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intercoursefluids · 2 years ago

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Secret Santa

As soon as Damian saw the crowd at the end of the hallway, he turned around and walked the other way.

There was only one reason so many people would be smiling together in Gotham.

And that reason was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Ever since Marinette had transferred schools it was like the entire school had become infected with her cheerfulness.

It was nauseating.

As Damian took another turn he was forced to come face to face with Jonathan Kent who was, unfortunately, his best friend.

Even more so unfortunate, was the fact that he and Marinette got along like a house on fire.

Jon’s face positively lit up when he spotted Damian.

“Damian!”

Damian promptly turned on his heel, heading for the nearest set of doors leading outside.

“Damian, wait up!”

“No.”

Jon caught up to him anyway, bumping him with his shoulder when he was able to match his walking speed.

“Where you going? Don’t tell me you, the great Damian Wayne, are running away from Marinette again.”

There was obvious amusement in Jon’s voice, amusement Damian elected to ignore.

“Running away and avoiding someone are two very different things. As to where I am going, I was trying to get away from two of the biggest nuisances in my life, seeing as you are still here, I only partially succeeded.”

“Well, at least you got close-”

A loud boom cuts Jon off, causing him to cover his ears and cringe in pain before they both realize what had happened.

There had been an explosion in the school.

From the same direction Damian had last seen Marinette.

Damian turns on his heel, sprinting back the way he came with a hurried ‘Marinette!’ tossed over his shoulder to Jon.

Both boys race back towards Marinette, dodging the students rushing down the hall and ducking around the teachers who tried to herd them outside.

When they turned the corner it was abundantly clear just how strong the blast had been, pieces of rubble littered the floor, one of the walls of lockers had become unbolted and had trapped someone underneath.

Someone with pink ribbons in her hair.

“Marinette! Jon, help me move this!”

While Jon held up the structure Damian reached underneath, pulling Marinette out from under it and holding her against him, one hand against her throat, checking her pulse, and the other on her chest, trying to feel her breaths.

Only after Damian had confirmed that she was alive did he allow himself to relax, however temporary it was.

“She’s okay.”

Damian sighed, leaning back against some rubble and allowing Jon to look Marinette over with his X-ray vision.

Jon breathed a sigh of relief, planting his hands on his knees.

“Yeah, she looks okay, except for her leg, I think it's broken.”

Damian sighed into her hair, passing her off to Jon so he could stand before taking her back in his arms again.

Both boys started walking back down the hall, trying to find their way outside when they saw the flickers of fire getting closer to them.

Damian took deep breaths as he allowed Jon to lead them outside, it was fine, Marinette was fine, she would be fine.

They had barely made it outside when Marinette started to stir, shifting in Damian’s arms before letting out a small whimper.

“It’s alright, Marinette. I- we got you out. You will be fine.”

Damian started brushing his thumb up and down her arm trying to soothe her while studiously ignoring Jon’s pointed looks in his direction.

Marinette, wrapped her arms around his neck, tucking her head under his chin.

“...Safe?”

Her voice was weak and scratchy, as if it hurt to talk.

It bothered him.

“Yes, you’re safe. I promise.”

When they finally made it to the ambulance, Damian had a harder time letting go of her than he would like to admit. Not that anyone but Jon could tell at least.

_____________

Damian hadn’t been able to see her until the next day, and even then she had slept well past noon, only to wake up after Damian had already been there for the better part of 2 hours.

Damian’s family had been relentless in making fun of him for his worry (Constantly pacing the hallway waiting for permission to go see her and jumping every time someone startled him), but Damian knew they were just as concerned for her as he was.

The rest of the family was in the hallway, talking to Marinette’s parents on the phone when she had finally woken up.

“Da…mian?”

Damian’s head snapped up, startled to see her awake already despite how relieved he was that she finally opened her eyes.

“Hey.”

Damian did his best not to cringe at his response.

“Glad to see you awake, Marinette.”

She nodded, trying for a smile before cringing and putting a hand to her throat.

Damian was up in an instant, reaching for the pitcher and cup and pouring her a cup of water. He had to pour her two more cups before she could try to speak.

“...Thank you.”

Damian nodded, taking his seat beside her bed again and sending a quick text to Jon telling him she had woken up.

“The doctor said you had a bunch of plaster stuck to your throat, don’t speak if it hurts. I can get you a notebook or something to communicate with until you feel better?”

Marinette shook her head, staring intently at him before holding out her hand.

Staring at her in confusion Damian passes her whatever is currently in his hand, which ends up being his cellphone.

Marinette groans, setting his phone beside her and holding out her hand again.

Damian grows more confused as he tries to reach for the water pitcher beside him only for her to violently shake her head no.

With a sigh Marinette holds up her other hand, pointing at it before reaching out for him again.

Damian hesitantly puts his hand in hers, still not sure if he understood her right.

Evidently he understood her correctly when she laced their fingers together and cleared her throat.

“...Why- Why did you-?”

“Ah, you remember that? It’s not like I could just leave you there?”

Marinette’s eyes filled with tears.

“I thought you hated me?”

Damina froze, eyes wide as he peered up at her.

“I’ve never hated you, Marinette? Why did you think I did?”

Tears leak from her eyes and Damian’s heart clenches, immediately feeling like shit.

“Y-you always leave when you see me, and you refuse to be near me-”

“-That’s not because of you.” Damian cut her off.

“I always leave because there are always people surrounding you. It had nothing to do with you yourself. You’re too… nice, Marinette. I can’t stand watching all of those people who take advantage of that, so I leave. I don’t hate you.”

Marinette sniffles, squeezing his hand.

“O-oh.”

Marinette lets go, wiping her face and opening her mouth before she gets cut off by the door opening.

“Marinette! You’re alive!”

Jon’s hair is tousled, obviously having just flown to the hospital.

Marinette smiles at him and Damian decides to take the chance to grab something to eat and call the nurse over.

Marinette smiles at him as he leaves, a smile that Damian returns before walking out of the room.

Damian walks around for a bit before grabbing a bag of chips from the vending machine and a bottle of water and heading back.

Damian is almost back to the room by the time he finishes the chips, quickly disposing of the bag and taking a drink of water as he opens the door to the room and walks in.

“-When are you going to tell Damian you have a crush on him?”

Damian sputters, faintly aware of the fact that Marinette squeaks and turns bright red as she notices him.

“D-Damian! I- He- Jon’s an idiot, we both know this!”

Damian can’t help the small smile on his face, slowly regaining his composure before walking over to her.

“You have a crush on me?”

Marinette sputters, ‘accidentally’ smacking Jon in the face as she flails.

“Well- JOn was just- Jon was just messing with me and-”

Damian leaned in closer, gently bumping her head with his.

“That wasn’t a denial, Marinette.”

Marinette blushed bright red, sputtering for a moment before seeming to give up on words.

Damian grins, gently pressing a kiss on her forehead.

“I would like to ask you to be my girlfriend, if you do actually have a crush on me that is.”

Marinette nods, looking down and leaning against him.

Damian presses another kiss to her head turning to look at Jon who was grinning like a maniac.

“Oh yeah, Jon? You should run, you embarrassed my girlfriend.”

Jon keeps smiling, staying absolutely still before bloating out of his chair and down the hall.

With one final kiss and smile at Marinette Damian takes off after him.

@arty-shadow-morningstar

#maribat au #daminette december

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year ago

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Mercy

Summary: Cass sees a pair of mers struggling in a trap, and so she helps them out. The mers see Cass struggling with her dad, and so they return the favor.

Mer au for AU August by @maribat-calendar-events

If nothing else, Cass would like to go on the record saying that she wasn’t stupid.

Normally, you might not have to state things like this but, unfortunately, many of her decisions as of late might suggest otherwise. She wasn’t stupid. She just… yeah…

Anyways.

It was early in the morning, too early for even the sun to think about rising, too early for it to really be considered ‘early’. But it wasn’t late, either, not anymore, really. It was just past three in the morning. That perfect in-between where no one should be up, and they certainly shouldn’t be out.

Cassandra Cain was out.

She knew she shouldn’t be – in the same way that people spot a tiger out in the wild and, even if they have never seen it before, even if they have no clue what it is, they still always, always run. It was dangerous, she could feel it in her bones. Three o’clock was the devil’s hour, and leaving the safety of her bedroom was tempting fate.

She would take her chances, though. Better this than being home, alone, for the next month and a half. The saying goes “the devil you know”, but sometimes people get bored of dealing with the same thing over and over again.

Her feet skipped as they jumped from rock to rock. The waves lapped at the shore. The seashells reflected the light of her flashlight. The beach. It was quite possibly her favorite place to be. Not that she was allowed to go many places, really, so that wasn’t all that impressive, but it still had to count for something, right?

And, besides, the rule was that she wasn’t allowed to talk to people. At night, there were no people, so she technically wasn’t breaking any rules.

It was peaceful.

Until it wasn’t.

She wasn’t quite sure what had piqued her attention first. The sound, maybe? The quiet clicking and hissing and metal scraping against metal and splashing. It was hard to miss.

Or maybe she just knew. Maybe it was the distinct wrongness settling over her the moment she got too close. Some instinctual knowledge that there was something nearby.

Whatever it was, this is where she made her first stupid decision: getting closer.

Which was how she found them.

They had clearly made some kind of effort to hide themselves. Hiding among the rocks and seaweed. The waves pulled at them, trying to tug them in. But they didn’t go, because they couldn’t. One of the two, the one with shaggy blond hair, was caught in what looked to be an old anchor chain, wound around his chest, trapping his legs and one arm to his stomach. The other, with black hair pulled into a delicate bun dotted with seashells, was clearly trying to help, tugging frantically at the bindings, but it only seemed to make things worse.

And Cass would have helped. You don’t have to speak to help someone, it could have been fine.

If the constantly churning waves didn’t draw her gaze. If she didn’t see one mer’s long tail, glimmering in the light. If her flashlight didn’t make them follow the thin beam of brightness back to her. If their pupils didn’t dilate, showing off their lack of irises and yellow sclera.

She made a squeaking noise in the back of her throat. The hand holding her flashlight couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

The one with the tail made a clicking sound in the back of her throat, before smacking her maybe-friend upside the head.

The one with legs gave a surprisingly human expression, pouting and moving his free hand in a way that looked somewhat like sign language, if stilted. Maybe he was used to signing with both hands, maybe the language wasn’t natural to him.

Not that Cass cared at the moment.

Both of them were clearly arguing, their hands waving wildly, clicking occasionally in a sharp way that could only ever be read as angry… which meant that Cass should run.

She took a half-step back. Not daring to look away from the two creatures that she had come across, for fear of them sneaking closer.

This was never a good thing to do when you’re standing on a rock, at the beach, surrounded by seaweed.

She shrieked, going up in a flurry of arms and nightclothes and the damned seaweed that she had slipped on. Her elbows and back screamed their protest as she was scraped over the rocks, and even all of her dad’s stealth training didn’t keep her from nearly smashing her head open. She gave a small hiss of pain, trying not to think about how much blood she could feel running down her back.

It was easy to ignore. Mainly because those strange eyes turned back onto her.

There was a few moments of awkward silence.

“Heeeeeeeyyyy,” the boy tried, going for his best winning smile, waving a webbed hand as if they were just random strangers that had happened to meet on the beach.

Maybe it would have worked if Cass wasn’t reeling from the fact that they could speak human language. But she didn’t get much time to process that at all.

“If you get any closer, I’m going to rip you,” the lady mer said, baring too-sharp teeth. The effect was dampened by the fact that knife-like claws were still scrabbling frantically at the chains, but only slightly.

Cass started to scramble backward on her hands and feet.

This did not please the mer either, as her eyes narrowed. “And if you try to run and get your human friends, I’m going to hit you with a rock.”

Cass was going to stay firmly in place, actually. That seemed like the best plan.

The mer breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and Cass was surprised to find that she didn’t seem all that affected by the fact that she was out of water.

Neither of them seemed all that affected, really. The girl seemed to be more affected, the line of gills on the side of her neck flapping helplessly, but she didn’t show any signs of discomfort, and her lips certainly weren’t turning blue or eliciting desperate gasps for water. The boy didn’t even seem to care, lounging as best one can when sitting on uncomfortable rocks and bound in chains.

Their frustration seemed to only stem from their inability to break the chains. The boy kept saying something, over and over, but he was ignored every time. Instead, the girl tried everything she could think of. Splashing him with water to try and get him wet enough to wriggle out, trying to rip the chains with a mix of sharp claws and even sharper teeth, bashing the chains with a rock…

It was… pitiful, really.

Cass wanted to help.

But Cass also knew she wasn’t supposed to talk to people.

And, just like that, a tiny loophole formed in her mind. She knew the reason for The Rule, knew that it was less about her talking to others, and more about her father’s fear of the unknown, his fear that she would get stolen away by the creatures of the night in the same way her mother had. She knew that he was only fearful of the fact that she would be tricked by someone who only seemed human, at first glance… but, hey. He had only ever told her not to talk to people.

Mers weren’t people.

“There’s…” Cass began, and her voice broke. The sound scraped against the walls of her throat, aching in a way she hated. It was always at its worst when her father was out on his hunts, because then she couldn’t talk to anyone at all, her vocal cords atrophied from disuse, and at that exact moment she wished she hadn’t tried at all. But the two mers’ heads snapped to her, waiting, and she wasn’t going to get out of this based on the cold glare in the female mer’s eyes. “I might have bolt cutters at my house.”

This was a bit of a lie. She had said that she might have bolt cutters, but it really wasn’t a might kind of situation. The trap that the mer had fallen into was her father’s, and he always had a way to get out of those things stored away in his shed.

The mers exchanged somewhat wary glances.

The female mer narrowed her eyes, making a quiet sound that Cass couldn’t even dream of replicating.

The male made a clicking sound, a warning of his own.

She bared her teeth.

He smiled. It showed off a set of wicked fangs, though his were simply long, sharp canines, surrounded by a row of otherwise perfectly normal teeth. One of them was missing.

She made a grunting sound that could only ever be interpreted as frustration, but finally threw her hands up, letting the chains fall from her fingers and clink together again, and motioned for Cass to go.

She made to move.

And then a high-pitched singing started.

Instantly, Cass knew what was happening. She had heard many a time of the mer. Her father had said that they were some of the least dangerous creatures, but only because they usually preferred to stay away from humans. When bothered, they were some of the most deadly. Every single type of mer – because the term was, really, just a broad term made to refer to the creatures of the sea – was deadly in its own way. The sea was unforgiving, and so were its creatures. Sea monsters would capsize vessels that were too noisy with a lazy swipe of their hand before returning to their slumber. The gods of the sea were known to be mercurial at best, changing the waters from perfectly calm to whirlpools if they were particularly bored that day. Sea serpents would crush even boats made of the sturdiest wood, or even just swallow them whole if they didn’t feel like fighting for their meal.

Sirens would sing, and humans would find themselves getting dragged into the water by their own two feet, only able to watch on in horror as they were puppeted around, unable to stop themselves from drowning.

But she didn’t go towards the water at all.

She felt herself tread the familiar path up to her home. Every thought she might have had slipped through her fingers like water. Her gaze flitted past the traps littering the lawn, the familiar harpoons, the array of iron and silver weapons, the wards and runes and –.

Her foot stepped over a specific rune.

Air filled her lungs again. Her stomach churned more than the waves. Her legs collapsed beneath her weight, and wrinkled hands were all that kept her from breaking her nose on the wood floors. It felt as if she keeled over to puke, as she so wanted to do, she would only find salty seawater.

But this wasn’t what made horror wash over her.

No, it was that the spell over her had been broken.

And the mer probably knew.

She wasn’t sure how much time she would have before the mer were gone.

They had tricked her, yes. Forced her to do something against her will.

But they had looked so… scared. And it wasn’t like she didn’t get it. They were right, after all. Her eyes caught on the harpoon hanging above the doorframe. It was a staple in any house near a beach. The pair of mer had been lucky to be found by her, rather than anyone else.

She scrambled along the rocks, hugging the tool to her chest. Later, she would regret this, as she would find herself covered in a myriad of scrapes and bruises and a deep cut on her left leg that oozed yellow, but now she didn’t care.

They were leaving. The girl was wrapped around her friend, her tail looped over him multiple times, dragging them both further into the water with trembling arms. Her gaze was on the horizon, eyes narrowed, quietly mulling over what they could do once they were in the water and she would need her tail. The boy was chittering nervously.

“I HAVE IT,” she yelled, and the sound was both terrible and amazing as it tore itself out of her throat.

The mers’ heads snapped to her. The girl swung herself around her friend, blocking him from sight, baring her teeth and claws.

Cass held up the bolt cutters.

It was… a slow process. Both of them were wary, looking around for anyone she might have brought with her. Neither seemed pleased about the bolt cutters being so close to them, either, shying away every time she approached.

She didn’t mind.

Up close, she got to see much more.

The girl was a traditional siren, unearthly in her beauty. Her tail started relatively high on her body, scales dotting even up to her cheeks, getting more frequent the lower down they went. By the time they got to her chest, there wasn’t anything human about her at all. Instead, there was a gorgeous tail, a mix of red, white, and orange, with the occasional speck of black. A couple of long, spiny fins decorated her body, with the one at the tip of her tail being the largest. With her lips pressed into a thin line and her nails curled into fists, nervous but trying to hide it, only succeeding in hiding her most dangerous traits, the mer didn’t look quite as scary.

The boy… well, Cass wasn’t quite sure what he was. If she hadn’t known better, she would think he was human. If her gaze didn’t keep catching on the webbed hands and toes, on the gills at his neck, on the lack of color in his eyes, on the sharp teeth that bit at his lips every time the bolt cutters neared… she would have been fooled. It wasn’t like those couldn’t be hidden, either. It was strange. She had never encountered anything like him before.

But… she would guess that he was a god. The nearly human appearance, the ethereal beauty hanging around his head in a way that almost haloed his slightly-too-pink face, the pleasant smile, the jewelry hanging from every part of him that he could manage to place it. The way that none of it completely masked the strange coolness of his eyes when he looked at her, just a little too smart, just a little too calculated.

There was no way, though, right? A god would simply break the things binding him. Even a young one would not be trapped by something like this for long.

Which sent her back to the drawing board – but she had forgotten how to hold her pen. How do you categorize something you had never seen?

She didn’t know.

She didn’t even know if they knew their classification. The girl’s English had been stilted, and the boy had only spoken a single word. And, even if they did know a word for themselves, she had her doubts that the term would be anything kind.

So, she kept her mouth shut, and finally managed to release the mer from his bindings.

Both of them seemed… surprised, to say the least. Strange, iris-less eyes stared at her, both of them soundless. Motionless, even as the waves tugged at them insistently, as if trying to drag them back in before the sun could tint the horizon pink.

Slowly, but surely, they both inched away from her, into the sea. She stayed as still as she could, nerves clawing up her throat. As long as real claws didn’t find their way to it, though, she thought that this would be fine.

Slowly, they crept back into the water, until only their heads could be seen.

She glanced back the way she came.

“Thank you,” the boy said, a hand coming out of the water to wave.

Cass waved back, if weakly.

She didn’t need to do more, though, the mer seemed pleased regardless. He shot her a toothy grin before ducking beneath the waves, disappearing off towards… wherever they were from.

The lady mer squinted at Cass for just a moment more, lips drawn into that thin line once again. Not quite as scared this time, just thinking.

After a few moments, she nodded her head in vague acknowledgment of the human back on the shore, and dove under.

Cass stayed there, watching the water, the sun rising on the horizon, casting the world in a pleasant shade of red, for another hour.

Her second mistake was this: she kept going back.

Day after day, night after night, she found herself walking along the rocks, eyes scanning the water, in search of the two strange creatures that she had come across. She might claim that it was habit, that she went out this way all the time. It might even be true. But it wasn’t the main reason.

No, she was simply… curious.

Her dad had always been interested in the creatures of the night, and she supposed that it was inevitable that she would pick it up. At least she wasn’t intent on taking one of those harpoons and driving it through their chests like he would if he found out that a pair of mer had come so close to their house.

No, she just… wanted to know more.

She really wanted to see them again.

It took eight days.

On the ninth, a head finally poked out. It was the girl, her head bobbing, the bottom half of her face hidden beneath the waves, her eyebrows drawn together in what was either frustration or concern. Cass was hoping for concern. Even if the mer interested her, she was still very much wary of the long, clawed fingers and sharp teeth.

“Why do you keep looking?”

Cass blushed. She wanted to say that she didn’t even know herself. But that would be a lie. And a lie would be… bad, considering her reasoning was this:

“Lonely.”

The mers weren’t good company. Especially not this one, who had been so openly hostile. But they were company. Cass’s father wouldn’t be coming back for another month or so, and she wanted oh-so-desperately to have some human contact.

Or inhuman contact. She couldn’t afford to be picky.

The mer seemed to consider this for a long moment.

And then she sighed and, with a couple of languid curls of her tail, came to rest her arms on a rock by Cass’s feet. “No friends?”

Cass shook her head, carefully taking a seat, her legs drawn up to her chest, her chin resting on her knees. “Not allowed to talk to people.”

She got a confused look in return. A clawed finger pointed at herself.

“Well, I don’t think you’d tell on me if you saw him.”

Because you’d have bigger problems.

“Might,” the mer said, something like a smirk on her face, her tail curling to splash water over Cass’s feet.

And, despite the fact that some part of her was worried sick about all of this, she couldn’t help but laugh a little.

The girl’s name was Marinette – or, at least, she explained that it was the name she used when talking with humans. Her real name was a low humming sound, but it was kind of hard for a siren to hum its name in front of a human, as their eyes would instantly begin to glaze over, so she had gone with a pretty name a French sailor had once given her. A cute marine animal, a marinette.

Her English was decent enough, hardly surprising considering sirens did tend to live near the shorelines.

But not because they liked to eat humans, as Marinette quickly explained once she registered that, while Cass was just generally nervous about this whole ordeal, she was also a little bit scared of her.

“The water is calmer here, easier for our children to learn to swim. Don’t worry. Humans don’t taste good.”

While Cass had to admit it was soothing to know she wouldn’t be eaten for the fun of it…

“Why do you know what humans taste like?!”

Marinette gave her a flat look. “Humans don’t like sirens. Can’t just let them hurt us because they want to. Sometimes you have to bite them. Or worse.”

Quietly, Cass wondered whether sirens’ ability to control humans had been there all along, or whether it was an adaptive trait that had developed for their own safety. Or whether that even mattered. If Marinette wasn’t just an exception, and the sirens only used their powers in self-defense (because Cass had been put under the spell and had come out of it without dying, it clearly wasn’t made only for the sake of drowning people like the stories liked to say), then what did that say about everyone else? Did they know?

Did her dad know?

She knew he wasn’t great, but… to be fair, Cass’s mom had been stolen away by the faerie. It was fair to be cautious about anything that wasn’t human since he had already lost one person he cared about to them.

But mer weren’t faerie. They weren’t known for stealing people away for nefarious purposes. So, was having all of those harpoons back home really necessary?

Well, this was all just an awkward line of thought, and even more awkward as a line of conversation, considering just who Cass’s father was and what the person in front of her happened to be. New topic.

Cass cast her eyes around determinedly for something to talk about, and ended up pointing at the bracelet on Marinette’s wrist. “Is that from your friend? He likes jewelry, right? Did he give you this one?”

Marinette looked down. She tipped her head from side to side, neither a yes nor a no, before taking it off.

Cass lifted a hand to take it and examine it more closely, but she was quickly batted away from it.

“No. Only mine,” Marinette said, not quite baring her teeth but certainly coming close. “You may look, though.”

Cass nodded, however hesitantly, and kept her hands firmly behind her back as she leaned forward once again to inspect the golden bracelet.

There were three charms tied onto the gold but, upon closer inspection, they weren’t ‘charms’ at all.

“They’re from my family,” Marinette explained. She pointed to a red scale. “Mom.” A pink one. “Dad.” Something white. “Baby.”

Cass leaned even closer, trying to figure out what the white thing was. It wasn’t a scale. It glimmered in the light, but it shimmered differently than the scales did. It was kind of oddly shaped, too, like –.

“Is that a tooth?!”

“He lost it anyways!” Marinette defended herself as best she could.

And, despite the mild horror at seeing a tooth being proudly displayed on someone’s wrist, she couldn’t help but laugh at Marinette’s expression.

Eventually, upon seeing the boy mer again, once Marinette had decided that she trusted Cass enough to let them within twenty feet of each other, she realized that he was the ‘Baby’. Because he shot her a toothy grin, and she realized once again that there was a gap in it.

She wasn’t, exactly, sure why he was considered a ‘Baby’ when he was about the same age as Cass, and not that much younger than Marinette, but these were mers. Cass couldn’t say she was super knowledgeable about mer family dynamics.

So, she brushed past it in favor of proper introductions.

The boy had made a series of clicking and high screeching sounds when asked for his name. Cass’s vocal cords were not made for that, so she listened to him say his name over and over again until her ears got tricked into hearing a name within the incomprehensible sounds: Adrien.

The boy didn’t speak at all, really, English or otherwise. Apparently, in the same way that Cass’s vocal cords weren’t made for clicking or screeching in a way that helped with echolocation, his vocal cords were almost nonexistent. He was a sea monster, though a young one, and it was common for sea monsters to leave their children to fend for themselves, so there was no reason for their species to be able to ‘speak’ at all. The only reason Adrien had as much of a ‘voice’ as he did was that Marinette had found him one day and decided to adopt him. Sirens were very vocal creatures, and Adrien had been young enough to learn to mimic some of the sounds.

Or, at least, that was what Cass thinks they were trying to say. Again, there were three separate language barriers going on.

“Baby,” she said, curling her tail around Adrien’s waist.

Adrien huffed.

He made a series of sounds, stretching his hands out wide so Cass could get the general idea of what he was saying: he would be big one day.

Marinette looked a little bummed at the reminder, so it was probably true. She squeezed tighter.

“I will keep you small,” she said. “Squeeze you so you can’t grow.”

Adrien tipped his head back and groaned.

“Are you his mom?” Cass teased.

Marinette huffed, amused, making a so-so motion with her hand. Adrien, however, nodded fervently, grinning cheekily in a way that suggested that he, too, was teasing Marinette more than sincerely answering the question.

Marinette retaliated by squeezing him harder, making the boy squeak and start trying to escape her evil, parental clutches.

It turned out that Marinette’s ‘motherlyness’ was not limited to Adrien, either, because a few days later Marinette tossed a fish onto the rocks and told her to “eat”.

Cass stared at her for a long time, unsure what to do about the slimy thing that now lay at her feet.

“What?”

“Tiny,” said Marinette, narrowing her eyes at her. “Need fish.”

Cass sighed. Whatever. Fine. She might as well go with it. “I need to cook it, or else I’ll get sick.”

The two mer looked very confused by this, and Cass realized belatedly that they probably wouldn’t have a concept for cooking. Unless they had happened across some heat vents underwater, which were neither common nor something that cold-blooded creatures were likely to stick around for long, the chances were that they ate all of their food completely raw.

She sighed. “Hold on.”

And this was how Cass found herself sitting cross-legged on a rock, carefully maintaining a fire. Which should have been decently easy, if she wasn’t also tasked with making sure the mers didn’t touch the flames (something that was surprisingly difficult despite the mers’ constant complaints that it was too hot) or accidentally drip water onto it and put it out.

She narrowed her eyes at Adrien, who was the main culprit, still turning her fish around and around over the fire to make sure it heated correctly.

“You must let him learn,” Marinette said. She was, perhaps, a little salty about the tiny burn she had received on the tip of her nose, which was what had started Cass’s new job camping out over the fire to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves further.

“That seems mean,” Cass chided lightly. “Aren’t you kind of his mom? Just tell him not to.”

“It is better for him. His species does not… do families, often. They are supposed to learn.”

There was a moment of hesitation.

“How did you guys even meet? Aren’t sea monsters supposed to… be way out in the water? And I thought sirens stay close to the shore.”

“Know a lot,” said Adrien, not quite suspicious, but perhaps confused.

Cass shrugged to hide some of the way her ears started creeping up to her shoulders. “Everyone near the shore knows a lot about the mer,” she said, which wasn’t exactly a lie, but it certainly wasn’t the truth, either.

Marinette eyed her posture for a moment, her lips pursing, but seemingly dismissed the thought with a tiny shake of her head. She reached over to Adrien and gave a tiny tug at one of the bangles around his wrist. “He likes – uh – shinies – jewelry.”

Adrien huffed a little. Cass thought that, if mer could blush, the boy certainly would have. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at his friend.

She only smiled back at him. “He went into a ship that had…” She made a crashing motion with her hands, and Cass winced a little. “Wanted more. But the ship broke. He got stuck.”

“She helped,” Adrien said.

“Now he’s baby,” she said firmly.

Adrien looked away in clear embarrassment, making a quiet grunting sound of disapproval. But, when Marinette grinned and reached up to his ear, where a single orange scale hung from his earlobe much like an earring, he made no moves to brush her off.

Instead, he made a quick movement to touch the fire. Which he quickly regretted. He sent Cass a look of pure and utter betrayal.

“I told you not to touch it,” she sighed.

Adrien didn’t seem to care, as he pouted for the rest of the night.

Until she offered up some of the cooked fish, and he immediately took a liking to the idea of cooked food.

Well, perhaps not immediately, his expression upon first contact with the warm piece of meat was something akin to disgust. But, at her prodding, he reluctantly put the food in his mouth.

He lit up.

The next day, she found several fish laid across the rocks and a pleading expression.

She groaned a little and turned back around to go get more kindling and a set of flint and steel.

It was as they were all eating later, that they once again expressed interest in the fact that she was human.

Not in the cooking way. Adrien was happily chowing down on his fish, and Marinette had refused the idea of cooked food in favor of tearing open a crustacean with her teeth and claws. They were satisfied with what they knew about human cuisine, at least for now.

No, Cass jumped when she felt a clawed finger prod at her leg, and found Adrien smiling sheepishly.

“Swim?” Adrien croaked. “How?”

“A lot of people can’t,” Cass admitted, shrugging her shoulders. “But I can show you how I do it.”

Adrien nodded eagerly, grinning.

Cass glanced down at her outfit, an old set that had once belonged to her father, and decided that she didn’t care enough to go and find a swimsuit. She had a fire going, anyways, and the stuff to rekindle it it happened to go out while she was in the water. She would dry off quickly, and if the clothes got ruined by the salt then it really wasn’t something she cared about anyways.

So, she toed off her sandals and stepped out into the water.

“Oh, it’s so weird,” Marinette warned him. “Humans have boats because they can’t swim right.”

Cass shot her a glare.

But, she had to admit, she did feel slightly graceless in comparison to the pair of mer. Slow enough that Adrien, too excited to wait, was already bobbing amongst the waves, and Marinette was able to swim in front of her, picking out the best places for her to step. Getting nearly bowled over by the, admittedly small, waves where the mer didn’t even seem to register the push and pull of the water. Constantly bogged down by her clothes and wet hair.

Of course, she understood that, at the very least, Marinette wasn’t exactly graceful on land, either, lugging her tail along with her and occasionally having to duck back under the waves to get some ‘air’.

But, still, sometimes she forgot that she wasn’t really one of them. It was strange, considering just how different the three of them were thanks to their completely different cultures and languages, but she had started to forget that she wasn’t just messing around with anyone she might see in town.

And, so, it was kind of jarring to see the pair in their natural element, where she did not belong.

Especially because Adrien looked genuinely horrified by just how much movement was involved in swimming.

“Gross. Don’t get why you humans don’t just float,” Marinette joked.

Cass couldn’t help but laugh a little. But, hey, if they wanted to see her ‘float’, there was a human version of that. She spread her body out starfish-style and allowed herself to bob in the water. Luckily, the water wasn’t too bad that day, the waves barely buffeted at her and she was at very little risk of it splashing over her face.

“No,” said Adrien, hands coming up to cover his mouth.

A tail came to wind around her waist, and she yelped as she was ‘righted’ in the water, the strange appendage curling itself under her thighs to give her a way to ‘sit’.

It would be remarkably easy to drown her like this.

But they’d had many opportunities over the past few weeks, and the grip the mer had on her was still remarkably gentle, and it reminded her so much of the way Marinette would sometimes squeeze Adrien.

“Being replaced,” Adrien joked, shaking his head with a false pout.

And, despite all of the whispers of warning that echoed in her mind, in a voice that she knew but didn’t really belong to her, she couldn’t help but rest her elbows on the tail and her head in her hands and grin at the pair of them.

“Can’t help that I’m the favorite child, Adrien,” she said, sticking her tongue out.

Adrien huffed and turned his head away.

Marinette giggled and reached up, tugging gently on Adrien’s earring. “Hush.” She squeezed Cass just slightly tighter, but it felt more like a hug than a genuine reprimand. “Both of you.”

She smiled.

Maybe she was one of them after all.

Because why would a pair made up of two completely different species that called each other family care that she had happened to be born on land?

But, of course, all good things must come to an end.

Cass’ father came home.

Without her mother, as always. He always left, and he always came back without her. Her father claimed that he would get her back eventually, that humans would always prevail in the end due to their characteristic persistence, but Cass had always wondered why the man would expect a species known for having eternal life to not also have endless patience.

The man didn’t know as much about the creatures of the night as he claimed.

But he did know some things.

And he noticed that the gravel that usually lined her voice wasn’t there. And he checked the traps and found that one of them had been triggered and subsequently broken.

These two facts could, of course, be completely unrelated. In most people’s minds, they would be.

But not in David Cain’s.

And the man had always been good at reading her body language. He could tell that, when she was confronted about this, she was guilty.

“You’re just like your mother,” he hissed, like it was a curse. “But you won’t be running.”

‘Running’. Not ‘getting stolen’.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder, grip just slightly too tight to be seen as caring. No, this was possessive. “If you won’t stay away, then I guess I’ll have to make sure you have nothing to run away to.”

She sat in her room, metal chains digging into her leg. He had repurposed one of the mer traps, fittingly enough, tying her leg to the end of her bed. The chain was long, she could walk around her room, could even get to the bathroom, and she took full advantage of this. She had never been one to stay cooped up.

Her father had insisted it was temporary.

And it would be. Cass would make sure of that.

She grabbed the bolt cutters out from under her bed.

She’d never bothered to take it back to the shed after that first day meeting the mer, instead opting to keep it close in case they happened to get trapped again.

She didn’t use them yet, wouldn’t dare to do so when her dad was still home, frantically rushing about downstairs, gathering supplies to try and kill the people that had been more family than he had ever been. She could hear him talking to a neighbor – because he had always insisted that, despite the fact that she wasn’t allowed to talk to strangers, he would be safe – asking for permission to use their boat for the next few days or so. Pages turned and pencils scratched on parchment as he wrote down every rune he might need.

The walls were thin. He would hear the click of the bolt cutters.

But he didn’t pay any mind to the sound of her gathering everything she might need. Clothes, some flint and steel (she only needed one, it would last for quite a while and there was likely a myriad of untouched rocks and minerals on the sea floor that she could ask Marinette and Adrien to get), a small knife to prepare any food that Adrien or Marinette might bring, a swimsuit, a way to filter seawater…

She wasn’t quiet, didn’t bother muffling the sound of drawers opening and closing or her chain clinking with every step. But her dad hardly cared.

Why would he care? The lawn was littered with traps, and they would be left there to suffocate or starve. The house was warded to keep the mer out. If they managed to get past that, then they’d be walking right up to her father, presenting themselves to be slaughtered.

The house was warded to keep things out.

Despite her father’s paranoia, it was not made to keep someone in.

And if her father had wanted her to not run away, perhaps he should have given her a reason to stay.

So, two days later when her father left briefly to greet their neighbor and assure the boat was large enough to hold everything he would need to take on the mer that ‘infested’ their waters, she unclipped herself and snuck out, a blanket filled with her things over her shoulder.

Thanks for the boat, ‘dad’, she thought as she pushed off.

It didn’t take long for them to find her.

Adrien was first, his head poking above the water for just a moment, his eyes wide as he looked at her. He looked her up and down once, and then ducked underwater and started screaming.

Marinette was there within minutes.

Cass was relieved to see they were both perfectly fine.

She could tell they were relieved, too, because they dragged themselves onto the boat to check her over, lamenting her disappearance and how Marinette was pretty sure that she had gotten thinner and Adrien’s mumbling about how she was ‘okayokayokay’.

Once they had confirmed that she wasn’t hurt, and once she had been told several times that they literally couldn’t hide injuries from her seeing as neither of them really wore clothes, the inevitable question was asked:

“What happened?”

Cass leaned back against Marinette. The mer had wrapped around her and Adrien about an hour ago and very clearly would not be letting go until she needed water – maybe, she seemed like she just might drag them both under for the minute she would need to recuperate. Adrien had taken to this position immediately, and she couldn’t find it in herself to complain too much about him resting his head over her heart so he could listen to her heartbeat.

It was comfortable.

She didn’t want to ruin it.

But Adrien drew back just slightly to tilt his head at her and Marinette gave her an expectant look.

She explained everything. Things she had known for ages but had kept from them for fear of their reactions, like her father’s ‘job’ hunting down anything that was more than human. Things she had put together recently, like how her mother had seemingly been ‘taken’ by the fae of her own volition. The things that were hard to even think about, like what had driven her to disappear to sea in the first place.

They listened, perfectly understanding despite it all, but that just made it worse.

Because, if they understood, if they sympathized, that made her dare to hope that this might work.

She didn’t want to be wrong.

But she had to ask.

“Please, take care of me!” Cass said, tears building in her eyes. Her whole plan hinged on this. If they said no, then there was nothing she could do. She would have to go home, have to face a punishment (whatever that may be). Or maybe she would just stay adrift until she inevitably died of malnutrition. She might be able to get some other human family to take care of her, but if these two mer she had seemingly endeared herself to said no then was there any hope of anyone saying yes?

But her fears were unfounded, as they often were with the mer:

“Of course,” Marinette said, squeezing them tighter.

Adrien buried his face in the crook of her neck. “You’re family.”

~~~~~~~~~

End note:

Listen that felt like a good place to end the story. However. I have more ideas so feel free to read if you’re interested

They take Cass to a deserted island with a hidden cenote that they visit her in, and she makes herself a house and place to stay. Mer don’t usually stay in one place for long, they’d really only lingered in an underwater cave by Cass’s house as long as they had because they were curious about her (which turned into a heck of an attachment), so they tend to go off exploring during the day. But they always come home by sunset to curl up in the little cenote to sleep with Cass snoring away just a few feet away.

Adrien goes to land while he’s still tiny and more-or-less human looking and tooooootally doesn’t murder David Cain while he was out getting lunch. Also, Marinette definitely doesn’t drown an entire ship’s worth of sailors to gift the ship to Cass so she can go on adventures with them.

Cass lowkey also becomes a pirate because she gets tired of the taste of fish and, well, she has two very scary family members so why not get some extra supplies from any ships she comes across?

The very scary apple doesn’t fall far from the even scarier tree <3

Speaking of their slightly messed up little family. When Adrien and Cass do sibling fights, Adrien will push her boat around like a kid playing with a toy car. Cass does not appreciate this and has tried to hit him with the anchor several times in retaliation. Marinette is so very tired.

Cass loses her last baby tooth and Mari and Adrien fight for their lives over it. Until she gives up and just asks one of them to knock one of her front teeth out. The knocked-out tooth matches Adrien’s.

Also, obviously, Cass gets a necklace with one of Mari’s scales and one of Adrien’s nails because Adrien didn’t want to stop matching her and this was the only other option.

They all learn to sign to communicate because they all have hands. Good for them.

Oh. Right. For those wondering, Marinette is a squirrelfish and Adrien is an axolotl. Marinette is very old (well over 300) and Adrien is very young (canonically like 3), but reality is whatever I want so Mari is like 30 as a human and Adrien is like 13 like Cass, hence all of the ‘baby’ and ‘mother’ jokes that weren’t really jokes. Marinette’s parents were highkey killed by humans super recently and that was why she mentioned having bitten humans before and was so wary about Cass at first. It’s also why she had originally taken in Adrien, taking care of someone was basically a coping mechanism for her. Taking care of Adrien because she couldn’t save her parents, you know? It works out for Adrien too. Adrien’s obsession with jewelry was really just an obsession with the idea of having a family, because mer use jewelry to tie themselves to their family and he didn’t really have one and he just wanted to belong and –.

Yeah, okay, I’m done.

#maribat #platonic cassinette #platonic cass and adrien #platonic adrienette #mermaid #merfolk #mer #marinette dupain cheng #cassandra cain #adrien agreste #mercy #get it like mer-sea #hehehehe #god im so funny #au august #maribat au #maribat au august

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