half weeks trying to find him on their own, perfectly well aware that there was a chance they’d kill him. They never did find him, the kidnappers were too good, so they were forced to pay the money when they found Marinette freaking out and ready to commit homicide because she was going crazy when no one could find anything and no one seemed to care, either.

But now he was back. He was back, alive, mostly uninjured aside from the few bruises he had gotten, nowhere near the brink of death. And Marinette couldn’t have been happier at that moment, even if she was sobbing helplessly.

Tim cupped her face with one hand and brought it closer to himself before he pressed a kiss on her lips. It took Marinette a second or two to realise what was happening, but when she did just as Tim was backing off, Marinette lunged forwards and claimed his lips again. She clung onto Tim desperately, like someone would take him away from her again if she let go, and so she didn’t. She was not going to risk it. She couldn’t risk it. Not again. She couldn't handle losing Tim twice.

And so she stayed there, letting herself melt against the one she’d realised she loved when he had been taken away, hating the fact it had taken that to happen before she understood the love she felt for him.

And he let her melt against him, holding her tight, both hoping they’d be able to make one another whole again, or at least fit their broken pieces so that they wouldn't break more.

❋❋❋

It might have taken them a few sleepless… days? Perhaps? but eventually they had fallen asleep. Together. They had, in their exhausted and barely functioning states crawled under Bruce’s desk and just… cuddled up there and fallen asleep.

It certainly made an amusing story for Bruce, Dick and Jason to tell later on, because when Bruce had found the two in his office, it had both been so amusing and so adorable that he had had to call his oldest son to look at them (and preferably take a picture of them while he was at it). As it was, Dick had been with Jason at the time so Jason had also tagged along, and they were all amused (especially Jason who had to go outside the office to laugh because even he didn’t dare to wake up the two that were finally sleeping.)

At least he had had the sensibility to get a blanket and two pillows while he was at it, so they managed to make the sleeping place a little more comfortable for their precious, hardworking brother and future sister-in-law.

Tim and Marinette ended up receiving a printed picture of the moment in their mail a few weeks later when they’d mostly forgotten about it all.

❋❋❋

They had fought. For the first time. It felt horrible, but neither Marinette or Tim could bring themselves to go to the other and apologise. No, instead, Marinette had holed up in the guest room she was occupying, and Tim had run from the Manor completely. She had no idea where he was.

It was just that— god, she never realised that bringing up the fact Tim kept disregarding his own health for everyone else, doing WE work, helping his family, trying to make sure everything was as they should, that it would lead to something like this. She had been right, he wasn’t supposed to sacrifice himself for everyone like that, she hated it, she'd seen it happen once before with another person and hated it back then too, and Tim knew this, but then he’d brought up the point that he was doing it because that was the only way he could ever be worth anyone or anything. It had shocked her, because she hadn’t realised this was also a question of self-worth.

But at that moment both their feelings had been heated so neither stopped to think the other’s points and pushed back even harder until it had just exploded and it had led them here.

And Marinette couldn’t do a damn thing about it because she knew Tim had left his phone back as well. She was so scared this was the end.

(It wasn’t. After about a week, Tim had come back (not home, because it wasn't really a home to either of them) from wherever he'd been with his friends, and both of them had apologised, looking like someone had died. Or possibly, like they were scared someone would break and die if they didn't. It took them a lot of time to figure out everything, but they reached a compromise. Later on Dick pointed out that technically Marinette punching Tim was counted as their first fight, but then Marinette had threatened to punch him as well because that didn’t count, and they both knew she hated being reminded about it unless it was Tim himself, and Dick backed off, thankfully.)

❋❋❋

So, in the end, maybe they should have let Barbara come along and help them choose a house because maybe deciding to buy a house based on what kind of coffee machines there were that the owner had said they could give away wasn’t their smartest idea.

Then again, the coffee machines were great and they had not been able to come to a decision otherwise. Tim was used to mansions, huge manors, while Marinette had lived nearly all her life in a relatively small house, above a bakery. It was difficult deciding even the size of the house, let alone anything else. It was a little problematic when the parties of the relationship were a rich ass boy and a baker’s daughter — their standards differed greatly.

Besides, in the house they ended up choosing there were like ten different coffee machines, two studies, a wonderful kitchen Marinette had instantly fell in love with, a huge bath, and it was on a good spot as far from the Arkham Asylum and the Wayne Manor as humanly possible considering neither no longer knew how to leave Gotham.

They were barely 21 at that point and had known one another for 2 years, but that was fine. This was the best they could ever ask for.

And when on the day they finally moved in Marinette got on one knee because she wanted to surprise Tim, they both knew there were so many more years to come.

Yes, they celebrated their engagement by testing every new coffee machine they now had.

❋❋❋

____________

@freshbark @maribat-march2020 @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life @abrx2002 @persephonebutkore

[northernbluetongue]

I LOVE the fanart!!! 💖💖💖💖💖💖

Like You Could Be Family

And I’m back with new soulmate AUs. This is my Maribat Secret Santa contribution to @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry​. I hope you like it even though it seems my brain took some liberties with the instructions. There shouldn’t be anything you specifically said you didn’t want, though. I think. So yeah. I hope you like it. (It’s Timari, by the way). There’s also a piece of art of one of the scenes that I ended up doing bc I’ve got absolutely no self-control at the end so don’t miss it!

Ao3

“Dick, are you seriously trying to model on the cheese shelf? I swear I’m going to disown you as soon as we get home— hey, miss, do you want a new embarrassing brother? You look like you could actually be family anyway.”

Marinette stared at her wrist. Of all the things she was expecting to read on her skin once she turned 18, she wasn’t— it really was not, well, whatever the hell this was.

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