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

back home

They spent 3 days on the road . It felt domestic to say the least.  Like a family on a road trip she would  sketch while he drove .

Dahlia sometimes would peel some fruits for him .

It all felt ... peaceful .

But here they are back in Gotham .

_______________________________________

8 years before the wedding .

He would never understand why his father demanded they follow him a handful of countries over to speak with people as rude as the Al Ghuls. Nanda Parbait was hot, and full of sand, and humid as humid came.

It made him sick, and he pulled at the satin shirt that clung to his sweating skin like a second layer. “Be good,” his father had warned asked before he and mari  had wandered out the double-wide doors of Ras Al Ghul’s office.

He’d be good, all right, couldn’t very well find much to misbehave with in these empty halls. It astounded him how empty the castle was of things to do, how truly boring such a blood-drenched abode could be.

Sure there were battleaxes, maces, swords, hanging from walls, easy to access even at his 4’11 height if he so wanted to, but he didn’t want to. He favored knives, small, delicate little things that cut with little force, that required a graceful hand and not a powerful swing.

Knives were what his father had taught him to use, were what he knew father used when he went to work .

“marinette, calm yourself. You’re going to fall if you run amuck like that.”

A few feet ahead of him, she turned, pink lips pouting as her skipping feet shuffled to a sudden stop, ringlets of hair swinging around in her sweaty face. He would have laughed at her, reminded her that it wasn’t very ladylike to sweat, but she whined when she parted her lips. “But I need to powder my nose!”

“Powder your…? In this heat? What makeup you put on would melt, you silly--”

“No!” marinette  whined, brushing her knees inward, together, small hands in fists at her side. “I need to--!” She huffed. “If I stop skipping I’ll really have an accident!”

“Then just--!” He waved an arm to the fences, where just upon the other side there was an open field, full of bushes of flowers, and grass that was green. A reprieve from the arabian desert. “For heaven’s sake, think for once and use the shrubs!”

“Ew, Brother, that’s uncouth--!”

“I will not put up with your whining, mari , use the bushes or bite your tongue!”

So she did, with another whine, and a bashful glance between him and the green bushes, she bit down on her lips and turned to go relieve herself. “Please be my lookout!”

“What are you worried they’ll see, marinette ? Your twenty voluminous skirts?”

He sighed and turned, instead to another door. Tall, green, thick and heavy, he knew, and would be hard to push open. Nevertheless, it was curiosity that had him palming the painted wood.

He imagined on the other side, there’d be more weapons, maybe art, since Ras seemed a cultured man. Yes, he imagined he could find rows and rows of busts, portraits, perhaps trophies of the damned and dead he’d slain by hand.

The idea was exhilarating-- but not as exhilarating as the sounds he heard at the other side.

Metal hitting metal, swords he had to guess. Training? He knew Ras kept men as assassins, as pets, but he had yet to see them at work. Cain raised an eyebrow. Perhaps it was worth exploring. He pushed the door open a crack, just enough to slide his small torso by, peek in at the action.