Finding Myself Again

Chapter 6: Knightmares

What's this? FOUR chapters in one day?? What is this life???? Anyway, this might happen on more then one occasion okay? Don't judge.

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Marinette is confused. She’s also completely utterly lost. The Manor is huge and dark, the halls are endless mazes. How did she end up like this? Well, it’s quite simple.

After Alfred made lunch and introduced her to the entire family, he led her to her room. He placed her between Tim- the man he was scolding earlier- and Damian- the boy her age that facepalmed- and across from Dick- the tall man that brought her down from her panic attack. So when Alfred left her to unpack, the first thing she did was hide the Miracle box and have a talk with Plagg, Kaalki and Tikki. But the first thing they told her was to sleep off her jet lag (she didn’t notice she was exhausted until they mentioned it) and that they’ll talk in the morning. And she did. For twelve hours.

It was about 2:15 am when she woke up, a scream at the edge of her tongue.

Do you wanna play a game of Chat and Bug? I’ll count to ten…

Her hands clenched the unfamiliar sheet, and she found herself moving her hands and feet as if checking for restraints.

Bugaboo, where are you~

Marinette’s breathing quickens as her eyes dart from shadow to shadow, looking.

Gotcha.

She leaps from her bed, stumbling over her discarded clothing and haphazardly placed suitcases, and slams open her door. Her socked feet struggles to find traction as she slips and slides down the marble halls, running from the watching shadows. From the memories. She relies on her on her heightened senses from being Ladybug to navigate the endless turns and staircases, but in her panicked state, they seem to be failing, for she slammed into at least seven different walls.

For what seems like forever, she’s stuck into a nightmare turned real, the one where you're always running from something but you never move. Until. Until she sees a light. Marinette slides frantically towards the light, desperate for an escape from this living hell.

She skids to a halt in front of the beacon of light, nearly passing it with her speed but she’s able to grab onto the door jam, biting back her yelp of pain as she puts almost all her weight onto her injured wrist as she pulls herself to a stop. The bluenette slowly pushes the door open all the way and takes a step forward.

Beyond the door is an enormous gym like room. There’s practically everything in there; weights to balance beams, swords and knives to ballet bars. And a certain Jason Todd staring at her in bewilderment from then punching bags. Marinette walks further into the room, looking around in excitement at all of the equipment and temporarily ignoring the white streaked man also in the room. That is, until he speaks.

“Can’t sleep either?” She snorts at his awkward attempt at conversation.

“What is sleep? No. This is actually the most sleep I’ve had since…” she shakes her head to clear the memory, even though it lingers at the back of her mind. You’ve been a bad girl today, Marinette. You didn’t listen to me. Do you know what happens to girls that don’t listen? “Nevermind. I only get maybe five hours of sleep on a regular week. Six or seven if I’m lucky. What about yourself?” Jason lets out a low whistle.

“Jeez. And I thought Tim was bad. He gets maybe eight or nine hours of sleep a week. I, myself, get the biweekly night where my body just won’t slow down. So I come here.” He holds his hands out in a grand sweeping gesture to the room they’re currently inside of. He looks her over again, brows lowered and says critically, “wait. Where’s your boot and wrist brace?” She grimaces.

“Back in my room. I really only need my wrist brace now because my ankle had only a slight sprain. My hand and wrist however… three of my fingers were dislocated and my wrist is a full sprain.” Nevermind the countless other bruises and small injuries riddling her body. “But I’ve been through worse. A lot worse.” Jason raises an eyebrow incredulously.

“Oh yeah? Like what? Did you die and come back to life?” Bad girls need to be punished. I thought you’d know that better than anyone, Marinette, with all your talk about justice.

“You can say that.” He blinks at her sudden change in demeanor, and makes a mental note to get either Bruce or Tim to find out what the hell happened.

“Well, it’s getting late, so let’s get you back to your room. Do you want to stop by the kitchen to get anything because you missed dinner?” Marinette smiles brightly at him and Jason wonders if he can whiplash from how swiftly her moods change.

“Yes! I’m starving and rather thirsty. Sorry I slept through dinner.” Jason grins down at her and ruffles her hair.

“That’s okay, Pixie. From what you told me, you needed it.” She giggles and swats at his hand as she follows him to the kitchen. After grabbing a mug of some kind of tea (peppermint chamomile? Jason doesn’t pay attention to that shit. Nor does he drink it) and a small plate of cookies, he leads her back to her room. When she enters, she cautiously scans the shadows before shutting the door softly behind her.

What the hell happened to Pixie when she was in Paris?

Meanwhile in the Batcave…

Tim lounges in his chair, fiddling with his Nintendo Switch. Sure, he should be paying attention to the crime in Gotham and not playing Animal Crossing but he can multitask. It’s not like anyone was here to tell him not to, anyway.

That is, until Jason barges loudly (when does he ever do things quietly?) in when he's focusing on a particularly hard level that he just cannot pass, causing Tim to drop his Switch and die for the umpteenth time in the past hour.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jason! Just when I was this close,” he holds up his hand with his forefinger and thumb a centimeter apart, “this close to beating it!”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Don’t get your panties in a twist or anything. Besides, Pixie is more important than your game at the moment.”

“What about Miss. Marinette?” Alfred appears right besides Jason, who lets out a surprised yell.

“Alfred! How many times do I have to tell you not to do that! One day you're going to kill one of us with your appearing out of nowhere shit.” Alfred blinks slowly.

“Not if you all kill me first with your idiocy. And now, you owe $10 to the swear jar.” Jason huffs. “Again, what happened to Miss. Marinette?”

“She ran into the training room about forty-five minutes ago as if something or someone was chasing her. We talked for a while and she said something that concerns me quite a bit. When I pointed out that she wasn’t wearing any of her braces, she merely shrugged it off and said that she’s been through worse.” Tim drops his Nintendo Switch again and spins back to the Cave’s computer, typing furiously. Alfred, again, has disappeared without a trace, probably going to check on Marinette.

With a couple of more minutes of typing and clicking, Tim legs out a small noise of distress. “It says here in the PPD’s files that there’s been several missing persons’ reports at the very start of the year, but she was found a week after they were filed in the outskirts of Paris. It says here that she was around with several major injuries including a concussion, her whole arm and hand broken in several places and her left leg completely broken from the knee down. She also had three cracked ribs and bad bruising.” A couple of more clicks. “It also states that she was found by her former friend and classmate Adrian Agreste.”