Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gotham was a strange place. It wasn’t a bad place, but it was definitely different. Paris was all facades and pretty lights hiding a dark underground and deaths, villains and heroes; Gotham was almost the opposite in a way. Where the streets were riddled with crime and needles, heroes and villains ran about supported in their work, but if you looked closely, people were happy. Children ran through the streets hollering at one another, men and women helped each other in small strange very Gotham ways.

Marin liked it. He liked the hope mixed into the inherent corruption of the city, it felt so good. He adjusted the bandages wrapped around his arms, and looked up at his new school. A school without Marinette, a school without Adrien, and best of all A school without Lila Rossi. Being all the way across the Atlantic ocean may be a little dramatic for distance but it was only fair, they sent him here first.

The uniform felt strange against his skin, it was good material, probably pure cotton. Expensive. But he’d made it into the scholarship program so it hadn’t been an issue. The school was surrounded by a massive metal gate and as other students walked past him Marin started to follow suit; there was no need to stick out on the first day. He didn’t need another incident.

Gotham West was the best academy on the east coast, if you graduated from the academy there wasn’t a single college or university that would deny you entry. Partly because a percentage of the students were blood related to some of the most powerful criminals in the world, mostly because the curriculum was known as the best and most intense.

“We have a new student starting with us today, his name is Marin Dupain-Cheng. Any questions for him?”

A girl with dyed black hair raised her hand, and without waiting to be called on started to talk. “Where are you from?”

“Paris, France.”

A few of the girls in class leaned over to whisper in their friends' ears giggling. “What’s it like in Paris?”

“Beautiful. Lots of different places to gain inspiration from.”

“Inspiration? Are you an artist?” The voice behind him belonged to a small African American boy with thick glasses who was doodling in his notebook.

“Yes, I do design. I’ve painted a few guitars and a car. I like to draw.”

The boy looked excited for a moment before another question was yelled into the classroom, “Why did you leave?”

Leave? He didn't really decide to leave. His parents and sisters had made the choice for him. “I just wanted to see the world a little bit and a man who was practically my grandfather”- Marin twisted his ring- “left me an apartment here in Gotham so I figured I might as well go somewhere I had a place to stay.”

---

If God existed he hated Damian Wayne. School was enough suffering without anything more added on top of it and now sitting just two rows away from him was a dead man. Not a man without a heartbeat but a dead man nonetheless. Marin Dupain-Cheng, a ravenette who was completely devoid of all emotion.

Well mostly devoid of emotion. He wasn’t a well made dead man, he still had thoughts and could take care of himself without being told every single step of the process but he was about 9/10ths of the way there. Dead men were used in many different ways: on suicide missions, they were easy to frame, they could confess to your crimes, and they could be used in many less savory ways. His mother had been particularly fond of using dead men to warm her bed.

It was unfortunate that he had to share so many of his classes with Marin. He’d gone to Auto-shop only to spot the boy on the opposite side of the room. And he appeared once again in Physics, AP French, and last but certainly not least- Advanced art.

The damned boy was in the corner of every class, answering questions how they needed to be answered, completing his work. Going through the motions like he was a normal living person. It was infuriating. At least he didn’t try to talk to him.

Marin was pulled into conversations rather than starting them. When he didn’t have a task his eyes lost the little light they held and instead of doing anything important the ravenette stared down at his desk falling into his psyche. It was interesting watching the boy spiral deeper and deeper into his own mind.

It wasn’t his job to do anything about it. Damian Wayne had absolutely no responsibility to help the French teenager, and seeing as he wasn’t connected to the league there was no reason for him to even talk to the boy.

Chapter Text

Three weeks. That was exactly the amount of time it took for his classmates to lose interest in Marin. A few of the girls still fawned over him in an attempt to get a date or something less formal, but most had moved on as they had done with him. In that time Marin had taken everything with a smile and a nod. Saying yes to everything that he needed to and not so subtly brushing off every offer to meet up out of school, except from Joshua.

The Crowne boy and Marin seemed to have connected. It wasn’t surprising-they had a lot in common- but it was surprising that the dead man was able to keep up a relationship. Even simple emotional exchanges can be difficult for someone in Marin’s situation, but a growing friendship was near impossible. There was always the chance that the Crowne boy was simply using Marin as a meat shield to keep the more vicious students away, but that didn’t seem quite right.

“This year’s midterm is going to be a group project.” The teacher started writing a list on the board, “You’ll write a 750 word paper on the history of French cuisine in French, make a traditional French food or dessert from scratch and take video or picture as evidence of at least one member of the Group making it.” Putting down the white board marker, Madame -She made the class call her that instead of ms- Davis turned around. “Marin, you lived in France, what are some of the traditional foods your family made?”

Damian suppressed a sigh, he hated group projects. They always ended with some ridiculous fight between the members and then Damian did all the work. Not that he would let anyone else do the work, they always did it wrong. The one time he’d let someone actually do their part of the project they completely failed it and only through petitioning the teacher did he manage to keep his grade in the class.

“Macaroons, éclairs, croissants, crêpes, madeleine, canelés…”

“That’s all very nice but those are only the deserts. Do you know any other foods?” This was one of the reason’s Damian didn’t like Madame Davis. She’d never actually been in France for more than a few days at a time and she thought that made her some kind of expert. To the point where she was willing to belittle people like him and people like Marin who’d actually spent large amounts of time in Europe.

“My parents own a patisserie and most of the holidays my mother cooked traditional Chinese foods, but there are a few um… French Onion soup, steak tartare, escargot, raclette."

“Your parents own a Bakery in Paris?”

“A patisserie.”

Several students chuckled throughout the class. Most people didn’t like Madame Davis: her grading was harsh, she had favorite students, she pretended to know more than she did, she was condescending, and the woman always complained about her love life. There was no reason for anyone to like her. Other than Addison, the biggest teacher’s pet in the entire school who was more than willing to bend to every teachers' every request and demand.

“Well a patisserie is just a bakery.”

Watching Marin’s expression change into something akin to a sneer was truly enjoyable. Apparently becoming so mentally broken that you can barely function wasn’t enough to take a French man’s pride away. “A patisserie isn’t a bakery. Patisserie’s sell sweet confections, Bakeries sell breads like croissants and brioches. There happen to be a lot of overlapping stores and there's nothing wrong with that but there is a difference.”

---

Marin closed his mouth, the small rant he’d gone on had just fallen out of him. It was something that his father used to go on and on about all of the time. Telling all of his children that they didn’t own a bakery they owned a Patisserie. Even though they sold breads and croissants the majority of their store’s collection were still in the patisserie category.

Madame Davis was starting to turn red, a dark blush rising up her pale cheeks. It didn’t look very comfortable but it probably wasn’t intentional. Whenever he blushed it was never intentional and normally it caused him far more embarrassment than he would ever need. He used to blush a lot. Ever since he stopped going back to those moments everything seemed better. Thinking about what he lost and the moments he regretted wouldn’t do anything for him. It would just make it more difficult to let go of the things that were hurting him. That was what the doctors had told him.

“Well obviously any group you're in will have an unfair advantage, so I’ll be randomly assigning you all into groups of three. Give me just a minute to figure out the groups and then you can have the last bit of class to figure out how to divvy out the workload.” a collective groan rolled through the class. The few groups that were already starting to form via charades and passed notes attempted to argue with the decision and were swiftly shut down by Madame Davis’ uncaring reaction.

Projected onto the board were seven groups all holding three people. A few of the student’s cheered, clapping their friends on the shoulder or high fiving, the larger majority of the class was far less happy. One girl slammed her head down on the desk while her friends laughed and patted her on the back in mock comfort. His name was in the last group sandwiched by two names of people he barely knew. Damian Wayne and Addison Alinsky.

Chapter Text

Damian Wayne Marin knew of. But everyone knew of Damian Wayne, the blood son of the one and only billionaire Bruce Wayne, everyone said that he was a genius and if he really wanted to he could have skipped high school without any difficulties. Addison Alinsky however was almost a complete mystery. All Marin knew about the girl was that every time she opened her mouth someone else in the class would either roll their eyes or lean over to whisper to their friends before chuckling quietly together.

Marin walked up to the desk, the two teenagers were just starting to plan everything out by the time he’d managed to navigate to the other side of the classroom. “Alright, I think we should meet up on Thursday after school and make whatever it is we’ll be making. And we can split the cost of the ingredients between all of us.”

“Why would we meet up? We can just have two of us do the paper and one person make the food and take a picture. I think that’s a fair division of work.” Damian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.

“Well that is fair but it’ll be better if we can get pictures of all of us making whatever it is we decide to make and it’s not fair for only one person to have to buy all of the ingredients.” Addison started tapping her foot.

“Tt. Marin, you said your parents own a Patisserie, did you ever work there?”

“Yeah I did.” He’d worked there every single day of his life, excluding the days that the bakery was closed.

“Is there a particular French dessert your family made well?” Addison jumped into the conversation, moving so she was standing slightly in front of Damian.

“We were well known for our macarons; I made hundreds every day.”

“Perfect. You can make the macarons on Thursday night and bring them to school and I can write the paper.” Damian threw the statement out into the air, leaning back in his chair.

Addison started to tap her foot, “We can write the paper, and like I said we would get the most credit if all of us appear in the pictures.”

“The directions clearly said that only one person needed to be in the pictures.” Damian glared at the blonde girl. “There is absolutely no need for anyone but Marin to be in those pictures.”

“It would be better if we were all in the picture, it would show us working together as a group.”

“But we don’t need to be in the pictures to get full credit. We need someone to make a French food or dessert and write down the recipe, and we need to write a 750 word paper on the history of French cuisine. Nothing more, nothing less.” Damian pressed his hand against the desk.

“It may say that but we need to follow the spirit of a group project. So we need to work as a group and meet up after school to get all the work done. Damian you can start working on the paper -I’ll edit it- and Marin you can get your family’s recipe and send us the list of ingredients we need.” The girl seemed to think she’d found the perfect solution to all of their problems, but if the way Damian blinked up at Addison was anything to go on, she hadn’t.

---

“You’ll be editing my work? You can barely tell people what your name is in French. I highly doubt that you can even understand what I’ll be writing. If it wasn’t an unfair distribution of work I might ask Marin to edit it, seeing as he’s a native French speaker.” Damian resisted the urge to do something violent. In the league when someone below you disrespects you you’re expected to put them in their place either by beating them in a fight or making them beg for mercy. In Gotham -or more accurately the Wayne family- when someone disrespected you it was looked down upon to do anything more than use sly words to make them look stupid; and even then it sometimes angered father when Damian reacted “appropriately”.

“I can do more than tell people my name. I passed the oral test with an 85 percent!” Addison whipped around as her fingers curled into her palms. “And Editing wasn’t quite the right word, I was just saying that we’ll work on it together. What do you think Marin?”

The boy looked like a deer caught in headlights, it was rude for Addison to bring him into the conversation. Marin had already made it clear that he was fine with his portion in the project, and he had no part in writing the paper. “I’m fine making the macaron’s and taking a picture you two can decide on the paper.”

“But it’d be better for us to meet up so we can do it all together and can share the cost.”

“I can just get a receipt when I go to buy the ingredients if that’s what you're concerned about.” The girl looked like her head was about to explode, her cheeks turning a blotchy red as she became more and more infuriated by Marin’s emotionless responses.

Before Addison could open her mouth and go off on the poor boy Damian decided to intervene, “It seems the only person who has an issue with this arrangement is you which means majority rules and we don’t need to meet up outside of school.”

“But that’s not fair! I’m unhappy with the arrangement so we should figure something out that makes everyone happy.”

“Is that what you think your father does?” Addison whipped her head to the side to glare at Damian. The teenager knew it was a low blow, but honestly? He didn’t care. She was having a temper tantrum about not being in a picture.

“Is there a problem over here?”

“Madame Davis-”

“Nothing is wrong, we’re just having a slight disagreement. We can settle it between ourselves.” There was no way that Damian was going to let Addison speak to Madame Davis about the issue. If he allowed it then they would no doubt end up doing whatever the girl wanted.

The Wayne name might have some pull in the school but everyone knew the worst thing that could happen was losing your teaching license -apparently Drake had caused quite a few teachers to be removed- or perhaps having a pay cut. Alinsky was a different name to be dealing with. Everyone knew that the family was cut throat, and that they took offense ridiculously easily. When Addison’s older brother attended the school one teacher had attempted to get him suspended for cheating on a test and was found three weeks later floating in Gotham Bay.

“Madame Davis, I was simply saying that it’d be best for us to meet up outside of school in order to complete the project. Damian is against the idea.”

“Why are you against the idea Damian? Wouldn’t it be easier to complete the work if you’re all together in the same place? How about you make a plan for a place you can meet up sometime this week, and if you all show up in the picture I’ll even throw in a couple of extra credit points.”

“That’s completely unfair to the other groups.” Damian didn’t attempt to hold the incredulity out of his voice. It was a teacher’s job to give all of their students a fair chance at success, giving only their group the option for extra credit was unethical. And Damian was trying very hard to be more ethical.

“You’re right Damian I’ll announce it to the class when we meet again. Until then how about you continue to plan?”

“I don’t have a kitchen table.” Damian cut off whatever he was about to say to the woman, letting his boiling blood cool to a simmer as Marin offered up the information Addison was looking for. “We can’t go to my place, because I don’t have a kitchen table and I only have one couch, it’s always in the center of the living room and I don’t have a TV either.”

The blonde teenager looked slightly shocked for a moment before she started to speak, “We can’t go to my house. My father’s having business meetings there all week.”

Damian glared, “I suppose my house would be open all week, and considering that my Kitchen will no doubt be larger than Marin’s it would probably be better for baking.”

“That’s perfect, I’ll tell my Driver to go to the Wayne estate instead of mine after school on Thursday. You drive yourself right Damian?” Addison puffed up her chest, placing closed fists on her hips in a victory pose.

“I believe I can make it to my own house without your assistance.”

The girl deflated slightly, glaring at him with as much power as she could muster. It wasn’t an impressive amount, Damian mused to himself, he’d received worse glares from his four year old sister. “That isn’t what I meant, I was just stating that you don’t need help getting there but Marin might need some.”

The ravenette froze as focus went back to him, “I don’t even own a kitchen table, why would I have a car?”

“Exactly my point. You can get a ride with me or Damian, whichever you would feel more comfortable being in a car with.”

“I’ll drive you, we have the same last period on Thursday so we might as well walk to my car together.” Damian could see Marin already trying to find a way out of making the choice between them. Was it good of Damian to make that choice for him? Probably not, a crucial part of a dead man’s recovery was giving them basic decisions to make. But the Wayne wasn’t trying to help the French boy recover, he was just trying to get the project over and done with.

The bell rang signaling the end of class.

Chapter Text

Damian hated that he had to do this, it wasn’t fair. When he’d told his family what was going to be happening on Thursday they had exploded with undo excitement about how “Demon spawn finally has friends”- which Damian took offense to what were Jon and Collin in not his friends? Not that he’d ever admit that to them- and “Can’t wait to see how this train wreck plays out.” By Todd and Drake. And his father had simply nodded and told him to keep a close eye on the teenagers he was inviting over. 

Marin was a nice enough passenger to have, though that probably had more to do with the fact that he was in an almost constant state of dissociation than him being someone Damian would actually be willing to drive around. Willing being a relative term, he would much rather have Marin in his car than Addison. 

The little harpie hadn’t let go of what he’d said about her father, and was instead taking every possible opportunity to inconvenience him. Luckily they only shared one class together, unfortunately Marin kept getting dragged into their arguments by the girl. The worst part was that Damian was almost certain she didn’t realize that she was making Marin incredibly uncomfortable by doing so. Then again, most people wouldn’t be able to read the emotions of a mostly dead man. 

If Alfred was here, he probably would have made the poor ravenette next to him hold a conversation for the entire 20 minute drive. Damian felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, the old man would never take less than a three sentence answer for any question he asked. Of course it didn’t matter now, Alfred would never be able to hold his conversations -interrogations was more like it- with anyone else ever again; and that was his fault. 

The gate surrounding the Wayne manor loomed in the distance, his father really did have a flair for the dramatic. No matter what anyone else in the family said it wasn’t him who was the most dramatic or even the most prideful. “I have to warn you before we enter the house. It's entirely possible that you’re going to be bombarded with questions that will never cease. If it gets to be too much don't hesitate to tell any of them to leave you alone.” 

“Okay.”

Addison’s driver came to a jerky stop behind them as the gate slowly opened. Damian sighed, tonight was going to be long, and not because the Riddler hid bombs around the city or the Joker kidnapped a bus full of orphaned puppies. It was going to be long because he’d have to act civil for at least as long as it took Marin to finish the cookies. 

In the end they didn’t so much as split the cost as Damian bought it all and then had Addison pay half. If Marin didn’t even own a kitchen table there was no way any self respecting member of the high class could demand reimbursement. They’d settled on a traditional raspberry flavoring after a small squabble where Addison tried to argue that going for a less traditional flavor would be better. She was shut down when a girl -he believed she was a foreign exchange student from Germany- from the group working next to them said very loud “Seeing as it’s a traditional dessert it would be best for us to keep traditional flavoring.” 

Marin began collecting his things, slinging the messenger bag over his shoulder. It looked new, probably bought right before he started at Gotham Academy. Damian turned off the car, walking around to the trunk in order to collect his own bag, waving Addison in through the garage. 

“Thanks for volunteering your place Damian, I think we’ll get a great grade on this now.” 

“We would have gotten a good grade without all this fanfare.” Damian unlocked the door that led into the main house. It included a key, thumb print, and a retinal scan. “And this wasn’t volunteer either, don’t make it sound like this is something we all wanted.” 

Marin followed him into the house not paying any attention to the fuming girl still standing in the garage, “Do you want me to take off my shoes before we go into the rest of the house?” 

“Whatever you feel most comfortable with, it doesn’t matter to me.” Addison joined them in the mud room, looking around the area before walking out one of the doors. “I want to get this finished as soon as possible.” 

---

Wayne Manor was ridiculously large, driving up to the building it was easy to tell that it was at least three stories tall and the square footage was absolutely ridiculous, not to mention the size of the grounds surrounding the building. They had at the very minimum three acres of land surrounding their home. Not to mention the garage, the sheer number of cars in it was astounding, and it looked like there was still room for more.

“DAMI!” The squeal of a child draws Marin out of his thoughts. Running down the hallway was a girl maybe 3 or 4. She had long black hair and was wearing a pink sundress. 

Marin carefully toed off his shoes, Damian said it didn’t matter but he didn’t want to be rude and track dirt or mud into their house. 

“Hello, Helena.” The girl stopped at Damian’s feet grabbing one of his hands and trying to pull him down the hallway.

“Dick, and Tim, and Jason are here! They said they wanted to see who you were bringing home, but I think I should get to meet them first because I’m the only one who’s blood related to you!” The small girl looked around Damian turning a bright red as she caught sight of the two teenagers that were following her brother. “Oh, they’re already here.” 

“Helena this is Marin,” The Wayne gestured to him, “And that is Addison Alinsky.” 

The girl pressed herself to her older brother’s leg peaking around them, her previous vigor gone. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Helena” 

Damian rolled his eyes, gently nudging the toddler away from his legs before starting to walk down the hallway, stopping next to a doorless doorway. “This is the kitchen, we’ll be working in here. Helena, go hang out with Grayson and Drake. We have work to do.” 

“That’s not fair, I want to get to know your friends!” Helena stomped one of her feet, it didn’t make much of a sound but it seemed to be a common enough occurrence that Damian didn’t even react to the small rebellious show. 

“Then you’re wasting your time, they aren’t my friends, we simply have to work on a project together.” The toddler huffed but turned around, running down the hallway. She stopped right before a corner to glare and stick out her tongue. 

Something warm brushed against his leg. Marin looked down, a mostly black cat had started to rub itself on his pants. He looked to be 10 or so years old, and the animal didn’t protest when he crouched down and began to rub behind it’s ears. He picked up the cat, allowing it time to protest or jump out of his arms. 

Marin stood holding the cat with one arm as it turned over presenting its stomach, he began to gently scratch the cat’s underbelly smiling as it began to purr. Maybe he should get a cat? He could feed it and pet it and make it a sweater, and build it a ridiculously complicated climbing post. That could be fun, and he’d have something to welcome him when he came home. Strangely enough the hardest thing about living by himself wasn’t the fact he sometimes forgot to eat, or that no one was there to offer to get groceries; the worst part was coming home to an entirely quiet house, maybe he should finally buy a TV and just leave it running. 

Damian turned around his mouth opening, before he caught sight of the cat that was currently nestled in his arms. “Oh, sorry. Was I not supposed to pick him up?” 

“He seems to not be struggling so it’s quite fine that he’s in your arms, I’ve simply never seen him warm up to someone so fast.” 

“Cats tend to like me. What’s his name?” 

Damian looked wary but answered none the less, “This is Alfred the cat.” 

“Hello Alfred the cat, I’m Marin.” Addison scoffed, walking past them into the kitchen. 

“You don’t need to introduce yourself to animals, they can’t understand you. And also that’s filthy you have to wash your hands before you start to bake anything.” 

“I was planning on doing so. Where’s everything you bought?” Marin turned the cat over, placing Alfred on the floor petting him a few more times before walking away as the cat mewled at him.

“Most of it’s on the counter, the eggs are still in the fridge obviously. If you need help with anything feel free to ask. We’re almost done with the paper so we should be free to do anything you need us to within the hour.” Damian’s offer was nice but really the only thing he might need them to do is set the oven to the right temperature. 

After washing his hands he first separated the yolks from the whites, then he began the process of smoothing out the dry ingredients. First, sifting the powdered sugar and almond flour and mixing them. He had to ask Damian where the food processor was but after that everything was going smoothly he was on his second sifting of the dry ingredients when they were interrupted. 

“Yo, little D, Helena says you won’t let her hang out with your friends.” A smiling man walked into the room holding the little girl who had been previously talking to her brother. 

“We’re working Grayson, not playing video games.” Damian back spaced on his laptop, there was a small table set up in the corner of the kitchen where he and Addison were working.

“Come on, little D she just wants to stay down here with you. She won’t get in your way or anything.” 

“She can come bake with me, I don’t mind.” The siblings all looked at him simultaneously. The little girl struggled in her brother’s grip until he put her down on the floor. 

“Your name is Marin right?” The little girl rushed over, standing in front of him.

“Yep.” Marin began to whisk the egg whites, “If you want to be really helpful could you add in the sugar while I whisk.” Helena nodded excitedly, turning to look at a shocked Grayson -Marin was pretty sure that was his last name- who made his way over, placing his sister on a stool at the breakfast bar. Marin moved himself so that the already measured out sugar was and the bowl filled with egg whites were within the girls reach. “Alright, to do this you need to put in the sugar really slow, just a little bit at a time.” 

“Okay!” Marin began whisking again, watching as Helena did her job diligently, adding barely a shake at a time. “Where are you from?” 

“I’m from Paris, France.” 

“Mommy says she really likes Paris. Did you like it?” 

Marin thought back, did he like Paris? Sometimes he thought he hated it, but there were nice things about the city. He liked talking to Andre the ice cream man, he liked talking to Mrs.Chamack about the news, he liked teaching Manon how to paint. Marin didn’t like a lot of things about Paris, thinking about it made his chest hurt and his eyes get watery. “I liked some of it.” 

“All of the sugar's gone. What do we do next?” 

They continued through the recipe together until they finished mixing in the dry ingredients and Helena had declared she was glad Damian had such a nice friend and then badgered him into helping her off the chair. She ran off saying something about telling Jason all about making Macarons. 

It took Marin a few minutes to find the piping bags and set up the baking sheets, and by the time he had it appeared that his group member’s were finished with the paper. “Let's take the picture now, it’ll look better if they haven’t been baked yet.” Addison grabbed a used spatula to hold up and Damian leaned against the counter while the blond held out her phone to take a selfie type picture. “Smile for the camera!” 

Addison studied the picture for a moment before nodding, “I’m going to call my driver now, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

Damian glared at the girl but didn’t protest her leaving, Marin actually thought he was glad she was leaving. “Do you need any help?” 

“I don’t know how your oven works, could you pre-heat it to 300?” the teenager nodded, pressing a few buttons before sitting down at the breakfast bar. 

Marin filled a piping bag with the pinkish red batter. It’d been a little over seven months since he last made macarons. Piping the thick mixture onto the silicone mats was easy and done within a couple of minutes. He’d ended up making enough for three trays of the small cookies, probably more than they’d need but it didn’t really matter in the end. Maybe he could take a couple home for the Kwamis, they would probably like them.

When he started slamming the trays was when the problems started. One minute he was grabbing the trays and slamming them down onto the pure white counters, and the next he was in his parent’s bakery. He remembered the day vividly. 

It was about two weeks before he’d been sent to Gotham -before he’d been sent to Arkham. He’d been down at the bakery in the morning. School had been canceled for the next week in order to properly settle after everything happening with the defeat of hawkmoth two weeks prior. Marin hadn’t been able to sleep since the battle. Instead of spending another morning in bed Plagg had coaxed him into going down to the bakery and helping out. As per usual he’d been put on macaron duty, Marinette though was decorating a cake. 

A beautiful white cake that had hundreds of butterflies engraved on it. Mayor Bourgeois had commissioned it for a celebration about ending hawkmoth. His twin had bloomed after the defeat of hawkmoth she was happier, she wasn’t hiding her emotions away anymore, she asked out Adrien and he’d accepted. 

He however wasn’t doing great, the numbness he’d fallen into wasn’t letting him go, not like it had with Marinette. If anything it felt worse now; Lila hadn’t gone down for what she’d done to assist Hawkmoth, Master Fu was still dead, and most of all no one seemed to notice him struggling. No one noticed when he didn’t get out of bed until 2 in the afternoon, or when he stopped drawing, because no one cared. 

While his sister was getting praised for making a beautiful cake, and her wonderful technique, he was two tables away banging the metal pans on the table just how he’d been taught. Something just snapped, whether it was into place or a break Marin couldn’t say. He couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t be in a room with people who ignored his presence right now. So he left the bakery and went back to his room. That was the last time he’d worked in the bakery. 

The difference between then and now was that back then he wanted to feel things like he used to, now he knew that feeling just fucking hurt. 

“What’s going on in here?” the voice dragged Marin out of his thoughts. All the macaron’s were smooth, now he just had to wait for a while before he put them in the oven. A man wearing a leather jacket was standing in the doorway, he stood at about 6’ but the most noticeable thing was the white streak in the front of his hair. 

“I’m making cookies, sorry if I disturbed you.” 

“You must be demon spawns -what are you calling them acquaintances?” The man turned his focus from Marin to Damian. 

“This is Marin, we share some classes. He is an acquaintance.” Damian was staring directly at him, something that wasn’t quite concern in his eyes. 

“Hel tells us you're from Paris, and you’re really nice.” 

“I am from Paris, I don’t know if I’d describe myself as nice though.” 

“So what are you making for Damian’s French class?” The man sat next to Damian at the breakfast bar. 

“He’s making macarons Todd. Use your eyes.” 

Marin moved the dishes he used to the sink, starting to run it with hot water. “Don’t you need to put the cookies in the oven?” 

“If you want them to be smooth you have to wait for about 40 minutes and then bake them.” That knowledge had been drilled into his head when he was a child. When he first started to help his parents with making desserts he'd asked the exact same question. 

“So how much longer are you gonna be here?” The man was staring intently at Damian, some message transferring between them.

Marin did the math in his head, “Probably an hour and a half, maybe a little bit later.” 

“You wanna join us in the living room? Helena wants you to meet her Mom so you can tell her about Paris, and you might as well rest for a little bit if you have the time.” Damian rolled his eyes, but stood and began to walk towards the open doorway. 

He thought over the offer, really he should clean the dishes and then get started on the filling, but then he’d have to wait for the cookies to cool before he filled them so maybe it would be better to wait... “Sure.” Marin grabbed his bag, following the brothers out of the room.

Chapter Text

Why would anyone need a house this big? Marin didn’t think there was a use for every floor in the house much less every single room. Given the first floor seemed to mainly hold the ballroom, kitchen, a formal dining room, and if he had to guess they were probably taking him to either a family room or some sort of formal sitting area. The first floor was big enough to hold his entire house -bakery included- at least three times over, and still have extra space.

The sound of conversation drags Marin out of his thoughts. He didn’t see who was speaking but if the exasperated “Tim, I don’t know why you can’t just leave Damian alone about this.” is anything to go on he’s probably about to meet more of the Wayne family.

It seems strange that he’d be meeting them, he really doesn’t talk all that much around the youngest member of their clan. Marin was actually pretty sure that Damian doesn’t care about him at all. Which is fine -normal even. They’d known each other for less than a month and in that time had maybe three conversations all about school.

They stepped into the room, it appeared to be a family room. The smiling man from earlier -Grayson- was sitting next to a smaller man, a woman with short black hair sat in a chair near the corner holding Helena in her lap, and sitting on one of the couches was a girl with chin length black hair holding hands with a blond girl.

---

Damian didn’t like this at all. Marin was not in the correct mental state to be questioned about his past. Trauma or otherwise there was no way they weren’t going to find a landmine and then jump on it in an attempt to pull out some secret. They were always suspicious of people he could even mildly get along with, Maya was one thing. She had been originally trying to kill him, but they’d been able to overcome that and develop what he thought was a fairly normal work relationship.

Collin was another. Sure he was an unknown powered person working in Gotham but it wasn’t like he was evil, he stopped crime and helped take down a ring of child murders. Yet the moment he announced that he was working with Abuse -someone they’d been basically ignoring- he became “dangerous” and a “Top priority capture”.

Now they were turning the distrust they held for him onto a basically completely harmless teenager with severe emotional and mental issues. There was absolutely no way that was going to backfire on them or on Marin-note the sarcasm. He didn’t even really care about the French teenager in the first place but apparently being put into randomly assigned groups was enough to make even the most harmless person a suspect.

Todd seemed to think this would be a great way to make the rest of the family calm down but it wasn’t. As idiotic as they could be anyone except for Helena would be able to identify that there was something wrong with the teenager standing behind them in the doorway after simply talking to him. Which would make them more suspicious of Marin, and make this night even worse for the boy.

Selina gently moved Helena off of her lap, standing to greet their guest, Damian would never admit it but he was glad she was here to stop his brothers if they went too far. He didn’t like the woman but she was probably the only one in the family -other than Grayson- who would stop if she saw they were heading towards a dangerous boundary that shouldn’t be broken. Everyone else would care more about answers than the state it left Marin in.

After all, if Marin was willing to spend time with someone like him, the French teenager must be a terrible villainous monster. At least in the eyes of his family.

“You must be Marin, my daughter says you're very nice.” Selina walked past him offering a hand to the teenager still standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“Hello.” Marin took the hand, shaking it a few times before he let his arm drop to his side.

“I’m Selina, if you need anything while you're here feel free to ask me.”

“Marin! Are you done making Mac-a- roons?”

“No, the macarons aren’t quite done yet.” Marin ruffled his little sister’s hair, an expression mimicking fondness crossing over his face. “They’ll be ready to go in the oven soon.”

Alfred the cat had followed them from the kitchen, he’d stood outside diligently watching Marin mix together ingredients. The little traitorous beast started to rub against the teenager’s legs when Selina shook his hand. Marin crouched down and picked up the cat without any fanfare, continuing to scratch the cat’s stomach in the same way he had been earlier.

Damian walked into the room sitting on one of the cushioned chairs, Todd took a seat next to Drake, and Marin hesitated for a moment but eventually took the other chair. He placed Alfred the cat on his lap before taking off his messenger bag and placing it on the floor.

“So Marin, Helena says you're from Paris, is that true?” It seemed that Drake was looking for blood first.

“Yes, I was born and grew up there.”

“What are you doing in Gotham? You aren’t a foreign exchange student are you?” Grayson came in next with a far more friendly demeanor though that didn’t change anything about how obviously uncomfortable Marin was.

“I just wanted to see the world a little bit and a man who was practically my grandfather left me an apartment here in Gotham so I figured I might as well go somewhere I had a place to stay.” Damian blinked, that was word for word what he’d said in his introduction at school, he even twisted his ring on grandfather. “So no, I'm not a foreign exchange student.” Maybe the ring was a gift from the man, it looked to be fairly expensive but unless he actually got his hands on it Damian wouldn’t be able to tell.

“You must be pretty home sick, how long have you been living here?” Jason was trying to make himself more connectable, he’d probably grown up in the most similar environment to Marin so it made sense but the teen still looked like he wanted to run back to the kitchen. His shoulders were tense to the point it looked like it hurt.

Marin stopped stroking the cat in his lap for just a moment, his eyes going blank before he answered. “Not that long, I only got everything settled about a week before I started school.”

Everyone in the room tensed, this was the first time they had seen Marin go dead. He’d been doing fairly well with the first two questions, but now they’d stepped on a land mine. Just like Damian knew they would.

“Marin, why don’t you tell them about your art.” He should go out of this state fairly quickly, he’d never seen him go dead for more than 10 minutes. It was rare for him to go dead in art though so maybe bringing out his sketchbook would help with that. The teenager reached down to pick up his messenger bag. By the time he’d put the bag down and began flipping through the book Marin was back to as normal as he got. Helena had squirmed out of Selina’s suddenly tight grip, rushing up to Marin. Alfred the cat had jumped off of his legs.

“You’re an artist! Dami is too, but he never lets me see his sketchbook.” Helena reached towards the sketchbook.

“Helena you have to ask before you look in someone’s sketchbook, if you didn’t insist on trying everything but asking me then I may one day let you see. But seeing as that’s never your first reaction when I am drawing you never shall.”

The little girl puffed out her cheeks, but pulled her arms back. “Can I see your sketchbook?”

“Yeah. Just be careful it’s old and kinda falling apart.” Helena took the book, putting it onto the floor so she could gently turn the pages.

“So uh- Marin, do you have any siblings?” Damian was proud of Grayson, he moved away from the topic of why the teenager was in Gotham completely.

Though it didn’t seem to be a safe topic either if the way he revealed the bandages under his jacket was any indication. Picking at the white wrap while he was thinking about the question. “I have two sisters.”

“Dami! Look at this! It’s a dress!” Marin’s eyes followed his sketchbook.

Helena had migrated away from Marin, holding up the book depicted on it as an empty a-line dress that probably went to right above the knees, made of white fabric with lemons embroidered on it. The individual lines that would be caused by needle and thread colored in slightly different shades of yellow, the skirt was flowy, and it was obvious he’d spent quite a while on every lemon. They were individually colored, not identical in shape but that was intentional. It was close to the beginning of the sketchbook, in fact it looked to be only the second page.

“What type of art do you like to do?” Brown joined in with the questioning she was at least trying to be more delicate from the family.

“I do everything, painting, drawing, sewing, embroidery. I like to try everything at least once, so nothings really off the table for me.”

“That’s really cool, so how do you-” Brown was looking over at him even as she questioned Marin. Damian subtly shook his head she was going to ask about baking or macarons. The boy’s family was a landmine, and working in the family owned bakery was its own issue. “How did you get into art?”

“When I was young my parents were really busy with the bakery so I was basically sat down at a table with crayons or colored pencils in an attempt to keep me in place. It worked better than all the other things they’d tried so they were willing to get me some real classes and some better supplies. Of course they did the same thing for-” Marin hesitated for a moment, freezing in place. “one of my sisters.”

Avoiding the name drop was an obvious enough sign for the family and for him. Marin had some sort of falling out with one of his sisters, and it had to have been big if he didn’t even feel comfortable saying her name. Maybe that was why he was in Gotham -one of the things his family had taught him was respecting citizens' privacy and Damian wasn’t about to break one of their ridiculous rules for a stranger. If he wasn’t trying to be good he might have already looked into Marin’s past.

“Have you ever traveled anywhere? Other than here of course.” Selina’s eyes were far different from the almost friendly gaze she’d first looked at Marin with. Now he was a threat to her family, not that the French teenager could cause even a slight amount of damage.

“I’ve been to various cities in France, Shanghai, and New York.”

Helena was back to looking through the sketchbook, studying every single page like she was Drake looking at a case file he just couldn’t quite understand. Which was to say she kept flipping back to previous pages, and then staring at the new ones for close to 3 minutes before turning to the next page. Whenever she found one that she particularly liked she would rush around the room showing it to everyone. Marin didn't do well hiding his anxiety about that but he hadn't leapt out of his chair to stop her so it would be fine as long as the book didn't get damaged.

“You obviously speak English and French, do you speak any other languages?” Tim was fishing for suspicious information, he might find some but in all honestly anything could be taken as suspicious when it came to Marin.

“I speak Mandarin.” An alarm rang through the room. Marin looked down at his phone before standing up. “I have to go check on the Macaron’s and make the filling. It was nice meeting all of you though.”

Damian stood, watching as Marin gently pried his sketchbook away from Helena saying something about how he didn’t want to forget it when he left, and led the teenager back to the kitchen. He got right back to work throwing a package of raspberries into a pan with sugar, and lemon juice. It didn’t take much longer for the filling to finish, and soon after that the cookies were cool enough to -frost, pipe, finish?- whatever the term was.

“Do you want me to get started on the dishes?” He may be letting Marin do all of the mixing and baking but he was bored sitting around and watching. Not to mention the sooner the teenager left the sooner he could go through his family’s interrogation.

Marin looked up from the piping bag, “Oh. You don’t have to, this won’t take me much longer.”

“I might as well, there’s nothing else to do.”

Helena walked into the kitchen when Damian was about halfway through the dishes. Pulling herself up onto one of the chairs at the breakfast bar. “Can I have one of the macaroons?”

Marin had completed quite a substantial pile of the cookies, it seemed he was working on the last tray. “You’d have to ask your Mom first but if she says yes then I don’t see a reason why you can’t. We have more than enough for tomorrow.”

“Dami, can I have one?”

Damian twisted so he could see his younger sister, she was sitting on the chair that Marin had hung his bag off of. That little devil really did take after her mother, only four years old and already climbing up things taller than she was. Not that he was anyone to talk, he'd climbed mountains at that age. “I doubt she’d say no to you, so go ahead.”

“Thank you!” Marin handed her one of the finished cookies before going back to finish the last few that were yet to be frosted.

Helena had left the room soon after she’d been given her cookie, leaving Marin to finish his work. He ended up with two plates full of cookies. “Hey Damian, would you mind if I took a couple cookies home?”

“You're the one who made them, and I’m sure that one plate of cookies would be more than enough to satisfy Madame Davis.”

“Okay, cool. Um, I’m all done with the macaron’s so I’ll call an Uber or something.”

This was the worst part of dealing with dead men in this stage, Marin would always default to what would be the easiest for other people. Damian would never let Marin be driven home by a stranger in Gotham city, especially not while he was in a state where they could quite easily kidnap him by simply telling him what to do.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You live in Gotham, asking someone to pick you up from the home of the richest family in the world is a good way to get yourself robbed. It’s no problem for me to drive you home. Grab your bag and give me your address.”

Damian walked into the Manor 40 minutes later. Marin had been far worse in the car, he wasn’t doing his normal dissociation. Instead he was fading in and out of knowing where he was and what were most likely unpleasant memories brought up by his family’s questions and the act of baking macarons.

“Dami…” Helena was waiting in the mud room, “Did you already take Marin home?”

“Yes.” the little girl suddenly began crying, big wet tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think he’d be leaving so soon.” He was about to ask what she meant when she grabbed his hand dragging him through the house.

“Helena, what’s wrong?” She opened up the door to her room. Laying on the floor was Marin’s sketchbook.

Chapter Text

“What were you thinking!” Helena’s cries had drawn her mother meaning that now not only was she in trouble but his head was on the chopping block.

“I just-sniff- wanted to see more of Marin’s art! Dami never lets me see his and Marin's art is really pretty!”

“That doesn’t matter you stole something important from him.” Damian tried to keep his voice at an acceptable level, if the way Selina was looking at him was anything to go off of he was very much on the edge of that level. “Not to mention it could have things in it that aren’t appropriate for someone your age.”

“If there were inappropriate things then he wouldn’t let me look at it! That’s why I’m not allowed down in the cave or to watch the news!” Helena was moving away from crying and into a temper tantrum.

“Do you think the reason he was so nervous about you having the book was because it’s fragile? It’s because an artist’s sketchbook has a lot of personal imagery in it, he likely drew something in it that he didn’t want anyone else to see.”

“Damian, that's enough. I’m sure she understands that what she did was wrong. It’s not an irredeemable mistake, you can bring him his sketchbook tomorrow, no permanent damage done.” Selina was using what Grayson had taken to calling her “mom voice” but Damian didn’t care. Helena didn’t properly understand the damage this incident could cause.

“No she doesn’t. I doubt you’d understand, seeing as you're a thief yourself I doubt you understand the mental strain it could put on Marin. Did you notice that this was the only thing he carried around that was more than a couple of weeks old? Or that he was so nervous when Helena was looking at it that he barely blinked?” Damian crossed his arms as Selina floundered for a moment. “Do you know what that means? It means that this sketchbook is the only thing he either carries with him or he owns from his time in Paris. It’s probably more important to him than anything.”

“Mommy, I swear I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m sorry, please make Dami calm down.”

“I will not calm down! Marin is in an extremely fragile state which is why I tried to keep all of you away from him. None of you care about how your questions or actions could affect his mental state, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to harm himself tonight because of all of you.”

“DAMIAN WAYNE.” Selina took a deep breath as her child flinched away from her. “If you were so concerned about that you should have stopped your brothers, and there is no need to be so harsh. She's only four and it was a mistake.”

“When I was four and made a mistake it resulted in broken bones, bruises, and punishment. Not to mention a mistake implies an accident, your daughter deliberately stole Marin’s sketchbook. I expect you to punish her in some way because if you don’t I will take it into my own hands and then I will not be the only one who’s unhappy.” Selina picked up her daughter, taking a step back. Oftentimes his family forgot what a mistake meant in his previous life, for some reason the reminder always made them quiet. “And If I told them not to pester Marin they would have found a much worse way to do it. Just because none of you trust me it doesn’t give you the right to be suspicious of people I barely speak to.”

“Damian. We do trust you, they just worry.”

“If they trusted me then they would have asked me those questions when Marin left. Now are you going to stop lying and punish your child or do I have to do it for you?”

“What on earth is going on up here?” His Father walked into the room. His normal stern expression became closer to anger when he finally saw the whole scene. It probably didn’t look good. Damian was standing on one side of the room holding a sketchbook that wasn’t his and Selina was holding her child on the other side looking like she was looking for the best escape route.

“Your daughter is a thief who needs to be punished and her thief mother refuses to do so.”

“Helena took one of Damian’s classmates’ sketchbook while the boy was making macarons and now he wants her to be punished accordingly. I think she already feels bad enough.”

“No she doesn't, she needs to understand there are real consequences to stealing something so personal from someone. Less she end up like her mother.”

“Damian, you're off of patrol tonight.”

“What?! I’m getting punished because of your thief wife and daughter?”

“You need to learn to respect them, you may not like it but they’re both here to stay.” His father had been convinced since the day Helena was born that he had some sort of deeper issue with their presence than how they were treated better than him.

“Maybe you should teach them not to steal and then I can respect them.” Damian walked out of the room. After "respect" was brought up there would be no way for him to get a single word in. Why did he always have to be respectful when no one had to respect him? He’d only brought up that point once, it seemed to only anger his Father further.

---
Marin hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. He’d spent almost all night after Damian dropped him off searching for his sketchbook. It hadn’t been in his bag or any of the kitchen cupboards or anywhere in his bedroom. It must have fallen out of his bag in Damian’s car. The rest of the night had been spent standing in front of the closet where he'd stashed the miracle box wondering if he should go inside and deliver his macrons to the kwamis.

If it wasn’t there then maybe he left it in Wayne Manor? And if it wasn’t there… then he didn’t know what to do. That was the one thing he’d kept when his family had sent him away, there was nothing else except for his phone and that didn’t really count. His phone didn’t mean anything because no one ever bothered to call him. His sketchbook held everything.

Every dress, skirt, suit, jacket, mural, car, instrument, everything he’d ever planned to make and hadn’t yet was in that sketchbook. What was he going to do without it? His therapist would spew something about how starting over was a good thing. In most cases Marin agreed; moving on from Paris had overall been good for him but that book was the one thing he refused to leave behind.

“Marin, hey you okay?” Joshua tapped his shoulder, gently pulling him towards their first class.

“I’m fine, I just lost something.” something very very important.

“If you need help looking for it I can ask around.”

“Thanks. But I think I left it at Damian’s house when we were working on the French project last night.”

Joshua hesitated for a moment, “I can ask him about it if you want me to.”

“Thanks but I think I’ll do it myself. I don’t think he’d like it if I sent someone else to ask about it.” The billionaire's son seemed like the type of person who thought respect was very important. Marin didn’t want to make the other teenager feel disrespected for any reason.

“Alright. Do you want to go to a café after school? It’s just down the street and I can give you a ride home afterwards if that’s what you’d like.”

Marin thought about the offer, having something sweet would be nice. Maybe they had a chocolate croissant or a cake of some kind. “Sure, that sounds nice.”

“So what did you lose?”

“My sketchbook.”

Joshua dropped his backpack to the floor, “I’m sorry, that sucks. If you can’t find it I know a really good art store that we could go to.”

“I’d like that.” He had to keep reminding himself that any sketchbook was better than no sketchbook.

Damian walked into the classroom moments before the bell rang, it seemed he hadn’t had a much better night. Anger rolled off the teenager in waves. So much so that even the small pose that followed behind him in an attempt to get his attention were nowhere to be seen. He settled into his seat just a couple rows away, sending a glare so strong at the girl that sat in front of him when she turned around that instead of trying to flirt with him like she normally did she turned so fast that Marin thought it might have hurt. Marin tried to take his mind off of his sketchbook but it was almost impossible to focus on anything else when all he wanted to do was look through it and make sure all the pages were there. He wanted to pick up his sketchbook and make sure the portrait of his family was still on the last page, it was the only time he saw them, on a particularly bad day he'd deleted all the pictures on his phone only to have a worse day because he'd gotten rid of things he hadn't meant to. Another patient had helped him retrieve a few of the pictures but most of them were gone forever.

“Alright class! Everyone has their papers turned in, their traditional food completed, and their recipe next to their dessert. Feel free to go try other groups' foods, we’ll be doing a vote at the end of the class for who made their food the best!” Madam Davis clapped her hands together and sat down at her desk.

Chatter filled the classroom as the assigned groups separated so they could be with their friends. Addison left their corner to go and try the other groups' confections. There was another group that made macarons, two made eclairs, another made croissants, one made macaroons, and the last made madeleines.

“Marin, I need to speak with you for a moment.” Damian reached into his backpack and pulled out his black, slightly beat-up, sketchbook. “I wish to apologize for my sister’s actions, she wished to see more of what you’d drawn and took it out of your bag. I should have been paying more attention, I hope it didn’t cause you to much strife.”

Back in Paris everyone would have told him that it was his fault, and that he had no right to be upset. They probably wouldn’t have even said the word “sorry” much less say that they or anybody else was in the wrong. “It wasn’t your fault we all want to see the best in our siblings. Thank you for telling me the truth.”

“I kept my siblings from looking through it, so anything you may not have wanted us to see has remained a secret. I understand how personal a sketchbook's content can be.”

Damian was far different then the ice prince everyone described him as. He was a little standoffish and his walls were built up high but he really was a good person. “Thank you, I think you're the second genuinely kind person I’ve ever met.” Marin would text Joshua after class but he didn’t want to miss this opportunity. He had to pay the Wayne back for what he’d done for him. “I’m going to a café with Joshua after school. Would you like to join us?”

“Are you trying to pay me back?” Damian looked slightly amused at the idea.

“Yes. I know that if someone does something for you the right thing to do is reciprocate. I doubt I’ll ever have your sketchbook in my hands but I can buy you a drink and offer the company of two fellow artists.”

Damian thought about it for a moment. “tt, Sure. I would be willing to let you pay me back in such a way.”

Chapter Text

Damian was led into the café it was a couple streets off of Gotham plaza and just north of Gotham Academy. Marin had let Joshua order him a tall lavender latte as well as a chocolate croissant, the small boy ordered himself a medium iced coffee as well as a cake pop and then they’d turned to him as the French teenager took out his card.

“I’d like a medium americano” he looked down at the meagre selection of baked sweets. There was nothing that looked particularly appealing but he didn’t want Marin to think he was still indebted to him. The French boy had enough issues without thinking that he owed something to the son of the most powerful person in the city. “And a blueberry muffin.”

The girl behind the counter nodded, pressing the screen before Marin stepped back in front of the register tapping his card on the screen after tipping- did he just tip 50%? It seemed like a little much for someone who had openly admitted that he didn’t have basic furniture in his home. Their drinks probably cost about 10 dollars plus another eight for their various treats and a nine dollar tip. That was 27 dollars, and he’d used a cash card not credit. Did he really have 27 dollars laying around?

It didn’t seem very reasonable but if he was actually struggling surely Marin could contact family of some kind. His lack of furniture may have more to do with him being a dead man than lack of funds. It wasn’t uncommon for dead men to buy the necessity and only the necessities for one of two reasons: they either didn’t think they deserved anything more than the bare minimum or it didn’t occur to them there was anything else they could possibly need. For his own sanity Damian hoped it was the second and not the first, the first way of thinking normally came about from more intense processes.

The two boys sat on the same side of the small booth they’d settled in while they waited for their drinks to be prepared. The next few minutes were filled with fluff conversation that did little more that assure Damian that yes Joshua and Marin were friends.

“Marin!” The call of the name traveled to their small booth and before Damian could offer to get it the French boy was already out of his seat making his way through the increasingly populated café.

Joshua watched as the French teenager walked across the room, “What on earth did your family do to him last night?” he pushed his wire framed glasses up his nose. “I get it better than most people that family doesn’t define what you are but really, what on earth.”

“Has he been acting differently? I hadn’t noticed anything.” Damian cursed himself. Really it would be a miracle if Joshua hadn’t noticed the boy's absent minded nature had turned itself up by ten points.

“Don’t play dumb, you and I both know that something caused Marin to be like-” the boy gestured over to where Marin was currently trapped in a one sided conversation with an aggressively flirtatious barista, “ -that.”

“Marin doesn’t seem to be very stable, he could simply be having a bad day.” Damian hated himself just a little bit for trying to throw blame away from his family but they all had their obligations, his was to keep the family's good reputation. He was already a lost cause in the eyes of their publicist but he couldn’t allow rumors to spread about his brothers or father. Cass could take care of herself and Helena was too young to be in the eyes of the public so he didn’t need to worry about them.

“You did not just-”

---

Marin was trying to very gently pull away from the blond man holding on to his wrist, his name tag said his name was Andrew. “I’m good, my friends are waiting.” He didn’t use nearly as much caution when he pulled his arm away from the man the second time. He collected the drink carrier and brought it to the booth where Joshua and Damian were.

“Marin! There you are, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it just took me a second to get everything.” Marin pulled down his sleeve, the bandages under it had gotten disturbed by the barista’s grip and were now starting to rub against the inside of his blazer.

The two glared at each other while he settled into his seat. Joshua took his iced coffee but didn’t break eye contact with the billionaire’s son across from them. “Thank you for inviting me.”

They took sips of their respective drinks simultaneously. The air around them was tense but it wasn’t so bad that Marin thought they might start fighting each other. Physically at least. Instead of focusing on whatever was going on between them he took a sip of his latte.

Normally coffee wasn’t his thing, he much preferred tea but Joshua had taken it upon himself to diversify his taste buds so Marin wouldn’t complain. Besides most of the things the African American boy had chosen for him were very good. This latte wasn’t the exception, the floral notes calmed the normally bitter coffee taste to the point where he actually liked it. It was pleasant and the caffeine in the coffee was appreciated after his sleepless night. “I like this one.”

Joshua lit up like a Christmas tree, smiling triumphantly while finally allowing Damian to escape his glare. “I’m glad! You said you liked the milk tea we got last time so I thought you might like something a little less intense than a black coffee.”

“You don’t like bitter things.” Damian stated it as a fact rather than a question but he was right. Even as a child he didn’t like anything coffee related or kale, sesame seeds he could handle when they weren’t the main seasoning but he hated bagels or buns that had them.

“How did you know?”

Joshua looked about ready to clock Damian without remorse for the consequences that would follow. A few of the Wayne’s may be more willing to go down and try to diffuse the situation by walking away but something about how Damian held himself reminded Marin that he wasn’t like his family. If Joshua Crowne tried to punch Damian Wayne then it was likely this outing would end in blood.

“I’ve never seen you eat anything that could even be vaguely considered bitter, and you said your favorite food was cream cheese filled macarons. Not exactly what most people would consider to be bitter or even savory, and when you tried Joshua’s coffee last week in art you looked like you wanted to die.”

Marin nodded spinning his cup it was very rare that he wanted to die currently but the Wayne was correct about his food preferences. He stopped the nervous motion when he caught sight of a number written on the side in purple sharpie accompanied by, “This coffee’s hot just like you bod ♡♡♡ Maybe you should give me a taste ;)”

Joshua took the cup reading the message before glaring at the blond barista who was currently taking the order of a woman wearing a black pencil skirt and a dark gray blazer. “Why are so many men pigs? He’s gotta be at least 20 and you aren’t even seventeen yet right?”

“Not yet, I turn 17 in July.” He hadn’t gotten the chance to have a sweet sixteen, he’d been otherwise occupied with trying to find different ways to kill himself while locked in the most secure psych ward in the world. But after he’d gotten out it seemed like every other person wanted to be with him. At four of the six coffee shops or bakeries Joshua had taken him to one of the workers had somehow given out their number to him. Marin guessed depressed was the sexiest thing you could be in Gotham, it was better than psychotic at least.

“You're so young, I’m gonna be almost eighteen by then.” Joshua complained but placed the cup back down. Marin took another sip, he was going to have to get this again sometime. Maybe not an everyday treat but it’d be nice when he needed something to stay awake.

“Does this happen often?” Damian looked somewhere between disturbed and curious. He glanced down at the message, Marin turned the cup so he could see it and watched as the curiosity turned fully to disgust. “Do people actually want to hear that from strangers?”

Marin shrugged, “Sometimes it’s kinda nice to know that people think I’m aesthetically attractive, but sometimes it can be a little less comfortable. It all depends on how the other person shows their attraction, following me home- not fun. Writing a dorky pun on a coffee cup funny, writing a sexual comment on a coffee cup not so funny. It’s also less fun in general if they’re more than three or four years older than me.” He’d had to adapt to the life of being seen as attractive as soon as he got out of Arkham, something he definitely wasn’t used to. In Paris he had a grand number of 1 date, 4 kisses, and zero of anything farther. Maybe Gothamites liked virgins?

“People follow you home?” Damian had relaxed slightly but still seemed to be a step or two off from comfortable.

“Not often but it’s happened before, some chick wearing a bat costume kicked the shit out of one guy. I didn’t really notice he was there until she walked me the rest of the way home.” She’d been very quiet but it’d been nice.

“You met one of the batfamily? You never told me that!” Joshua practically jumped out of his seat, his leg tapping in an erratic pattern on the floor.

“Batfamily? I thought there were only like 2 or 3.” Marin didn’t attempt to hide his confusion, he thought there was Batman, Robin, and Batgirl.

“Oh no, there’s like seven of them or something crazy.” Joshua started, taking another sip of his iced coffee. “There’s Batman obviously, then Nightwing, Red Hood, Batgirl, Spoiler, Signal, Batwoman, Red Robin, and Robin.”

That many? In one city? Eight vigilantes working together and watching each other's backs that sounded stressful. Something must have showed on his face because Damian began to speak again, “Don’t forget Blackbat, and Nightwing’s bludhaven’s now.” he took a controlled sip of his finally cool coffee,

“You believe in Blackbat? Come on, she’s totally just Batwoman in a new outfit.”

“No way. She fights totally differently and besides, doesn't Batwoman have red hair?” Damian debated and Joshua seemed to have finally let go of whatever had angered him.

“Women can cut their hair, you know, and there could be a reason she decided to cover her face more.”

“I think that because Batman was thought to be an urban legend for the better part of three or four years depending on who you ask it’s better to just assume they’re all different people.”

Joshua thought over that point for a moment, “I guess that makes sense. Why do we gotta have such cryptic vigilantes?”

Damian shrugged, and then looked far too pleased with himself. “Would you rather have the boy in blue be our city's protector?”

“Don’t you ever even suggest that. He can stay in his pretty little Metropolis. We don't need some pretty boy with blue eyes protecting the city.” Joshua had actually scoffed at the idea.

“Who’s the boy in blue? Isn’t that what police are referred to as?” Confusion clouded his voice and both of the Gothamites focused on him.

“I forgot you weren’t born here, he’s Superman. We don’t like him and neither should you if you don’t wanna get beat up.” Joshua pointed in a way that reminded Marin of how Manon used to when she was trying to get one of her points across.

“Noted… why?”

“Because he’s pompous and everyone from Metropolis thinks they’re better than us so they don’t deserve respect.” Damian spoke it without a lick of contempt almost like he was stating a fact, but Joshua nodded along so it must be true.

The conversation after that flowed much better, mostly it was the two boys he was with explaining the different ins and outs of Gotham city, the do’s and don’ts. Right and Wrong. General good advice: don’t stay out late, someone should always know at least the area you are, if you see someone who looks like a clown turn around and walk away calmly.

Chapter Text

Marin waved goodbye to Damian in the school parking lot, they’d spent nearly an hour and a half in the café which meant that there were only a few cars left. Damian Wayne's ridiculously expensive black Maserati and Joshua’s slightly less ridiculously expensive silver Volvo. There were of course a few cars still left in the teacher’s lot and a few cars in the student lot that probably belonged to a sports team or club members.

“Do you like him?” Joshua proposed the question as soon as they were settled in the car. “Cause I think he’s kind of a jerk but he was nice to you and I guess that he can be okay to talk to but if you wanna hang out with him then I’d be willing to let him come out with us after school more often.”

He pondered the question for a moment. Damian was very honest and he liked that but he hadn’t known him long enough to say whether or not he liked the Wayne. “I think that… I want to get to know him”

“Alright. The next time we go out after school I’ll invite him, or do you want to ask him?”

“I have more classes with him then you do, I can ask him.” It would make the most sense, besides Joshua probably wouldn’t like asking Damian to get coffee with them.

“Did you like that place?”

“Yeah, that lavender latte was really delicious. I don't think I would like to have it every day but it’d be nice on days when I need some caffeine.” He’d drank it all which was rare for him and the chocolate croissant had actually been pretty okay. It didn’t hit any nostalgic points -that was what his therapist was calling them now, not triggers or sore spots, nostalgic points- which was nice.

“That’s good, we’ll try something a little different next time if that’s alright with you?”

“What do you have in mind?”

---

Damian hung up his keys as he entered the house, coffee had gone on longer than he thought it would but it hadn’t been unenjoyable and Joshua’s starting aggression hadn’t lasted very long after Marin joined their conversation. Though joined was a generous term, really he had just asked a few questions when he was confused and shared one story. Maybe that did count as joining though. He needed to brush up on conversational etiquette.

He made his way up stairs as far as he was aware no one was home, well no one that would bother him at least. Selina tended to keep to herself and now that Helena had started kindergarten -a year early according to his family personally he didn’t really get the hype, when he was four he already was able to recite times tables up to 20 and kill a man with his bare hands- she’d been far less dependent on him for social interaction. Meaning that he could actually go to his room and have some time to himself.

Go into his room, finish his homework, do some light exercises, practice with his sword. That was the plan for tonight, then when his father arrived home he would hopefully be allowed back on patrol or at least on case work.

Helena was standing in the middle of the hallway outside of his room, with her mother nudging her forwards. “Helena, why don’t you tell Damian what you wanted to say?” She looked less than happy with being forced forward, the glare she sent back at her mother confirmed that theory. His little sister took a deep breath before muttering out an unintelligible sentence that Damian had no way of understanding.

“Helena.” Selina’s sharp tone caused her daughter to shrink into herself slightly, turning a bright red.

His sister turned her head to the side in order to avoid looking at him, then to the other side before settling on the floor where she slowly drew her eyes up so she was finally looking at her brother. “I’m… sorry. What I did last night was wrong and you had a right to be angry.” The words were obviously rehearsed but the tears beginning to form in her eyes were real. “I shouldn’t have stolen Marin’s sketchbook, because it doesn’t belong to me and it’s very important to him. Is he okay?”

It was obvious she was being forced to apologize, Damian didn’t like that. Unless you apologize out of your own free will then it doesn’t matter that the words “I’m” and “sorry” leave your mouth. Still if he said that the consequences would be more than he was willing to deal with. If he did anything other than accept the apology then he would probably be taken off of patrol once again and then be forced to sit through another lecture about feelings and how Helena was just a little kid.

He weighed his options. He could call out Selina and Helena and say that it didn’t matter how bad she felt if she couldn’t offer up a sincere apology; that would probably get him in far too much trouble especially if they went and tattled to father. He could accept the apology and be congratulated for his growth; he could get back onto patrol if he did that, and seeing as the apology didn’t need to be sincere the acceptance didn’t need to be either.

“I appreciate your apology, Marin is”- not fine at all in fact he’s doing horrible but he’s always doing horrible so I can’t fully blame you for that– “ okay. He was very distraught about the loss of his sketchbook but thanked me for returning it.”

Damian walked around his sister, now he really wanted to be alone. Lying was something he didn’t have problems with, not sharing his opinions was something he got used to in the League. It was his job to do what he was told not say what he thought about his actions. It always left a bad taste in his mouth to hide his opinions, wasn’t the point of living with his father that it would be different -be better- than being a pawn in a game he had absolutely no control of. Here he was supposed to be able to state his own opinion.

There was at least one good thing that came out of his conversation with Helena, no one had noticed he’d been home late which meant that no one asked any questions about what he was doing. And he was back on for patrol.

It was a quiet night, there was the odd mugging to stop but the Bat signal hadn’t gone up and as far as Damian was aware everyone else was doing well. Joker was in Arkham, Harley and Ivy hadn’t caused any real issues in close to three months, Croc was still down in the sewers somewhere but no missing person reports had been filed so they could leave him be for now, Scarecrow was off the grid and despite their best attempts to find him the man had remained out of sight. All the heavy hitters were either out of play or not causing issues so patrol was more or less an excuse to keep the thugs and low level criminals in line.

“Hello little buddy, what are you doing all the way up here?” The gentle voice pulled Damian’s attention away from the streets. They were empty anyway, even though it was the first night of a break it was also cold enough that most people were causing problems inside.

Damian looked across the street; standing on the roof of the building was Marin Dupain-Cheng. That in itself was concerning but it was made more worrying by where he was standing. The teenager was standing on top of the safety wall in shorts, socks, and a long sleeved shirt. It wasn’t the tallest building in Gotham but if Marin fell -jumped- off of it chances were he wouldn’t get back up.

As quickly as he could without drawing suspicion to himself he made his way to the building. Marin was sitting on the edge by the time he arrived, his legs dangling off of the building while petting a large black cat that had managed to crawl into his lap. “Are you alright?”

Marin either wasn’t surprised by the voice behind him or didn’t care enough to react in a violent manner. Most people jumped when he approached them without warning, the teenager simply turned his head while continuing to pet the cat, currently digging its claws into his exposed thigh. “Your Robin right? My friend -Joshua- told me about you. Damian talked about you too, he said that you’re a good Robin.” Bringing up the previous conversation was a good sign, Marin couldn’t even remember first period during their after school hang out. The poor boy couldn’t even recall when the teacher spilled hot coffee all over himself.

“Are you not friends with Damian?”

Marin turned so his legs were now slightly bent on the safety wall so he could better converse with the voice behind him. “I think I want to be. He seems very nice, but I don’t know if he would call me a friend so I’m going to respect his boundaries and not label him as something he’s not.”

Damian stared at the boy, it was true that he wouldn’t label Marin as his friend. It was rare that anyone respected how he saw them though, dozens of people labeled themselves as his friend even though all he’d done is say at most three sentences to them. If Marin was willing to put in effort to actually become his friend then he supposed it was only fair that he do the same.

The teenager winced, pulling his arm out of the cat’s grasp as it dug its claws into his palm. Moving his arm in a way that caused his sleeve to ride up his forearm. For some reason he’d been expecting to see the bandages that Marin always kept his arms covered in. Why on earth would he wear bandages on his arms when he was at his own home? Instead, scared pale skin was revealed to him. Distinct lines of scar tissue went from just below his palms to underneath the long sleeved shirt.

“Oh, sorry about that.” Marin pulled his sleeve back up. “People get real weird when they see them, I guess most people don’t think someone my age would have any reason to no longer exist.” the words left his mouth in such a calm manner that Damian would have assumed the teenager was speaking about the weather rather than suicide. Perks of being a dead man.

There were six lines of scaring. Lines of scaring that looked angry and pink and were raised off of his skin enough that you could see the difference in level. Obviously the wounds had been deep. The pain it would cause to cut into yourself deep enough to leave scars like that would be immense. Surface level injuries could hurt sure but the type of injury that went into muscle and punctured veins and arteries… that type of pain was nearly indescribable.

“Life can be difficult for everyone. Age doesn’t limit the amount of suffering someone can feel, or the way their mental state is affected by events around them.” He knew that both first and second hand. Damian also knew how damaging it could be to reinforce the idea that age mattered more than personal experience.

“Yes it can be. But things are better here.” Marin spoke like he was trying to convince himself that the words he was saying were true. “Because if they aren’t better here I don’t think it’ll be better anywhere.” The cat began to wander away leaving Marin with nothing to show but a few bloody lines just above his knee and a small hole in his hand.

“You should give it time. Gotham is a strange place, but it isn’t bad. When I first came here I thought that it would be just as bad as where I’m originally from.” Marin was watching him with his mostly lifeless blue eyes. “After spending more time here and getting to know the city and its people, I got to see different sides of life. Some were bad I won’t lie but lots of them are good, you just have to give yourself time to see past what you think the world is like.” It’d taken him a long time to get to the point he could see good in dark places, but he’d gotten there.

“I think that’s the best advice I’ve gotten in years.” socks met the pebble roof cover as Marin twisted his body in order to stand up. “I guess I should stop worrying local heroes by standing on the edges of roofs. Thank you for your advice.”

Damian watched as the teenager opened the door for roof access and disappeared into the building. He’d said he wouldn’t get involved in whatever was happening around the boy… but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to dig a little bit.

Chapter Text

Damian ignored the pointed look from Titus as he entered the cave earlier than normal, most of his family was still out on patrol but it was a lost cause. No one was out causing problems: it was too cold outside and seeing as Freeze was locked up in Arkham nothing was an immediate danger to the citizens of Gotham. Besides, he had a new case to follow up on. One he wouldn’t be sharing with his family.

It was child's play hacking into Medical records, only made slightly complicated because of Marin’s duel status. Growing up in France and having his last seven months in America would have been a challenge for some, but not for him. He was only going to look at Marin's medical records, not at anything that had to do with his life. He wasn’t going to look up Marin’s family or friends. Try and figure out what school the French teenager went to or what he did in his free time. That wasn’t what he needed.

Marin Dupain-Cheng’s medical file: His early years were what could be considered normal; a broken arm when he was seven, twelve stitches when he was nine, he was fully vaccinated. After that it seemed he caught strep a few times, but nothing major stuck out until he was 15.

Marin was admitted to the hospital on April 22 with severe self-inflicted injuries to the right and left wrist and forearm. At arrival he was sedated and given five blood transfusions to combat the previous loss. The wounds were stitched without issue as they were clean cuts, but problems arose when the sedative wore off and Marin attacked a nurse who was trying to wrap the wounds and subsequently pulled out each and every stitch that had been placed on his body.

The attack and self mutilation caused him to be put on a constant IV drip of sedatives until a proper mental institution was found. He was then with parental consent flown over the ocean where he would be a patient in Arkham due to the violent nature of his attempt.

No wonder Marin was so messed up. Whoever his doctor was -they weren’t listed in the file which was a massive red flag especially for a place like Arkham- had most likely used him as some sort of experimental treatment project but hadn’t been able to keep the teenager since he proved he was capable of living by himself. Damian clicked through the rest of the file.

All the treatment details were classified, probably on site only. Arkham had gotten too smart to put their treatment files on any sort of server that could be accessed outside of the hospital, and knowing Tim that meant any server. He’d spent six months in Arkham and was only released a week before he started school.

No wonder he didn’t like to speak of his arrival to Gotham, he probably didn’t even remember what was happening. Marin woke up across the ocean with people speaking a different language at him while working off the effects of several days of sedatives and in the middle of a major suicidal episode.

It was probably terrifying.

What he had to find out now was what treatment Marin was exposed to as well as who his doctor was.

---

Marin sat in front of his closet. There weren’t any clothes in it despite its walk in nature allowing for more room than he needed. He didn’t have any clothing from Paris, everything he currently had he’d bought after getting out of Arkham.

Gotham had high quality clothing so that wasn’t an issue but part of Marin wished he had all the clothing that he’d made for himself. He had jackets that he loved that were embroidered with roses and tiger lilies, and a suit jacket he’d made for an event he attended with Jagged that was the perfect shade of blue that mimicked the night sky that had accurate constellations embroidered all over it.

Of course there were more mundane things. A pair of jeans that actually fit him perfectly, his first attempt at a seamless shirt that didn’t quite work but was comfortable to wear on cold nights, and of course the scarfs he’d made for winter time. The other things he missed were just a little petty. He wanted his bolts of fabric that he’d spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on, and his boxes of yarn that held almost any color you could think of. He wanted his sewing machine that only worked right for him, and the crochet hooks that he’d only been able to find once but worked better than any other brand he tried.

His therapist would have probably gotten mad at him for thinking in such a way. He wasn’t supposed to think about things he’d left behind, he was only supposed to look forwards. Looking backwards would have a negative impact on his recovery, he had gotten past the exposure part of his therapy. No need to relieve bad moments or explain how the worst moments in his life had made him feel. Or have that damned mask shoved onto his face that had that strange gas in it that made him feel like he was drowning.

That was all behind him now. He was going to build a life for himself without those things because that was what would be best for him. But there were things he couldn’t leave behind. Shouldn’t have left behind. How the Miraculous box had made it in with his sketchbook and phone when he was sent to Arkham he didn’t know, but he was glad it did.

He was glad it did, even though every time he thought of opening the closet door he was afraid they would hate him. For what he tried to do, for what he had done, for who he’d become. They still needed to be taken care of though, it wasn’t right for him to try and ignore their very existence because they reminded him of times he wasn’t supposed to think about. It wasn’t their fault in any way.

It wasn’t Nooro’s thought that he was used by a bad man or Duusu’s fault that a guardian had failed in his job of protecting them. Marin wasn’t going to be that type of guardian, he wasn’t going to let the kwamis be used and hurt just because he was having problems that wasn’t right. Just like it wasn’t right for a parent to ignore a child because they did something they didn’t like, or something that had scared them.

That was what he was. Marin was scared that the kwamis would hate him, or that his neglect had caused damage to them. But the only way to fix that would be to open the closet door… and give it some time.

Kwamis weren’t known to hold grudges but if he continued to ignore their existence then nothing would ever improve. The cookies he made on Thursday were still basically fresh, they weren’t even two days old yet and considering they were the only things he really had in his house it would be the best he could do. Maybe he should get out a glass of milk for Plagg? Or would it be better to go out tomorrow and buy all the kwamis their preferred food and then open the door and apologize for his actions?

Marin stood up pacing in front of the door. If he waited then he might lose his nerves and end up not doing it at all. But he needed to do this. He had to open this door and face his fears or he never would and that just wasn’t an option.

His hands were shaking so hard that he wasn’t sure that he would be able to open the door. That wasn’t going to stop him though, he needed to do this. He wouldn’t have hesitated to open this door a year ago, he wouldn’t have been so terrified of the mini gods that were his friends. Why was he so afraid of them now? Why was he so afraid of the past?

He knew things were bad in Paris. There was always so much going on and Marinette was never there for him -but it wasn’t fair for him to expect that she had her own life which is why he let her go- not when it really mattered. Hawkmoth had definitely made things worse, but things were going to fall apart eventually with or without his self injection into the lives of every Parisian. That was something he’d accepted before Hawkmoth came into the picture.

When had he accepted that?

It didn’t matter- he needed to open the door in front of him. He needed to open the door and confront what was behind it. That was what his therapy was about. Right? Marin forced his shaking hands to wrap around the door handle, it was closer than he’d gotten to opening the door since he put the miracle box in it a month ago. He was a third of the way there, all he needed to do was press down and pull, that was it. Two steps. Not ten or twenty. Two. He could do it.

His entire body was shaking now, he wasn’t doing anything strenuous. This shouldn’t be so scary; he’d dealt with life or death situations that ended in death, he fought a man three times his age with magical artifacts and won, he buried the only person who really saw him for who he was. He could open a door.

Two steps that was it. One twist the handle -okay done, nice and easy. Two pull - don’t think about it as opening the door, you’re just pulling. He could pull, that was easy. But his muscles were locked in place as tremors racked his body, his vision was starting to blur and all he needed to do was pull.

Marin let go of the door’s handle allowing it to bounce back into place, the sound of the latch clicking into place sounded through his too quiet house. He turned away from the door, it was okay that he couldn’t do it yet…

No it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay that he couldn’t open a goddamned door in his own house. He didn’t even know what he was really doing but before he could stop himself a surge of… something made him turn back towards the door and those two steps were done before he could even think about stopping himself.

Chapter Text

The door was open, the door was open and there was no closing it now. The hexagonal box sat in the very back of the closet pressed against the wall, he couldn’t see anything more than a vague shadow from it, but he knew it was there. He knew that that beautiful black stained, red wood box was sitting there, with its beautiful ornate pattern that reminded him of Master Fu.

It was in the dark and that was alright. If he saw the box he probably would do something he would later regret, like open all the boxes or try and smash it. Both of those extremes wouldn’t end well for him. Plagg had been in here doing his job, he was still in the closet, he could feel the kwami’s presence. When they’d meshed and melded together and become one person and the magic had started leaking over to him without Plagg’s help, it left marks. It left bits and pieces and residue all over his soul, his mind, his perception of the world.

It had made things strange for a while but it hadn’t been bad, an adjustment period the little god had said. He just needed a bit of time to figure out how to control the flow of destruction and chaos. The little god had said that he was the only wielder who he’d meshed with so well, maybe he meshed a bit too well.

A shadow raced across the dark closet into his dark room, the only light provided was the light that was shining in from a neon sign outside his window that read TATTOOS and had a caricature of the devil on the bottom the poster that bathed his room in a bright pink light if the curtains weren’t closed completely. He could feel who it was but he could also see who it was. His night vision had decreased an alarming amount but he supposed it was to be expected; if you don’t exercise a muscle it gets weak after all.

“Kitten?” The kwami’s deep voice washed over him like a wave. Somehow causing his anxiety to multiply tenfold and his nerves to settle in a way they hadn’t in months. “Oh Marin, what did they do to you?”

The little god flew up to his face and wiped away a tear that he hadn’t known was falling. Salty water poured from his eyes and he couldn’t stop it, he didn’t even know why he was crying he didn’t feel like he should be crying. They weren’t angry tears, and they weren’t sad ones. But he didn’t know what type they were.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His legs gave out from under him and suddenly he realized that not only was he crying like a toddler but he was shaking like a leaf in the wind. “I’m so sorry.”

“Kitten, you shouldn’t be sorry. We should have realized how you were feeling, we decided it would be best to give you space and let you come to us. We should have been keeping a closer eye on you.” Plagg rubbed against his face how he used to after a particularly draining fight. “Look at you. You’re a cat-astrophe”

Despite the tears still streaming down his face and the fact his shaking had only increased Marin felt a short laugh leave his lungs. The shaking and crying seemed to be taking their toll. His throat felt that raw sort of dry-cold combination that always came from hyperventilating and tears. He felt like he couldn’t breathe and it was his first time breathing in months, everything was conflicting and he didn’t know if he liked it or not.

But Plagg was there rubbing his fuzzy skin -it felt like velvet- against his cheek. So he guessed that was a good sign.

---

Damian awoke in the morning to the feeling of someone staring at him, he would have preferred to sleep for a while longer it was barely six, but he supposed he’d been asleep for long enough. When he opened his eyes he was greeted not with Titus or Alfred the cat. In fact at first glance he didn’t see anyone’s eyes.

Until he rolled onto his back and looked up. Pure icy blue eyes looked down on him from the vent, Helena. The little girl had taken to the vents now, wasn’t that perfect. He could wave goodbye to the iota of privacy he had in the house, his little sister had very little loyalty to him and would probably report everything he did whenever she was looking. Which would be nothing, she thought him stupid for an unknown reason but he would not risk doing anything that looked mildly sketchy in front of the snitch.

Two could play that game, he got out of bed and walked to the closet grabbing the first shirt he could. It was plain black like most of his civilian clothing and the whole time he was moving he’d felt his little sister’s eyes on his back. Instead of acknowledging her he made his way down to the kitchen, it was likely that no one was awake. After easy patrols most of the family took it as an excuse to not get out of bed until at least noon. No one was around to wake them after ten, so more often than not he didn’t see anyone except for on rare occasions Drake and even rarer occasions Selina.

When he reached the top of the stairs he smelled the last thing he expected. Breakfast was cooking in the kitchen and if that wasn’t a bad sign then what was? The only reason anyone cooked breakfast was when there was an unofficial family meeting and they wanted to confront someone in a less stressful environment than the cave. Seeing as he hadn’t been invited, the person they were going to confront was most likely him.

Wasn’t this an amazing way to start his break from school. He didn’t want to go down and part of him wanted to sneak out the back door, he could do it without his family noticing too. That would probably only prolong the issue though. Suppressing a sigh he made his way down the staircase. He wondered what they wanted to talk about.

Sure enough Grayson was in the kitchen flipping a pancake and placing it on an ever growing stack that was already 10 high. Drake was in the corner waiting for the coffee maker to finish, and Jason was sitting at the breakfast bar. Cass was sitting next to Jason picking at a pancake that she’d placed on her plate and smothered in maple syrup.

“Little D! We asked Helena to go get you up, where is she?”

He suppressed the urge to glare and instead walked past them all to the cabinets where he grabbed a glass. “She’s been staring at me from the vents, next time you should tell her that she should walk into my room.” He took the cup and filled it with water. “Someone should warn her about respecting privacy, it isn’t an issue for me, but I would hate for her to see something she isn’t ready for.”

Was it a low blow to imply to the family she could be watching them as well? Maybe. But they would be more likely to stop her if they thought their privacy was at risk as well. Tim took Bernard home at least once a month and no one was stupid enough to think they simply slept. Jason never slept at the manor but on occasion did leave things in his locked room that should never be seen by a child. Dick had his own apartment to defile but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have sensitive information in the room.

Cass and Stephanie shared a bed more often than not even if they weren’t officially together, but Damian was pretty sure they did actually just sleep in the same bed. That didn’t mean they wanted a four year old asking them questions about it. And all the vents in the manor were connected so if she could his room she could see theirs.

He felt the room still at his words, hopefully they all realized how bad it could be for them. And seeing as father was in the room he could strike fear into him in a separate way. “I know her mother is Catwoman master thief, but it is dangerous for children to be crawling around in vents, you never know what could happen if she gets lost or falls down a shaft.” Damian sipped his water, and watched as his father placed down his mug on the small mahogany table. If they wanted to ambush him then they could suffer the consequences.

His father glared at him, Damian glared right back. It wasn’t his job to baby them and make them think he would help if she did get lost in the vents. When you make actions you have to be prepared for any outcome. That was something his mother and his father had come together to drill into him, it was only fair they followed the same rule. If his family wasn’t prepared to be met with hostility when they ambushed him, then they didn’t consider the most likely outcome and that was just sloppy planning.

“Well… Um. Thank you for letting us know about your concerns Damian.” Dick was trying to get the conversation back on track to what the family was gathered about. “We wanted to apologize to you for how we acted around Marin. You told us to leave him alone and we didn’t listen to you.”

“Thank you for restating the events. I don’t know why you're apologizing to me, it's very rare that any of you take what I say seriously.” He could name three events off of the top of his head where he was right and they refused to believe him for one reason or another. “Besides it’s not me who you forced to relive moments of their life that they never think of, probably for good reason, and then stole something precious from.”

“You can’t blame us for that last one Demon Brat, that was all Helena. I’m sure she’s grounded or something because of it.” Jason waved his hand in a dismissive way.

“Yes, being told she was wrong for stealing something is quite the punishment. Not that either of her parents were the ones to tell her that.” His father’s glare became stronger, it wasn’t his job to lie to his siblings about punishments that never came.

“Really old man? I got put off of patrol for three days after telling some lady to fuck off and your daughter commits a felony and you let her off without even taking away her toys?” at least one of his siblings understood the irony of the situation. “If one of us stole something from a completely average civilian you would have our heads on a platter for dinner.”

“She’s only four, and Damian scared her quite thoroughly without mine or Selina’s help. It was returned the next day, there was no long lasting damage. And she was punished. Helena had to give a sincere apology.”

It wasn’t sincere if the apology was forced, and apologizing isn’t a punishment anyway. Damian wanted to scream that at his father but decided against it, he didn’t want his week off of school to be overshadowed by a punishment he received for stating facts.

“What’s wrong with that kid anyways?” Tim finally seemed to have enough coffee in his system to speak.

“Helena? She’s being raised by a criminal and a vigilante who looks the other way for that criminal.” That statement earned him glares from every member of the family, but he didn’t particularly care. He was still mad about the fact she hadn't actually been punished.

“You know exactly who I’m talking about.”

“Marin is his own person. As I told you before he came here we barely know each other, being in a randomly assigned group doesn’t automatically make you friends.” Though going out to a café with him and having a late night conversation might. But only one of those things counted anyways. “All I know about him is that he’s from Paris, he has two sisters, and that he probably didn’t leave while he was on good terms with them.” Because he hadn’t left, they’d sent him across the ocean to get care from a medical institute for the criminally insane.

“Yeah. Of course.” It was obvious from Drake’s tone he didn’t that was all he knew, but for once the favored son was going to have to take it as the truth. There was no way he was involving his family in the search for what had happened at Arkham or tell them that Marin was probably extremely mentally unstable.

Well they probably already knew the last part. But they weren’t going to find out about anything else unless Marin told them. It was the black haired teenager’s right to be able to decide who he got help from and who knew exactly what he’d gone through. Damian had already taken that right away by looking into it by himself but he wasn’t going to drag his family into it. They weren’t going to destroy the life that Marin was trying to build for himself by inserting themselves into it.

Chapter Text

It was shaping up to be an annoyingly long week. He’d been volunteered to drive Helena to a friend's house and stay there for the duration of the party she was attending. Not to mention that his family hadn’t even pretended that it wasn’t a punishment for his Saturday morning transgressions.

Helena was kicking his passenger seat over and over while demanding a music change that was not going to happen. He liked classical and it would stay classical, even if she wanted to listen to whatever pop trash was on the radio.

“Dami, when are we gonna get there?” Damian knew better than to respond to this question now, as a younger far less experienced person he’d tried to answer every single one of her questions. It resulted in frustration on both ends and tears on hers, after that he’d made a silent vow to only answer questions from her when she could actually understand the response.

He pulled into the driveway of her friend’s house and held back a scoff when he saw the rather garish decorations that were already put up. That was another thing he was unhappy about, he had to stay and chat and make sure Helena was in good hands, not because they didn’t trust the family but because it was one of those parties rich people threw so they could make connections and slap their child's name on it to make it better. If it had been about making sure she stayed safe he would have been far more willing to help than he currently was. Especially because any number of his siblings or even the girl’s mother could have taken her without problem.

But here he was. All because a little spat two days ago and because according to his siblings he was “The best at dealing with the socialites.” That was just a lie, he didn’t have enough patience to play their word games or to keep his anger below the surface when they insulted him and then laughed like it was just a joke.

He hated all of them. But he would keep those feelings to himself because if he said anything about their awful words his father would say he was digging in too deep and that they were all good people.

What was a good person? What really was a good person? Was it someone like him who tried to put his dark past behind him and longed every day for a shred of understanding and familiarity by trying to be good? Was it someone like his father who put his heart, soul, and body on the line for the betterment of others? Was it someone like Todd who killed and sold and bought things they weren’t supposed to for the ultimate goal of bettering the world?

Did good people even really exist?

Damian stepped out of the car, Helena was already running into the backyard in search of her friend. He’d probably sat in his car for a little bit too long, but he didn’t really care what the valet thought of him. He handed his keys to the man and trekked into the party. Right off the bat a few of the adults began praising him.

“It’s so nice that you care about your sister, even though she’s your step-mother’s.” Translation- wow you’re really sucking up to your dad to get put into the will, do you think playing big brother to the child he had since birth will give you that position?

“I’m so glad to see you here. I was hoping to talk to your father or older brother about business but you know about that too, right?” Translation- Why are you here and not someone who could actually be useful to me? At least I can try and scam you into saying something I can say to the press.

“It’s so nice of you to care about your sister, I heard that where you grew up things were very different for girls.” Translation- I’m glad you aren’t as sexist as I think all middle eastern people are.

He did his part, chatted nicely, answered the less rude questions and smiled at one of the other teenagers who looked like they would rather be dead then at this party. A sentiment that Damian fully agreed with. Until he caught a glimpse of raven hair at the edge of the grassy area sitting at a table with Joshua Crowne playing with a deck of cards.

That seems to be the exact moment that they realized he was there too as a rather exasperated Joshua stood from the table and walked right into the crowd that was forming around him. The boy didn’t even wait to ask his question instead cutting off another false compliment from a woman he’d never seen before.

“Damian, it’s good to see you! Me and Marin weren’t sure if you were going to be coming. You probably didn’t see us when you came in, we were kind of hidden.” Damian silently corrected anything he’d ever thought about Joshua that was unkind, it seemed the boy did have a backbone. Even if he could stand up to the other Crownes.

---

Marin felt bad about sending Joshua into the crowd, but if he was entirely honest he had no idea what any of them were even saying. His friend had said that every word out of their mouth had another meaning. Maybe it was because of English being his third language but he could only hear the words coming out of their mouth, and he didn’t understand how their words could be taken in a different way then how they were said. Besides that Damian looked like he was on the very edge of killing one of them.

To anyone else it might seem like a normal look but he could feel the malice in it. Being the Guardian again for real had reactivated his abilities and he couldn’t even pretend that it hadn’t been slightly shocking. He could feel the different types of energy flowing through the world again and because of that he’d almost declined when Joshua asked him to go to a children’s birthday party.

He thought it would have been too shocking for his system, and then Plagg had taken the phone and answered for him. So here he was sitting outside on a shockingly good day. It was overcast but there were a series of heaters scattered around the yard so no one seemed to care and as a bonus it gave him an excuse to keep his jacket on without getting any strange looks. Not that anyone cared about him, he obviously wasn’t on the Gotham socialite totem pole so it seemed most of the party goers were content to glare at him when they thought no one was looking.

“You owe me one.” Marin couldn’t tell if Joshua was talking to him or Damian as the teenager sat down at the picnic table and snatched the deck away from his hands.

Damian sat on the opposite side of the table. “Thank you for that, I hate these things.”

“Tell me about it.” Joshua glared at the crowd. “Every single one of them are snakes. What got you suckered into coming here?”

“Unfortunately my sister is actually friends with the birthday girl. And for some reason my family thought it’d be best for me to be her nanny for the day.”

Joshua nodded in understanding. “You wanna join in? We were gonna play go-fish.”

The Wayne looked slightly unimpressed with the suggestion but looked over to the group of adults and then to the screaming children playing tag and nodded. “Why are either of you here?”

Joshua nodded towards his step-mother in the crowd, “She wanted an excuse to come and because they have a kid in high school she figured I would work.”

The cards were being dealt out, six to each person before Joshua placed the deck down in the middle of the table. “Joshua invited me, he said he didn’t want to be here all alone.” he picked up his cards. “Are we playing pairs or fours?”

“Four, it’s no fun if you can’t screw someone over at least twice.”

“Whenever we played back home and we wanted to be really mean we’d play for three and turn over any sets that we got so no one knew what we had.” Marin blinked, he hadn’t even really been thinking about that at all. He played it like that with the boys in his class, they’d all thought it was really fun and then Adrien had come in and thought it was -He trampled that line of thought before it could get started, no need to dwell on the past.

Joshua placed a hand on his shoulder, “You good Marin?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Marin looked down at his hand: two, queen, jack, eight, seven, and four. Not the best but he could work with it. “Which way are we going?”

Chapter Text

After several rounds of go fish -Damian had won all but two- it became apparent that the party was moving on to lunch. The children had all been gathered together on a table with what looked like… “Are they giving porcelain to children?”

Joshua looked at the table and shrugged. “Yeah. That happens a lot at parties like this, it’s kind of a way to say ‘we’re so rich we don’t care if it breaks’ or something like that.”

Damian scoffed. “Because nothing else here shows their immense wealth. They should be using all the money they’re spending on this party to do something actually useful.”

“Ugg, is that steak? They’re giving steak to children, do you think they have anything not steak?” Joshua grimaced, Marin had learned during their first outing that the boy simply didn’t like beef. Put a porkchop in front of him and Joshua was a happy boy; but a steak? You might as well have served it to a vegetarian.

“You’d think in this day and age they’d have more options, considering the amount of people who are vegetarians or vegans even pescatarian.” Damian scrunched his nose as the smell of the cooked meat began to waft over to the table.

“Guess I’m not eating lunch today.” Joshua shuffled the deck. Damian nodded like he was agreeing with the statement.

Marin thought for a moment. He knew that he didn’t really understand the social hierarchy of Gotham, but couldn’t they just leave? Would it be an issue for them to run out and get a quick lunch and then come back?

“Correct me if I’m misunderstanding something, but can’t we just leave and get something to eat and then come back? Would that be a problem?”

Damian looked intrigued by the idea, though he tried to hide it behind a skeptic look. “I suppose we could, I don’t see why it would be an issue.” The Wayne tilted his head as if asking Joshua a question. One day he’d have to ask one of them to teach him the weird Gotham high class language- or would it be called a dialect?

“We could. What’s nearby? Do we need to walk or do you have a car?” Before he even finished talking Joshua had pulled out his phone and was opening google maps.

“My car is here, we could use it.” If Marin didn’t know better he would say that Damian was looking just a little bit rebellious. How was it a rebellion to go get lunch?

“Alright, there’s some nice family owned restaurants: Chinese, Thai, some place called GGG no dots in between- that one looks fun I vote we go there. GGG- a Locally owned Gotham business we’re a second chance business owned and ran by former criminals we have everything on the menu from our house made ice cream to our vegetarian friendly soups, and for the meat lovers out there there’s no need to worry we also have a menagerie of meals made with anything from lobster to T-bone steak.” Joshua put on a game show host voice to read off the description. “It’s only like a ten minute drive from here, come on let’s get going.”

---

There was something close to excitement running down his spine. Damian didn’t know quite how to feel about the giddy emotion that had caused him to agree to this lunch run. He knew realistically that he shouldn’t be doing this, he knew that he should be staying and watching Helena run around with the other snot nosed children at the party but Marin had made the solution sound so easy that it would have been stupid not to accept it.

Damian knew logically that the reason it sounded like such a no-nonsense answer to the mostly dead man was because he hadn’t grown up or even really been involved in upper class socialite parties. But it was true, what were they going to do to him for leaving? Make him go back to the party? He was a Wayne, the most powerful family in the city. One of the most well known names all around the world. What would they do to him for leaving and then coming back?

Nothing. Not a single thing.

He took his car from the valet, and they drove down to GGG with Joshua sitting in the middle of the back chattering about what they should get. Marin occasionally added to the conversation, but the French teenager seemed more than willing to let Joshua talk all the way to the restaurant.

They managed a parking spot about half a block away from the building that had three stylistic Gs plastered over the door that were being lit by yellowish lights from inside the frames. Not that it mattered, according to Todd these places always had the best food. “If it looks like a hole in the wall you should go inside and get whatever looks the best, it’ll be delicious every time.” Or something like that, the man had an absolutely wretched palate, it wouldn’t surprise Damian if he saw Todd eating out of a dumpster because something in there looked “so tasty.”

There was a bell above the door that rang out when Joshua slammed open the door while Marin and he trailed behind. “A party of three please.”

A blond hostess nodded and took them to a dim booth that had a hanging light covered in some type of thick brown paper to add to the ambiance. The walls were covered in various signs and pictures, mostly of extreme sports but also of who he assumed to be the owner, and a few of the kitchen staff. The woman placed down three menus.

“One of our servers will be over to help you in just a few minutes, if you need anything before then just holler someone aroun’ll hear.” The tattoo peeking out from under her sleeve was a penguin tattoo, she was probably one of his upper ranking lieutenants if he’s right about that. Most of the criminals had grown out of marking their goons and higher ranks, unless they were trying to make it impossible for them to find work with someone else.

Joshua opened the menu as soon as she turned around picking through each option, saying some of the dishes out loud as if the name would give him a good idea of what it tasted like. “Oh, Marin, look they have lava cakes, do you wanna get that? Wait, you should have a real lunch before dessert, how about the chicken alfredo? That has a ton of calories, it’ll be good for you.”

“I don’t know, there’s a lot on the menu.” Marin turned the menu over looking at the sandwiches before flipping it over again.

Damian silently agreed with Joshua, the teenager probably needed to eat more in general so having him eat something that covered almost all the major food groups would probably be good. Marin’s eyes focused on the ice cream portion of the menu, Damian would make sure they got ice cream before they left.

“Hello, My name is Denis. I'm going to be your server today. What can I get started for you?” The man was about 25, maybe a little bit older, his hair was a rather average brown and his eyes were a dull blue. The severe scarring on one of his hands was more telling though, acid burns by the look of it. He probably took some sort of plea deal after Joker mutilated his hand.

“I’ll have a sprite, and we’ll get the artichoke dip to share.” Joshua was still scanning the menu but it was clear he’d made his decision. “And for the entrée I’ll have the chicken club with extra tomatoes and the Cesar salad as a side.” -he gestured to Marin- “He’s going to have the chicken alfredo with extra broccoli and a side of your mixed berries and your strawberry lemonade.”

Denis wrote down all the instructions in his notepad before turning his head slightly in order to focus on the last person at the table who needed to order. Damian reluctantly scanned the menu once more before giving his own order. “I’ll have your vegetarian chili and a water.”

The man added more notes to his pad before looking up and smiling. “Anything else?”

“That should be it.” Joshua smiled at the server. “Thank you.”

“It should be coming out in about ten to fifteen minutes, we’ll get the chips to you sooner.”

Marin also offered up a thank you before the server left, scurrying off towards the kitchen. Something had changed since he’d last seen the teenager. It’d only been two days but his eyes had just a little bit more of a spark, he was slightly more aware of his environment. Nothing major, not something anyone else would notice. It was a good sign though, maybe he got into contact with his family or something like that.

“How was your weekend Marin?” Joshua had taken to stacking and unstacking the salt and pepper shakers while they waited.

“It was good, I got back in contact with an old friend so that was nice. I also ran into Robin.” The server came back setting their drinks and the artichoke dip on the table. “Thank you.”

“Robin, damn I heard he can be a little bit prickly. What were you doing?”

Marin had been standing on the edge of a roof looking like he was about to jump, Damian wouldn’t say that though. No need to jeopardize his secret identity. “I’m pretty sure he thought I was planning on jumping off the roof of my apartment.” Well that was one plus of Marin being a mostly dead man, he could drop bombs of information in the most conversational voice. “I wasn’t of course, there was a cat up there I wanted to see if it’d go down to my apartment with me.”

“What was he like?” Joshua was practically vibrating out of his seat, clapping his hands together quietly.

“He was really nice, we had a good talk. I think he gets what it’s like to move your entire life.”

“I’m so jealous, I’ve lived in Gotham my entire life and the only time I ever saw any of the Bats was when I got held hostage at one of those rich people parties. I didn’t even get to say hello.” Joshua slumped slightly in his seat, it was strange to Damian that people actually wanted to meet his family members but he also thought it was strange how people focused on celebrities so he supposed he was an outlier. “What about you Damian? You’ve been kidnapped enough times that you’ve probably met at least one of them.”

“Yes, I’ve met a few of them. We didn’t particularly talk much, mostly it was just hearing violence and then having whatever I’d been tied up in cut off and being sent off to the waiting police.” He’d been strictly forbidden from escaping on his own so mostly he was just waiting in whatever dark corner of a warehouse until someone got around to coming to rescue him.

“You make it sound like your average Saturday night.” Joshua sounded unimpressed. “Come on, where's the action? The most ridiculous way you’ve been tied up, the worst captor you’ve had. Give us the dirty details.”

“I don’t know they were all pretty average: tied to a chair, hogtied, I guess once I was suspended over a tank of electric eels.” He really hated dealing with the Riddler as Damian Wayne, as Robin it was actually kind of fun but he had to play a helpless rich boy as Damian and it was always the worst. “I guess I’d say my worst captor was Riddler, his voice gets annoying after a certain amount of time.” That amount of time was exactly six minutes and 43 seconds.

“Oh my god. Getting kidnaped is just an average Saturday night to you. Here I am complaining about never seeing any vigilantes and you have your days ruined on the regular because your Daddy has more pocket money than 99 percent of the world.” Joshua shook his head. “Marin, what about you? You’ve gotta have some fun hostage stories or something.”

“Paris is your average city, I don’t even think we’ve ever had an original supervillain. I mean we had some drug trafficking problems when I was a kid but it got taken care of.” Marin turned his ring, a nervous tick that always picked up when he talked about his hometown. “Though I think the Joker was in Paris once, I was like five so I don’t really remember it but I’m pretty sure something happened with a supervillain. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere without like three adults.”

Damian actually remembered being told about that. After Joker killed Jason Batman had chased the clown halfway around the world before Superman stopped him. From what he understood Paris was hit particularly hard, but Marin had just been a child when that happened. It was likely that he never even knew what was happening more than his parents became more protective.

“You and your average city woes. Didn’t you ever get mugged or something?”

Marin shrugged, “I got the hell beat out of me pretty regularly but that was more to do with the fact I was being bullied then because I was being mugged.”

If Marin had been bullied from a young age that could explain why he was able to become a dead man. Physical abuse paired with the isolation from his peers he was probably on his own from a young age which would make him the perfect target for further molding into what he’d become. In the league he’d been trained to pick out those with cracks, not weak- you never wanted someone weak. You wanted to find someone strong: who was crumbling, who could be easily manipulated, someone who was looking for something to latch onto in order to ignore whatever pain they were in. That was what Marin was.

The food was delivered to their table shortly after. Marin ate all of his alfredo and berries, Joshua finished half of his sandwich, and his chili had been rather delectable. They’d continued to chat through the meal though they moved away from the topic of crime eventually and onto school. Apparently Marin was almost failing all of his core classes. Joshua however was a pretty standard C-B student.

“Marin you gotta get your grades up so you can join the stage crew with me, we get to paint the set for the musical and put everything together. I bet you’d have a lot of fun.” Joshua offered the opportunity like it was a plate of cookies, making his voice smoother and just a little bit deeper.

“It’s not like I do it on purpose, I just kinda phase out and then nothing makes sense.” Dissociation, Marin was dissociating in class.

“If you need help with anything I’d be willing to tutor you.” The offer felt like it’d come from someone else, Damian hadn’t even really meant to throw the idea out but it felt right. He supposed that Marin was technically his concern now, they’d committed an act of rebellion together and quite honestly if he was looking into Marin’s case it’d be wrong to try and keep himself farther than an arms length away in relationship terms.

“Thank you. I’ll ask if there’s anything you can help with.”

Denis arrived back at the table at that moment holding small dessert menus. “I’ll give you guys a few minutes to look through and decide what you’d like, unless you’d like the bill now.”

Marin bit his thumb nail as he looked through the options, before his eyes settled on one of the ice cream options near the bottom of the list. Chocolate brownie, with brownie chunks. Before it bounced over to the Lava cake that had stolen his attention before they’d gotten lunch. There was a slight back and forth before his eyes finally settled on the ice cream.

Denis returned and Joshua ordered himself a small cup of strawberry ice cream and then ordered Marin a large chocolate brownie… was that how he ordered for Marin? Did Joshua just wait to see whatever the boy’s eyes landed on and then make an educated guess.

They made their way back to the car, Marin silently enjoying his ice cream and Joshua talking about how good the food was and how they’d have to go back there again. “So Damian, I don’t know what your family is doing for Thanksgiving but me and Marin are going to go get brunch together and then hit up a few art stores before I have to go have dinner with my family. Do you wanna join?”

Thanksgiving hadn’t really been a family event in recent years, Alfred used to make a feast and half a dozen pies but after his untimely death everyone more or less avoided the manor on that day. Too many memories of a man long gone. He did need more paint anyways, it would be good to stock up before he got busy with finals and whatever nefarious plot Calendarman cooked up for Christmas. “Sure, I can go. What stores are you guys planning on hitting?”

“Oh you know, whatever looks good that day, there’s this little place on 74th that is absolutely amazing.”

The valet took his keys again when they arrived back at the party. Marin and Joshua waited for him to be done with the before walking back to the table. Helena was back to playing tag, and the chocolate brownie ice cream in Marin’s hand was more than halfway gone despite the slight chill. Joshua pulled out the deck again rambling about a change in game as they settled at the picnic table.

Maybe today hadn't been quite as horrible as his family intended it to be.

Chapter Text

The party finally came to an end around three in the afternoon. Damian thought it had lasted far too long but he’d also managed to avoid the majority of the social interaction that was expected of him. They’d spent the rest of the event playing either go fish or bridge, Joshua had tried to get them to play poker but there was nothing to bet with and apparently that was the fun part.

Helena hadn’t talked the entire ride home which would have been concerning if moments before she hadn’t been running around with the other children laughing and screaming. God did little kids scream a lot when they were together, one child had screamed something almost identical to bloody murder and sent Marin into a dissociative episode so hard he was out for three entire games. Only being shocked back to reality when Joshua dropped a card and then hit his head on the table after trying to retrieve it.

As soon as the car came to a stop Helena was struggling out of her restraints. At four she was more than capable of escaping them, simple buckles with press buttons weren’t very good at keeping people contained. But then again the point of seat belts wasn’t to restrain people, it was to keep them safe. The small girl opened the door slamming it with more force than necessary. Damian rolled his eyes at her antics, he didn’t understand why she was acting like she’d had a bad day. He was the one who’d been forced to chaperone her, while she played with her friends, he was the one who hadn’t had his dietary needs met and had to leave in order to get a meal while she sat at a table eating too expensive steak and sweets that were no doubt made with to much decoration and too little care for taste.

Damian opened his car door looking down at the little girl who had decided to wait for him to get out, her face was becoming alarmingly red. “I hate you.”

Any of his other siblings might be shocked or try to figure out why but Damian had found that four year olds were prone to outbursts whenever they decided it benefited them. He believed the term most people used was manipulative. “Okay.” She seemed to have expected him to coddle her or try and figure out whatever juvenile problem was clouding her mind. The child burst into tears, ugly sobs falling out of her mouth as she ran crying into the house.

Damian sat in the car for a few more moments trying to figure out what just happened, he was the one who just got insulted -not that being told you’re hated is very creative or insulting- shouldn’t he be the one crying? Isn’t that how it worked? He simply didn’t have the patience for children, their small minds held no rationality and somehow it was always his fault when they got upset because of minor inconveniences or nonsensical reasons.

He walked into the house, Helena’s crying seemed to be shaking the foundation and if the thundering footsteps were anything to go off of she’d found someone to take her side. Sure enough his father rounded the corner looking entirely overwhelmed holding his sobbing younger sister.

“What happened?” The harsh tone might have made some of his family nervous but Damian could see the panic in his father’s eyes.

“I don’t know, she burst into tears after saying she hated me.” He probably could have pretended to care just a little bit more than he did but in all honesty he found faking emotions to be more taxing than it was worth.

“Did anything happen at the party?”

“She was playing the whole time, I don’t know what could have gone wrong.”

His father gently moved Helena’s head from where it was buried in his shoulder so he could look at her. “Helena what’s wrong?”

Through her sobs and deep breaths the little girl managed to get out a nearly indecipherable message, the only words Damian could really understand were “Ice cream” and “Left”. She was crying because he left and when he came back the people he was with had ice cream?

“You left her at the party to go get ice cream with who exactly?” Now his father truly was angry. It hadn’t mattered to the little girl when he got back to the birthday party.

“No, I left to get lunch.” Maybe if he omitted who he went with this conversation would go smoother.

“You left her alone to go get lunch? Damian, what were you thinking what if something happened?”

Damian didn’t try to suppress his eye roll, “You wouldn’t have let her go if you were truly concerned about her being injured. And, yes as shocking as it may be I do need to eat, and seeing as they were serving steak me and Joshua Crowne decided that we might as well go somewhere we could actually eat something.” Damian shrugged, “Besides nothing happened when I was gone, she ate her lunch and was running around screaming and playing with all the other little parasites when I left and came back.”

“And Marin” the sobbed words might as well have been the nails in his coffin. “You left with Marin and you played cards with them and it’s not fair. You didn’t get me any ice cream and everyone was whispering when you left.”

“Marin?” The barely suppressed rage in his father’s voice made Damian straighten his back. “You left a party with a previous Arkham inmate and left your sister all alone because they were serving steak.”

Rage flooded through his veins and before he could try to calm it words were falling out of his mouth. “Isn’t the point of Arkham that it cures people? Isn’t that why you put the mentally disturbed there? To get treatment? Marin has completed his stay in Arkham, and he was there for hurting himself, not anyone else. So I’m sorry that she felt left out but she was with her friends and she never once came up to me while we were at the party despite the fact that I made sure she could clearly see me both leave and come back. If she had wanted to come with us she should have asked. I'm sure they would have been more than willing to let her join.”

“Damian, you left your sister alone at a stranger’s home.”

“You make it sound like she wasn’t surrounded by other children and a plethora of adults all who would be capable of taking care of any type of emergency situation that might arise.” Why was it so hard for his family to understand that she was more than capable of looking out for herself? Four was more than an adequate age to be without a parent or sibling. And it wasn’t like he abandoned her on the streets of Gotham, he’d left her at a child’s birthday party. “She was perfectly safe.”

---

“Oh my god” Plagg was floating around his bedroom looking at the few possessions he had. “Do you even own a duster? I mean I know chaos runs in your blood but that doesn’t mean you have to be unclean.”

“What are you talking about? I think it’s pretty okay in here.” His clothes were in a laundry basket, there weren’t papers strewn across the floor, and there weren’t bits and pieces of projects scattering the floor.

Well there weren’t any projects. Maybe he could start working on something again? He found himself far more aware than he had been of the time he was wasting. Plagg had been sure to keep him present which meant he was more often than not just sitting and letting the Kwami float around and demand more entertainment. He could wait until Thursday to buy some art supplies but maybe he could get a bookshelf or something to fill up. Maybe he could go buy some Lego sets, Plagg had always found those interesting and it would give him something to do.

“Do you want to go shopping tomorrow?” He’d eaten a lot for lunch and he wasn’t hungry but he was never really hungry. He ate whenever food was offered to him, sometimes he would feel his blood sugar drop to dangerous levels and buy whatever sugary drink was near him but otherwise the only time he ate was when someone else was ordering for him.

That was no reason for the Kwami to starve though, he would buy some cheese and cream and anything else that the little god might want. It was only right that he did something as an apology.

“Sure kitten, I haven’t been in Gotham before but it’ll be good. This is the epicenter of corruption so you should get energy just by walking around.” The little god stopped his inspection. “Let's get you to bed, it's almost two a.m. and growing boys need their rest.”

Marin let his eyes slip closed. Tired was a foreign emotion by this point, that might be because it was his constant state though. “Okay.” Maybe he should get a bed frame. One with a solid base that he could lean against while he sat on the floor.

The teenager pushed himself off of the floor walking over to the mattress on the floor, it didn’t have sheets on it. It did however have a pillow -also without a cover- and a blanket that was thinner than the gap under his front door. It was a soft fleece though so Marin didn’t mind too much, he should probably buy something thicker before cold really set in.

He wished he would have passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow but instead he was stuck staring at the ceiling. It didn’t matter though, Marin knew he would fall asleep eventually. He always did.

Chapter Text

Marin didn’t particularly know what he was doing. He’d gone shopping before, just not while in Gotham. The store they went to was only two blocks away from his apartment which wasn’t bad or he thought it wasn't a bad distance at least. Maybe other people would disagree.

There were only a few people in the store and most of them were minding their own business, not that anyone would really care about a teenager buying groceries. He needed cheese and crème for Plagg, cookies for Tiki, sugar cubes for Kaalki, seeds or fruit for Duusu, nectar for Nooroo, Wayzz liked tea, eggs for Sass, cheddar for Mullo, Fluff liked carrots, honey comb for Pollen, Longg liked melon, Xuppu liked bananas, Trixx would take anything but specifically liked black berries, the others would pick and choose from what he brought back. If he got a wide range they’d all end up with something they liked.

The store was ridiculously bright, fluorescent lights flicked from the ceiling casting the store in unnatural yellow light. At least it wasn’t white though, white lights just- reminded him of his too bright room in the hospital, and of the lights that man would shine in his eyes- hurt. The store was so condense that it almost felt like a maze.

Isles after isles lined the small space and though the fruit selection seemed to be rather meager all the fruit they did have on hand was fresher than fresh and reasonably -or he thought it was reasonably- priced.

“This is quite the haul, you shopping for your whole family?” Marin thought for a moment, he supposed that when he lived with his family they bought about the amount he was right now. Though he wasn’t often involved in shopping or creating the list they needed, instead Bridgette and his mother would make a date out of it to have some mother daughter time.

Maybe that was why he hadn’t been going shopping, he’d never needed to before. Not that he was incapable of doing so- or maybe he was. Maybe that was why his family was so willing to send him so far away. What if he had always just been dead weight dragging them down?

The cashier shifting uncomfortably shocked Marin out of his thoughts. He was somewhere around 19 years old and had tattoos covering his neck, the dark ink depicted spiders crawling along a web. His ears were pierced in just about every available spot.

“Oh… I live alone. I like your tattoos.”

“Um, thanks. You thinkin’ about getting some ink done?”

Marin thought for a moment before he answered. “I don’t know, maybe someday. I used to want to be a tattoo artist, so I might look into doing that.” None of his family had ever taken that goal seriously though, they all seemed to think his talents were better applied elsewhere.

Why was he thinking about them so much? Maybe it was because so much focus was put on Family during this time of year in America. Several of his classmates had assumed he would be going home for the week.

“It’s a hard job but if you like art it’ll probably be a good career choice.”

Marin was on his way back home before he knew it. The store left behind him as he walked through the streets of Gotham. Despite what most people thought Gotham wasn’t absolutely horrible to walk through during the day, it was probably more dangerous than the average city but as long as you didn’t act like an idiot you would be fine. That was what Joshua said at least.

---

Thursday morning was as always a quiet affair. No one extra was at the Manor and neither his Father nor Selina were awake. Helena had yet to speak with him since Monday and as far as Damian was concerned that wasn’t a bad thing. If she wanted to sulk and act like the whole world was against her, that was fine.

If this had been Thanksgiving three years ago everyone would slowly gather in the manor, the turkey baking in the oven and the various side dishes already in preparation. Then Alfred would make him a special main course that didn’t have meat to replace the turkey. For one day every year the family would put whatever argument was currently tearing them apart for the one man who never let any of them down. Thanksgiving had been Alfred’s day and always would be Alfred’s day.

Part of him wished the one day truce would have lasted after the man’s death. But he knew that the entire family viewed the day with the same heavy heart he did. It would hurt if they were together, and his family had never and would never willingly talk about their feelings so he wouldn’t bring it up. The manor felt cold and empty without the Butler scurrying about. It was almost unnoticeable most of the time but on today- on Alfred’s day- it was impossible to ignore. That was the reason that no one came to the manor for Thanksgiving anymore.

“Damian, there you are!” Joshua waved him over, the African American boy standing on his tiptoes to make himself more noticeable. The street was busy but not to the point where Damian would find it concerning or it would be difficult to find someone. Probably parents doing last minute shopping for turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving foods. “Marin, can you go get us a table? I have to tell Damian something.”

Marin nodded, waving slightly as he passed by to the restaurant doors. Joshua watched until the doors shut with a gentle clap. “What do you need to talk about?”

Joshua bit his lip, looking like he was trying to choose his words carefully. “You see, Marin’s having a bad day. I think that everyone’s been putting a lot of pressure about family and stuff like that in his head. He might be a little bit more-” Joshua took a deep breath holding it for a moment before continuing “-spacy? I’ll try to keep him present but I think it’d be best if neither of us mentioned our families for today.”

Damian was suddenly hit with the memory of the French boy shutting down when his brother’s asked about his siblings. Seeing the teenager shut down so quickly had been shocking, normally his disassociation happened in levels before it hit him fully. Thanksgiving was all about family, seeing cousins or sitting down to eat together for the first time in months. It would be no wonder that this day, hell this week would be especially hard for Marin. “I’ll keep that in mind, is there anything I can do to help?”

The Crowne boy looked like he wanted to stumble backwards, he was probably used to trying to keep Marin from dissociating all by himself. “Well, talking about art and stuff like that normally can keep his gears turning but he also likes to listen to stories. It can be a little bit hard to tell when he checks out but trying to keep him talking normally ends with him sharing something he didn’t want to and shutting down anyways. Which can be a lot harder to pull him out of.”

Damian nodded, he’d noticed that as well. He would have to think of a few things to converse about, there should be absolutely no mention of siblings or parents but he had plenty of stories that didn’t involve them. “Alright, if you think of anything else that could trigger him be sure to tell me. It’d be best if we could both prevent those things from sneaking up on him at the least.”

“If I think of any I’ll tell you. As far as I’m concerned the less he blanks out the better.” Joshua turned and walked into the restaurant.

“They put us on the waiting list, we should only have to wait for a few more minutes.” Marin’s eyes were slightly out of focus, not enough that he needed to be pulled out of some sort of dissociation, but more so than what had become usual. Over the last month he had slowly -so incredibly, almost painfully slowly- gained a little bit more life into his eyes.

True to the French boy’s words a server came by less than five minutes later, she was a young woman with long blond hair. If he had to guess about her age he would say she was about 18 maybe 19. “My name is Anna. I'll be your server today, do you know what you’ll be drinking?”

Marin looked over the drink section of the menu, eyes bouncing between a few options before settling for a drink in the right corner. “He’ll have a peach lemonade and I’ll have a coke.”

Anna nodded, pressing a few buttons on the screen she was holding. It was a tablet-like device that probably had the menu being projected onto it.

“I’ll have the green tea.”

The server nodded. “I’ll be back with your drinks in just a minute.”

“Have you been enjoying your break?” After a few minutes of unbroken silence it seemed that Joshua couldn’t take it anymore.

“Well I’m not in school which is certainly a plus. Mostly I’ve been in my room, sketching or occasionally practicing martial arts.”

“Oh what type do you use? I’m pretty okay at boxing, but that isn’t really the same thing.” Marin twisted his ring and shifted slightly.

“I know a few different types, I wouldn’t say I’m good but Gotham is a dangerous place. It’s good to have basic self defense skills.” In order to mislead your enemies you should either undersell or oversell your abilities. Overselling his abilities made him look suspicious and was nearly impossible to do, underselling was too easy. Not that anyone here was his enemy, well no one at the table was.

“Here you guys are.” Anna placed down the various drinks. “Can I get any appetizers for you?”

“Can we get the spinach artichoke dip?” Joshua looked up from the menu smiling at the server.

“Yep, that’ll be out soon.” Anna walked away, probably tending to one of the few filled tables.

“I for one can’t fight at all. I have exactly two defenses: money and my pointy elbows.”

Marin shrugged. “As long as you can run it doesn’t really matter. I used to run away a lot but I was kind of a hot head and would start fighting back, normally it ended very badly for me.”

“Weren’t you like- horrendously bullied?”

“I got beaten a lot and didn’t have friends but I don’t think it was horrendous.”

Joshua hummed in a way that conveyed disbelief. “Yeah sure, and I burn easy.”

“You do?” Marin’s true confusion sent Joshua into a laughing fit.

The brunch continued on, Marin’s dead eyes remained more or less the same. But it was good food, good drinks, and the company wasn’t too horrible.

Chapter Text

The first Art store they went to was little more than a hole in the wall but it wasn’t a bad place, mainly it had spray paint but there was also quite the variety of sketch books and a small oil paint section. Joshua seemed to be trying to entice Marin into buying spray paint.

“Come on, both of you! It’s a right of passage as an artist in Gotham to vandalize something and make it beautiful. It’ll be fun.” The Crowne boy held up a yellow and neon pink can of spray paint as if to tempt them into partaking in the illegal activities.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Marin’s innocent question sent Joshua into an over exaggerated bout of depression.

“Yeah, but that’s the fun part. It wouldn’t be a right of passage if it weren’t dangerous.” He shook the cans in a way Damian could only describe as sadly.

“I’ve committed worse crimes, vandalism isn’t that bad right?.” Marin’s awkward words and tense shoulders showed that he was mostly trying -and actually succeeding- to lift Joshua’s spirits. Damian had to agree with the sentiment though, he’d done much worse things then put a few lines on the already marred Gotham architecture.

The words were enough to push the African American teenager into a state of what appeared to be pure euphoria as he grabbed just about every color of the rainbow along with gold and black. “Just you wait, we’ll go out one night. Have a real good time hitting up some of the safer places and then we can just stay out all night until it’s a reasonable hour to come home.”

Marin seemed to freeze at the statement, his eyes going blank, the empty blue was always going to be at least slightly disturbing but after not having seen it for the better part of two weeks it seemed even worse than before. Damian was walking towards the French teenager when another patron of the shop rather rudely bumped into the boy throwing him off balance, normally it probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. Marin wasn’t unhealthy or uncoordinated by any means, in fact Damian hadn’t seen him trip even once, but when you disassociate to the level of becoming a dead man it was hard to stay upright.

Damian stepped forward glaring at the woman who seemed to not care even a little bit that she had just caused a teenager to almost faceplant. Marin stumbled and fell forwards, Damian grabbed the boy’s arms, steadying him and gently pushing him so that he was back to the point he could balance on his own.

---

Marin tried not to react when he felt himself nearly slam into Damian’s chest, he was lucky that the teenager had stabilized him. And dear god, was Damian strong. It was easy to tell by his frame that the teenager worked out but having muscle and being actually strong were two very different things. You could look like you could lift a bus, and then there were the people who actually could lift a bus. Damian was the second, Marin could feel the power underneath his skin not only in the way his muscles were solid with use but with a deeper sense.

One of his weird magical guardian senses, Damian had the potential to be the most dangerous person Marin had ever met. It was with no small amount of shame that Marin realized he was still gripping his friend’s -he was pretty sure they were friends by now he would ask though at some point- arms staring at them with an amount of intensity that wasn’t easily brushed off. Well it wouldn’t be easily brushed off if he didn’t have the bad habit of phasing out.

“Thanks.”

Damian didn’t let go for a few more moments as if he was making sure he wouldn’t fall over. “It’s not a problem, that woman was rude. The least she could have done was apologize.”

“No, I was in the way.”

Damian made a sour looking face, opening his mouth to respond when Joshua cut him off. “Come on guys! I wanna go to at least two more places before I have to go home and sit through the hell of thanksgiving dinner.”

Marin looked around the second store, this one seemed to be more textile focused. Knitting needles were obviously a no go but maybe he could get some crochet hooks and yarn, start some sort of pet project to keep his mind off of the fact there was nothing to do in his apartment but sit there and disassociate. Yeah, that would be good. It would make Plagg happy too.

With that thought in mind Marin ventured into the store and got a few nice hooks -the type that had the little grips- and then he let Joshua go to town picking out a few skeins of yarn. It’d been a little while since he’d made anything so he’d probably just make a hat or maybe some gloves.

Joshua was glaring down at his phone as they made their way to the third store. “Sorry guys, it looks like my half sister got home sooner than she was supposed to. I gotta go home. But don’t stop your fun on my account.” Joshua sent Damian a meaningful look that Marin couldn’t quite decipher but he’d never really been good at any form of non-verbal communication except for fighting.

“I can walk you back to your car.”

“Sure Marin, that’d be nice. Do you want to come as well Damian?”

“I might as well. I have nothing else to do.”

Light chatter filled the air as they walked back through the city. Gotham really was beautiful, it had a heavy focus on gothic architecture and most of the colors were dark and even though there were plenty of neon signs and the plaza had the expected advertisement screens it somehow seemed like it was stuck in the past in a way. It was constantly overcast and even though it was probably one of the most technologically advanced places in the world it seemed like the city had decided the period they wanted their architecture to stay in and made it happen. Even the Wayne Enterprises building had a certain level of the general Gotham style. It was vaguely New York City-ish but also different in a multitude of ways.

They waved Joshua off as he rode off away from the city. Damian looked down at his phone, glared slightly and then put it back in his pocket.

“Do you want to come over to my place? I know I’m probably reading the situation wrong but I don’t think you want to go home and I don’t think that Joshua wants to leave me alone. I don’t live very far from here. But we should probably get your car.”

Damian looked shocked for a moment before he smirked slightly, “That sounds like a great idea to me.”

It turned out that Damian’s car was almost in the exact opposite direction Joshua’s car had been. Not that he was complaining, Marin really did need to start working out again. And not the working out he’d done in Arkham, real practical stuff that he could use for betterment in his daily life. That would mean getting a gym membership or weights though. Why did everything have so many steps?

The teenagers made their way up to the apartment, Marin hadn’t actually let anyone else into his apartment yet. The landlord had seen it and the kwami's had seen it but that was acutely different then someone he had met and was bringing back to his apartment. Damian didn’t seem like the judgey type though, judgmental sure but not judgey. Marin thought over the statement he’d just thought for a moment before stonewalling his mind and opening the door to his apartment.

“Make yourself at home. I don’t have that much here yet but I think I have a deck of cards or something.” Without thinking Marin took off his jacket, it was cold outside but his apartment was actually rather toasty. His movement stopped when he heard Damian take in a sharp breath.

Oh- he was wearing short sleeves under his jacket. That meant that Damian could see his scars, oh god that probably wasn’t something that the Wayne wanted to see. Especially not on his first visit. Marin automatically began to pull his jacket back on.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind seeing them. If it makes you uncomfortable you can cover them but I assure you it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen.” If anyone else had said it in such a flat tone Marin would have taken it as lying but Damian probably really didn’t mind seeing them.

Damian walked into the apartment, his shoes were by the door. “If you say so.”

A few minutes in slightly uncomfortable silence was broken as Damian began to speak again. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it but Joshua is concerned for you and I’ve been told that talking about things can make you feel better. Would you mind telling me why whenever someone mentions home or your family you don’t react well?”

Marin would describe Damian’s voice as noble, he sounded well educated and like he had been raised to rule over the lesser people of the world. But not in a haughty or egotistical way, he spoke clearly and without regret but he also had a touch of sincerity and kindness as well. “It’s kind of a long story but I guess it couldn’t hurt to talk about it.” Marin sunk into his couch and Damian sat down as well, in his weird perfect posture. “I think that I just don’t know how to deal with it because thinking about them… it hurts.”

Not like a physical wound or like the dull ache he’d felt for an entire year after Master Fu’s death. Even imagining his siblings' faces or talking to his parents stabbed into his heart like a barbed fish hook that someone was valiantly trying to get back.

“You can continue if you’d like.”

“When I- When I left” -was sent away all alone- “ I wasn’t really in the best state of mind.” Marin gestured down to the scars on his arms, Damian was smart he could figure it out. “I was delirious and afraid and I think that on some level I expected them to show up and pull me out of the mess I’d gotten myself into. My siblings and I used to be close but a few years ago we drifted apart quite a bit but I guess that I always thought they would be there for me and they just aren’t anymore. My parents, they love me. Really they do, at least I think they do. But I don’t think they really ever understood how to deal with me, both of my sisters are practically poster children for perfect and easy to handle and I wasn’t.” That was putting it lightly, probably too lightly but that was okay. He didn’t need to go into his delinquency.

Damian nodded. “I understand that. My oldest brother is a very kind man but in his teenage years he rebelled from my father by moving to Bludhaven, but my other brother Jason was a far more violent rebellion I know that blows were exchanged with many members of my family during that time, then Tim was all but the perfect child for my father. When it got to me I think he had a mental scale to put me on and when I didn’t end up on that scale he didn’t quite know what to do.”

“Yeah, they think they know what to expect so they prepare but they never really know what’s going to happen.” Damian nodded in understanding. “But I guess that it’s still hard for me to accept that they haven't reached out at all. I’ve been away from them for more than half a year, and I guess it’s kind of hitting me that I don’t really have a home anymore. I have a place to live but I just don’t know what to do because every time I think about them I want to be angry. But I just can’t be? Not truly because I think I kind of understand wanting to move on from a bad event but the least they could do is reach out to me now that I’m able to contact them personally. Does it make me a bad person to want them to be thinking of me after what I put them through?”

“No it doesn’t. You cared for them at one point and seeing that they don’t seem to have the same level of care for you is painful. Unfortunately there’s nothing that you can do to stop that, not really.” there was a note of understanding in Damian’s voice. “There’s nothing you can do to make that pain stop either, it’ll take time and making new bridges for you to move on, not that I can say if you will ever be able to. But after time it should start to hurt less.”

Marin bit his lip as he realized that Damian was speaking for experience. People with experience almost always knew what they were talking about which meant that it would get better. At some point thinking about his family wouldn’t cause him to lose time while he was trying to go about his day.

“I understand that you aren’t doing well in school. Why don’t we take this time together to study, I can help you with anything you don’t understand.”

Chapter Text

Marin tried really hard to focus on what his teacher was saying but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen today. Though mostly due to Damian and Joshua’s persistence he thought he’d been doing pretty well in class during the last two weeks. He was passing almost every class now. Though he wasn’t sure if having almost exactly 70 percent really counted as passing, Joshua said it was better than having a 50 or lower.

Every single day it seemed like it was getting colder which was making the school more and more crowded, people he’d never seen before were suddenly sitting in the front row of the class acting like they'd been there all year. Damian and Joshua had some sort of conversation about how temperature affected crime, maybe it was the same principal. The colder it got the less places there were to play hooky that weren’t crowded already or were uncomfortable to be.

“Marin, why do you bother to show up to class if you aren’t going to pay attention?”

The shock of being called out by one of his teachers was overshadowed by the shock that hell, that teacher actually knew who he was. The only two teachers in the entire school who even bothered to talk to him were the art teacher and Ms. Davis. “Because I don’t have enough money to bribe the school into keeping me if I have a low attendance.”

The teacher pressed his lips together looking thoroughly unimpressed. “Well at least you're an honest person.”

Without hesitating the teacher turned back to the board and continued to teach his lesson. Marin bit the inside of his lip as he tried to focus on the board and once again failed. He didn’t know what was wrong but something just felt off today. Like a paper not folded exactly in half or like when you wake up and realize the door wasn’t locked.

Either way it was putting him on edge and dragging him deeper into his own psyche, maybe it was just the increase of students recently. That had to be it, most of the new faces were definitely not the best people to be interacting with so maybe their presence was the cause. But they had been here ever since the Thanksgiving break, why would he only be feeling off today?

“Marin, let's go to the cafeteria. We can grab a good table before everyone gets there for lunch and then stay there for the off block..”

“Sure, sounds good to me.”

One of the good things about having the same off block as Joshua was that they could get work done but it was also easy to play games or procrastinate a little, an added bonus was they had more time to work because they had lunch first. Today English was the main focus, with the essay coming up at the end of the week it was obvious that the two page minimum assignment about the different themes in Hamlet should come first. But in the cafeteria the feeling of wrongness seemed to be even stronger.

Marin had barely made it through his topic sentence when he gave up focusing on the task all together, trying to force himself would only tire him out and make him more likely to not pay attention to any of his classes after lunch. “Joshua, does something feel off to you?”

The teenager looked up from his computer’s keyboard looking around the cafeteria before shrugging. “Not really…” After a moment Joshua stood up leaving his bag on the table. “Why don’t we go on a walk around the school, maybe you’ll be able to focus better if you get out some of your energy.”

That could be it, maybe he was sleeping better now that the neon sign outside his bedroom window was almost constantly covered by snow and had blocked any of the light that could seep through the cracks in the curtain. More sleep equals more energy, so maybe he was just feeling anxious because he had more energy then he’d had in the last few months -well more like nine, but what really qualified as a few any way? “Yeah. Maybe.”

Marin looked around the cafeteria before standing and beginning to follow his friend. They’d scored a table in the very back of the cafeteria which were normally already taken by the time they moseyed to the cafeteria especially on a cold day like today. People skipping classes were gathered in the cafeteria to enjoy the heat radiating from the kitchen and to get some food before the kitchen closed and even more people were staying in due to the current conditions of the roads. Which was to say that the cafeteria was packed today, every table was taken and most were a little bit too full.

They truly had gotten lucky to have gotten such a good table. They were about halfway through the room when a shriek sounded a few tables away from where they were standing. A girl was climbing up onto the table along with a few of the other people at her table “Oh my god what is that?!”

Less than 10 seconds later an orange mist was flooding the room, it was thick and had a distinctive chemical smell that -was kind of familiar in an awful way- had sent the majority of students into violent coughing fits. Joshua was one of those people, his asthma was probably not reacting well with whatever this stuff was. Without waiting for another moment or for something else to go wrong Marin grabbed his friend hefting the smaller teenager over his shoulder before trying to find his way through the orange mist. He’d heard stories about how bad Gotham was but this was his first time really experiencing it, sure he almost got mugged once or twice but he also got mugged once or twice in Paris so it really wasn’t that strange. This however was definitely a Gotham specific experience.

---

Damian stood outside of the school watching the chaos settle, a fear gas bomb had been in the cafeteria effecting almost a third of the school population. It’d taken time to clear the school and contain the gas while also letting the trapped students out of the cafeteria. Several ambulances and police cruisers were lined up outside of the school along with hoards of concerned parents. Whatever the strain of fear gas was, it was incredibly strong, but not very consistent.

Several students seemed to be experiencing embarrassment more than fear where some were being wheeled away into ambulances screaming and crying to the point it sounded painful. The scale was truly insane, there were always people who grew resistant to certain strains but never on the first time they were exposed. How could some people be almost completely non-reactive while others were unable to even tell where they were?

Buzzing dragged Damian out of his thoughts, he looked down at his phone his father was calling. “Yes?”

“I saw what happened, are you alright?”

“I didn't have first lunch today, the cafeteria was the only place that was affected.” But he did know two people who did have first lunch. There were too many people around for them to be easily picked out of the crowd, who knew how Marin would react to being exposed to fear toxin. He could be one of the people barely affected or he could be one of the people being put into an ambulance. Joshua was also in that group; he hoped neither of them had been injured in the chaos.

“Damian-” a voice behind him drew Damian’s attention away from his father. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were on the phone.”

“It’s fine I was just about to hang up. As I said I’m fine, I’ll be home as soon as the parking lot clears out.”

“Damian- who is that? Don’t you dare hang u-” His father’s words were half cut off as he pressed the red button to terminate the call.

“Are you and Joshua alright?” Marin shifted slightly, moving his weight from his right to left and then back again.

“Well I’m fine, we were in the cafeteria when the fear gas? I think that’s what the paramedic called it. Anyway we were there when it went off. Joshua isn’t doing well, he’s going to the hospital. I would go with him but, well uh.” Marin twisted his ring. “I’m not allowed to be alone and if I go to the hospital they’ll see my record and send me to a psych ward to be watched.”

It took a moment to register what Marin was really saying. God he felt like an idiot. Due to the way it could bring you back to a worse point in your mental health or cause you to react irrationally, if you had a past record of self harm or attempted suicide you weren’t allowed to be left unsupervised while under the effects of fear toxin. Marin was basically saying that if he couldn’t get Damian to come watch him for the next few hours then he would be carted back to Arkham. If Marin was taken back there was no saying when he would be able to get out again, it was rare that normal people went back to Arkham and got out again.

“I really would have gone with Joshua but he’s being hit a lot harder than I am and I really don’t want to go back.” Marin was afraid. The nervous twisting of his ring and the fact he was talking more in a public area then Damian had ever heard, it was so obvious. Marin was afraid of being sent back to Arkham. Terrified enough that seeking him out actively and asking him for something -even if he didn’t say the words help, or directly ask the question- proved that without a shadow of a doubt that Arkham had played a big part in turning the French teenager into what he currently was.

“I don’t have anything to do after this. Are you still feeling alright?”

Marin nodded, “I guess I feel a little more tense than usual but I’ve felt that way all day so I don’t think that counts.”

“Come on, I’ll drive you to your apartment and spend a couple of hours there so you don’t have to worry about anything.”

He should probably let his family know he isn’t going to be home, a text should be more than enough.

Watching Marin was surprisingly easy. If slightly disconcerting. The teenager seemed more than content to sit on his ratty couch with his knees to his chest while staring at the floor and letting his mind drift wherever it wanted which meant that he was on a constant up and down between sort of alive to full dissociating dead man. It was pitch black outside when he started to speak.

“Damian I’m pretty sure that I’ve been exposed to that fear gas stuff before.”

It was best to tread carefully when Marin was talking without any prompting. “What do you mean?”

“It just smelled the same as the stuff that was used on me when I was in the psych ward. And it feels kind of the same too, I think I got used to it so it doesn’t work very well on me but it feels the same way as it did the last time someone used it on me.”

This was highly important information. It would be best if Marin gave this information to both the police and his family but it might be taxing to give it to both, better the police then his family. The more people looking into the attack today the better, because the sooner it was investigated the better the chance of someone finding the person who’d experimented on Marin.

“Marin, go put on your shoes. We have to go down to the police station and tell them what you know.” As much as Damian wanted to be the only one investigating Marin’s case, he was still rational. Now that the case had expanded from just one person into an entire cafeteria filled with the children of some of Gotham’s most recognized and powerful families it was partially out of his hands. He hoped this would go well, hopefully he could get them to talk directly to the Commissioner in order to shield Marin from a harsh interrogation, if Marin shut down they wouldn't get any information.

Chapter Text

Damian didn’t know how the police station was going to go. It was almost entirely unpredictable how Marin would act. Shutting down would be bad, but it might be easier to ask questions when he’s on autopilot. On the other hand because he was likely molded by his therapist - if you could even call anyone who worked at Arkham that- which meant Marin shutting down wouldn’t get them any information.

The biggest concern though was Marin’s mental health, he’d come a long way in the last three months. Damian didn’t want to see his friend -because that’s what they were, friends- suddenly slide back into complete numbness, and walking around like a corpse. When he’d been a detached outsider to Marin’s life it hadn’t meant anything, he’d seen people worse when he was with the league. But he knew Marin now; he knew that the teenager loved strawberries and anything with an abnormal amount of sugar, that he didn’t really care about the scars he left on himself but didn’t want to make other people uncomfortable. Damian knew that Marin was a good person who’d gone through too much.

Right now Marin was simply staring out the window, his eyes almost entirely blank while he mindlessly twisted the silver ring on his finger. Damian would have to hold the ring in order to get a better idea of the cost but the craftsmanship was good if a little simple. If he had to bet he’d put it somewhere in the hundred to two hundred dollar range. The city lights were rushing by at what could be considered an alarming rate but it was just how fast you went in Gotham, if they were in a different city then they would probably be getting pulled over for speeding. He’d learned that the hard way when he was with the Teen Titans in Jump city, spending some time as Damian rather than Robin.

The police station's parking garage was completely filled, which wasn’t surprising considering the amount of students who’d been affected by the fear gas. They were lucky to find a spot on the second floor a few rows away from the staircase and elevator. There were very few people who were in the police station willingly, the fact they had a parking garage was more for emergency situations -like a charity event getting crashed, or an entire apartment building being robbed in one night- than rationality. Though in Gotham that happened at least once a month and normally once a week.

Marin was staring at the dark concrete walls, at some point he’d moved from twisting his ring to biting his thumb. The skin under the teenager’s teeth was alarmingly stressed, Damian gently grabbed his friend’s wrist. More alive eyes met his, not close to all the way there but better than he’d been the entire drive.

“Don’t do that.” The skin looked raw, if he’d stopped Marin a moment later Damian was sure blood would be pooling in the wound. Marin was shaking horribly, trembling all the way up to his shoulders and from his toes to his thighs. “Come on, let's go inside.”

“Damian, I- are you going to stay?”

People had always described having a soft spot for something but Damian didn’t think it would be a physical feeling. Like his mask was suddenly gone and a warm feeling was rising in his chest just waiting to boil over now that the lid was gone. Being trusted was always a good feeling, having someone ask you to stay was better. It’d only happened a couple times in his life; the first person was Raven, the second was Grayson -though the circumstances weren't the best, the third was Marin. “I wasn’t going to leave you alone here.”

“Oh.” The word was spoken like something was physically preventing Marin from breathing before. “That’s really- I mean- Just thanks.”

Marin was too fidgety in the elevator, twisting his ring before starting to bite at his fingers again. It would be for the best if Marin could calm down a little bit. When the teenager brought his thumb up to his lips again Damian grabbed his hand and didn’t let go. Physical contact seemed to be a good way to keep the ravenette calm and present, hand holding was the easiest solution.

---

It was moments like riding in the elevator to his inevitable confrontation with the police that reminded him of why he didn’t like to feel things. Over the last two-ish months things had gotten better he supposed- in a general way. He and Plagg talked, Joshua actually liked spending time with him, and shockingly enough Damian fit pretty well in both of their strange lives. He and Joshua were shockingly good friends- they were both the type of person who actually liked to debate and not argue, which meant they got along swimmingly.

He’s picking at the skin around his nails - a habit he’d managed to kick or have kicked for him in Arkham- and almost starts to bite at his thumb again when a hand catches his and brings it down to his side. Their fingers don’t intertwine but they are holding hands and it feels like an anchor. Whether it’s dragging him down to the bottom of the ocean or making sure he isn’t lost in the raging sea, Marin isn’t quite sure but it feels kind of nice either way.

Damian liked to pretend he had perfectly logical reasons for everyone of his actions that weren’t just “Because I like you and want to” which was a little bit funny. It was sweet in a way and Marin didn’t mind because it meant moments like this where Damian was probably thinking about how logical it was to hold his hand to prevent him from injuring himself when all he really wanted was to give comfort to a friend. Because that’s what they were friends. Neither had said it out loud but it’d been silently acknowledged.

The elevator dinged and opened up to a cliché police waiting room, there was ratty carpet that had a multitude of strange looking stains that were definitely not sanitary and it was packed with concerned parents probably looking for more information on what had happened to their child or children while they were at school.

A deep sigh left Damian and Marin looked up just in time to see the boy roll his eyes so hard it almost looked like it hurt. Their hands were still connected so as Damian charged through the room Marin found himself being dragged along.

The cop at the reception desk- his name tag read Teddy- seemed to be ready to snap and shoot somebody. Marin wasn’t sure he could blame the poor guy, dealing with so many socialites must be exhausting. From what he could tell even socialites didn’t like hanging out with each other. If even half of what Joshua had told him was true then he truly pitied the officer.

“We have information about the attack on the school and we need to talk to the commissioner.” It was interesting to see how Damian could change from a sweet if slightly standoffish friend into a commanding presence that crushed down the noise in the room and was able to get whatever he wanted.

Teddy’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he was typing a number into his phone. He said something about Damian Wayne and Now, the next thing Marin knew he and Damian were being escorted deeper into the building. There were a multitude of desks, two or three pushed together all with computers and staplers and papers piled high in what seemed to be a communal basket. There were a few people milling about, mostly tired looking men and women wearing business attire who all seemed to be drinking coffee. One man was definitely asleep at his desk and his two partners seemed to be making a game out of how many paperclips they could stack on him before he awoke.

Damian’s grip was gentle, firm but not painful and was doing an astoundingly good job of keeping him from drifting into his own mind. They were led to an office that was at the very end of all the desks where a gray haired man was standing at a desk pointing -not angrily but something close to that- at something at his desk his dress shirt was rolled up over his elbows and he had two holsters both holding guns under his arms. A group of men and women were also in the office nodding and writing down the information that others were sharing. The cop - Teddy- nervously knocked on the door after a moment of hesitation.

The white haired man walked around his desk, the men and women parted to give him access to the door. “What is it Ted?”

“Well, sir. Damian Wayne and his-” the cop looked down at where they were connected “-Friend have information about the attack on the school that they feel you need to hear.”

Despite his age the man’s eyes were sharp darting over both of them before he took a deep breath. “I swear Damian this better be real good information because right now we’ve got nothing and even though half the bats are working on this case they ain’t got nothin’ either.”

“I would never waste the resources of the GPD, especially on such an important case.” Damian did look offended at the words but his eyes were warning like he was daring the man to question his motives again.

The two had a staring contest that lasted uncomfortably long before the old man sighed and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. “Damn you Wayne's. Do you want the detectives to leave?”

It took Marin a moment to notice that they were waiting for him to answer and not Damian. “Oh, uh.” The sudden stutter killed any confidence he’d built on the way to the office and Marin looked to Damian.

“Yes we would like them to leave.”

The man sighed again and motioned for the detectives to leave with a wave of his arm. The door closed behind them and the man pulled two chairs from the edges of the room in front of his desk. “I’m sorry for my rudeness, I’m commissioner Gordon.” He held out his hand and Main hesitantly shook it a few times. “And you are?”

“I’m Marin Dupain-Cheng.”

Commissioner Gordon smiled brightly and the suffocating presence on his chest lightened slightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Now what information do you have?”

“Well to start I should say, I really don’t know how reliable anything I’m about to say is. This all happened when I was in Arkham for attempting suicide.” Gordon clicked his pen and his jaw tensed in a way that said “well fuck me” but didn’t say anything.

Damian’s hand Marin decides is holding him in place and not dragging him down. “I guess it started a week or two after I got there. I don't know the exact date it was late April or early May. I was being passed from therapist and psychotherapist to whoever the hell had a better chance of actually helping me. Arkham isn’t really equipped for helping suicidal teenagers, they’re more for- well you know what they do.” The Commissioner nodded. “Anyway I got put on this guy’s case, all I knew was that the nurses said he was new and that he was probably my best bet getting out alive because he would keep me with the kleptos and not the clown.

“I met him when he started my treatments, he would put this thing on my face kind of like an oxygen mask but I couldn't get it off and it would fill up with this orange gas that well it smelled just like the stuff in the cafeteria, before I got out of Arkham at least. He explained it the first time sort of? I don’t know if I’m just not smart enough to get it or if it was nonsense but he said something about the amygdala and how fear toxin was flawed because it drew from irrationality and not experience? He rambled a lot while I was in that thing but I don’t really remember much of what he said.”

“What did it do to you?”

Marin noticed that Damian’s grip had gotten a lot tighter. Not painfully so but it’d moved from firm but comforting to mostly firm- but it was still comforting. “I guess the best way to explain it would be that it sends you back, it makes you relive and remember bad moments.”

The commissioner had gone from mostly annoyed to interested. “Give me an example so I know what to expect.”

“Well you see it was kind of like- lets just say the first thing it made me remember was when I was little like really little. I got lost and was afraid when I told him about it he said that was good, he said that it meant he needed to play with the chemical composition but that he was getting close.”

The Commissioner put a hand up, “Alright, give me a moment. I’m gonna call the Bat and you're probably gonna get poked and prodded but it’ll be for the best if you don’t have to go through it twice. Trust me.”

Chapter Text

Marin exhaled into his hands, even though he was wearing a coat the slight wind chill plus the snow that was starting to fall was making it hard for him to stay warm. Damian had gotten a call from his father and ended up going back into the building when the conversation started to get heated. He’d be a lot warmer if he had one of the scarfs he made. He wished he had one of the probably thousands of scarfs he'd hand crafted.

“You okay kid?” The Commissioner leaned against the brick safety wall, lighting a cigarette while looking up at the sky.

“I’ll be alright.” Eventually at least. He’d improved by leaps and bounds since being released, the fact that he was talking about this without shutting down was evidence of that.

“Are you okay with me smoking?”

“I don’t mind, everyone smokes in France.” Cigarette smoke wasn’t the most pleasant smell in the world but in a way it was kind of nostalgic to have someone smoking next to him. Marin gestured to the bat signal in an attempt to continue the conversation, the light was a lot more yellowed than Marin thought it would be so he could have a question answered at the same time. "How long has Batman been around?”

The commissioner shrugged, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “Some say since Gotham started, I think about 20 maybe 25 years. It’s not a lie that he was an urban legend for a while, I didn’t think he was real until I came face to face with him on a case.”

“Wow, he’s been working for at least 20 years? That’s impressive.” He’d been a hero for a little under three years and by the end he’d been so beat up and put down that he physically couldn’t go on. That probably had more to do with shoving everything down so hard it had to be forced out though.

“I guess you could say that. He's helpful more often then not, and we’ve come to rely on him in some ways. It’s a lot easier to get information you can use in court if someone gives you a direction to go.”

Squeaking hinges stopped the conversation before it could go farther, Damian walked onto the roof looking more than a little peeved but he quickly schooled his expression and walked over to them. “I apologize about that, are you alright Marin?”

“Yeah.” Damian was already reaching out so they could hold hands again. Physical contact wasn’t something he thought he really needed until this night started. Having someone else’s warmth, feeling someone else’s pulse, knowing that someone cared enough about him to not only stay but to push themselves slightly out of their comfort zone made a warmth start to burn in his chest that spread all the way to his practically frozen fingers.

They’d fallen into a mostly comfortable silence then while they waited for the vigilante to show up. It took another 10 minutes for the black clad vigilante to show up flanked by a shorter man wearing a red long sleeved shirt that had a similar cape to the dark knight seemingly being held on by a pin that had an outline of a bird’s head. Red Robin? He’d heard enough about the different vigilantes from Joshua and Damian to recognize who was who. Probably at least.

“What information do you have Gordon?” Batman was massive, part of it was the armor he wore but it was obvious that he was a large man without it as well, the black of his outfit seemed to sink into the shadows. Maybe it was just his nerves but Marin could practically feel the hero’s reluctance to be there, or maybe it was just the way his eyes seemed to be focused on Damian, and not in a good way.

“This is Marin Dupain-Cheng, he’s a previous Arkham inmate who claims to have information about the incident at Gotham academy. Go on son, tell him what you told me.”

---

Damian was going to stand next to Marin and make sure his friend didn’t spiral while he was being pushed towards the edge, that was his job here. Not to get in a pissing match with his father. No matter that they were having a glaring match in the subtle way they’d learned to after working together for nearly seven years.

“I don’t know what he looked like, I was really really fucked up when ever I saw him. All I’ve got for you is that he wore glasses that were round, you know like Harry Potter glasses. And he was maybe a doctor at Arkham? I don’t know, all I remember was having therapy sessions with someone else.”

“Do you know what ward you were being kept in?” Drake was at least being delicate, well as delicate as he could be when he had tunnel vision on a case.

“I was in high security at first because I attempted to um kill myself again but after maybe a month and a half? I was moved to the low security area after being with a new doctor for a few weeks. Again I’m not super sure about the timeline.” Marin was twisting the silver ring he always wore, moving it back and forth with his thumb, a dead give away that he was feeling anxious. In an attempt to provide some comfort Damian tightened his grip for a moment before letting it loosen, Marin repeated the action back which was a good sign at least he wasn't so far into his head that he wasn't responding to anything other than direct questions.

“At what point did you lose track of the timeline?” Father was obviously unhappy but he was keeping his glare off of Marin and speaking in a neutral tone. That was about as much as Damian could hope for after the argument they’d had on the phone less then half an hour ago, one that hadn't ended with any sort of definite winner or agreement.

“I started without one. They kept me pretty drugged for the first few weeks I was there,” When his family had sent him across the ocean alone and without a single word of warning. It made rage boil in his blood just thinking that the people Marin needed most had left him all alone. “After I attempted again was when I figured out I’d been there for three weeks. And two weeks after that I was moved onto this new doctor’s case.

“I stayed pretty lucid for the rest of my time in high security. Once the gas got introduced was when I started missing gaps of time, I was only missing a few hours at first. Then it was days-” Marin took a deep breath, it was an obvious attempt to calm the rising panic in his voice. “-and before I knew it I was really only present for a few hours at a time. The next thing I remember with any clarity was starting at Gotham academy.”

“You said this fear gas doesn’t make you see your worst fears, but makes you relive your worst moments? What exactly does that entail?”

“Worst moments like points in time where you were afraid– would be the best way to describe it. Afraid is a pretty broad category though– it's more like moments where you were panicking, so you see you live moments where you're scared of something or someone but you also relive moments where you're just feeling anxiety like being embarrassed in public. Does that make sense?”

Drake nodded along. “How realistic would you say it feels?”

Marin looked off to the side, taking a moment to digest the question before answering. He could see the spark in Marin’s eyes fade for a moment and squeezed his hand. They were so close to being done and Damian didn’t want to subject Marin to this again tomorrow. Marin didn't squeeze back but jerked and began to answer the question. “It’s … let’s just say very real. I’m sure you’ve all gotten injured at some point, it’s like reliving breaking your bones in HD because you don’t get the benefit of being in shock at first because you know what happened to you.”

That didn’t sound good. Relieving injuries without the benefit of shock would be bad for a number of reasons, there was a possibility he could relive dying, Jason could relive dying. That wouldn’t be good for anyone, some of the people originally affected were still being treated in the hospital almost twelve hours after the original exposure in full hysterics and with hallucinations.

What this meant for the superhero community alone was bad. Fear toxin itself was already something that most heroes had intensely negative reactions to. A group of people who’d all had intensely traumatizing experiences- most of which relating to physical injury- being forced to relive it, most of which had powers that put them above a regular person, that was just a recipe for disaster.

“That sounds… unpleasant.” Commissioner Gordon had been smoking like a chimney for the entire conversation. The man never did well when people under 18 were involved in a crime, he solved them better and more ruthlessly but it put a mental toll on the older man that was noticeable.

“It is.” Marin was at the end of his rope, Damian needed to take him home.

He caught Drake’s eye, something that had been hammered into them all was communicating without speaking. Drake would understand what the look meant but that didn’t mean the man would stop asking questions. Getting absorbed into cases the way Drake did sometimes meant that morals took a back seat to answers. Damian understood that, but not in this situation, Marin had made so much progress the fact he’d had this entire conversation without dissociating was proof that he was getting better. He wouldn’t let anyone damage that. Dips in mental health happened often during recovery, but Damian would rather damn himself to hell then let someone in his family be the cause of that.

Drake opened his mouth, ready to ask another question when his father’s distorted voice cut the other vigilante off. “I think that’s all we need, thank you for coming forward. The information you’ve given us will no doubt be helpful to our investigation. Both of you should be getting home, it’s almost two in the morning. I’m sure you both need your rest after today.” At least someone had gotten the message, though Damian knew his father had meant home as in the Batcave for him. Marin legally couldn’t be alone until at least noon tomorrow and he wasn’t going to leave the French boy alone when he was on the edge of dissociation. His Father would just have to be angry at him tomorrow.

“Damian, you know the way out of the station right. I want to talk to Batman for a few moments. And Marin, thank you for telling us about your experience. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”

Chapter Text

Damian knew logically that some investigations took time. It was rare that a crime was solved in a single night. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t be annoyed with how slow the case was moving. The canisters used in the lunchroom were practically untraceable, found in every country in the world with millions of people buying them every day– they weren’t even modified in a special way. Any moron with half a brain cell could figure out how to make the trigger with a YouTube video or two.

That part wasn’t surprising, what was surprising was how cold the trail went. Even with Marin’s information Arkham was practically a vault, Gordon was trying to get in through legal means without giving away how he got the information and even with their technology visits to Arkham were limited. . No one wanted to be in the mad house for an extended period of time. Todd swore up and down that all the doctors tried to keep you as long as possible just so they could study you. Damian had never really believed that but, being in Arkham was unsettling. To put it simply it felt like everyone was watching you, some of the doctor definitely looked at him like he was specimen ready to study. The one good thing that happened was that after less than a week all of the people affected had made a nearly full recovery, leaving Joshua slightly shaken up but back in school before finals

“Y’know if you didn’t want to come you could have just said so.” Joshua was leaning against the desk he’d been banished to, the appearance forced Damian to focus on his surroundings rather than sulk about the lack of leads.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come, I just forgot how much children and I don’t get along.” The boy nodded, looking over to the other side of the room where a gaggle of children had gathered around Marin. Most of the little parasites were to enamored by the effortless way Marin was able to manipulate the water colors they were working with. It was almost like watching a magic trick with how quickly and precisely the teenager could get the result he wanted.

“How is he so good at this?” Joshua adjusted his glasses and tilted his head while he watched Marin continue the demonstration he’d started.

Damian shrugged in response. "With the kids or with water colors?" Watching the teacher they’d been assigned to study Marin, she seemed more interesting in him then anyone else in the room including the 25 students she was supposed to be taking care of. Volunteering to assist in an art class for children hadn’t sounded like a completely horrible idea at the time, really it was an over glorified free night of babysitting so the parents could go Christmas shopping but Joshua had found it and asked if he wanted to go. Any excuse to get out of the house and a reason to not be part of the annual Winter Wayne gala planning was an excuse that Damian would take without hesitation. Jon could have asked him to go to Metropolis for the week and he probably would have agreed just to get out of the inevitable fight that no one was around to break up anymore.

"I don't know both? Mostly the kids though. Some people are just born to be artists, but no one's that good with kids unless they have experience taking care of them."

“He did mention he babysat fairly regularly.”

Marin smiled at one of the kids while he tried to help them make a simple line with the water colors. After a few tries the gap toothed child had excitedly presented his paper towards a blond girl who was having much less success then him. It was easy to see that Marin had spent some sort of extended period of time around children, maybe one of his sisters was much younger than him? Damian had kept true to the promise he made to himself to only look at Marin’s medical records and as a less than preferable result he still knew nothing about his friend's family.

It was strange for him to not know who exactly his friend’s genetic family was. Colin was an orphan sure but Damian knew about the orphanage and the nuns who raised him. Jon was an open book from day one and it didn’t hurt that he’d already known Superman. If he was being honest with himself the curiosity was starting to wear away at him, maybe in a few months he would ask. Right now though, even though Marin was doing better since talking about his experience, he definitely wasn’t well enough to dive into what had originally caused his suicide attempt. He still froze at the very mention of his family or the friends he had in France.

That was when something unexpected happened. Marin had never in the time he’d known him –and obviously in the time Joshua knew him by the way the other teenager’s eyebrows had nearly flew off of his forehead– gotten a phone call. When the ringtone began to play through the room –some Jagged Stone song, Ladybug? Todd listened to it regularly– everyone had automatically checked their pockets. Damian had expected the teacher to take the call or maybe the other volunteer who was currently sulking in the corner, but instead Marin reached into his pocket and looked at the caller ID eyes stuck to whatever the name was for several seconds before he stood.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this. Is it okay for me to go into the hallway?”

The art teacher didn’t look surprised and simply gestured towards the door. “Be my guest.”

---

Marin had been shocked to hear his ringtone go off –he should really change it– both the people who might call him had been on the other side of the room looking rather bored. He felt bad abandoning all the kids who he was helping to teach. It’d been a long time since he’d been around kids, but it was fun, he’d been having fun. Most kids just wanted a little recognition and maybe a high five, not that handling a group of kids was easy. Any number of children could be a handful but working in a classroom setting really did make a difference with how they acted.

When he managed to wrangle his phone out of his pocket he thought he was going to be declining a spam call or something like that, but instead he came face to face with the name Constantine. He continued to stare at it in the hallway after he excused himself. He needed to answer, the cursed man -and that wasn't even being mean the guy was so cursed that Marin could taste it in the air, and it didn't taste great- wouldn’t be calling unless it was truly urgent, that didn’t make it any less strange to be receiving a call. The last person who called him was Joshua when he got sick at the beginning of November. Before the ringing could end he answered.

“Oh thank fuck. Here I was thinking I’d have to find some other magical holder to help me out.” Constantine's slightly scratchy voice was so shocking to hear that Marin wasn’t quite sure how to make his voice start working again. A wave of a strangely comforting type of anxiety rolled over him, the fact Constantine was calling was in itself a bad thing. There was no way the man was calling just to chat, but the fact that anyone was calling was shocking enough to wipe his mind. “Helloooo? You there? God damnit. ZATANNA I told you that we’d have to get someone else.”

Marin leaned against the wall, letting the familiar voice wash over him for a moment. “Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?”

“There you are. Were you just gonna let me talk to myself?”

“It’s just been a while since someone called. What’s going on?” It was easy to forget how incredibly annoying Constantine could be.

The man scoffed, sounding almost offended. “I can’t just call to check up on my… suicidal teenage buddy?” A sound like paper hitting a coffee table echoed over the phone and Constantine made a sound of shock and over exaggerated pain.

“Hey Marin, sorry about him. Are you well enough to be involved in a serious matter?” Zatanna’s bright voice was much more palatable, even though it was definitely tighter than it normally was. Whatever had gone wrong must have been serious if Zatanna was stressing out about it.

He thought the question over for a moment. Was he really well enough to be involved in superheroing? “I probably shouldn’t be in the field but I can help with anything behind the scenes.”

She let out a relieved sigh. “That’s so incredibly perfect, this is sort of urgent, are you free right now?”

“I’m in the middle of something, but I’ll be done in less than an hour. Is that okay?”

“Perfect, I’ll fill you in on what’s going on when we meet. Oh and I’m really glad you’re doing better.” Before he could respond the call cut off.

Marin took a moment to steady himself. That was the first time anyone had expressed that they’d thought about him. Did other people even remember him in more than a passing thought? Did his sisters ever think of him? What about Nino, the person who he’d known since he was a child? Did anyone care enough about him to even think about him?

“Hey, everything okay? Is it a family emergency or something? If it is you can go, you and your friends have been the best help I’ve gotten all year.” The art teacher they were assisting was a woman in her early forties, her hair was perfectly curled and something gave Marin the impression that she’d spent a lot of time on it.

Her appearance caused Marin to jump, his phone crashed to the floor and made an unsettling clatter as the case made contact with the old carpet. It'd also thankfully knocked his mind away from the old people who used to be in his life. “It’s all good, nothing too important.” Probably at least.

“Good, I wanted to talk to you.” Her demeanor changed completely, she bounced slightly in place and a smile over took her face that showed off a canine that was twisted so it looked out of line with the otherwise mostly straight teeth. “This is kind of out of nowhere and I understand if you say no but, we’re looking for an assistant. Just someone to bounce around the art section and help whoever needs it, you’ll probably just be an extra hand in some classes but you’ll also get to help with sign ups and any art shows we have here. But anyway you seem to be a really good artist, and more importantly you’re really patient. So I just wanted to let you know that you can ask for an application at the front desk if you're interested.”

Chapter Text

Marin looked down at the pages of information that’d been set in front of him. Scribbles of ancient lettering that moved from one page to the next but no word was in the correct place for the sentence it was part of. And yeah he got why they called him. The only other person he knew about who’d be able to translate and make sense of this mess was Klarion the witch boy.

The magic community was a lot more gray than the hero community, but that didn’t mean people didn’t have their preferences. Where he and Klarion were in the same corner magically they were technically part of different social circles, some people tried to define the right side and wrong side but it never really worked that way. Sometimes your best friend was working on the opposite side from you and sometimes the guy who massacred an entire town just really didn’t want a specific eldritch being to be brought into the realm because it would mess with their magic. But basically the point was, they could call Klarion but they wouldn’t want to call Klarion because the little monster would hold it over them for as long as possible.

“Where on earth did you find this?” The ancient writing part wasn’t shocking but what was strange was the fact that it was all written on modern lined paper with a mix of blue, red, hot pink, and black pen.

“Don’t know, got it from the Justice League a few hours ago. Said they found it during a raid of some secret underwater base. You’re just lucky one of the more competent guys was there and made sure to get it out before water started pouring in.” Constantine was sitting on the opposite side of the table flipping through a red volume of occult knowledge, no doubt trying to figure out what language the papers were written in.

Well small mercies. “Can you find out where exactly? It might make a big difference in translation.”

Zatanna nodded. “I’ll call the League. Do you need anything to get started?”

“Do you mind me working on the floor or do you have a white board or something like that laying around? Also this is probably gonna take me a little while. I’m rusty.” His brain was already reordering the letters and words into a more understandable variation, but he’d rather give himself more time then he needed.

“As long as you can do it faster than us we’re really in no position to complain.” Constantine had finished skimming the red book and had moved onto a thicker black volume about demonic languages.

Marin looked back to the pages in front of him, if he had to guess he’d say there were about thirty maybe forty pages all together. It was going to be a long night. A white board popped into existence in the open space to his right, teetering slightly making a rickety sound before stabilizing. “What’s so important about this stuff anyways? You made this sound way more urgent than translating some nut job’s scribbles on the phone.”

The two adults made eye contact, Constantine nodded then shook his head. Zatanna watched the motion, pressing her lips together in an obvious attempt to hide her annoyance. In response she threw her hands up and rolled her eyes before turning and opening her mouth. “As far as we know they got it from some organization that’s planning on bringing ‘a new age’ of enlightenment. The League’s worried it’s an apocalypse and when I saw it and figured what type of person we needed to read it I told them it probably was an apocalypse and now they’re freaking out.”

“Way to keep this a low stress environment. Why not just tell ‘im that the entire bloody universe rests on his shoulders?” The two started to bicker, petty insults that Marin mostly ignored.

He could probably get this done in less than 24 hours, Marin just needed to let himself fall back into the comforting arms of the magic he hadn’t really used in something like eight months. He kind of regretted asking for the white board, it would be better to work it all out on the floor but he’d asked so now he had to use it.

Marin took a deep breath. Cutting off the spiraling line of thought before it could start. He closed his eyes and focused on the energy in the space around him, the fingerprints of different magics on Constantine’s books, Zatanna’s nearly overwhelming but constant presence in every inch of the room. He let their bickering act as white noise allowing it to fall into the background so he could feel the energy he needed well up inside of his chest. The ravenette took one more deep breath before opening his eyes, mind completely focused on the stack of papers still in his hands.

It was going to be a long night, but it would never get done if he didn’t start somewhere. With that thought in mind he uncapped the red expo marker that’d appeared in front of him and got to work

---

Damian knew that he should be paying attention to the debrief, but really in the end it wouldn’t matter because he hadn't even been on the mission and was really only present because it got him out of even more of the planning for the winter gala. Drake and Grayson had spearheaded the planning with Catwoman, which meant that all he would be doing by being there would be starting fights. But that wasn’t what was monopolizing all of his focus.

Marin was. Marin who had gently turned down their offer of dinner because apparently someone he knew was in town. Which must have been the call. Who had it been? Surely not a member of his family, he wouldn't have reacted so well if it had been. Even now when he was doing better the mere metion of anyone he was related to could send him straight into a fit of dissacosiation. But maybe a friend? A friend who could drive in America, so maybe a family friend?

It was killing him not to know who the stranger that Marin so easily got into a car with was. A black nice car that he couldn’t see into through any window which either meant they had a highly illegal tint or something else was at play. Not to mention he hadn’t replied to any texts or calls since he got into the transportation vehicle. Which shouldn’t be entirely concerning, Marin had a bad habit of seeing texts and then forgetting to reply to them or losing his phone and not being able to find it in time to answer. But still he was off with some stranger who was in Gotham. Anyone in Gotham was suspicious. Joshua had even voiced his concern, if Marin didn't reply by tomorrow at noon they'd decided to go over, but what if that was to late? Maybe he should swing by after the meeting to see if the other teenager was home.

Girl wonder nudged him gently under the table and shot a concerned look out of the corner of her eye. Which was exactly the push Damian needed to focus on the conversation currently taking place between the League and the few magical entities and people that were allowed to associate with the Justice league.

“Zatanna, have you been able to translate the pages Impulse found?” It wasn’t quite as rare as it used to be for the Justice League and Teen Titans to work together. So while he hadn’t been on the mission currently being discussed he was privy to most of the information being discussed mainly the discovery of upwords of 40 pages covered with an ancient (maybe magic) alphabet written in modern tools. Which according to the magical community may or may not be a sign that someone is trying to end the world again.

“We’ve found someone who can translate it, right now they’re about half way through but it’s not looking good. From what The Guardian–” a muffled voice interrupted whatever she was going to say, Zatanna turned for a second and listed to whoever was translating the papers. She looked incredibly tired. “Sorry A Guardian, has been able to translate enough that we know it’s nasty business. As far as we can tell it should be pretty easy to find and stop though. They need to rebuild basically an entire temple -- materials have to come from somewhere, and with something like this you can bet it’ll need to be the purest materials a person could find.”

“You brought in a contractor?” Green arrow

Constantine spun across the background in an office chair, looking bored out of his mind. “Yeah we did. And you should be damn thankful they were feeling up to it because if he wasn’t then we’d be selling our first born to Klarion or something.”

“A Guardian? How do we know they're trustworthy?” Wonder Woman, had a tendancy to find anyone she couldn't wrap up with her untrustworthy. Given how easy it was for her to use it in order to make sure she wasn't being double crossed it wasn't unreasonable. It just made it incredibly difficult to make her trust a person she hadn't met in person.

“Well mostly because they have a contractual obligation to making sure the world stays in balance, but also because they’re just really really nice.” The older members of the League looked less than appeased by Constantine’s answer but personally Damian found no fault in it. Contracts within Magical communities were to put it lightly extreme. The penalty for breaking magical contracts was normally more along the lines of losing a few limbs if you were lucky and your soul if you weren't, which in his opinion was much more binding then a few thousand dollars.

“Don’t undersell them like that. They’re very good at what they do and quite frankly–" Zatana took a breath, a mixture of sorrow and pitty clouding her eyes before she continued. "I don’t really think they have anybody to tell.”

Green Lantern opened his mouth to argue when a question interrupted him. “What do the Titans think about this?” Superman was always the peace keeper though on some occasions the best thing he could do was divert his co-workers attention. At the best of time the original League members could be cliquey at the worst they could be straight up hostile to new people.

Cyborg obviously hadn’t expected to be brought into the conversation, which while not befitting of a leader was fair. They had mostly been invited onto the video call because part of the team that’d infiltrated the underwater base, not that that really meant anything. There’d been dozens of meetings identical to this one where nothing happened except them sitting there pretending to pay attention while everyone doodled in the margins of pages. The adults would finish talking and the little board that the Titans formed would disperse after a few vague and empty goodbyes.

A quick glance around the table showed that no one really had an opinion on the matter. Several of the more prominent members looked like deer caught in headlights and an erratic conversation with vague hand gestures meant that everyone knew they weren’t prepared to answer. Damian felt annoyance bubble up in his chest as he grew bored of waiting for a decision to be made.

He gave them another fifteen seconds before answered the prompt. “Are they evil?”

Maybe he’d been voted out of leadership because of his “lack of empathy” and “dedication to other things” but he was still part of the upper ranks of the Titans and it was part of his job to make sure they looked good in the eyes of the League.

Evil was maybe too childish of a word but with the magical community it was better to speak in black and white, even though every single member was a shade of gray. Half the time Etregan wasn’t on anyone's side but his own and on the other end of the spectrum Trigon was always on the side of destroying the world and eating everyone's souls– or something like that at least. It might just be eating humans in general. The point was though, it was better to keep it simple or else they could be exposed to a lengthy complicated back story that would amount to –generally speaking– a non answer.

“No.”

“Are they planning on doing evil things?”

Zatanna and Constantine made eye contact before they both looked off screen with identical pondering expressions on their faces. For a moment it almost looked like they were seriously debating the question, before looking back at each other with something like mirth in their eyes before and – while trying to contain her laughter–the magician answered. “Not for the foreseeable future.”

“Will they use any information they get from working with the League or the Titans against us?”

“Definitely not.”

Silence followed her answer. Cyborg seemingly got his fake neurons– and Damian could admit that was a little bit of a petty insult, Cyborg’s brain was actually mostly organic– firing again and glanced around the table before talking for the group. “Then we at the Titans don’t see a problem with it.”

Superman nodded minutely at the screen, a quiet thank you, and began to talk. “I also don’t see a problem with this Guardian working alongside you in order to translate the documents. And I think we can all agree we’re very grateful to them for being able to work on such short notice.”

“Can we meet this contractor?” His Father was sitting with perfect posture, and no one else would be able to tell but Damian could see that Batman was scanning both magic user’s faces in order to make sure that nothing was out of place. Trust didn’t come easy in the hero community and for good reason, but that didn’t mean that they had to be rude to some poor wimpy anti-social magician who could read ancient languages. In fact it’d probably be in their best interest to butter them up a little bit, you never knew when the ability to speak or read extinct languages would come in handy.

“Um… No. They’re very delicate and really probably shouldn’t even be doing this for us. Sometimes magic can really slam a person and they haven’t done anything like this for a while so it’s going to hit really hard. They don’t need any more stress. As it is, they'll probably end up sleeping for two or three days.”

The League all collectively shifted it was nothing close to relaction but it was better then the alternative of them tensing up, they might not be happy about it but for right now they would accept that this Gaurdian was not to be bothered. It meant that whatever was being proposed had been accepted. So for now the magician’s identity would remain a mystery and the translation would be shared with them as soon as it was finished, or as close to finished as it would get.