Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

[Taken from Marinette Dupain-Cheng's official Instagram, @mdc]

[Her Instagram Story, posted on 12 April 2025, is a small message to her followers. The English translation of her post reads:

"Hello everyone! Just a quick note: I will be out of the country for a month. During this time, I won’t be able to respond to or process any commission requests sent through my website or email after today. 

I will be sure to get back to all inquiries as soon as I return.

Thank you so much for your patience and understanding – and as always, for your incredible support!

Be back soon!"]

[The post, dated April 14, 2025, is a collection of ten pictures taken by Marinette Dupain-Cheng. From the photo-dump, the English translation of her post reading "the showers of April", there is no other information of her whereabouts past the locations and place markers that could be identified in her pictures.

However, the last picture (a capture of the scenery outside of a plane's window), seems to indicate that she either is currently travelling to somewhere by plane, or had travelled somewhere by plane before or during April 14. This picture is also tagged with the handle @waynecorp.

A few replies to her post, translated in English:

• @couffaine: travel safely DC ~
• @umiverse: one thing about mdc? she's going to be at an art museum
• @marcanciel: I hope you have fun!/Have fun!
• @kagamitsurugi: be careful/stay safe]

[Taken from Marinette Dupain-Cheng's private Instagram, @maridc]

[Her Instagram Stories seem to chronicle the miscellaneous events of her day on Saturday April 13, 2025 (early morning shopping, a video of her walking through the streets of Paris, and a collage of images including her with suitcases), before indicating that she has taken a flight out of France.

On the last post of her stories, the English translation reads: " after a nine hour flight, we finally landed in America for the Wayne Enterprises student conference. I can’t wait to see what’s in store! now time to sleep for a million years"]

[Taken from the Official Collège Françoise Dupont's Twitter, @CFDP_Officiel]

[The English translation of the tweet reads:

"Today, we send off several of our Lycée students for an inspirational experience at the @WayneEnterprises Student Conference in Gotham City, America.

We hope you all have fun, take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities and come back home safe!"]

[Select Instagram stories from the students of Madame Bustier's class, which capture the course of their respective time on April 13th 2019, the day of their class trip to Gotham City]

[Taken from Alix's Instagram, she posted a picture indicating her outing spent with Marinette, Kim and Max, her being at Collège Françoise Dupont despite it being a weekend, and her in the airport awaiting her luggage. The English translations of her stories reads:

• "it's boba time!"
• "going to school on a Saturday is crazy....."
• "save us from baggage claim hell" ]

[From Kim's Instagram stories, he posted the boba menu during his outing with Marinette, Alix and Max, a gift of red bean paste steamed buns made from the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie, and him walking through the airport. The English translations of his stories reads:

• "choices choices..."
• "the love of my life, dòu shā bāo", "thanks to my third pair of parents @tomandsabine" and "and @maridc too I suppose"

[Alya's Instagram stories captured her cafe date with Lila (@theelilarossi), as well as her time in one of the airport food outlets and on the plane. The English translations of her stories reads:

• "the matcha and coffee duo"
  
• "obligatory treat of the day!"
  

[Nino's sparse Instagram account, captured a video of him riding a luggage cart throughout the Aéroport de Paris-Charles de Gaulle (Charles de Gaulle Airport), while another classmate films him. The second Instagram story is a picture of Alya, confirming that they both are in the same location at the airport.]

[Lila's Instagram story capture an aesthetic look outside of a plane window, indicating that she is currently travelling to somewhere by plane. The picture's caption reads "here we go again"

Monday, April 15^th — Wayne Enterprises, Gotham City, New Jersey.
10:30 am.

Truly, it had been the picture perfect occasion. 

Wayne Enterprises announced that it would, once again, be holding the annual tours of its different departments and buildings for high-school children, in a attempt to "broaden the technological, artistic and medical horizons within the younger generation." It was a hope that the experiences would inspire some of these children to work under the company one day, and to further the research and development within the various industries. The tours would have a student seminar, admission plans should they want to apply for internships after they graduate, and note that scholarships and grants through the Martha Wayne Foundation would be offered if the school continued to implement any of the organization's small-scale projects. All high-schools were eligible, both nation-wide and internationally. 

Subsequently, the announcement had made its way to one Marinette Dupain-Cheng, who, in the midst of indecision in choosing at least five possible destination options for their school-sanctioned class outing, decided that this would be a great experience for her class after reading more into the news. She brought it up with her teacher, Madame Bustier, who similarly preferred this option more than the other four. Still, not only were the other options just as beneficial and not in a city as...dangerous, they were also not the deciding factor. 

However, presenting the details of all the possible choices to the school's administration led to them deciding that Wayne Enterprises Students' Conference would be a great experience for the school — the best out of all of them, in fact. And it was the interest of the administration that this could be something that all classes from Collège Françoise Dupont would eventually partake it in the future. Monsieur Damocles especially was keen on his school participating, even if it would just be one class. 

So Marinette, together with Madame Bustier, had sent in an application for a full fledged touring of all Wayne Enterprises buildings, while also planning for the other four options as back-ups should this application fall through. And, out of the thousands that applied, Collège Françoise Dupont was one of the schools in the batch that had been selected for the first half of this year.

Numerous multimedia houses under Wayne Entertainment, and those who were not, were allowed to capture the opening ceremony and the opening speech by Bruce Wayne, C.E.O. of Wayne Enterprises himself. Outlets such as The Gotham Gazette, The Central City Citizen and The Daily Planet questioned the billionaire on his passion for this venture, and the opening was recorded to be broadcast later that evening.

Afterwards, Mr. Wayne had gone around the auditorium exchanging pleasantries with the teachers of a few of the touring classes. One of his main interpreters for the day managed to keep up with the whirlwind of attention, concisely relaying the gratitudes spoken by the adults of diverse backgrounds where Bruce (pretended to) end up falling short. As they move more into the center, Bruce catches another one of his interpreters speaking with  what seems to be another teacher, who had a student beside her. He recognizes the interpreter; he was selected due to their fluency in a few French dialects, particularly Parisian French — so the woman they were speaking to was either the touring class from Paris or Quebec.

The male interpreter locks eyes with him, and then smiles down at the two, saying something that he cannot catch but clearly gesturing towards him.

Bruce, instantly recognizing that he was going to be engaged in conversation once more, dons a genial smile, calling out a greeting to the man. The teacher and her student quickly turn around, stilling at his appearance.

"Mister Wayne," The other man greets. "We were just talking about you. Allow me to introduce Mrs. Caline Bustier, and one of her students Miss Marinette Dupain-Cheng. They're from the Parisian school — Collège Françoise Dupont."

Ah, yes. The head of the committee overseeing the applicant submissions had mentioned that this batch of schools had several significantly accomplished students in comparison to past winners. In particular, she had made reference to the winning essay of Collège Françoise Dupont, which had touched on the diverse creative, academic and athletic talent and achievements of the students within Madame Bustier's class, making them seem less like a list of teenagers and more like a portfolio on the school's notable alumni. A couple of students were members of a relatively popular young music group in France. There was a student who, aside from her growing work in theater, was an activist that had launched a column which touched on French teen culture and social issues. There were a few models, one of them being the son of Gabriel Agreste. A student of the class had a remarkable mathematical aptitude, and had created an actual AI at fifteen years old, and he and another student had won the ITER prize as a team for the best engineering project. One of the students was an aspiring journalist, whose blog had gained online traction for its detail-oriented tracking and commentary of the happenings in Paris (of what specifically, he had no idea).

There were also several artists, athletes, and budding directors. One student had produced a short student film that had earned him a nomination at a European youth film festival. Another had participated in the European Junior Swimming Championships. Another had been the finalist in a national art competition, and was interning with another student (outside of their class) under a French cartoonist.

(If he went on any further, we'd be here all day.)

The author of the application and the class's appointed president herself, Miss Dupain-Cheng, was even a fashion designer. Sure, not in the same way most may consider someone as a fashion designer (with their own multinational fashion houses), but after hearing about her work, Bruce believed that she certainly seemed capable of such. According to the dossier provided by the committee, Miss Dupain-Cheng’s fashion work extended beyond simple sketches and school projects. She had independently maintained an online boutique under a pseudonym, which reportedly had a modest but dedicated following. Several of her designs had been featured in independent fashion blogs, and had gotten her recognized by a few top designers. The committee's head had also name-dropped Jagged Stone of all people; Miss Dupain-Cheng had apparently custom-designed pieces for live performances and red-carpet events for the man.

And, as Bruce eyes the young Miss Dupain-Cheng — barely five-foot-something, polite, eyes bright with curiosity — Bruce understood why the committee had chosen the class. It was clear that the environment fostered at Collège Françoise Dupont encouraged not just academic excellence, but a truly unique kind of talent and ambition. And even if the school wasn't responsible for any of it, that didn't take away from the circumstances. These students had impressive portfolios for their ages, and he found himself wondering how far they could all go, given more opportunities. As Miss Dupain-Cheng wrote in the essay, they were all being guided to continue learning and improving themselves, and were hoping to use this experience to turn their ambitions into something much more tangible.

The teacher, Madame Bustier, clears her throat to address him. ""Oh, Monsieur Wayne. Merci beaucoup pour l'opportunité de visiter Wayne Enterprises. C'est vraiment un honneur." 

His interpreter relays for him, a polite smile on her face as she translates, Thank you very much for the opportunity to visit Wayne Enterprises. It really is an honor.

Bruce extends a hand for her to shake, "A pleasure to meet you both. And think nothing of it. I'm glad that you found the opportunity inviting."

Madame Bustier smiles after his interpreter repeats what he said. "Nous n'aurions jamais su s'il n'y avait pas eu mon élève ici." She nudges the young girl forward. "Elle a vu l'annonce et a été le principal contributeur à l'application." We would never have known if there had not been my student here. She saw the announcement and was the main contributor to the application.

The student immediately becomes alarmed at being put under his direct attention, and casts her teacher a pleading look for a split-second. He couldn't help but smile, and the girl attempts to compose herself.

"Thank you very much for allowing us to tour Wayne Enterprises." Despite the two French interpreters present with them, she had made a decision to attempt speaking in English. Bruce admired the effort, because she had clearly practiced when she hadn't needed to, and it sounded perfect.

"Thank you for showcasing an interest." He extends his hand for her to shake. "Miss Dupain-Cheng, I looked over your application myself and I was impressed with the accomplishments you and your class have achieved. Aside from your own personal endeavors, the numerous fundraisers, the environmental projects in partnerships with Eco-Schools and the UN's integration of Environmental education with French schools...it truly is good to know that young people such as yourself are being proactive."

The words seem to have unsettled her, given that she most likely hadn't learnt that much English, and her teacher had simply settled for nodding politely and smiling. The interpreter quickly explains, and their looks of confusion shifted to understanding.

"Ah, Marinette est l’un des leaders de l’école. Elle est très assidue et a supervisé plusieurs de ces projets pour notre classe. Je dirais qu'elle a inspiré cette attitude proactive chez mes étudiants." The teacher replies, the girl looking flustered once more. The translator transcribes, Ah, Marinette is one of the leaders of the school. She is very diligent and has supervised many of these projects for our class. I would say that she has inspired this proactive attitude in my students. 

"Non — je veux dire — no...non?" She mumbles to herself in French for a moment, and he casts a look towards the amused interpreter behind the two.

"She's trying to say refute what her teacher said in English."

Bruce chuckles, "There's no need for that, Miss Dupain-Cheng." She promptly brought her head up, and the translator quickly relayes what he said. "Like I said, it's good to know that someone as young as you is taking charge of situations like this. You hadn't detailed that you were in charge however, how modest of you."

After hearing the interpreter, Miss Bustier pats her student's head. "Marinette a toujours été modeste de ses propres réalisations." Marinette has always been modest about her own achievements.

The young girl bashfully smiles up at him. "Ce n'était vraiment pas grand chose." It really wasn't much. 

They spoke a bit more until they went their separate ways: Bruce, having gotten a call concerning a matter on Floor twenty-three, and Marinette back towards the tour guides with the rest of her classmates and Madame Bustier. It was a fleeting moment really, as Marinette probably would've only remembered the conversation due to prompting from one of her classmates who happened to see. Bruce might've remembered the day after when his employees reminded him that the French class would be one of the schools exploring the Wayne Research Institute, but then would have forgotten about it.

Neither of the two had thought that the media invited there would be a concerning issue, given that the Students' Conference had be televised and captured for years now, and the building's security and protocols concerning the media had remained as strict and steadfast as they had always been. And neither of them would have even conceived that one Michael Keaton, an interning employee for The Daily Informant, would have found their exchange intriguing. And compelling. And most of all, reportable. 

And therefore, as any reputable investigative journalist ready for a big scoop would, he caught the entire exchange on camera.

And the story on the newspaper's website less than two hours after, would depict multiple high-definition pictures in colour of Bruce Wayne smiling down warmly at a black-haired girl with blue eyes, with her smiling up at him bashfully. And the story attached to them would read as follows:

News · Culture

Not So Secret Daughter? 
By Michael Keaton
The Daily Informant
PUBLISHED: April 15, 2019 at 5:00 p.m.

GOTHAM — Numerous reports of Billionaire Bruce Wayne acquiring another child seem to have some truth to them!

While the ever-private philanthropist and CEO of Wayne Enterprises has yet to release an official statement regarding the alleged addition to his family, the Daily Informant has obtained exclusive candid photographs that suggest there may indeed be a new Wayne — a young daughter.

[pictures: Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, is seen speaking with a young girl during the proceedings of the Wayne Enterprises Students' Conference.  Photo Credit: Michael Keaton]

During his appearance at the Wayne Enterprises Students' Conference earlier today — an annual event designed to connect prospective students with career professionals and opportunities across the company’s diverse industries — Mr. Wayne was seen engaging with with many of its attendees, specifically the invited student winners. And while its not uncommon for the CEO to do so in his philanthropic outreach, eyewitnesses noted something different about his interaction with one student in particular.

Though brief, due to the high publicity at the event, observes noted Wayne to be noticeably warmer than usual — not the distinguished, corporate leader of Wayne Enterprises, or suave socialite host of Gotham City's lavish galas, but something more akin to a father. His words and compliments toward the girl, while on the surface motivational, carried a familiarity and pride reminiscent of when he speaks to and of his known children — Richard Grayson, Tim Drake, and others. The girl — who has yet to be identified — responded with shy delight and looked as embarrassingly-pleased as one could be, genuinely moved by the attention, as though the praise were coming from someone more personal to her, rather than a famous philanthropist.

The unknown student  is the personification of previous report descriptors concerning the existence of Wayne's secret daughter, and bears the common attributes of the most of the Wayne family children — black hair and striking blue eyes — though her distinct French accent and East-Asian features suggest a multicultural background. Her presence likely indicates that she comes from the same ancestral circumstances as Damian Wayne, Bruce’s confirmed biological son, being mixed-race and likely being raised somewhere else. Sources speculate that she may have been born and raised in Paris, a French-administered territory, or a country where French is the/an official language.

While no official comment has been made regarding her identity or connection to Mr. Wayne, the visual and behavioral cues from today’s event strongly support growing claims that Gotham’s most enigmatic patriarch may have indeed  welcomed a new daughter into his life. While it may take a while before he truly introduces her to the Gotham public, if we could get anything from these pictures, we hope that we'll be seeing a lot more of their heartwarming relationship in the future.

For now, we can certainly say that Gotham’s most elusive bachelor continues to surprise us all, one child at a time.

Stay with The Daily Informant for updates as this story develops.

This report would prove to be tumultuous. Because while this newspaper company didn't have the credentials of The Gotham Gazette, or any other Wayne Enterprises recognized media house, it had an advantage: the ability to play into the public's invasive curiosity. While crime and destruction constantly played on Gotham's televisions, or reported in their newspapers, there would be additions to help brighten the bleak outlook. And while their company had been trying to play the games of other newspaper outlets, without much luck, they had finally found a better target audience: an audience who thrived off of their personal entitlement to people's private lives. The secrecy surrounding Bruce Wayne's personal life was something this public constantly wanted to know, and, if Michael updated quick enough, would be satisfied until the next surge of interest. 

And as fate would have it, all the other celebrities that one could usually count on to produce something scandalous to report on must've gone on holiday; there were no surprise pregnancies, no side eyeing-ly sudden romances between a prominent actor or actress and their much younger partner, no politicians with their governmental or presidential campaigns being rocked by a pearl-clutching cheating scandal. There was nothing to take the spotlight off of this.

So, of course, the unexpected story of Bruce Wayne's fifth previously-unknown child was additionally taken up by other news outlets. Editors began to scramble in earnest from their company's fear of missing out on the action. Previous photos and articles first identifying the existence of this newest child were pulled from the archives. Bruce's familial history and travelling itinerary within the last twenty years were unearthed yet again, possible adoption facilitators tracked down and questioned for any details that could shed some light on this.

The name and birth place of this young girl was searched for, her birth mother was identified, a timeline of when she could have possibly been conceived was developed, and a nickname was affectionately bestowed to the young girl. All in the matter of an evening.

And all while the two subjects were none the wiser.

(1) Originally, I had been using this wonderful Instagram post mockup for Marinette's Instagram post. However, the images I kept inputting kept disappearing on me (which is a problem on my end, not a problem with @gadaursan's coding). So, I ended up switching to this Instagram post generator for it.

(2) Marinette's Instagram stories were achieved through Canva, by looking real hard at actual Instagram stories on the app and a lot of trial and error in implementing elements. I did initially attempt it for fun so.

(3) The pictures used for the classmates are only used for realism/as representative pictures and are taken from Pinterest, but here some more info:

• XIBOBA in Marinette, Alix and Kim's stories is an actual place (a Taiwanese style boba brand) but it's in Indonesia. Let's pretend that they opened up a branch in Paris.
• The picture of The Lycée Carnot (in-verse Collège Françoise Dupont) in Alix's story is taken from this page from Hibikore-Eiffel, a blog managed by a Japanese descendant of the Eiffel Tower's creator, Gustave Eiffel.
• The girl in Alya's profile picture and story is actress Laya DeLeon Hayes, from the "The Equalizer" with Queen Latifah. She's also one of the voice actresses of Doc McStuffins.
• Air France does provide flights from Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) to New Jersey, which is why a picture showing the airline's name was used instead of an ambiguous picture.
• Nino having an Instagram was born from my memory of way back when the mains of the Miraculous! cast all had Instagrams except for Nino. I remember people consistently asking the Miraculous staff for him to get one, to the point where the staff had Alya starting the hashtag #ninoneedsaninstagram. He never did get one, so I'm giving him one here. In this story's canon, he finally caves to making an Instagram account due to Alya begging for him to get one, and he miraculously managed to land the username @lahiffe. His account is sparse, mostly posting on his stories, but he usually posts about films, his directing, the festivals he goes to, and his DJ gigs.

(4) If you weren't able to catch which specific student/students were being referenced in Bruce's recollection of the class's achievements:

• "A couple of students were members of a relatively popular young music group in France." - The members of Kitty Section

• "There was a student who, aside from her growing work in theater, was an activist that had launched a column which touched on French teen culture and social issues." - Mylène

• "There were a few models, one of them being the son of Gabriel Agreste." - Adrien obviously, but also Juleka and Lila.

• "A student of the class had a remarkable mathematical aptitude, and had created an actual AI at fifteen years old, and he and another student had won the ITER prize as a team for the best engineering project." - Max and Alix, as she supposedly wants to be an engineer in the future. I haven't definitively decided what career path Alix would be taking, but she dabbles in sport, art and engineering. ITER is the world's largest nuclear fusion research and engineering project, and they would've participated in the Olympiades des Sciences de l’Ingénieur, which allows students to develop and present projects within the engineering sciences.

• "One of the students was an aspiring journalist, whose blog had gained online traction for its detail-oriented tracking and commentary of the happenings in Paris (of what specifically, he had no idea)." - Alya

• "One student had produced a short student film that had earned him a nomination at a European youth film festival." - Nino

• "Another had participated in the European Junior Swimming Championships." - Kim

• "Another had been the finalist in a national art competition, and was interning with another student (outside of their class) under a French cartoonist." - Nathaniel, with the other student being Marc.