Lost and Found

Getting To Know You

Marinette felt a grand sense of belonging now that she was around the Bats. She learned that while Dick was by far the most positive and enthusiastic out of all her new brothers, he wasn't alone in his empathetic and accepting nature. They were all like that. And she felt safe with them on account of them having her twin's trust so completely.

After her teary hug with her father, the family all settled on the couch. They didn't ask her a million questions, and they didn't smother her. They were comforting, but not overwhelming. That made Marinette remember very suddenly that they were all orphans, excluding Damian and technically her as well, although they seemed to recognise her loss. Not surprising given they were mostly all adopted.

At some point, Damian started speaking about patrols in Gotham, and Marinette was drawn into his stories. Some were about more intense situations, others were about stupid stuff that one of his brothers had done. It made Marinette want to contribute, especially after her other brothers joined in the story telling as well.

At the tail end of a story about a cyber attack that Tim, and a girl Barbara, who she had been told was the first Batgirl, had to stop together.

"We once had to deal with an akuma whose powers were based on her phone," Marinette offered. It had been the first time she said anything to them all night, so they all listened quietly and waited for her to continue. She got a small smile from Dick and another from Damian, and that was all it took.

"She was mad because she really wanted to find out who Ladybug was, so Hawkmoth took advantage and akumatized her. It was about a year into our run as Superheroes so we struggled a bit, but it ended up going okay. Chat did get locked a freezer at one point and we had to use a microwave to mess with the radio waves or something, honestly, I have no idea how it worked, but we got out fine," Marinette said, although she forgot only after she had finished telling the story that she hadn't yet made it known to all of them that she was Ladybug. There was an awkward silence for a moment and then her father let out an exasperated sigh. Jason and Tim both laughed.

"We really shouldn't be surprised, I mean, she's Bruce's kid and Demon Spawn's twin," Jason remarked.

"You say that like you don't do it either," Marinette shot back, finding it in herself for the first time in a while to smirk.

"Hey, it's not like I asked to be adopted by him, all I was tryin' to do was get some money," he replied.

"Yeah, but if you went back in time and had the ability to stop yourself from doing it, would you?" she asked.

"Not a fuckn' chance," he said with resolve. Marinette just smiled at him.

"Language Jay," came Dick's annoyed voice.

"What other things did you have to deal with as Ladybug," Tim asked after a moment.

"Well, there was that time when an akuma was able to bring someone's worst fears to life, kinda like Scarecrow, but they were actually physically present and could attack you," Marinette said, choosing to leave out the part where she had been chased by a zombie Damian who was trying to kill her for abandoning him. "And the there's Mr. Pigeon. He would get akumatized around once a week, and he was just some guy who liked feeding the pigeons in the park. He would get mad when someone was mean to the pigeons, and he tried to take over the world a couple of times. Suffice to say, he never made it out of Paris."

"Where did Hawkmoth get all these ideas?" asked a bewildered Dick.

"And why would he ever be in possession of such a powerful magical item?" asked her father. Both good questions in her mind.

"I have no idea where he got the idea for all this, but on the topic of how and why he had a miraculous, well, there was an accident where a temple to the Miraculous was destroyed and the butterfly miraculous, as well as another one, were lost. Well, somehow Gabriel Agreste found it, and due to circumstances I don't know much about, he became a supervillain and tried to get my and my partner's Miraculous."