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It was boring being hyperactive and then needing to wait in the car with no estimations of how long he would need to be there.
So, clearly, the obvious thing to do — if he had to stay in the damned car anyway — was to people-watch.
Now, people-watching was definitely more Timmers’ or Jay’s thing, both scarily accurate with their knowledge and understanding of people, albeit they’d learnt to do so for very different reasons. Tim’s parents had insisted that you needed to know how to read people to find their weaknesses to be able to keep them below you. Even if that wasn’t what Tim used his skills for, it was the reason behind it. Jason, for his part, had learnt because otherwise your odds of surviving in the Crime Alley were extremely, alarmingly low. He too had kept it up.
It was fun, mostly. Dick wasn’t the greatest detective in the family — that would be Tim or Bruce —, or the one who could read others as easily and fast as Jason read books — that would be Tim and Jason —, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to do all of that well anyway .
So, obviously, when a bunch of young adults near him got into an argument and one girl spilled all of her drink on another, he noticed immediately how said girl was definitely lying about whatever she was saying. She kept covering her mouth, trying to groom herself even though there was nothing amiss in her appearance, and it seemed that they took a little too long to answer to the other girl a lot of the time. If it was apologising, well, Dick was tempted to go take care of the situation and then take the drenched girl to clean up.
Unfortunately, they all left and while his eyes kept following the group, he also lost sight of the victim. Damnit. He wouldn’t be able to help her in any way now.
Not that knowing where she was would have helped much anymore soon as someone blocked his sight by standing in front of the window. Dick sighed and settled back down on his seat, contemplating taking out his phone and just trying to call someone because he needed stimulation. Why was he left alone here waiting again?
It took him another ten seconds before he realised that the person in front of the window was trying to check their appearance and was at the moment trying to get their hair in order. Dick watched them for a bit before recognising them — if only for the absolutely lovely, soaked , light blue denim dress and the black fitted leather coat she was wearing — because this was the girl who got a drink thrown on her.
Now that he had a better look at her, he decided she was not only beautiful, but also gorgeous. Her black hair was a little below her shoulders, and god, she had the most beautiful blue eyes — and that was saying something, because basically all of his siblings had blue eyes, he had blue eyes, and heavens knew he thought his were the best.
She didn’t even seem to realise he was there. Oh well, if she wasn’t going to take long anymore, he supposed it didn’t matter if he looked at her a bit longer, but if this was going to continue more, Dick would feel like a creep and have to tell her to find another place because he didn’t want to violate her privacy more than was absolutely necessary.
But then. Then he saw the tear streaks on her face and he decided that he needed to do something. Even if only to comfort the girl.
He rolled the window down and laughed a little as the girl looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Hello miss, I couldn’t help but notice you checking how you looked like without realising I was here, and I thought I’d tell you that you no matter how you see yourself from the car window — I doubt it’s that good of a mirror, honestly —, you’re really pretty.” That raised blush on the girl’s cheeks and it looked like she was about to apologise, so Dick continued speaking. He didn’t want her to apologise because it’s not like she did anything wrong. “Can I help you with anything? I noticed the confrontation earlier and it didn’t look too good.”
The girl sighed before snapping her gaze back to Dick, eyes wide. “Are you actually offering to listen to me?” Huh. She had a strong French accent, but her English was otherwise wonderful. Dick wondered how many languages she spoke. Then he paid attention to her words again and…
Why was that such a surprise?
It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.
Had anyone offered to listen to her in years ?
“Yeah. You want to go to that coffee shop on the other side of the street or just stand there? I would offer for you to come into the car but I feel like that’s really creepy and uncomfortable so we’re not doing that. Your pick. Coffee shop or the street? Both are safe and public places.”
The girl straightened her hat and bit her lip. “Coffee would be nice, but I don’t think I have any money with me anymore.”
“Anymore?”
“A long story.”
“I have time to listen. And as to what comes to the money, I’ll pay. Not expecting you to pay anything back.”
“Alright. Coffee shop it is.”
Dick opened the car door and stepped out, only now realising how short the girl was compared to him. God. He offered a hand to her, bowing slightly with a grin on his face, and finally he got her to chuckle. A hint of genuine happiness. That was good. One step forwards and all that.
“Shall we go, M’Lady?”
The girl stiffened.
Actually, no, it was more like she froze . She looked scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden, and Dick silently cursed himself.
“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? No, scratch that, which of my actions made you uncomfortable? I need to know so I can stop doing it.”
“The’M’Lady part,” she whispered, biting her lip. “Just, this guy used to harass me and call me that.”
Shit .
“I’m so sorry, miss. I won’t do it again. Is there any other nickname you would be comfortable with — I tend to use a lot of nicknames for people —, or would you be more comfortable if I stuck with your name once you gave it to me?”
“Marinette. My name’s Marinette. As long as the nickname doesn’t sound like a pet name, I think I’ll be fine.”
“So, is Mari okay? Or Teacup? You’re so small that Teacup sounds right, but of course I won’t use that if it’s not okay with you.”
“Teacup… I think Teacup is fine.”
And then therer was that stupid, wonderful, adorable smile that was now on her face again and Dick definitely loved it. He was pretty sure that if he got a chance to keep spending time with Marinette, he would probably start liking her more than was appropriate but that was not what he wanted to focus on now. Right now, it was making sure she got happier.
“Do you need a towel? I think we have some in the car, I could fetch you one,” he said, smiling at Mari.
“It… I think that could be nice, but you don’t need to do it. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“I insist. You aren’t bothering me at all, I’d love to be able to help.”
“Thank you.” Then she stopped and looked like she needed to add something to it. Surely, a few seconds later she continued, “For just about everything.”
Dick just laughed and winked before he went to get the towel from the backseats. Then he gave the towel to Mari, keeping the smile on his face to try to reassure her everything would be fine, and that she wasn’t a bother.
While she was drying herself, Dick pulled out his phone and texted Babs that everything was fine, he hadn’t been kidnapped or anything, but that there had been this girl that needed some company and he was taking her to the coffee shop nearby. Soon enough, he got a message back saying that she was taking over the car and would drive herself back, that she wasn’t going to wait for his slow ass to come back. Then, a few seconds later, he received another message from her, telling him to not scare this one away if she was of age and to make sure that if she was smart and didn’t want Dick, she wanted to be introduced to her.
Dick laughed. Yeah, no, this one wouldn’t become hers, not if he could help it.
“Who was that?” Marinette asked as she handed the towel back to him. “Sorry, that wasn’t polite to ask.”
“Don’t worry about it, Teacup,” he grinned. She smiled, hopefully at the nickname. That was great. Dick accepted the towel and threw it back into the car. Babs wouldn’t be happy about it but she just had to deal. “It was my friend, the one I was with here. Told her she can go back on her own, though she’ll probably call one of my brothers to drive her,” he told her, closing the car and then checking if it locked. It did. Babs would survive, she should have the keys as well, and even if she didn’t, she could very well hack the car open with her phone.
She’d done it before, too.
“I’m sorry I interrupted your… date?”
“Nah, I’m not dating her. She wanted to go somewhere and just left me in the car, it’s fine. Besides, it was me that offered to take you to the coffee shop, wasn’t it?” Mari nodded. “Then it’s not your fault and you don’t need to apologise.”
Dick made sure she was ready to go before turning to the coffee shop and walking there with Mari. He tried to cheer her up by telling dumb stories of his family (like especially the time when Jason stole Tim’s room, rather literally. They’d found everything from the roof three days later. In turn, Tim had tampered with Jason’s sprinklers in his apartment, so they were extra sensitive, and the second he started smoking inside the apartment, they went off and there was water everywhere ), and sometimes he even made her laugh. Once they got inside, she was a little more comfortable with him and with a little prompting and helping questions, she started telling him what had happened with the others.
Apparently, one of them was a pathological liar, and she had said something about sleeping with the CEO of the Wayne Enterprises, in a rather slandering way, and Mari had called her out on it. When Dick asked her how she’d guessed it was a lie (to which Mari had shot back how he knew it was a lie either and Dick had been forced to tell he knew the CEO, though he didn’t mention they were family just in case), and she told him it was less about knowing it was a lie and more calculating the likeliness of it being true. One, it was unlikely because the CEO was way younger than any of them, and two, as the person had been lying about nearly everything for years, so the most probable situation was that she was lying again .
“Usually I just leave her alone with her lies because none of them believe me and she managed to ruin my life once already. I don’t need her to do it again,” Mari huffed, sipping at her second coffee. Dick wasn’t completely sure how she managed to drink coffee like that, it was stronger than Tim’s when he went to a coffee shop, yet she drank it without a blink like she was drinking water.
“Ruined your life? As in…?”
“She got into one of my favourite fashion designer’s good graces, managed to convince him to completely blacklist me from any and all possible fashion companies and because of that even the one fashion designer that still liked me — Audrey Bourgeois — couldn’t hire me either. It would have been bad marketing. She also succeeded in her threat of taking away all my friends, and now all of them enjoy spreading false rumours about me behind my back so I can hardly get any new friends. I do get my living by selling my designs behind a name no one can link me to, but it’s not something I enjoy. What you saw wasn’t that big even. I’ve had worse happen to me because of them.”
“Then why did you defend the CEO everyone would lie about behind his back and to the newspapers and gossip magazines anyway? You don’t even know him, right?”
“No, but he’s so young, not even an adult yet. He doesn’t deserve it. It’s not like I could just watch it happen and do nothing! It’s not his fault Lila is a pathological liar with no consideration of how it affects others. This is the same girl that convinced our classmates Jagged Stone had written a song about her when she was still 14, which is bad because her parents hadn’t consented to it and Jagged is a middle-aged man.”
Mari sighed and set her cup aside before burying her face in her hands. “I’m just so tired of all this because I can hardly do anything about the situation and I hate it .”
Dick watched her silently. It was clear she was strong, stronger than most people he knew (and he knew a lot of people, most of them superheroes or vigilantes), and Dick respected it. She deserved a break. He knew he could do something about it because this Lila had lied about his little brother and the Wayne family definitely had all the resources it needed to bring the young woman down, but that wouldn’t help Mari. The blacklisting thing would stay for a long time, and that he couldn’t change. Not if he didn’t get someone even more powerful vouching for her anyway… Unless.
“Do you mind if I make a call? I’ll be right back. Feel free to order a third cup of coffee, I’m still paying. The barista with the red hair knows me, so he should be fine with it. Just tell him that Dick is paying and he can call Dick for all he wants if he doesn’t believe you, but that Dick’s coming back soon anyway. If he still doesn’t believe you, remind him that he’s literally one of the fastest people on earth and could probably catch you in two seconds flat,” he laughed, but for some reason the smirk that grew on her face at that made him a little suspicious.
She didn’t say anything about it though. “Oh, that’s fine, I’ll survive. I wasn’t thinking about running away anyway,” she said smiling, the smirk all but gone now, and if Dick hadn’t been absolutely certain he had seen it, he would’ve been doubting his eyes because how could this sweet girl smirk like… that . It reminded him of Jason’s smirk, or maybe the Red Hood’s smirk. It was rather disturbing.
But, Dick just shook it off and dialed Tim. It took a few rings before Tim answered, groaning out a frustrated “Yes? I’m in a meeting right now, dick.” Dick wasn’t sure whether to be shocked or impressed Tim had clearly used his name as an insult just now. God, he needed to stop hanging out with Jason.
“Well Timmers, I was wondering, do you have any fashion related projects at WE? Or any you could start? I have a… friend... who might need a job. She’s a fashion designer and apparently a pathological liar — who, by the way, lied about you and this friend of mine defended you — managed to get her blacklisted in the fashion world. It would be nice to keep her around. She showed me some of her sketches and finished clothing and I was allowed to take pictures of some she’s already finished and is selling so it wouldn’t matter as much to her if I had a picture of them.”
Tim sighed. “You could have just said you have a crush and need a job for said crush. Send the pictures over and I’ll decide then.”
“Way ahead of you, I did so like three seconds ago. Check your email, Timbo.”
“Cut it out. I’ll check them out and decide then if I—”
Tim went silent all of a sudden. After ten seconds, Dick decided he should check up on him. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I am but— Did you happen to ask for who she is? Like, her designer name?”
“No…? I can though. Wait a second. Mari! What’s your designer name?”
Mari looked at him with wide eyes and two empty cups of coffee more in front of her. “Uh, L’ange, why?”
“Just wondering. Go order another coffee if you need one. Or, well, you know what, order as many as you want as long as Wally isn’t going to have my head for letting you drink too much caffeine.”
Marinette laughed and got up to get herself more coffee, smiling victoriously at Wally standing behind the counter who sighed, shot an unimpressed look at Dick and started chatting with Mari. It was amazing how Dick could see Wally fasten his pace while they talked but Mari just kept up like it was the most normal thing ever.
“Alright, she says it’s L’ange. Why?”
“It matters because I recognised the designs and clothes easily . They’re my favourite designer’s and I needed to know if you’d found them! And if your girl there indeed is L’ange like she says, you just met my favourite designer and I’m so, so jealous. I want to meet her. If she is who she says she is, I am going to create a fashion project with her if we don’t already have one.”
Dick laughed at Tim’s serious tone. “Alright Timmy, I’ll tell her the news. Have fun at the meeting, don’t let Lucius rip you a new one. Also, stop spending so much time with Jason. It’s good you’re getting better along but your use of language is getting worse.”
“Haha, funny, dick.” And Tim hung up.
How annoying. Why did he love his little brothers again?
“Teacup, put the coffee away, I’ve got a job offer that could help with your dream of becoming a professional designer who could use her own name for you. You want to hear it or are you going to try and talk Wally into hiring you here? Because you do know you won’t be able to drink as much coffee while working, right?”
That got him a (rather friendly, playful and non-homicidal) glare from Mari before she stuck her tongue out at him. Dick snorted and took out his credit card to pay Wally. Judging by the amount of empty coffee cups at their table and at the counter, Mari had drank more than enough. It was a little worrying and surprising that she wasn’t vibrating with energy or climbing the curtains. No, she looked more like a completely normal, not over-energised human being.
God, how much did she drink caffeine on the daily?
“Sure. Shoot.”
“My brother is a CEO and after seeing your designs, he recognised you. You’re apparently his favourite designer, and he’s completely ready to either find a fashion project for you to work on — using your own designs, of course — or to create one from the scratch with you if there isn’t one in existence already. Knowing him, he’d definitely fully credit you for all you do, although the most likely case is he’s going to market it as a collaboration between the company and you. He wishes to meet you,” he explained and watched Mari’s face go from a frown to surprise to a bright smile with a hint of suspicion.
“Really? Though first, who is this brother..?”
“So. You know how I said I just know Timothy Drake-Wayne?”
“...Yes?”
“He’s my adoptive little brother.”
“Alright… I can meet up with him then. It would be nice to be able to really get my name out there.”
“Great! WE is so big that it’s likely we would be able to mostly erase the blacklisting while at it, and if you’re working with us, we could also discredit the liar so it could make your life easier. Obviously, we would need proof of her words, but—”
“There’s an entire blog full of them. There should be enough proof, and I don’t think I’d be surprised if she’d used your family before if you’re indeed of the Wayne family.”
“Well, that I can certainly prove by taking you to meet Timmy. Bye Wally, have fun working!”
Wally snorted and quickly waved before getting back to work. “I will, but I think you should be the one to remember not to have too much fun at work. We still up for the weekend?”
“Obviously.”
oOoOo
Three hours and twenty-seven minutes later, one Marinette Dupain-Cheng was hired by Timothy Drake-Wayne while Dick Grayson grinned outside Tim’s office at Marinette’s thumbs up.
Seventy-nine days later the collaboration of WE, Timothy Drake-Wayne, L’Ange and Marinette Dupain-Cheng had been created, presented, accepted and started, which was then celebrated by one Dick Grayson bringing a bottle of rose wine for himself and Marinette, and apple juice (that was then thrown at Dick) for Tim to celebrate the beginning of a beautiful partnership.
Six months and fourteen days after that, around the time they started advertising the collaboration for the first time, the issue with one Lila Rossi got significantly worse and they were forced to take legal action right then and there. The Ladyblog was found full of lies, of a lot of people the Wayne family knew, but of them and even more of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
Three months and seventeen days later Marinette Dupain-Cheng stood in front of the court, testifying against Delilah Rossi, who was then found guilty for defamation of character of countless of people, of which some of them had led to life-ruining consequences. Delilah Rossi did not stand a chance. This also led to a thorough investigation of one Gabriel Agreste who was found guilty for terrorism, which also resulted in Delilah Rossi found guilty for assisting a terrorist. The known teen model Adrien Agreste who turned out to be the previous superhero Chat Noir was also accused of assisting a known terrorist. All three were sentenced, Delilah Rossi and Gabriel Agreste to a lifetime in prison, Adrien Agreste to three years in prison for being a minor accomplice as well as the continuous sexual harassment of Ladybug, who, after further investigation, revealed herself as the designer Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
A year, a month and three days later, L’Ange de la Gotham was released to the public. It became a massive success. Wayne Enterprises expected to do more collaborations with Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the chief designer and founder of MDC, previously known as L’Ange. One Dick Grayson was photographed proposing to the young designer, who then proceeded to scream yes and throw herself at her new fiancé.
Seven months and twenty-one days later MDC changes name to MDCG. A group of young French adults are arrested for trespassing on Dick Grayson and Marinette Dupain-Cheng-Grayson’s private property. These young adults are found to be Mrs. Dupain-Cheng-Grayson’s ex-classmates. They do not press charges for more than trespassing.
Two weeks later the Daily Planet has a new first page article written by newcomer Conner Kent: Marinette Dupain-Cheng-Grayson, a victim of defamation of character by terrorist Delilah Rossi finally opens up about getting attacked by her ex-classmates for years: “It hurt, but I could no longer care less. Justice and karma have been served to them, cold.” The article becomes a hit and the biggest success of the year, winning over even articles of alien attacks, superman, new superheroes and Alya Césaire's downfall.
Through all the years the youngest of the Flying Graysons holds the hand of the upcoming and successful Chinese-French designer MDCG, and neither plan to let go.
Because the other brings them strength.