Chapter Text
Damian was in the zone. He had elected to spend his free period in the art room, working on his latest masterpiece. He was doing a landscape study of Nanda Parbat from memory. The vantage point was high in the mountains, overlooking miles and miles of stone and desert. The sunrise in the background was exquisite. Now, though, Damian was working through the valley’s shadows rapid-fire, making sure the acrylics stayed wet and fresh enough for blending while he put on the base coat.
His mind was practically singing. His hand flew across the canvas. Damian was single-mindedly focused and relishing it, coasting off the creative high. The rest of the world had fallen away. There was only him and his painting.
That was how they were able to get the drop on him.
Sharp edges of ice and a rain of water rushed over his head. Several students gasped. The teacher looked up from her desk, and her mouth fell open.
The painting was ruined. Water smeared and diluted the paint. It dripped down, pooling on the easel ledge and onto the floor. Already the canvas was warping.
It was ruined.
Damian’s head was buzzing.
“Oh man, the look on your face!” Jacobs crowed behind him. He was still holding the bucket. Feldstein, his partner in crime, was grinning ear to ear beside him. “That was awesome!”
“Boys!” Mrs. Eberly said, standing up. “To the principal’s office, right now! This is completely unacceptable behavior!”
“Aw, come on, Mrs. E, we were just having a bit of fun,” Feldstein said. “Little ice for the Ice Prince, right? Get it? Because Damian’s such a hothead?”
The mountains of Nanda Parbat looked like they were bleeding shadows.
Suddenly, Feldstein had a broken nose.
All three of them were given out-of-school suspensions for a week.
Feldstein’s parents wanted to press charges. Father intimidated them out of it. The Wayne lawyers had a fearsome reputation. And in the worst case scenario, Barbara Gordon had gotten a juris doctorate from Harvard, just in case. She had only offered to represent once so far, when David Cain had framed Father for murder.
Damian’s brothers called her “the big guns.”
But she certainly wouldn’t concern herself with a schoolyard fight. No, for that, Father made vague threats and threw his name around, and then quietly told Damian he was grounded on the way home.
The drive passed in silence.
He was patrolling with Father that night.
The streets of Gotham were quiet. It didn’t suit. Robin wanted to beat someone to a pulp. He hadn’t gotten to earlier, after all.
And usually patrol was filled with people who even Father agreed deserved it.
He yanked the pair of flexicuffs tight around a criminal’s wrists. Batman eyed him carefully. The two of them moved out of the alleyway.
“You were a bit rough there,” Batman said.
“So I was.”
“Robin, you have to control yourself. Being a vigilante is a massive responsibility. You have a duty of care to the people of Gotham,” he said. “If you wish to continue down this path, that is.”
“You know that I do.”
“As you know that mugger didn’t deserve that last kick. And your classmate didn’t deserve to have his nose broken by Robin at full force. I didn’t train you so that you could use unnecessary force against civilians.”
“You didn’t train me at all.”
“Robin,” Batman halted. “This is serious. You either learn restraint or you’re benched.”
“Understood.”
He stalked off ahead of his father.
And that was when the night went to shit.
“I didn’t kill him,” Robin said.
The would-be rapist was snow white on the ground, eyes open. A growing pool of blood spread around him.
“Isn’t that your sword?” Batgirl (Stephanie) asked carefully.
The sword in question was indeed Robin’s, and had very clearly severed the man’s subclavian artery. The blade had pierced at just the right angle underneath his collarbone. The whole affair had taken seconds.
The sword was still in him.
“He was flung into the fire escape. The sword fell down on him from there,” Robin said.
“What the hell was your sword doing on the fire escape?” Red Hood asked.
“It was knocked from my grasp earlier in the fight and thrown up there.”
“You lost your sword in the middle of a fight?” Batman asked, doubt clear.
“It was ten against one. And while my katana is a useful tool, any weapon that you cannot fight without is not truly a weapon, but a crutch.”
Batgirl whistled. “You’ve made that pretty clear. I don’t think we’ll ever see any of those guys again.”
Red Hood snorted. “The ones who lived, anyway.”
“It was an accident,” Robin snapped.
Hood held up his hands placatingly. “Not saying it wasn’t. But yeesh, this scene is rough.”
“Robin, are you telling the truth about what happened here?” Batman asked.
He bristled. “Of course.”
“There is a camera on this alley, monitoring the club’s back door. I will be checking the footage.”
“I did not kill this man. His death was an accident.”
“He said he didn’t do it. Leave it go,” Hood said. His hand hovered above his holster.
“It would be… understandable, given the extenuating circumstances, if this death was not fully accidental. I need to know the truth. Robin, you won’t be sent away, but we do need to address this.”
“What, you’re gonna bench the kid for an accident?” Hood asked. “And since when is murder ‘understandable’ to you? Are you accusing him or not?”
“I’m not accusing anybody. I am simply trying to get to the bottom of this.”
“No, fuck you! He said he didn’t do it! Kid’s been Robin for five years now; you’d think he’s earned a bit of trust!”
“Since when do you give a shit?” Batgirl asked.
“Since B pulled the exact same shit with me on the Garzonas case and I ran away and got killed over it. You can’t keep making kids your partners for years and then forsaking all trust the second it’s tested. Damian’s already died once—”
“Names.”
“—I won’t see you pushing him away to get killed a second time. Listen, I’d be first in line to justify killing this guy, but hasn’t Damian lived by your code all these years? Half the Justice League doesn’t do that! Cut the kid some slack!”
“I can’t just ignore murder, Hood—”
“Oh, so you are accusing him?”
“—and now is not the time nor the place to debate ethics. We need to call this in and decide what to tell the commissioner.”
A drunken clubgoer stumbled out the backdoor into the alley, saw four Bats standing over a dead body, and turned around and went back inside.
“This looks bad,” Batgirl said.
“Looks are the last of our problems right now,” Batman said.
“I can get rid of the body,” Hood said.
“We will be handling within the law,” Batman said.
“I did not kill him,” Robin said quietly.
“Right. Your sword killed him on its own,” Batgirl said.
“It is the truth. He fell back into the fire escape—”
She waved him off. “I don’t know if I believe you—not to say that I blame you, because I don’t—but I do know that no cops are going to buy that story. Not when it comes to Robin.”
Everyone went silent at that.
“I will tell the cops an alternate version of events,” Batman said. “A more believable accident. Robin, we will be discussing this, and I will be reviewing the footage.”
He nodded.
Six years. Six years and they didn’t trust him.
Ladybug swung from the streetlights and roof fixtures. She flipped in midair before landing in a crouch. Viperion was already there, of course. Apitrix flew in seconds later, followed by Chat Noir and Ryuuko.
“Okay,” Ladybug said. “So our akuma is Gauthier Dujardin, an EMT who was unjustly fired. He’s calling himself the Emergencier, and he’s… causing people to need an EMT.”
Viperion grimaced. Never a good sign.
“Viperion, you should stay here, keep an eye on the fight, be ready to time travel and transform as needed. Use your best judgment. There’s an alcove in rooftop stairwell that should offer you some privacy.
“Vesperia, your target is the Emergencier. We need to stop him from hurting more people. He has been using projectile weapons, so be careful. Chat Noir, the akumatized object is his first aid kit. It’s where he’s getting all his tools from. Ryuuko, try to keep people away from him. I’d like the Emergencier to be at the eye of the storm. Does anybody have any questions?”
Viperion ran into the stairwell to detransform and retransform.
“Already?” Vesperia muttered. “That’s not good.”
Ladybug set her jaw. “Let’s go.”
Viperion swapped in and out eleven times. Over the course of the eight hour battle, 26 people died and 153 more were injured.
One of the deaths was Vesperia.
The Cure brought everyone back, of course.
Like it never happened.
Viperion's eyes were just as hollow and haunted after as they were before. Vesperia hardly seemed affected by her death at all, even though she briefly went to Hell, and remembers it.
It wasn't the first time, after all. They had been doing this for so long now. In another two weeks, Marinette will officially have been Ladybug for three full years. For three years now, Hawkmoth has reigned undefeated.
They don't even have any suspects. It took eight hours to defeat a civilian paramedic. Alya had livestreamed most of the battle, and poor Gauthier had had a breakdown when he checked the Ladyblog. The worst day of his life immortalized forever, for millions to see.
Over 181 Parisians have been akumatized.
Marinette vows then and there it won't get to 200. She'll do whatever it takes.
Gauthier keeps watching the video of him slaughtering people, using the tools of his first aid kit. He's sobbing. He'll likely never work again.
It won't get to 200. If Marinette had her way, it wouldn't even get to 182.
“Yesterday, we received an official request for assistance from Paris,” Batman said. He pressed a button on the clicker and the big screen behind him switched to a thumbnail of a video. Another click and it played.
A winged, masked teenager stood in an office beside tall, portly older gentleman in a suit and a sash. The teenager was floating in midair, wings thrumming like a helicopter. She even had antennae.
“Oh, so like a bug-bug,” Captain Marvel said.
“Heroes of the Justice League,” the teenage bug said over the recording. “My name is Ladybug. For the past three years, my Court and I have defended Paris from the villain Hawkmoth. In light of our most recent battle, however, we have come to realize we need help. My team and I are young. Our mentor is a non-combatant. Despite our successful operations the past three years, I believe we could benefit from guidance. Specifically, combat instruction. Our magic can only take us so far. Thank you for listening, and for your time.”
She fluttered backwards and the older gentleman took her place. “I am Mayor Bourgeois and I can verify that this is, in fact, Ladybug, the Hero of Paris.”
The message clicked off.
“Question,” the Flash said, raising his hand like he was in school. “Why exactly is Paris being defended by magical teenagers?”
“Because they are facing a magical villain,” Wonder Woman said. “I am familiar with Ladybug’s Court. They do not fight typical street-level crime or forces of nature. The situation in Paris is deeply embroiled in the magical politics of kwamis.”
“What are kwamis?” Flash asked.
“Ooh! I know this one!” Captain Marvel said. “Imagine if you crossed fairies and gods and genies all in one, but they were like, super cute. Each one represents a different force. Like creation and destruction are the big two, but there’s also the elements, three-dimensional space, illusions, stuff like that.”
“And there are no magic adults in Paris?” Hal asked.
“Only evil ones.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“Why haven’t we gone to help them before now?” Superman asked. “Is this too small-scale of a problem? What is Hawkmoth trying to accomplish?”
Batman moved to the next slide in his presentation. “This is the Justice League Dark’s file on the Paris situation. As you can see, the whole city is marked as a no-fly zone. Hawkmoth is a mind-controller, to a degree. The last thing anybody wants is for all of us to get mind-controlled again. Especially when it would involve fighting children.”
Everyone winced at that. Superman rubbed the back of his neck.
“Hawkmoth apparently preys on any and all negative emotions and uses them as a gateway to enter a person’s mind. From that point, he offers them magical powers in order to achieve their greatest goal at the moment—typically whatever emotional situation pushed them to that stage—in exchange for Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculi. Miraculi are gems that are the source of their powers. Apparently the kids have been wearing them as jewelry.”
“So he gets their miraculi, and then what? Uses them to take over the world?” Green Arrow asked.
“Unclear. The report states that the miraculi of creation and destruction together can grant any wish, but with a cost. An equivalent cost.”
“So even if Hawkmoth wishes for world peace—”
“—another world would have to be enslaved,” Green Lantern finished. “Well shit. I think we can safely say this is the most high-stakes attempted robbery any of us have ever dealt with.”
“You know nothing of my missions,” Wonder Woman said cryptically.
“Multiple worlds could hang in the balance on the job of protecting some jewelry; what the hell attempted robbery did you work that was worse than this?”
“In Themyscira, at the heart of a volcano, there is an ancient, mystical sword forged from the souls of 10,000 righteous warriors. When wielded by a sufficiently powerful being, it is capable of cutting the very fabric of reality itse—”
“If we could return to the matter at hand,” Batman said.
“But I wanna hear Wonder Woman’s story!” Captain Marvel said.
“You can hear the rest after the meeting,” she promised, laying a hand on top of his. The captain beamed.
“Whoever we send should be non-powered,” Green Arrow admitted reluctantly. “Sending any metas in is too risky.”
“I agree,” Superman said. “Sorry.”
“The humans who keep pace with metas are significant threats all on their own,” Black Canary said. “Emotional vulnerability is also a factor to consider.”
“So we need to said in someone who’s a skilled fighter, has no powers, and is good at suppressing their emotions,” Flash said leadingly.
Silence rang like a bell.
“I resent your implication,” Batman said.
“Nobody said anything,” Green Lantern pointed out.
“Nevertheless,” he said.
“Really, those are all positive traits,” Superman said.
Batman grunted. “You could learn to be less emotive if you put the effort in.”
“Not all of us have the time to dedicate to studying stoicism with monks in the Himalayas like you did,” Hal said.
“I studied stoicism with the League of Assassins,” he corrected.
“Alright. Great. We’ll take that under advisement, Batman,” Superman said.
“Do not reach out to the League of Assassins.”
“Will do. Won’t do! Definitely won’t do that.”
“They are terrible people.”
“Noted. Thank you for taking this case, Batman, it means so much.”
“Didn’t you marry one of those assassins?” Flash asked.
“We got divorced.”
“Meeting adjourned.”