Lost and Found

Summer Break

Marinette enjoyed school. A lot. The content of the lessons was boring, and nothing new to her, but the people were amazing. Well, all except Chloe, but we don't talk about her.

She had tried to bully Marinette on her second day at school, and soon learned how bad of an idea that was. You see, Marinette may be enjoying her new life as just a normal girl with a normal life, but she would never forget the life she had before. The life of an assassin.

So, suffice to say, Chloe learned pretty quickly that Marinette wouldn't take shit from her. She also learned she ought not to go around telling the whole world about that one interaction with the new girl.

So imagine Marinette's reaction when summer comes along, and school ends until next September. She was really sad about it, but Nino promised to still hang out with her all the time. And he did. They spent all summer running around the bakery, and the closest park, and pretty much the whole city.

In Marinette's opinion, the school year couldn't come soon enough, but Nino seemed to disagree. He wanted to stay out of school all year. Marinette chose not to mention how much more difficult her previous education had been.

Soon though, Marinette found that another event was coming closer. Her and Damian's eleventh Birthday.

She hadn't expected it to be such a trigger, but she found that on that day, when she was hanging out with Nino at the small get-together her parents had arranged, she wasn't as happy as she felt she should be. Then after Nino left, she felt downright terrible. She hadn't expected this. And she hadn't prepared herself for it either so it wasn't easy to hide.

Her parents approached her about why she looked so melancholy later in the night. She had to think about whether or not she wanted to tell them, but after so long with them, she trusted them, so she decided they should know.

"Mari? Why do you look so sad?" Sabine had asked, and after a moment's hesitation, Marinette answered.

"I've never told anyone this, but I had a twin" she answered, only remembering to add on an excuse for her amnesia after, "I only remember little bits and pieces of my life before, but most of it is of him."

"Oh. Well, do you know where he might be?" Tom asked, seemingly missing the part where Marinette referred to him in the past tense.

"He- he's dead," she replied quietly. Sabine made a quiet noise and then hugged her daughter. Tom followed suit soon after.

"Do you want to tell us about him, or do you want to be distracted?" Sabine asked gently, and guided the family to the couch.

Marinette really wanted to talk about Damian. "If you want to hear about him, then I want to tell you."

"We want to hear," Tom said. Sabine nodded in agreement.

"Well, his name was Damian, we looked really similar, but his hair is a little darker, and his eyes are green, like emeralds. We used to spend almost all of our time together, and I remember that we really liked playing chess together. He was really good at it. He was strong too, he could probably have held two of me at once. I was always worried about him when he would leave on a.. when he would leave the house." Marinette had to catch herself, then she smiled to herself thinking back to when Mother had tried to make them sleep in separate rooms, "we used to share a room, and whenever we couldn't sleep in sight of each other, we would stay up all night and wait for the other to return." Marinette paused again. "I really miss him."

Sabine put her arms around Marinette in a hug and said, "I wish we could have met him, he sounds wonderful."

"He was."

Marinette fell asleep to memories of her Demon that night, and slept through the night with dreams of him. She had still yet to ever take off her bracelet. And she never would.

——-

School started soon after Marinette's birthday, so dwelling on that night with her parents wasn't an option. She had to be prepared for the next school year. She had never experienced the normal first day of school, and she was determined to make it a good day.

After the summer, her parents had no problem with Marinette walking the two blocks to her school, and that's where the first strange event of the day occurred. As she was walking to school an older man was walking across the street, but he wasn't paying attention, and he was about to be hit by a car. Marinette's reflexes kicked into high gear and she managed to pull him out of the way.

Strange that the man needed an eleven year old to save his life, but Marinette wasn't heartless, so she wouldn't have let it happen.

"Oh, thank you so much miss," the man said after she had caught her breath.

"Always happy to help," she replied with a bright smile. It was the one she used when she wanted to charm an adult into doing what she wanted. He smiled back, and the two went their separate ways.

Marinette felt good about today.