If I can't be everything to you.....you will be nothin to me

meeting the in laws

25 days before the wedding

The flight to the Paris  was long, longer than she'd have liked. Commercial flights weren't as fast as her  father's private jets or the planes they used for field work, but marcel  had purchased first class tickets before Dahlia had so much as a say, and she was quickly beginning to suspect that it was an excuse to be as close as physically possible to her.

She glanced down at marcel 's arms, wrapped like a cobra around one of her own, squeezing and tugging whenever she moved in a way that marcel  perceived as putting space between them. She sighed.

It seemed she'd gone through several packets of cookies and thirty glasses of juice before they'd landed, and the aisle they had all to themselves was covered in wrappers and empty cups by the time they stood to board off.

She almost felt bad for the women in the tight dresses as they bent down to clear and clean; she'd consumed faster than they'd been able to contend with.

The dupain-chengs bakery was large and it came with a 4 story building
Infront was a familiar girl with two pigtails and a pair pink jeans with a white shirt abd black jacket with a pair of flats .

A woman was standing behind her along with a large man in a blue shirt who had an easy going smile he reminded her of her own grandfather.

"Dahlia al ghul welcome to our home"
The man said " I am tom dupain cheng  and I am marcel's father I hope he wasn't any trouble " .

" not that much though he was quite persistent " dahlia said found herself giggling despite herself , then she took a good look at the girl and gasped "mari? " said girl frowned and bit her lip " dally !" The girl now known as marinette let loose a laugh abd rushed her brother's fiance into a hug .

That forced marcel to let her hand go
Scowling as his sister and fiance embraced happily , all that trouble he   went through to court dahlia and it turned out his sister know his fiance and hadn't told him , God he was frustrated!!

"Let's go to my room " marinette said

Marcel stared shocked he couldn't believe it .

_______________________________________

(In marinette 's room )
"Have he been a gentleman ?"mari asked when they were alone and dahlia remembered the dirty look in his eyes .

She nodded though " sorta "

( with jon )

There it was, in perfect, camera-flash detail. Jon glared at the image that mocked him from his phone in blue light filtering. A boy, around his age, a mop of  dark blue hair, blue eyes that made him queasy (and not in the way Iris did).

Dressed the way he imagined a civilian guessed the bat family probably dressed under the mask. Buttoned up  shirt, buttoned vest, ruffled sleeves, as though he'd jumped straight out of a neo-victorian dystopia.

Maybe it was who he was looking at, maybe it was the small box and the ring he tried so desperately to not pay any mind to, but there was something about that smile of his that seemed… ravenous, calculating, underhanded. He reminded him somewhat of Rex, and he couldn't figure out why. That's what he tried to focus on, when that picture hit the front page of every newspaper in America, broadcasted across every major news network.

Not Dahlia , not the red of her cheeks (the kind he could still feel under the palms of his hands, a good memory, a memory that kinda hurt now), not the flustered wobble of her lips, so uncharacteristic of a girl he'd known his whole life, called his best friend. It wasn't real, it didn't feel real.