She's Sunshine, She's Grace, She'll Punch You in the Face

Chapter 14: Alfred's Interesting Past

"So, let me get this straight." Tim looks over at the kwami. "Little Miss Badass over here has all these magical pieces of jewelry"

"Miraculous." Tikki corrects.

"Yeah. Miraculous." Tim nods. "And you call her a guardian of these said 'miraculous' and you want our help trying to fix a broken one?"

"No. Just Alfred." Another black kwami comes out of Marinette's purse.

"Plagg." Marinette looks angrily at the kwami of destruction. "What are you doing?"

"The cat's out of the bag, Bug." He floats around above Damian and looks intently at him. "Hey kid, you got any cheese?"

"Excuse me?" Damian looks thoroughly confused at the kwami.

"Ignore him, Damian. He's not important right now." She turns to Alfred. "Will you help us? Or at least try to help Duusu?"

"I don't see why not." Alfred said calmly.

"Wait a minute." Bruce walks over to stand in front of Marinette. "You said you know who we are? What did you mean by that?"

The young guardian stares sheepishly up at the brooding billionaire. "I kinda figured Jason out." She shrugged. "Once I found out you were all family of his, the rest of you weren't hard to put together either."

"Meaning?" Bruce questioned the girl.

"Uh, hi Batman." She waved before looking down at her feet. "I'm sorry. I promise I was never going to tell anyone."

Bruce saw how genuinely sad the girl looked and sighed. He didn't like that the Sunshine of Gotham looked so defeated. "I'm not mad at you, Marinette." The billionaire placed his hand on the small girls' shoulder. "But I am curious. How did Jason give us away?"

Marinette looked up, surprised that he wasn't mad before cracking a small smile at him. "Sunshine." Was all she said.

"What?" Damian asked.

"As Red Hood." She turned her attention to Jason. "You called me 'Sunshine'. The way you said it with so much concern." She paused for a moment. "I knew it was you right away, without a doubt."

"Wait." Tim walked up to her to look at her face. "You're Ladybug then, right?" Marinette gave him a lopsided smile before nodding her head. "This all makes so much more sense now."

"If that is true little kitten, then how did you get stuck with all this responsibility?" Selina looked a little sad for the girl.

"Do you remember me telling you about Master Fu?"

"The one who taught you self-defense?" Barbara looked up at her.

"Yes. But that was sort of a lie. He was the guardian before me. He was the one who chose Chat Noir and I."

"Why did he choose a bunch of teenagers?" Dick's eyebrows knit together as he asked.

"We showed him kindness and selfless bravery when no one else did. He was on a short timeframe and we were his best shot. I think that in the end, he chose correctly. All the miraculous are safe now."

"Master Fu wasn't perfect," Tikki sat down on her chosen's head as she spoke. "But Marinette is one of the best Ladybugs I have ever seen. Fu would have been so proud to see what you accomplished." She patted Marinette's hair.

"Thanks, Tikki."

"You said you needed my help?" Alfred stepped up to her. "I would love to see Duusu again."

"Oh, right." Marinette pulled a pair of foldable glasses out of her thigh high boot and put them on her face as Kaalki zooms out of her purse. "Don't freak out." She smiles at everyone, then looks up at Kaalki. "You ready?"