#mothman barbie is a punkass bitch

[inevitableenquere]

Mademoiselle Mari

Insp. by a comment on the Maribat Discord:

Buckle up, biches.

We’re gonna pull deep into DC canon for the French codename for female superheroes, Mademoiselle Marie, in use since the 18th century through the World Wars and probably beyond. Alfred Pennyworth worked closely with “Mademoiselle Marie” in the past.

In this universe, its expanded into a French government-sponsored training program, training little girls in espionage and assassinry since the Cold War. These program heads aren’t monsters; the girls still live with their families, still go to civilian school, they just occasionally “take trips to see distant relatives”.

Their parents are aware that their daughters are doing government work, and there’s a benefit package unlike any other available within the country. Salary is set aside in trust for “Marie” until she hits adulthood (precaution in case of shitty parents) and a stipend besides for her and her parents to use as they see fit. These girls get a full-ride “scholarship” to any accredited global university of their choice. Only the best of the best risk their lives for wet-work necessary for the good of France. These girls become unsung heroes of France, and they receive glowing recommendations when they decide to move on from the program.

Still, it’s not something the Dupein-Cheng family had thought of for their daughter, it’s not a well-known program after all. The handlers don’t have an eye on her until new mayor of Paris, freshly divorced, André Bourgeois brings the girl “bullying his little princess” to their attention. And that is how six-year-old Marinette Dupein-Cheng is brought into the program.

Now, Marinette, tiny little bi-racial girl, is competitive, and this program is something she enjoys, learning from adults and “older sisters” on how to tumble, dance, act, create, and make new friends– both in person with the other girls, and through letters to former agents and outside contacts. They craft a network based on previously established agency contacts and expand upon them as they move out in the world.

Marinette quickly becomes a star student, moving on to weapons training, and eventually becomes one of the first to graduate in her batch and she travels the world as pre-teen superspy “Mademoiselle Marie”. (Whose last name changes by assignment.)

This is how she meets Damian Al Ghul, prince of the League of Assassins for the first time, though he’s introduced to her as “independent contractor” Caracal. He clocks her as trained, and a threat right away, and takes his standard precautionary measure. He attempts to murder her.

Attempts, because Mari is just as trained as he is, if not as lethally inclined. He quickly finds himself pinned under her knee, knife to his throat. (Later, he insists that he was having an off day, helplessly grateful that he hadn’t succeeded.) But in the moment they agree to a truce and go their own way, Marie Simon to her “parents”, Caracal to the shadows from whence he came.

Naturally, the next time they meet they are “distant cousins” on a collaborative wetworks mission in Thessaly, against an uppity German drug lord, and his mad-scientist wife. The mission goes a bit sideways, took more luck than either will admit to pull it off, and they emerge from the aftermath, a grudging respect on both sides. Even if she’s too soft and he’s an arrogant andouille.

Through happenstance and circumstances, they run into each other enough, work together enough, to become friends. Friends, in this case, meaning “person I won't stab on sight and/or who owes me a favor”. A rarity for Damian.

Marinette thinks otherwise; with friendships among those in her organization, and tentative friendships with some of the boys in école, she considers Caracal an Ally. A lonely sad boy, sure, but more a feral street cat then a friend. It takes more than a few meetings for Marinette to consider him a Ride-or-Die Friend.

Through the years, these two baby assassins grow into a friendship that withstands facing each other as enemies to reunite with no hard feelings at the next meeting between them. After all it’s Just Business, and they both know that well.

And then Hawkmoth.

Marinette can’t be Ladybug, “defender of Paris” when “Mademoiselle Marie” travels across the globe networking for her government and taking down European threats. Marinette reluctantly resigns from her position, and she takes up a red-spotted mantle.

Now the Mlle. Marie Organization aren’t idiots. Marinette Dupein-Cheng retires with accolades, offered a permanent place whenever she finishes her “hiatus”. And if the Parisian Police are instructed from on high to look the other way for Ladybug? Well, it’s best to leave superhero business to superheroes.

People in the organization are Carefully Not Thinking About It.

Completely coincidentally, therapy and healthy coping mechanisms are now mandatory for all operatives working within Paris and the surrounding areas.

That said, she still has to tell her assassin that she’s retiring.

Damian does not take it well.

Not like murder not well.

Like communication blackout and regime change in Peru not well.

Damian gives her the silent treatment. After all, she’s Out. (She abandoned him.)

Little does he know, his mother is working to get him out as well.

Marinette, meanwhile is Not Happy that Mothman Barbie decided to take out his issues on her home turf. The Mlle. Marie project is supposed to be foreign support, and last line of defense. So I mean it's in her wheelhouse. She just enjoyed her job as a globetrotting pre-teen superspy.

She doesn’t want to be chained down to the homefront, not when there's so much inspiration out there! Putting all that on hold for Mothman Barbie in Paris, eating into her free time, sleep, and drastically cutting into her social life? Bitch.

Civilian life makes her itch now, stuck in one place with confusing, mandatory, rules. Fictional barriers and preteen posturing, and only one hidden knife? Being Marinette is Suffering™. New friend Alya and pretty-boy Adrien can only relieve it so much.

Yes she has a bit of a crush. He's pretty and a model. Shut up.

Tikki is pleased she's got another loyal warrior, a second coming of Jeanne d'Arc, though she wishes Marinette was kinder. That's something she learns while dealing with Mothman Barbie. Not just how to act kind, to prevent akumas. But how to genuinely be kind. How to unlock the empathy she'd learned to tune out years ago, and how to act altruistically.

During her collège years Marinette juggles the life of a teen superhero, making friends with her class sincerely for the first time in years, something she didn’t get the chance to do with her frequent trips. Beyond Nino and Kim that is.

When Lila comes she deems her as annoying, but not worth her time. Until she’s the one turning her friends into akumas, with broken promises and lies that damage reputations. Marinette has a set future, as long as she keeps to the laws of this land and doesn’t slaughter a bitch. Lila can’t do anything to her. But if she hurts any of her friends, Lila is getting a horse head in her bed, American cliché or not.

Thankfully her crush on Adrien dies a silent death during this time. She can’t see herself with someone who won’t stand up for himself, nor with someone who enables a pathological liar that is one move away from harming the rest of her friends. She’s unspeakably grateful for that when Mothman Barbie is revealed to be his absentee father and Mayura to be the closest thing he has to a living mother. She’s able to focus her attention on his mental state and not how stupidly pretty he is.

Adrien is cemented as her best friend and platonic life partner in a catsuit. Adrien, once he got over his crush on the "idol" Ladybug, is happy to treat her the same. He’s just glad that his Lady won’t leave him for what his family had done.

Despite Mari’s wishes, Ladybug can’t retire just yet. People come out of the woodwork to fill in the vacuum left behind from the fashion-blind terrorist that held Paris in fear for three years. Ladybug is a celebrity, and Paris would be left uneasy if the city’s heroes left them undefended. She trains to be a guardian with Master Fu, to find more permanent Miraculous holders to take up the defense of Paris, and later the world. She finally has the free time to devote to her fashion commissions and to pick up the occasional job with her old organization.

It’s mid-way through lycée that Jagged invites her as his plus one to a charity gala in the United States. As his designer, and as an inconspicuous bodyguard that has combat training (far more than he knows), Marinette is the best choice when Penny is on leave. It gives his favorite niece the chance to network with American big shots, and get her brand noticed by more than just a few fashion moguls in Paris.

Which leads us to today. Marinette Dupein-Cheng– agent on leave, teenage superhero, aspiring designer, and temporary bodyguard of her surrogate uncle– spots a very familiar profile across the room.

Her assassin, dressed to kill, possibly literally. And she resigns herself to once more being on the opposite side of the boy who cut her out of his life, and any attempts to get in touch with him.

She’s dressed in a MDC original (with more hidden knives on her person than people would think), as she goes through the familiar song-and-dance and slips into the mindset of Mademoiselle Marie.

Stolen glances across the room. How have they been? Will they talk to me again even if I left/left her in silence?

Both are on edge. They are professionals and an unexpected meeting won't prevent them from keeping their loved ones charges safe.

It's like they never left the business, the two of them. They don't know each other. I've never seen them before. They can't have been the murderer because I saw them head to the bathroom. Just don't. touch. what's. Mine.

They're Friends after all.

Thankfully nothing happens at the party.

Damian Wayne saw her. How could he have ignored her, magnetic as she ever was. His eyes periodically drawn to her, partly assessment, partly admiration. When nothing happens at the gala, he figures that she’s changed as much as he has. And Damian has changed. He's softer and he knows it. He's been Out almost as long as she has, and in trying to hold to his father’s standards, he doesn’t think he could slip into the mindset of the ruthless prince of assassins so easily any more.

The silence and loss of his first friend on the other hand, was a wound that lingered even as he learned of civilian friendships and built connections with other superheroes around his age. This was a chance to introduce himself to his oldest friend. Without business between them this time.

It's Damian that does the signal.

Mari trips and giggles at the end of the night over to her assassin. It's easy after years of "Clumsy Marinette can't possibly be Ladybug!" She plays up the petite harmless French girl.

"Mon Caracal!" She calls from 3 feet away, stumbling into his arms.

She hugs him, compartmentalizing the muscled form that holds her safely, knowing he can kill her if she plays this wrong.Not without a fight though.

She hugs him more surely, kissing both his cheeks the way neither of them would be allowed outside of acting. "It's been far too long!"

She pulls away to see him gazing down at her, and wow someone has given him acting lessons because he smiles soft, fond, and far more real than he ever had Before.

"Marie."

She boops him on the nose. "Marinette." She teases coyly. She can't tell him her last name. For the safety of her parents, but also to keep cover as close friends.

"Marinette." He nods, crooked smile on his face, and away from prying eyes there's the signal that he'll keep his mouth shut about her name.

Speaking of prying eyes... "Marinette!" Uncle Jagged calls, making his way over to the pair of them. Her assassin is surprised, though few would be able to tell, at the world-famous rockstar approaching them.

"Uncle Jagged!" She answers, facing him but keeping a hand on the muscled arm of her friend to keep him from attacking, just in case.

She plays up the accent. Just a rockstar with his very French™ niece and her boy toy, nothing to see here!

"Jagged," she says again looking up at her uncle, "this is my good friend–"

"Damian" her assassin, starstruck or not, can follow his cue.

Between them is the subtle flash of information-true-hidden as she speaks over it to distract Jagged. "–Damian, my caracal."

Jagged bristles a little, baring his teeth in what those who don't know him would call a toothy grin, rather than a threat.

"And is Damian rock-and-roll enough for my favorite designer, M?"

"He's very kind," she confides with a Marinette-sweet smile. In his own way. she finishes the thought ruefully. A small part of her brain is cackling hysterically.

Jagged relaxes, and drags the both of them forward, holding a polaroid out to snap a picture of the three of them. ("Very Rock-and-Roll!" Jagged had said three months earlier.) He shakes the picture to development, and autographs it with a flourish, before stuffing it into Damian's hands.

"Well any friend of Marinette's is a friend of mine! And M? Car leaves in 10." He smiles, patting them both on the shoulder before sauntering off.

"I." Damian tries. He sighs.

"Jagged Stone? Jagged? Really Marie?" Damian asks, slipping once more into the familiar nickname. Marinette decided to let it slide, Jagged had that effect on a lot of people.

Marinette shrugs helplessly, before fishing a pen and spare notepad for her to jot down her contact information. It had only been a night but that familiar rush and heady friendship was something that Mari didn't want to lose if she could help it. She placed the paper with the photograph, putting the lethal pen back in her clutch, and cupping his face in both hands.

"Keep in touch this time? Please mon caracal?" If her begging was a little more heartfelt, well she’d learned a few things too. She kissed his cheek one final time and stepped away.

A hand caught her wrist.

"It hasn't been the same without you, Marinette." Damian said, hand slipping into hers, thumb gently brushing the back of it. He lifted her hand and kissed the air above her knuckles, before stepping away and towards the exit.

I must not swoon. I must not swoon. I must not swoon. Marinette chanted internally as she left to find Jagged, already looking forward to turning a Friendship into something more honest. More real.

-Meanwhile, In The Lobby-

"What was that, baby bird?" Dick asked his youngest brother.

"An old friend." Damian answered tersely, pointedly ignoring the curious stare from his Father and the more obnoxious kissy noises from Todd.

"Hell of an old friend." Tim commented, sounding almost put out, probably because of the unexpected personal introduction to Jagged Stone and autograph Damien had received. "You let her get close."

Damian raised an eyebrow at Tim.

Tim rolled his eyes, "PDA close!" he expounded like that explained anything.

Dick must have sensed his confusion, " You attempted to judo-flip Kor'i when you first met her. And you let this tiny girl hug you and kiss your cheeks."

Damian scowled, "I'm not that bad!"

"You bit me last week when I went to ruffle your hair!" Jason said, tugging his suit sleeve back to reveal light scarring.

"And?" Damian said, very done with the conversation already.

"We just wanted to know how long you've been pining for her, baby bird." Dick teased.

Damian felt a betraying heat creep up the back of his neck, to his ears and cheeks. "It's not like that!" He hissed.

"I-" he paused, wondering how he could explain the beautiful, cunning girl who knew of his past, was honestly the best part of it, and how she had watched his back, kept him safe and sane, had killed people on his tail even, without making them regard her as a threat.

His grandfather would have made her an example. Vivisected, drawn and quartered for daring to get close to his perfect weapon.

"I've known her for years. We're Friends, and that means I'll allow her more than I would you, Todd."

He stalked forward, as his father called behind him, "You should introduce us when you feel comfortable, Damian."

He stopped, listening but not daring to turn around.

"After all," Damian could hear the grin in his father's voice, "It'll be nice to meet my future daughter-in-law!"

Screw the Joker, Batman ends right here, right now.

[northernbluetongue]

AHHHHHHH!!! I LOVED THIS ITS SOOO CUTE, WANT MORE THIS IS AMAZING. 😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖😍💖

Mademoiselle Mari

Insp. by a comment on the Maribat Discord:

Buckle up, biches.

We’re gonna pull deep into DC canon for the French codename for female superheroes, Mademoiselle Marie, in use since the 18th century through the World Wars and probably beyond. Alfred Pennyworth worked closely with “Mademoiselle Marie” in the past.

In this universe, its expanded into a French government-sponsored training program, training little girls in espionage and assassinry since the Cold War. These program heads aren’t monsters; the girls still live with their families, still go to civilian school, they just occasionally “take trips to see distant relatives”.

Their parents are aware that their daughters are doing government work, and there’s a benefit package unlike any other available within the country. Salary is set aside in trust for “Marie” until she hits adulthood (precaution in case of shitty parents) and a stipend besides for her and her parents to use as they see fit. These girls get a full-ride “scholarship” to any accredited global university of their choice. Only the best of the best risk their lives for wet-work necessary for the good of France. These girls become unsung heroes of France, and they receive glowing recommendations when they decide to move on from the program.

Still, it’s not something the Dupein-Cheng family had thought of for their daughter, it’s not a well-known program after all. The handlers don’t have an eye on her until new mayor of Paris, freshly divorced, André Bourgeois brings the girl “bullying his little princess” to their attention. And that is how six-year-old Marinette Dupein-Cheng is brought into the program.

Now, Marinette, tiny little bi-racial girl, is competitive, and this program is something she enjoys, learning from adults and “older sisters” on how to tumble, dance, act, create, and make new friends– both in person with the other girls, and through letters to former agents and outside contacts. They craft a network based on previously established agency contacts and expand upon them as they move out in the world.

Marinette quickly becomes a star student, moving on to weapons training, and eventually becomes one of the first to graduate in her batch and she travels the world as pre-teen superspy “Mademoiselle Marie”. (Whose last name changes by assignment.)

This is how she meets Damian Al Ghul, prince of the League of Assassins for the first time, though he’s introduced to her as “independent contractor” Caracal. He clocks her as trained, and a threat right away, and takes his standard precautionary measure. He attempts to murder her.

Attempts, because Mari is just as trained as he is, if not as lethally inclined. He quickly finds himself pinned under her knee, knife to his throat. (Later, he insists that he was having an off day, helplessly grateful that he hadn’t succeeded.) But in the moment they agree to a truce and go their own way, Marie Simon to her “parents”, Caracal to the shadows from whence he came.

Naturally, the next time they meet they are “distant cousins” on a collaborative wetworks mission in Thessaly, against an uppity German drug lord, and his mad-scientist wife. The mission goes a bit sideways, took more luck than either will admit to pull it off, and they emerge from the aftermath, a grudging respect on both sides. Even if she’s too soft and he’s an arrogant andouille.

Through happenstance and circumstances, they run into each other enough, work together enough, to become friends. Friends, in this case, meaning “person I won’t stab on sight and/or who owes me a favor”. A rarity for Damian.

Marinette thinks otherwise; with friendships among those in her organization, and tentative friendships with some of the boys in école, she considers Caracal an Ally. A lonely sad boy, sure, but more a feral street cat then a friend. It takes more than a few meetings for Marinette to consider him a Ride-or-Die Friend.

Through the years, these two baby assassins grow into a friendship that withstands facing each other as enemies to reunite with no hard feelings at the next meeting between them. After all it’s Just Business, and they both know that well.

And then Hawkmoth.

Marinette can’t be Ladybug, “defender of Paris” when “Mademoiselle Marie” travels across the globe networking for her government and taking down European threats. Marinette reluctantly resigns from her position, and she takes up a red-spotted mantle.

Now the Mlle. Marie Organization aren’t idiots. Marinette Dupein-Cheng retires with accolades, offered a permanent place whenever she finishes her “hiatus”. And if the Parisian Police are instructed from on high to look the other way for Ladybug? Well, it’s best to leave superhero business to superheroes.

People in the organization are Carefully Not Thinking About It.

Completely coincidentally, therapy and healthy coping mechanisms are now mandatory for all operatives working within Paris and the surrounding areas.

That said, she still has to tell her assassin that she’s retiring.

Damian does not take it well.

Not like murder not well.

Like communication blackout and regime change in Peru not well.

Damian gives her the silent treatment. After all, she’s Out. (She abandoned him.)

Little does he know, his mother is working to get him out as well.

Marinette, meanwhile is Not Happy that Mothman Barbie decided to take out his issues on her home turf. The Mlle. Marie project is supposed to be foreign support, and last line of defense. So I mean it’s in her wheelhouse. She just enjoyed her job as a globetrotting pre-teen superspy.

She doesn’t want to be chained down to the homefront, not when there’s so much inspiration out there! Putting all that on hold for Mothman Barbie in Paris, eating into her free time, sleep, and drastically cutting into her social life? Bitch.

Civilian life makes her itch now, stuck in one place with confusing, mandatory, rules. Fictional barriers and preteen posturing, and only one hidden knife? Being Marinette is Suffering™. New friend Alya and pretty-boy Adrien can only relieve it so much.

Yes she has a bit of a crush. He’s pretty and a model. Shut up.

Tikki is pleased she’s got another loyal warrior, a second coming of Jeanne d'Arc, though she wishes Marinette was kinder. That’s something she learns while dealing with Mothman Barbie. Not just how to act kind, to prevent akumas. But how to genuinely be kind. How to unlock the empathy she’d learned to tune out years ago, and how to act altruistically.

During her collège years Marinette juggles the life of a teen superhero, making friends with her class sincerely for the first time in years, something she didn’t get the chance to do with her frequent trips. Beyond Nino and Kim that is.

When Lila comes she deems her as annoying, but not worth her time. Until she’s the one turning her friends into akumas, with broken promises and lies that damage reputations. Marinette has a set future, as long as she keeps to the laws of this land and doesn’t slaughter a bitch. Lila can’t do anything to her. But if she hurts any of her friends, Lila is getting a horse head in her bed, American cliché or not.

Thankfully her crush on Adrien dies a silent death during this time. She can’t see herself with someone who won’t stand up for himself, nor with someone who enables a pathological liar that is one move away from harming the rest of her friends. She’s unspeakably grateful for that when Mothman Barbie is revealed to be his absentee father and Mayura to be the closest thing he has to a living mother. She’s able to focus her attention on his mental state and not how stupidly pretty he is.

Adrien is cemented as her best friend and platonic life partner in a catsuit. Adrien, once he got over his crush on the “idol” Ladybug, is happy to treat her the same. He’s just glad that his Lady won’t leave him for what his family had done.

Despite Mari’s wishes, Ladybug can’t retire just yet. People come out of the woodwork to fill in the vacuum left behind from the fashion-blind terrorist that held Paris in fear for three years. Ladybug is a celebrity, and Paris would be left uneasy if the city’s heroes left them undefended. She trains to be a guardian with Master Fu, to find more permanent Miraculous holders to take up the defense of Paris, and later the world. She finally has the free time to devote to her fashion commissions and to pick up the occasional job with her old organization.

It’s mid-way through lycée that Jagged invites her as his plus one to a charity gala in the United States. As his designer, and as an inconspicuous bodyguard that has combat training (far more than he knows), Marinette is the best choice when Penny is on leave. It gives his favorite niece the chance to network with American big shots, and get her brand noticed by more than just a few fashion moguls in Paris.

Which leads us to today. Marinette Dupein-Cheng– agent on leave, teenage superhero, aspiring designer, and temporary bodyguard of her surrogate uncle– spots a very familiar profile across the room.

Her assassin, dressed to kill, possibly literally. And she resigns herself to once more being on the opposite side of the boy who cut her out of his life, and any attempts to get in touch with him.

She’s dressed in a MDC original (with more hidden knives on her person than people would think), as she goes through the familiar song-and-dance and slips into the mindset of Mademoiselle Marie.

Stolen glances across the room. How have they been? Will they talk to me again even if I left/left her in silence?

Both are on edge. They are professionals and an unexpected meeting won’t prevent them from keeping their loved ones charges safe.

It’s like they never left the business, the two of them. They don’t know each other. I’ve never seen them before. They can’t have been the murderer because I saw them head to the bathroom. Just don’t. touch. what’s. Mine.

They’re Friends after all.

Thankfully nothing happens at the party.

Damian Wayne saw her. How could he have ignored her, magnetic as she ever was. His eyes periodically drawn to her, partly assessment, partly admiration. When nothing happens at the gala, he figures that she’s changed as much as he has. And Damian has changed. He’s softer and he knows it. He’s been Out almost as long as she has, and in trying to hold to his father’s standards, he doesn’t think he could slip into the mindset of the ruthless prince of assassins so easily any more.

The silence and loss of his first friend on the other hand, was a wound that lingered even as he learned of civilian friendships and built connections with other superheroes around his age. This was a chance to introduce himself to his oldest friend. Without business between them this time.

It’s Damian that does the signal.

Mari trips and giggles at the end of the night over to her assassin. It’s easy after years of “Clumsy Marinette can’t possibly be Ladybug!” She plays up the petite harmless French girl.

“Mon Caracal!” She calls from 3 feet away, stumbling into his arms.

She hugs him, compartmentalizing the muscled form that holds her safely, knowing he can kill her if she plays this wrong.Not without a fight though.

She hugs him more surely, kissing both his cheeks the way neither of them would be allowed outside of acting. “It’s been far too long!”

She pulls away to see him gazing down at her, and wow someone has given him acting lessons because he smiles soft, fond, and far more real than he ever had Before.

“Marie.”

She boops him on the nose. “Marinette.” She teases coyly. She can’t tell him her last name. For the safety of her parents, but also to keep cover as close friends.

“Marinette.” He nods, crooked smile on his face, and away from prying eyes there’s the signal that he’ll keep his mouth shut about her name.

Speaking of prying eyes… “Marinette!” Uncle Jagged calls, making his way over to the pair of them. Her assassin is surprised, though few would be able to tell, at the world-famous rockstar approaching them.

“Uncle Jagged!” She answers, facing him but keeping a hand on the muscled arm of her friend to keep him from attacking, just in case.

She plays up the accent. Just a rockstar with his very French™ niece and her boy toy, nothing to see here!

“Jagged,” she says again looking up at her uncle, “this is my good friend–”

“Damian” her assassin, starstruck or not, can follow his cue.

Between them is the subtle flash of information-true-hidden as she speaks over it to distract Jagged. “–Damian, my caracal.”

Jagged bristles a little, baring his teeth in what those who don’t know him would call a toothy grin, rather than a threat.

“And is Damian rock-and-roll enough for my favorite designer, M?”

“He’s very kind,” she confides with a Marinette-sweet smile. In his own way. she finishes the thought ruefully. A small part of her brain is cackling hysterically.

Jagged relaxes, and drags the both of them forward, holding a polaroid out to snap a picture of the three of them. (“Very Rock-and-Roll!” Jagged had said three months earlier.) He shakes the picture to development, and autographs it with a flourish, before stuffing it into Damian’s hands.

“Well any friend of Marinette’s is a friend of mine! And M? Car leaves in 10.” He smiles, patting them both on the shoulder before sauntering off.

“I.” Damian tries. He sighs.

“Jagged Stone? Jagged? Really Marie?” Damian asks, slipping once more into the familiar nickname. Marinette decided to let it slide, Jagged had that effect on a lot of people.

Marinette shrugs helplessly, before fishing a pen and spare notepad for her to jot down her contact information. It had only been a night but that familiar rush and heady friendship was something that Mari didn’t want to lose if she could help it. She placed the paper with the photograph, putting the lethal pen back in her clutch, and cupping his face in both hands.

“Keep in touch this time? Please mon caracal?” If her begging was a little more heartfelt, well she’d learned a few things too. She kissed his cheek one final time and stepped away.

A hand caught her wrist.

“It hasn’t been the same without you, Marinette.” Damian said, hand slipping into hers, thumb gently brushing the back of it. He lifted her hand and kissed the air above her knuckles, before stepping away and towards the exit.

I must not swoon. I must not swoon. I must not swoon. Marinette chanted internally as she left to find Jagged, already looking forward to turning a Friendship into something more honest. More real.

-Meanwhile, In The Lobby-

“What was that, baby bird?” Dick asked his youngest brother.

“An old friend.” Damian answered tersely, pointedly ignoring the curious stare from his Father and the more obnoxious kissy noises from Todd.

“Hell of an old friend.” Tim commented, sounding almost put out, probably because of the unexpected personal introduction to Jagged Stone and autograph Damien had received. “You let her get close.”

Damian raised an eyebrow at Tim.

Tim rolled his eyes, “PDA close!” he expounded like that explained anything.

Dick must have sensed his confusion, “ You attempted to judo-flip Kor'i when you first met her. And you let this tiny girl hug you and kiss your cheeks.”

Damian scowled, “I’m not that bad!”

“You bit me last week when I went to ruffle your hair!” Jason said, tugging his suit sleeve back to reveal light scarring.

“And?” Damian said, very done with the conversation already.

“We just wanted to know how long you’ve been pining for her, baby bird.” Dick teased.

Damian felt a betraying heat creep up the back of his neck, to his ears and cheeks. “It’s not like that!” He hissed.

“I-” he paused, wondering how he could explain the beautiful, cunning girl who knew of his past, was honestly the best part of it, and how she had watched his back, kept him safe and sane, had killed people on his tail even, without making them regard her as a threat.

His grandfather would have made her an example. Vivisected, drawn and quartered for daring to get close to his perfect weapon.

“I’ve known her for years. We’re Friends, and that means I’ll allow her more than I would you, Todd.”

He stalked forward, as his father called behind him, “You should introduce us when you feel comfortable, Damian.”

He stopped, listening but not daring to turn around.

“After all,” Damian could hear the grin in his father’s voice, “It’ll be nice to meet my future daughter-in-law!”

Screw the Joker, Batman ends right here, right now.