Chapter Text
He never thought this would happen, not in a million lifetimes. To begin with, he never thought he would find someone like her. Someone who could make all the 'if's and 'maybe's into 'when's and 'definitely's. So when they got together, by freak accident or miracle, it was your choice, he thought they would last forever. A fight or twelve couldn't dare pale against years of embraces, stolen moments of time outshined the occasional cold of an empty bed left out of frustration from either of them. Their love was strong, made even stronger by the protection her ignorance to his family's night habits.
It was a wonder where all the time had gone when the house of cards came crashing down all around him.
But that was then, and this was now. He couldn't go back and question why, why did she break it off when they were so good together? She was the one who approached him first, she was the one who refused to leave until she wormed her way into his closed off heart and shown him, a creature of darkness, sunshine beyond his imagination. When she left, her absence left gaping holes wider than the marina trenches. They were broken. He realized they were broken. When did they become two shards that couldn't be melded together again with the golden thread of fate?
The phone glared at him from the corner of the room, and he saw rather than felt his hand move towards the receiver. Fingers moved with such familiarity, numbers tattooed into his brain that they swam in front of his eyes, taunting. His eyes slid over to the two suitcases in the corner of the room, half-hidden and drenched.
He wished they would just ignite and burn away, if only to spare him the pain of conjuring their warm apartment, now left barren and cold.
"Hello, you've reached Marinette. If you're hearing this, I'm not at the phone right now, but I'll get back to you soon! Leave me a message after the beep." Her laugh rang through his chest, leaving him floating. How many times did he call her just to hear that breathy little chuckle quiver in his ear? His eyes glazed over, and he fought to keep them open. Squeeze. Open. You're better than this.
"Hello, this is Damian." He didn't recognize the voice that echoed hollow against the walls. Why did his tongue weigh heavy? Iron filled his mouth. He needed a drink, a strong one.
"I've taken all my things from... your apartment and moved them back over to mine." Your apartment. It was hers now. Not theirs. The suitcases glared back at him again, holding back his next words. God, where was the lighter?
Squeeze. Open.
"If you find anything left, please contact Pennyworth. He will take it off your hands." Should he say something else? He still loved her. He wanted her. He needed her—
He slammed the receiver down, and everything went silent. Maddening silence. Goddamn silent when it should be filled with her laughter and the sowing machine clicking in the background and her whispers in his ear that iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou—
Squeeze. Open. Wake up, Damian.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng utterly ruined Damian Wayne for the world the moment he laid eyes on her.
The clock twitched past two, the night was dark, and all he could see was her phantom hands ghosting his face. "Mon chevalier noir, go to sleep."
"Leave me, Marinette." Squeeze, open. "Haven't you tortured me enough?"
Her giggles chimed in the emptiness of his mind. "Silly goose, that's why I'm telling you to sleep."
Fingers tapped and danced along his jaw, and he immersed himself in her tantalizing embrace. Her sweet words cloyed at him, pulsing addictive venom in his veins. He couldn't help his hand reaching lower and lower into the drawer, unclasping the latch on the false bottom and taking out an innocuous rolled piece of brown paper.
The lighter danced under his fingers like a sprite, and everything went hazy beyond her oh so sticky voice and endless sweet nothings.
Mon couer…ya amar…habibti... He sighed.
“Why is it so hard to sleep without you, my darling? Was it not enough to steal my heart that you had to steal my sleep as well?”
She smiled at him, pale freckles almost see-through shifting against the tips of her lips. “I couldn’t have stolen your heart, it’s much too guarded for that.”
“That’s right,” he muttered, taking in another puff of smoke. “I gave it to you, didn’t I? I gave it to a vixen who was only there to eat the heart of a tainted bird.”
Again, that damned laugh. That damned blessing sent by the heavens to spear a demon like him, to torture a fallen creature who was beyond redemption. And all his tongue could utter was MarinetteMarinetteMarinette.
They say time heals a broken heart.
How much time is enough? Her touch still echoed against his bruising skin, fluttering lips skimming the soft spot between his ear and neck, her dainty whispers poisoning him down to his bones.
The suitcases haven’t moved. There was too much of her in them. He has since taken up journalling, hoping to become one step closer to her yet again, to try and find closure for himself.
Day twenty-five. She appeared to me again. Grayson found the stack Jason slipped me for my birthday all those years ago and confiscated them from me. I couldn’t fall asleep again, not when she was standing right there, playing with my hair like she never left. Marinette, my love, leave me already like you left me a month ago. I would rather brave the League again than despair at your absence.
Day seventy-two. You’re still here. It’s been two and a half months, yet you still haunt me like you have nothing better to do. Let me go already, you damn woman. I hate you. I wish you never said you loved me in the first place. Why say something you never meant? I am glad you’ve stopped talking to me, you’ve made no sounds since yesterday.
Day seventy-three. I’m sorry, I take back what I said. I love you. I know you loved me. I hope you loved me. Please talk to me. I miss you.
Day ninety-seven. Do you think of me still? Your touch still lingers in my mind, your half-formed rambles and twinkle still shine in my dreams, even if it is like watching a silent noir film. I still see you sometimes, down the corner of the café you love, in the kitchen with that pink apron, next to me in bed as I fall asleep. I found a way to sleep now, by the way. Only, you still tread my dreams like you lived permanently there.
Day ninety-nine. I’m off to visit Paris, where you are right now. Or at least, where you last were when we broke it off ninety-nine days ago. Are you still there? Will I be able to see you if I walk down the streets? Past the Eiffel Tower, sitting next to a fountain in a park, surrounded by sunshine? Or will you be grinning behind the counter of your family’s bakery? You were always so quick to help out.
Is it too much to want to simply see you in person? Outside dreams and illusions where you disappear the moment I blink? To hear your free laugh again? Maybe it’s too much, but I was always a greedy bustard.
I must go now, Father says the mission debrief on the Agreste mansion raid is starting soon.
Maybe if I see you, I can finally let your ghost rest in my heart. Maybe that is wishful thinking, but you were always the more optimistic between the two of us, so maybe it’s my turn to use some of your damned positivity.
It was going too well. Nothing ever goes too well. Which means this was either a trap, magic, or sheer dumb luck was shining upon them. Damian couldn’t shake the feeling that they were playing right into Gabriel Agreste’s — more commonly known as the supervillain, Hawkmoth — hands.
No one but him thought this was looking more and more like a trap. Even his father thought he was being paranoid, which was unlike his father. It was another big clue that something was wrong.
And he was right. The moment they blasted through the giant glass roof, his eyes zoned in on the figures surrounding the elusive Hawkmoth who was bound in the Parisian heroine’s weapon of choice. He took stock of the damage to the room, likely a brutal fight, judging by the scattered bodies across the room, all of puke-worthy designs.
The so-called godlings found him first.
He gritted his teeth, grabbing his katana’s handle. They had made their stance clear the year before on their way of handling the villain, but it was inefficient. It was half-baked, and clearly shouldn’t have been left in the hands of children who had more power than they could handle. They had no skill besides the power they borrowed, and they did not have the practice necessary to execute a villain subjugation. It should have been left in capable hands, and his father, as well as the rest of the Justice League, agreed with him.
Superman’s voiced boomed across the room, but he paid it no stock. His eyes were zoned in on their leader, tattered and fatigued, but a blaze stood in her eyes as she stared back at him in equal fervor. Ladybug was the most puzzling of them all, for she and the Cat were on a different level than their team mates. From the start, the spotted heroine and the black cat fought against this villain, and had little to no success. They were clumsy, foolish, yet, they held strong and saved the city countless times. Yes, he respected her. But if they hadn’t taken care of the villain yet after almost a decade, that meant they were incompetent, and the matter had to be dealt with in a separate manner.
Her blonde partner stepped in front of her, blocking her from view, and he felt his heart sink just a little bit. The rest followed suit, a barrier between Ladybug and the Justice League. “Leave this city, now.”
It was comical how some members of the League shrank back at the venom in the boy’s voice, but he stood tall. There was no honor in backing down now. The cat-themed hero narrowed his eerie green eyes, tensing to pounce on him should he make a move.
The ground rumbled, but he paid no attention to it as Ladybug started to glow again, rising above their heads and chanting yet again — and the world tilted.
One second, he was reaching for his grappling hook to subdue her. The next, a blinding pale green light blinding him. He threw up his cape to shield his eyes, but white spots managed to find it’s way across his vision. The room was silent, barring the ringing in his ears from whatever it was that exploded right in front of his eyes. When he finally looked up, his gaze met a weary pair of electric blue eyes, gazing so softly at him that his heart panged in the way it has for the last one hundred days.
And Ladybug crumpled to her knees right in front of him, the smell of burnt flesh thick in the air, the hazy waves of kryptonite lingering in the air mixed in with the laser beam that would have decimated the whole team gathered.
He could barely register the blonde cat leaping to her side, could barely make out Jon leaning against his father, weak from the blast radiation, nor the grim set of his father’s lips as his eyes sunk into a swirl of fragmented ideas coming together as he made their next move.
No, his eyes were focused on the ashen feet of the Ladybug heroine, whose magic was fading away before his very eyes. The hero who stepped between him and certain death. Her arms shook as she reached up to console the hysterical cat, but he couldn’t make out her face, obstructed by the sobbing male.
Something wasn’t right here.
Finger tips ghosted his cheeks again. “Look closer, mon chevalier noir.”
“Where, habibti?” The words tumbled out before he could help it. This was the first time his dreams spoke to him in a month. His father glanced at him, but he did not notice, too focused on scanning his surroundings for her ethereal form, hovering beside him once more. But she was nowhere to be found.
A ripple waved over them once again, but this time filled with warmth like the sunshine on a funeral. There was something definite about this magic, he knew it had to be magic. There was no other thing that could fix all the damage surrounding them, nor anything else that could make him feel so empty. It felt like his ex-lover’s phantom breezed through him, a bitter-sweet embrace to signal a final goodbye.
Goodbye?
“Little kitty on the roof, all alone without his lady.” Her hauntingly sweet voice rang in his head, but the echoes were different. They bounced off the walls with such sorrow that they couldn’t be his imagination. There was so much raw pain as she sang the little mourning dirge like a broken songbird. “Little kitty on the roof, saying someone come and save me.”
His heart dropped, and he couldn’t helped the muffled gasp, even as he brought up his fist to his mouth. You can’t be here. Where are you, ya amar?
“Look closely, Damian Wayne.” It wasn’t her voice in his head this time. It was a soft, pitying voice. “Look at the product of your mistakes and weep.”
The lullaby pounded in his head, growing louder and louder as the cymbals crashed and screamed. He placed his hands over his ears, shaking his head, squeezing his eyes shut. The damned voice whispered shame and fault and open your eyes.
Squeeze. OPEN.
The world finally righted itself, and everything came screaming at him in full resolution. Colors burned suns into his eyes, whispers and sighs crashed like tsunamis in his ears as his blood pounded louder than a fourteen-piece percussion orchestra. But nothing could override the pump of his heart bursting out of his chest.
Because there, within the Cat’s grasp, was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, bloodied and broken and oh so beautiful.
“Marinette!” Her heart was failing, she was fading between his hands. He didn’t realise he was on his knees and clutching her until he felt the warmth slipping through his fingers, red streaks finding their way through cracks in her skin, down his gloves, dropping to the floor like red tears.
Words came out of him, months of pent up heartbreak spilled out as he clung to her. He didn’t know when he ripped off his mask, but he felt the sting of salty tears running down the ripped skin across his cheeks. All he knew was her in his arms, eyes glazed and staring at the sky.
"—habibti, no, you can't go like this—"
Please turn your eyes to me once more.
“—ya amar, I’m so sorry, please—"
I don’t care if I never get to see you again, please come back to this earth. I can live with knowing you still live and breathe, but I cannot live without your very existence. You cannot die on me.
"—mon couer, I missed you every single day, we still have so much, please don't go—"
Take my life instead of yours. My life was only ever yours to take. Take me instead. God, please spare her. She deserves to live, not me. Her. Let her live. Please
"—Marinette, I love you, don't go—"
Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou
The world descended into silence once more. Colors faded into greyscale and the world flipped upside down. Wisps started to swirl around them, the black tendrils fighting their way into her chest, but he couldn't pay attention. How could he, when she was limp in his arms? A whisper in his mind told him.
“It’s time to let go now, Damian. You've done enough.”
And he broke.
Beep... beep... beep...
“When will you wake up?” His voice ragged, shot from screaming in the middle of the night.
“Let me go, Damian.” Her body laid lifeless in the pristine white bed. The shining black and red orb still hovered between her chest like it has been for the past month since the raid.
His eyes crinkled as he washed her fingers delicately, carefully polishing her cracked nails. “I’m sorry, darling, it’s too late for that. I couldn’t let you go the moment we met, I won’t let you go from now until forever. I made that mistake once, and I won’t make it again.”
The Cat, who he now knew as Adrien Agreste, had told him that the body would wake up when it was ready, but he was not sure what it would even contain should it wake up. Familiar magic wasn’t a magic he learned, nor was it one taught by the Guardians of the Miraculi, as he has learned to call them. But then again, none of the Guardians were fated Ladybugs and Black Cats. Her soul was in limbo, and the very essence of Marinette Dupain-Cheng would forever be tethered to Adrien’s lifespan when she wakes up. But she would wake up. She had to wake up.
So, there he would wait, patient and subservient, at every waking moment, waiting for those beautiful bluebell eyes to gaze at him again and to hear her golden laughter.
Damian Wayne was ruined, and he would be ruined infinitely more if it meant for her to wake up and breathe again.