Chapter Text
Marinette and Alya had finally graduated. It had taken the akuma class and most of Paris an extra year to catch up on the work they had missed out on from the near-daily attacks, but they could finally hang those diplomas. The extra year had been strenuous, with far too many things attempting to be crunched into such a short period of time. They were all burnt out. Thus, they had decided to take a gap year before going to university after the fiasco that was Hawkmoth.
The two had made the decision to spend this gap year touring the world. They kept an online blog of their adventures and uploaded pictures to keep family and friends aware of where they were and what they were doing.
Marinette got into the habit of uploading them to her album on Facegram right away. They had made their way across Europe and Asia, some of their friends tagging along at points or providing places to stay with family members to keep down their travel costs. Marinette was having the time of her life, and with the uploads, her family could keep track of her every day without spending painful amounts on roaming charges.
Now they were travelling across North America, ending on the east coast, where Alya was going to start doing interviews for international affairs correspondent assistant positions for both the newspapers and news stations. They had taken a train tour from the west coast all the way over to the east coast. The train arrived early in afternoon in Gotham, the tour’s end point. They walked to their hotel dragging their huge suitcases, eager to no longer be on the constantly moving trains.
They took pictures of themselves with some gargoyles in the background, of themselves at the train station, and of them stopping for drinks outside of their hotel. They should have done their research better, because it was right downtown… great for getting to the subway and sightseeing. Not so great with the noise. There was a police station down the street and a hospital that their balcony looked out on. The view left a lot to be desired. At least now they knew why it had been so cheap.
Tired, Marinette collapsed on her bed, and fumbled through her phone. She uploaded the pictures and hit post, without bothering to edit on the cute stickers or sayings she usually did. She didn’t even bother to tag her or Alya in them. She could always go back and edit them in later.
Tagging photos was always a pain. The facial recognition auto-tag system would get most of them anyways. She could add any missed tags when she added some fun quotes and stickers to it.
They soon fell asleep, glad of beds that didn’t constantly shake.
~~~~
Tim wasn’t sure why he had to be the one who went undercover. Steph was completing an undergraduate degree as pre-med. Why couldn’t she do it? (She was working a case with Cass, he answered himself). He whined quietly to himself as he played with his wig.
He was reprising his role as Caroline Hill, as a med tech this time. His wig was a shiny black, rather than the muted mousey brown from before. If anyone remembered him (unlikely, as it had been years, and he was definitely no longer a scrawny teen, though he was still lanky – a muscular lanky, thank you very much), he would just claim to have dyed it.
He had been there a month. Caroline had been put on rotation so that he could discreetly get all of the information Bruce needed to build for their case. It was tedious. He had two more to go – CT scans and MRIs.
“Yo, Caroline!” Mike called out behind him. He had just about been done with his shift too. Damn it.
“What’s up Mike?” Tim raised his voice to the most girlish tone he could muster. It was a wonder he hadn’t been caught yet. He couldn’t pull it off as well as he had at fifteen. He was just glad that his five o’clock shadow hadn’t started to show yet.
“It's Sandra's retirement party! You can’t miss it!”
Mike dragged him reluctantly to the party. It was filled with everyone he had just been working with.
After 20 minutes, Joanne came by with a camera. “Everybody in!”
Tim was squeezed in, despite his attempts to squirm away, by the department head, Susan.
“Say cheese!” Joanne called out.
A few pictures later, and Tim was finally free. He excused himself to head home, the drive he had copied burning a hole in his pocket.
~~~~
Alya was laughing as Marinette groaned in despair.
“This isn’t funny!” Marinette whined. “I look ridiculous!”
She had managed to fall and tear her shirt badly, and got a great big gash in her arm as she landed in the hotel lobby's glass table. It had shattered. Thankfully, the hospital was right next door. Not so thankfully, it cost her an arm and a leg to get a few stitches.
The nurse who stitched her up and covered her in gauze and self-adhesive wrap was kind enough to give her a spare set of scrubs from the hospital laundry, with the promise she would change and bring it right back. Her old shirt was covered in blood. There was no saving it. Her pants had been covered as well, and Marinette wasn’t entirely sure she could get the blood out before it set and ruined them forever too.
“You look fine,” Alya retorted. She turned around and snapped a picture of Marinette in her scrubs.
Alya turned to take a mocking picture of the hospital sign where Marinette has gotten her ‘first American stitches' when an arm grabbed Marinette from behind and yanked on her.
“Come on,” the voice of a man said quietly. “Let’s go.”
She resisted, tugging her elbow in an attempt to get away.
“Come on, Caroline, I’ve got places to be,” the voice prompted lowly, clearly irritated at her struggle.
Oh. She had been mistaken for someone else. She stopped struggling to explain. “I-My- My name isn’t Caroline.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
It almost sounded like they believed her. Almost. Okay, it didn’t. It dripped of sarcasm. She desperately wanted to believe he did though. That desperate hope disintegrated when he pulled her roughly into the car she had just been walking by. Marinette attempted to scream, but it was cut short by her impact with the car seat. It had knocked the wind out of her.
“It isn’t!” she argued as the door slammed in her face.
He had shoved her into the backseat and hopped into his own passenger seat before the driver took off. The door had locked behind him.
“You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?” he replied when he had opened the front door.
“Please, just let me go. I want to go home.”
She tried yanking on the locked door anyways, to no avail. She was stuck.
“Stop making a scene. We’re going home.”
Bloody Hell, she was being kidnapped! Her stomach dropped at the thought of what two grown men could want with her or this Caroline girl. In a panic she screamed and kicked the seat of the passenger who took her. He gave her an irritated glare but otherwise ignored her antics.
“Alya!” she screamed, but it was too late. They were already turning a corner half a block away.
The driver, also a man with black hair, but notably paler than his accomplice, covered his ears in pain.
“Ow, Timothy. Did you have to scream? I know you wanted to act like a girl, but this is ridiculous,” the man who had dragged her into the car complained.
“Who the hell is Timothy?” She couldn’t help the tremble of her lip as she fought back tears. Her voice had been strong, regardless of her internal turmoil.
“Timbers, don’t you think you’re taking the whole Caroline thing a bit too far?” the driver asked. Marinette was just glad he had put his hands on the wheel again.
“I’m not sure who you think I am, but I have never met either of you before in my life,” she tried the other door discreetly. It was also locked.
They just laughed.
It was time to fight back. She kicked the driver’s seat this time, as hard as she could.
The driver pulled over to turn around and look at her. She took the chance, and kicked him in the head as hard as she could. His head smashed into the steering wheel, and he did not get back up. One down.
She went to kick the other man, the one that had dragged her into the car, when he pulled a knife on her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Timothy?” he demanded.
“I’m not Timothy!” she screeched at him. “Let me go!”
He lowered his knife and looked at her face properly for the first time. His eyes squinted at her for a few moments before he spoke.
“…Shit.”
He stashed the knife away quickly before getting out and unlocking her door.
“I am so sorry, Miss. You looked like our brother. He was supposed to meet us there.”
“So you weren’t trying to kidnap me?”
“It was an accident, I swear. It won’t happen again.”
“So… I’m free to go?” she looked at him, imploring him to say yes.
“Yes. Yes, of course,” he replied as he stood out of her way.
She took a few paces from the car before she turned around and asked, “Is he going to be okay?”
The man turned to his accomplice and looked at him critically for a moment. “He will be fine. He has a hard head.”
She nodded once before running away, back towards Alya. It wasn’t until she reached the hospital that she wondered – why would they mistake her for their brother? The thought was driven out of her head when Alya turned around. Apparently, she had been doing a video for the blog.
“Hey gurl, where were you?”
Alya hadn’t noticed she was kidnapped.
She decided to shrug the whole thing off. “Oh, some guy thought I was someone else. They let me go when they realised I wasn’t who they were looking for,” she said as nonchalantly as she could, waving her hand to the side.
Alya’s eyes narrowed. “Let you go?”
“Oh. Hah. Yeah! Did I say that? I meant-”
“Let you GO??” Her hands went into her hair, tugging hard. “Marinette. Were you kidnapped?!”
She rubbed the back of her head, just like Adrien did. A nasty habit she had picked up from him. “Hah, hah… hah… Okay, okay,” she acquiesced to her friend. “Yes. But it was a misunderstanding!”
“That does not make it any better!” Alya sounded exasperated as she tried and failed to make Marinette see the gravity of the situation.
“What do you want me to say?” Marinette groaned, throwing her head on Alya’s shoulder.
“Something other than just dismissing it like it didn’t happen!”
In her most chipper voice she retorted, “How about something like, ‘Oou, kidnapping? How fun!’” Her arms went up to her chest as if she just couldn’t contain the excitement.
Alya punched her shoulder. Marinette tried to pretend that it didn’t hurt like hell.
~~~~
By the time Tim escaped the party, it was well past the pickup time he had arranged. Sighing, he started heading for the nearest subway point.
He had just seen the entrance when he recognized Jason’s car, parked haphazardly to the side of the road.
He opened up the back door and got in.
“Hey, thanks for waiting for me. I really didn’t think you guys would…” Then he saw what had delayed them.
Jason was slouched over the steering wheel, a rather large bruise forming on his temple. Damian was trying to rouse him.
“Uhh, what happened? Did you get in an accident?” he asked, concerned.
“Tt, that’s one way to put it,” Damian spat back, but his voice had an off tone to it. He was hiding something.
Tim looked around. The back door had a dirty footprint on it. Two more on the seats.
“Why is there a footprint on the door then?” he prompted Damian. Damian looked away, suddenly very diligent in helping revive Jason.
Then it clicked. “Wait, did you kidnap someone?” he asked incredulously. Damian hunched his shoulders a bit, avidly ignoring him now. “Oh my – you did.”
That made Damian snap. He whipped around, bringing Jason with him, which worked better at reviving him than the smelling salts had been doing. “She looked just like you! Same scrubs and everything!”
“Well yeah, I stole them from the hospital stash for when the personal ones get too dirty. Everyone there has at least a few.”
Damian glared at him.
“What happened to Timbo? He looks different now,” Jason slurred his words a bit as he revived.
“Wasn’t me, Jace.”
“Then the chick who was saying she wasn’t you… it actually wasn’t you… She was telling the truth?” They waited as his unfocused eyes started to clear up and focus again. Whatever had happened, Jason had ended up with a bad concussion.
Damian nodded as he ran through concussion checks. “Whoever she was kicked Jason in the head in an attempt to escape.” He ran his finger in front of Jason’s eyes, and he followed it, automatically following the check procedures without fuss. They all did it so often.
“Chick had a mean kick. Hit like a truck.”
“So… we’re not telling a soul about this, right?” Tim asked. He didn’t want everyone joking that he was so easily confused for some girl, voice and all.
Jason quickly added, “Hell no,” as he didn’t want to admit how easily he had been taken out by a girl easily half his size.
“Not a word,” Damian agreed. He didn’t want to admit how badly he had screwed up a mission and just about blown all of their covers.
~~~~
“Marinette!” her mother greeted her on the phone that night. “How was the costume party?”
“Costume party?” she clarified, confused.
“Yes. The one you posted pictures for!” Sabine confirmed. “I does look like such fun. A nursing theme is great.”
“Maman, I have no idea what you’re talking about. We haven’t been to any parties. I did go to the hospital…” she cringed. She had forgotten to tell her parents in the chaos of being kidnapped. She added hastily, waving the visible two stitches to the camera so she could see, cutting off the concerned sound her mother was making, “But it was just for a couple of stitches! Nothing major! Promise.”
She could hear her mother’s worry over the phone, even in silence. The look on her face over the video chat told her more than enough. She could see the moment her mother became resigned that her daughter continued to be a klutz and moved on. “So this isn’t you in the picture?”
She shook her head no. Clearly the facial recognition program had messed up, and the original poster hadn’t noticed. It looked like everyone else had been auto-tagged as well.
She chatted with her mom for a while, the thought of the picture mishap drifting from her mind.
~~~~
They were all gathered around the table for their end of night patrol reports. Babs had been working on the computer, scrubbing images from security cameras whenever they were spotted, as much as possible.
“Hey Tim, what do you want me to do with all these Caroline pictures? There's a ton of them,” she asked, pulling up a file with links to over fifty pictures tagged with Caroline Hill. Beside it was another dozen or so that were flagged with Tim Drake on it, particularly those that were close-ups. This was bad. He was being tagged while under cover?
He looked up from his report to stare at the screen, very confused. “I didn’t think they took that many at that retirement party. Just delete them.”
“Retirement party? These aren’t even taken near that. Some of these look like they’re on a train?”
Barbara was right of course. None of these photos were from the hospital. Did he have a stalker? Or rather, did Caroline?
But then he looked closer. He didn’t own clothes like that. Sure, the few outside of the hospital were the same, but the rest were pink outfits that definitely didn’t belong to their stash of costumes.
He finally had to admit, “That’s… not me.”
Damian and Jason, however, were staring at the picture in horror. It was the girl they had kidnapped.
“Wow, Tim, you sure you don’t have some long-lost relative out there?” Dick stared in amazement at the image of the woman who was being tagged as him.
“She definitely pulls off that skirt better than you ever could,” Steph joked as one of the train pictures showed the mystery girl in a short plaid pink skirt. Snickers came from several bodies around the table.
“What’s up with you three?” Duke piped in.
“Suspicious,” Cass narrowed her eyes, looking at Tim, Damian and Jason.
“Junior kidnapped her,” Jason ratted them out.
“Tt. As if you could tell the difference either,” Damian retorted. “I didn’t hear you complaining I’d gotten the wrong person!”
Tim waived his hands in surrender. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“You were late. She was right where you said you would be!” Damian defended himself.
“And the voice change didn’t give you a clue?” Tim teased.
Damian raised his voice to imitate the girl they had - kidnapped – met. “No! I thought you had finally figured out how to do a better impression. I should not have overestimated your abilities.”
Tim smacked him gently on the back of the head.
“If we are all done now?” Bruce caught all of their attention, “What exposure risk is there with this girl?”
“None. She didn’t even get our names, outside of Timothy’s. She didn’t seem to recognize any of us. Definitely not a local by the accent. It should be fine,” Damian insisted. They all knew he was having trouble admitting how much he had screwed up, but if he insisted there was no risk, there likely wasn’t. “She was just eager to leave.”
Bruce ordered, “We should still look into her, just to be sure. Damian, clean up those tags, and go find the party pictures Tim claims to have been taken. Tim, Jason, you will help him.” A punishment for screwing up.
Everyone else left, Babs handing Jason, who was closest, the laptop with a smirk, chipperly saying, “Have fun!” before exiting behind the others.
They huddled reluctantly around the consoles, looking at the ridiculous algorithm that made the error in the first place. They needed to upgrade it so that this never happened again. Tim dove into the code as Damian went about erasing the tags on all of the uploads. Jason took the name attached to the accounts that uploaded them, and began to scour the internet for their information. Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Alya Cesaire. Paris, France. On vacation by the looks of it. Everything had been fine until they reached Gotham, and the algorithm expected Tim or Caroline to be tagged based on the location.
Tim had to admit, they had a large number of markers the same. Facial construction. Eye colour. Eye shape. An extremely similar smile, despite their general lip shape being different. With the wig, it cut off most of the remaining flags the computer would have found. Close-ups tended to cut off other indicators as well. It explained how he had been flagged as himself as well.
“Timbo, are you sure you two aren’t related?” Jason asked as he looked over the facial recognition software points over Tim’s shoulder.
“I mean, it’s possible. Distant cousins or something?”
Damian, meanwhile, was staring at a picture of the girl, Marinette, smiling brightly at the camera, a view of Gotham skyline behind her. It had been flagged as Caroline. Tim was about to tease him about liking what he saw, when Jason distracted him.
“Nothing really notable coming up. Biggest thing was that Alya here was akumatized a bunch of times during the whole Hawkmoth thing a few years back. But that doesn’t really mean much, hundreds were.” Jason was still fiddling with his search. “Want me to dig up Marinette’s genealogy? See if she really is some distant cousin?”
Tim frowned as Jason didn’t wait for an answer.
“Says here Marinette was adopted…” Jason pulled up the record. “Oh, just the dad when they got married. That’s nice.” A few moments later, her birth certificate was on the screen. “Biodad unknown. So, a mystery. She still could be.”
Tim did have some family in France. It was possible. “Maybe we should just leave it, unless she comes asking for answers…” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know if he had some long-lost cousin floating around.
Jason began laughing loudly suddenly. “Chick is six years younger than you. You got mistaken for a girl Junior’s age.” He leaned forward and squished Tim’s cheeks. “Wook at the widdle baby face.”
Tim smacked his hands away as Damian laughed.
~~~~
Damian hovered outside of the hotel that he knew Marinette and her friend were in. There was no way that he was going to admit to anyone in his family that he had screwed up so badly, but the woman deserved a better apology than the crappy one he had given.
He didn’t like lose ends, and she was one.
She came out of the lobby and stopped in her tracks when she saw him. She started backing away, back into the building, when he called out, “Wait, I just wanted to apologize!”
She hesitated for a moment, before being joined by her friend. Alya Cesaire. “Mari, what’s wrong?”
“That’s- that’s the guy that…”
“The asshole who kidnapped you?” She rolled up her sleeve and started towards him.
“It really was a misunderstanding. I swear. See?” He held out a picture of Timothy that made if very clear that he had just confused them.
Marinette and Alya hovered over the photo. “Oh that’s the chick who you got tagged as!” Alya laughed. “I can see why.”
Alya’s laughter removed the tension from the group.
“What can we do for you Mister Kidnapper?” Alya prompted him.
“It’s Damian,” he corrected them with a hitch to his voice. There was no way he wanted to be called that again. “I wanted to make it up to you – both of you – if you would let me. I thought perhaps a tour of the city and lunch on me.”
The two exchanged a glance as Damian waited. “Okay,” Marinette agreed. “Since you’re actually asking before kidnapping us this time.” She and Alya laughed. Damian blushed a bit. He wasn’t entirely sure they would ever let him forget it.
After a tour through the city, hitting up two of the major parks, and a lunch in which he and Marinette talked constantly about their interests – which Damian was shocked they shared so many of after he caught her sketching at the first park – Alya got up.
“I think I’m going to go call Nino. You two have a good time without me.”
“Alya wait!” Marinette called out. “I thought you didn’t want to leave me alone with the kidnapper?” she said a bit loudly, drawing the attention of several people around them. “Heh heh… it’s a private joke?”
The people closest rolled their eyes and went back to their meal.
“I know when I’m a third wheel, Marinette. Enjoy your date.” The latter sentence had been done in a sing song voice. She called over her shoulder to Damian, “She’s Cinderella, Mister Kidnapper. Have her back by midnight, or you’ll find your nuts are shattered at the side of the road like her pumpkin coach.”
He nodded, a smirk on his face as Marinette stuttered, “It-It- I- This wasn’t a date!”
“Definitely not. It can be now though,” he did his best to attempt to channel Richard’s confidence with women. Marinette turned scarlet, but nodded.
Discreetly, he summoned the R cycle in camouflage mode. If it was just the two of them, they could get around Gotham much faster on a bike. By the time they were done eating lunch, his ‘regular’ motorcycle was sitting out front, waiting for them, and his car had returned home.
“Oh my – where is your car?” Marinette cried out. “We have to call the-”
“It’s fine. I just had it sent home. I thought we could continue on this,” he pointed out the motorcycle in it’s spot.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she mouthed the words ‘sent home.’ He hadn’t meant to scare her. He forgot how not everyone had access to the level of technology he did. Then her eyes actually trained on the motorcycle properly.
“This is yours?” she gushed. Apparently, she liked motorcycles.
He nodded, and she clambered on behind him as he passed her his helmet.
They spent the time driving along the coastline as much as possible, and went across the bridge towards Wayne manor. They crossed quickly, stopping only when they reached the top of the hill behind the Wayne property. It was really the hangar for the batplane, but when it was closed, it looked like a regular mountain. The hatch was on the backside of it, attached to the surrounding area that the Waynes owned but kept barren of development for a reason.
“Wow! It’s beautiful. I love seeing cities from above,” she said wistfully. “Like Paris from the Eiffel Tower.”
She grinned at him. He was very glad she had given him a second chance. Leaning against his bike with her, he moved towards her, deciding to test his luck.
He took one hand, placing it gently on her cheek and turning it with no resistance from her to face him.
He placed a tentative, brief kiss on her lips. When he pulled away, she was smiling. He decided he should really test his luck again.
~~~~
“How was your date?” Alya teased as Marinette appeared in their room, exactly at midnight.
“Perfect. He took me on a ride up to the mountains outside of town to see the view. Dinner was amazing!” She twirled around and flopped onto the bed, grabbing a pillow and hugging it tight to her chest. “And those kisses! Eee!” she squealed into the pillow.
“Oh no. I know that look,” Alya groaned. She had seen that look before.
Marinette always had been one to fall fast and hard.
~~~~
The whole incident was mostly forgotten by Tim. At least, until he was coming out from work two days later, dressed as Caroline once again, and Marinette was just leaving her hotel from across the street.
He couldn’t help but freeze as he saw the woman in front of him. He wasn’t sure why he insisted on it now, after demanding they all drop it, but he walked straight up to her.
“Hi, I’m-”
“Caroline! From the pictures online. And the uhh… overly enthusiastic brothers trying to take you home. Right?” He nodded. Marinette held out her hand. “Nice to meet you!”
“Heh, yeah. Sorry about them. They meant well, I swear.” He shook it.
Alya came out of the automatic doors then. “Wow, you two could be twins!” She snapped their picture and held it out to them.
Marinette ran her hand over the screen in amazement. They really could be, minus the fact that he was a good six years older than her.
“Actually, my brothers were wondering if we were related,” Tim explained lamely. “Any chance you’re related to the Drakes? We could be cousins.”
“I’m not sure. I’d have to ask my maman. She would know,” she sent out a text to her mother, asking to talk later, if possible. She did know that she had some relatives in the US. Given how much they looked alike, it was possible they had some ancestor in common.
Tim gave her his number, but she went to save it under Caroline. “Actually, uhm. My real name is Tim,” he corrected her as he whipped off the wig, pink lining his cheeks in embarrassment.
“Which pronouns do you use?” she asked as she changed the name.
“He and him. It’s just… It’s for a work thing. I don’t normally dress like this, or use that name.”
Marinette looked a bit confused at that but shrugged it off. “Oh! Okay. I wasn’t going to ask, since that’s how you introduced yourself. Your brothers called you both, so I thought you might be transitioning or questioning.”
Alya on the other hand, squinted her eyes at him. She clearly wasn’t as accepting as her friend was of Tim’s answers. He had to admit, they didn’t make any sense unless he was doing something illegal – which he was.
He needed to change the subject quickly. “Anyways, I’m really sorry to bother you. I’ll try to see what I can dig up too. Have a great day, ladies.”
~~~~
Tim called on Dana, his stepmother, that evening.
The conversation did not go as Tim had planned.
“Do you know if we have any connections to Paris at all?”
“Yeah, actually, Jack admitted to everything before we got married that he and your mom had been having a rough time. They had a major fight at one point, and he left for a while.”
“Left?” He hadn’t noticed. His parents were away for business so often…
She answered, “He had an affair while in Paris for a business deal. Some woman. I can’t remember the name. They were both horribly drunk. Your parents’ relationship went a bit sour after that when Janet found out. They went on their trip to Haiti in an attempt to rekindle their relationship…”
That trip Tim certainly remembered happening. It was when his mother had died and his father had been paralyzed.
Tim must have looked horrified, because Dana continued. “Was that… not what you were asking about?”
“Uhm. Not what I was thinking. No. I thought maybe I just had some cousins or something there… but, maybe I have a sister instead…”
He ran out of the room, thanking Dana as he left. Suddenly, he really, really needed to know. Everything was making sense. Why his parents were constantly fighting. Why his parents shut him out. Why he got the negative backlash of their issues on himself. The neglect. Why their parenting dynamics were just off compared to other happy families.
He called Marinette.
“Can I meet up with you? I just found out something important.”
“Sure, I’m just with someone right now. In an hour?”
He heard a male voice complain about cutting their night short in the background, but wasn’t close enough to be picked up by the microphone properly to make it out.
He met her in the lobby, an hour later, as planned.
After quick greetings and asking her to sit with him in a quiet part of the common area, where there were a few business desks, he got to the point. “My dad had an affair in Paris. I need to know… Are you my sister?”
“It’s possible…? My maman never did say who my father was.”
She phoned her mother, and put it on speaker for Tim to hear.
“Maman, hi.”
“Hey sweetie, what’s going on?”
“Remember that message I sent about some guy thinking we might be cousins?”
“Yes…?”
“Well…” she looked over at Tim. “He’s here right now, and he has a few questions.”
“Hello?” her mother prompted for him.
“Hi Mrs. Dupain-Cheng. My name is Tim… Drake.”
The line was silent for a while.
“Maman?”
Half a world away, Sabine Cheng was flashing back to a hazy night. Her best friend was getting married. She had celebrated hard, as hard as her other friends. Only… her night didn’t end the same as theirs. She had met a man who called himself ‘the Dragon’ or at least, that was what she had gotten from the translation. It had been a weird way to call himself Drake, and she had taken to calling him Dragon in her head all these years. She never did get his first name. She had thought Drake was just a name he wanted to hide his real name. She had been too drunk to care. She had woken up in a hotel room the following day, naked as the day she was born, and alone, and as she found out a few weeks later, pregnant. She had never seen him again. She met Tom a month later. Tom was there through the whole pregnancy with her, and they married shortly after Marinette was born in small ceremony of just family and closest friends. Tom looked at Marinette as his daughter, regardless of who her biological father was, and that was all that had ever mattered.
“Yes, dear, I’m here.”
“Is there any way Marinette and I are related?” Tim asked.
“It’s possible. Yes.”
“Really?!” Marinette asked for confirmation, excitedly. “I’m going to switch to video!”
She flipped on the camera button, and Sabine was met with the face of Tim Drake. She gasped. It was like being transported back in time. “You… you look just like him. How is he doing?”
“Oh, uhm. My dad passed away several years ago,” he explained awkwardly.
“Ah.” Sabine wasn’t sure how to take that information. She had been with him only once and never gotten his full name.
“I was thinking we could do a DNA test, just to confirm. If you guys are okay with it,” Tim hedged after both women stared at him.
“Sure!” Marinette answered. She seemed excited.
Tim went into problem solving mode. “They can actually run them over at Wayne Tech. We just have to stop by and drop off the samples. Do you want to do that now? It shouldn’t take long.”
Marinette nodded, and they said their goodbyes to Sabine, and waited for Alya. The three of them made their way over to Wayne Tech and did cheek swab samples immediately. Tim explained that they did DNA sequencing for the hospitals when they were swamped and had a license as a state facility, so whatever the results were, they could send them to their doctors if needed. Normally it would take three to five business days, but Tim had them put a rush on it since the machine wasn’t busy at the time. They would have their results by tomorrow.
Alya asked, as they were whisked ahead of everyone and not stopped for ID checks at the front gate, “Who are you exactly?” She waved her arm at all of the preferential treatment.
“When my parents died, Bruce adopted me. I’m a Wayne.”
He wasn’t sure if Alya believed him. She squinted her eyes at him as she said suspiciously, “Bruce Wayne. As in Wayne Industries, Bruce Wayne.”
“Last I checked, that’s the one.”
“Well, damn. Mari, you can keep him as your brother, even if this test comes out negative,” Alya joked.
~~~~
They had just separated from Tim when sirens went off around them. Police cruisers flew by, chasing a car. They were going to just let the police handle it, when some ridiculous looking troublemaker shoved their body half out the window… along with a bazooka. Marinette and Alya dove for cover as it missed the armoured police car and went careening towards them. A good chunk of the wall beside them went flying.
“You good?” she asked her best friend. She had taken the worst of it, and had a small gash on her shoulder from the debris.
Alya saw the blood dripping from underneath her short sleeve. “Yeah. But bitch is goin’ down.”
Marinette smirked and nodded, before handing her a very distinct bracelet. She pulled a necklace out of her bag, and put it on.
“Wayzz, shell on!” Alya commanded.
“Longg, bring the storm,” Marinette growled out.
They jumped to the rooftops, in quick pursuit of the car. Another explosion let them know which direction to go. They finally caught up, the sound of the sirens reaching their ears.
Two cars were actually racing by. The first was completely shot up. It was a wonder it was still running. The second sent out another projectile and demolished the building behind them, forcing the police cars to stop before they were crushed.
Marinette and Alya lept over the crumbling building as the two cars came to a stop.
Out clambered two women.
One had bright red hair, and a hideous looking leathery mask that almost looked like… well, like someone had ripped their skin off and bleached it. The other had the most stereotypical clown makeup Marinette had ever seen, complete with rouge in bright red circles on her cheeks, her long black hair pinned up into a high ponytail.
For a moment, they paused, watching the two women stalk towards one another. At this point, they weren’t sure who to help. Both looked like villains. Both likely were.
“Oh Duela,” the woman with the high ponytail called out in a singsong voice. “You got in my way. Putting on that demented excuse for a mask doesn’t make you as brilliant as the Joker, or his daughter. It just makes you a freak who likes to keep his old skin.”
“Who died and made you boss, Punchline?” the Joker’s Daughter spat back. “You’re just another pawn. Like the rest of us.”
Punchline dragged a crowbar across the pavement and started wailing on Duela, blood splattering around them.
“Yeah, I’ve seen enough. They’re both going down.” Marinette lept off the building, landing with a crash on the hood of Punchline’s car, destroying the hood.
Alya landed on the other car, causing similar damage, not that it needed any more.
Alya threw up her shield, forcing the women to separate. “Alright ladies, to your corners.”
Duela collapsed in pain. Alya shook her head in exasperation.
Marinette had turned into the wind, whipping the crowbar from Punchline’s hands and wedging itself into the brick building, and throwing her against a nearby wall. She stumbled forward as Marinette reintegrated.
“How’s this for a punch-line?" she called on the electricity, but kept it just in her fist, hitting Punchline smack in the face with her closed fist.
She toppled to the ground.
Sirens began to come from another direction, so the two heroes took this as their cue to leave the two unconscious villains to the proper authorities.
~~~~
A ping in the batcave alerted Oracle to yet another Bat-sighting.
She pulled up the image. Two women superheroes. One about to punch the daylights out of Punchline, her hand crackling with light and energy.
It was marked by Facegram as Red Robin.
“Yo, Red Robin,” she called out over the coms. “I thought you fixed the Facegram algorithm?”
“I did. It doesn’t tag me or her inappropriately anymore.”
“Well, I think you messed up, because this image of Dragonette clocking Punchline says otherwise.”
“What?”
Honestly, Oracle couldn’t understand how the algorithm had screwed up so badly. The suits were nothing alike. Sure, the masks hid part of their faces, and those parts showing were similar, but she had made sure that their mask shapes always tagged them. Something had messed up.
“Did you mess up the algorithm I put in for our suits?” she prompted again.
“No. I never touched it. Promise. It must be something about their suits. Didn’t Ladybug mention once that their suits messed with the mind and electronics? Quantum masking or something?”
“The more pertinent question is why are they here?” Batman’s voice came through the comms.
No one could see her as she shrugged, but the silence indicated no one else knew why either. Barbara didn’t like what the error implied: that Tim’s possible sister was a hero.
~~~~
“Hey, someone uploaded photos from yesterday!” Alya said excitedly when her phone alert pinged with a notification that one of her hero personas had been identified online. Alya pulled up the picture that clearly had them both in it.
“That’s weird. I didn’t get anything.” Marinette glanced at her phone. Nothing.
Alya pulled up the image details.
“Red Robin? Why was he tagged instead of Dragonette?”
“The person tagged Red Robin?”
“No, looks like auto-tagging has struck again,” Alya laughed.
“But wouldn’t that mean…” Marinette’s eyes went wide.
~~~~
Tim stared at the results. He had a sister. Part of him couldn’t believe it. He had immediate family again. Something of the Drake line had survived other than him.
He decided to break the news to everyone at once. He invited Marinette over to the manor, and had Alfred insist that everyone be by for dinner that night when he got a reply saying that she was busy during the day, but was free that evening.
He picked Marinette up that evening, the temptation to tell her overwhelmed him. She tried to put him at ease. She could tell he was nervous.
They entered the manor to find Damian and Bruce carrying trays out for Alfred to the table. Jason, Dick, Cass and Steph were at the table already. Duke had just walked in from the other direction, clearly returning from day patrol.
“Dami? I didn’t know you would be here!” Marinette called out. Damian placed the plate on the table and walked over to them, a smile on his face. “You said you had plans!”
“I did. Family dinner. You said you were busy as well, cherie,” he responded. “Looks as though I could have given you a ride.”
Tim looked suspiciously between Marinette and Damian. “No…”
Marinette grabbed Damian’s hand, giving him a quick peck on the lips.
“No. No! You can’t be dating my SISTER?!” he screeched. He started after Damian, ready to throw a punch. Or a knife. Marinette released Damian at the word ‘sister.’
“Really Timothy, couldn’t you have broken your news at a lower decibel?” Damian cringed as he dodged the first punch.
“You’re my brother? For real? Eee!” Marinette squealed, jumping at Tim. He barely caught her in her enthusiasm.
It did have the desired effect of ending their fight prematurely, which Alfred was likely thankful for. Marinette didn’t even seem to blink at the attempt at violence going on around her. Tim wondered momentarily if she even noticed.
He painfully realised she would fit right in, especially if Jason’s claims of her kick being as powerful as it was were true.
Dinner after that was awkward for Tim. He kept trying to get his new sister’s attention, but it kept being stolen by Damian. He felt like he was playing tug of war for something that was his. Again, Damian was taking something of his away from him.
~~~~
Marinette had been quiet all during dinner about their nightly activities. She was going to let it drop. It wasn’t really her place. But when they had given her the lamest excuses she had ever heard for trying to get rid of her, she decided to have some fun. She told them she would take a taxi back to the hotel, but instead, she sent the taxi off and teleported to the middle of the quiet bridge leading to Gotham that the Bat family was likely to take if they really were her family.
She sat as Dragonette on the top of the bridge, waiting.
She wasn’t disappointed. Five minutes later, they drove over the bridge. She turned into air and forced their vehicles to come to a stop.
When she reintegrated, she looked at her brother and her boyfriend, all dressed up, and laughed.
“What are you doing Dragonette?” Nightwing asked.
“Well, I was on vacation, but now I’m here visiting my brother.” She looked very pointedly at Tim, dressed as Red Robin as she walked towards him. “I was thinking I would stick around for a while.”
All eyes on her turned to slits as their minds tried to work through the quantum masking.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tim groaned. “Is no one in our family normal?”
Marinette laughed, and tapped Tim gently on the face. “Nope.”
She went over and kissed Robin on the cheek, leaving a very visible red lip mark on him. He looked like he was going to return it when Tim coughed loudly, and he stopped.
“Later, cherie,” he whispered, but because the comms were on, everyone heard.
Tim gagged.
Desperate for a change of topic and to delay whatever Marinette and Damian had planned for ‘later,’ he asked, “Want to patrol with me?”
“Sure!” she responded brightly. “Tortella was going to meet me in town to celebrate her new job, but I’ll have her join us too.”
Somewhere deep in the heart of Gotham, Marinette, Alya, Damian and Tim sat on a roof taking a break.
“I think I’ll stick around for a while,” Marinette said with determination. Her brother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend were all here. She owed it to herself to see what other surprises Gotham held in store for her.