Chapter Text
Marinette sighed, exhaustion seeping into her bones as Tikki gently patted her hand. “It’s just too much, Tikki- I know you said I was chosen for it, but…”
“It’s a lot to take in, Marinette,” The kwami’s wide blue eyes were piercing, “but I know you’ll come to the right decision. You’ve already done so well as Ladybug!”
Marinette bit her lip, her mind flashing back to that afternoon, in front of the Eiffel Tower. After school, Alya had accompanied her back to the bakery, and spent the whole time replaying and replaying the footage she’d found of the impromptu… speech, that Marinette had given to Hawkmoth. And Paris. And the world, because Alya had spent the next few hours finding the best footage from her speech, contacting the person who’d taken it, and getting their approval to put it on the Ladyblog, which was such a hassle that she’d grimaced at Marinette and declared, “I’m never doing this again. I’ve got to get my own footage from now on.”
And none of Marinette’s warnings and worries about her safety had gotten through her head after that.
And now, with Tikki looking up at her so earnestly- how could she make the right decision when she was so certain that the right decision would be to pass on the Miraculous to someone who could be there for Paris, who would be better able to protect them?
“I know you don’t think you can do it,” Tikki’s voice reached her as if through layers of blanket, heavy and laden with knowledge, like she’d seen this- seen everything, and already knew what Marinette would do. Maybe she did. “But I am older than you could even conceive, Marinette. And I have seen more Ladybugs than I can tell you. Can you trust that I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think you could do it?”
She took a deep breath.
“Fine. Yes. I’ll be Ladybug.”
She prayed she wouldn’t fail.
*****
She dreamed of falling that night, soaring downward without direction and no end in sight.
It did not end until her tears dried in the warm wind.
*****
Her phone woke her in the morning, the buzzing unstopping. She checked it blearily, hearing Tikki’s quiet question and batting the sound away.
“What’s going on?” She mumbled to herself, opening it to texts from Alya, all in capital letters.
THE NEWS IS SAYING ITS SOULMATES, the most recent screamed up at her, and then as she read, GIRL, MY SOULMATE IS NINO!!!!!!
She blinked at that, and then scrolled up to the previous messages, until she reached a wall of text links. She clicked one at random, to find an article saying, “Names Appear Overnight, With Little Explanation to be Found!”
She backed out of it, clicked the next with bewilderment.
“No Claim to Origin of Name Phenomenon.” Next.
“Jagged Stone Name Appearance! Could “P” Be Penny Rolling?” Next.
“‘Soulmate’ Sites Pop Up as Speculation on Names Reaches Boiling Point.”
She stared, uncomprehending. Tikki flew in front of her, looking at the phone screen.
“Oh, Marinette, wow!” Tikki buzzed around her head. “This means you’re a true Ladybug!”
“What?” Her own voice was strangled, a squeaky gasp that barely made it out. She dropped her phone back to the pillow and sat up, holding her hand out and letting Tikki alight on her palm. “What do you mean?”
“Some people are just better suited for Miraculous,” or Tikki told her, beaming, “and some people are better suited for specific Miraculous- but sometimes, there are perfect matches- and they always affect the world somehow! I’ve never seen anything like this happen, and nothing on such a worldwide scale. No matter what you think, you’re a perfect Ladybug!” The Kwami latched herself around Marinette’s neck, nuzzling in for a hug. Marinette blinked, and then reopened her phone.
She searched ‘name phenomenon’ and clicked the first result.
“Since the early hours of this morning, reports from every populace on Earth are claiming that tattooed names have showed up on people’s skin with no identified source or cause- and leading experts are baffled as to how, or perhaps more interestingly, why.”
“Through the research and early study of surveys that have been started online, the names seem to match up people up through romantic and platonic compatibility- in a poll of adults ages 17-45, almost 62% of the names were found to be people the surveyed reported to be either already in a relationship with them, close friends, or other positions in their life where they expected to, or would not mind becoming romantically or platonically involved with the name recipient. Online registries have already begun taking off, reporting that these names are an indication of your ‘soulmate’.”
There was more, but Marinette closed her phone again. Numbly, she stumbled out of her bed, down the ladder to where her mirror was, before taking off her pajamas, looking for-
She twisted, searching. Nothing on her chest or stomach, her arms were clear, and her legs didn’t have anything either, but she finally saw, in the mirror- the trailing words, stretching across her upper back, from the edge of one shoulder blade to the next.
Damian Wayne.
She stretched her arms back, to feel the words, almost expecting it to feel different, but it was just smooth. Her fingers traced as clumsily over the words as she could in the mirror, and she almost didn’t hear the telltale sounds of her father’s steps, approaching the loft. She wrestled her shirt back on as he knocked on the hatch.
“Mari?” His voice was muted through the wood. “Mari, are you up?”
“Yes, Papa,” She shouted, face turning bright red and she scrambled for the trapdoor to see him. “Good morning.”
He looked up at her, with her rumpled shirt and her red face and he sighed , a fond smile on his face. “I bet you’ve heard all about it by now, then. Why don’t you come on down for breakfast and we’ll see what we can figure out?”
She nodded, gathering herself. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
He shut the door and Marinette relaxed, looking back at her bed to see Tikki, just peeking her head above the covers. “He didn’t see me,” she said brightly. “So, do you know who it is?”
Marinette covered her face, trying desperately not to let the blush peek out. She wasn’t even sure why she was blushing! It was just a name, and yet, she wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it. Tikki had said not even Chat Noir could know who she was, and he was her partner! She didn’t even know any Damians, or any Waynes, and if she was going to be Ladybug, should she really seek them out, if she’d have to hide part of herself from them?
“No,” she said instead of letting that cloud of worries deluge out of her mouth. “No, I don’t know who he is.”
And I don’t want to, her brain finished for her. I don’t want to find out yet.
She got dressed instead of confronting that thought, treating her choice of shirt as if it were the only thing that mattered in her mind, drowning out the occasional buzz of her phone from Alya, and then grabbing it and turning it to silent as she slipped it in her pocket.
And then she turned back to Tikki. “Will my purse work again?”
“Just make sure you sneak me some cookies,” Tikki teased, and as small as it was, and as much as her life had turned into some ridiculous fantastical dream, it made Marinette feel a bit better to have the Kwami of creation on her side, smiling and teasing her.
*****
Damian woke up to the feeling of being watched. It was not unfamiliar, given both how he had been raised with his mother and also the unfortunate abilities trained into the group his father had inadvertently and advertently tethered together. The unfamiliar part, even now, was that in this room, with this particular presence, Damian had felt safe enough that he hadn’t woken up alarmed and ready to fight.
“Is there a reason you chose to stand and watch me sleep, or are you just here for the thrill of my company this morning,” He let himself grumble. Dick leaned over him with a grin and poked his forehead. Damian swatted his hand away, and never one to censor his thoughts, said, “Are you stupider this morning or simply resisting the stupidity less?”
“You’ll never guess what happened last night.” Dick said, as if that answered any of his questions.
“You are correct,” Damian pushed him back further, sitting up and getting out of bed. “I’m not guessing.”
He made it halfway out of his room before Dick stopped making affronted noises and followed. “The whole world woke up with tattoos. Bruce’s already heading to confer with the League on why or how this happened.”
The answer actually threw Damian. “Tattoos?” He looked down at his hands, checking the exposed skin and seeing nothing.
“Names.” Dick said, hand idly moving to the neck of his shirt, before dropping. “Bruce and I both have one, at least, and I figured I should probably warn you so you wouldn’t have to figure out what was happening on your own.”
It was a fair bet to guess that whatever name Grayson had, it was hiding near his collarbone, Damian thought. “And what do we know already?”
“The news is running stories on it like it’s a matching system for dating,” Dick grimaced. “Which, to be fair, it kind of seems like it is.”
“Stop rubbing it, it’s a dead giveaway,” Damian finally said, rolling his eyes. “I couldn't care less about what it is or why it happened until we figure out how someone managed it, or what their intentions are.”
He refused to acknowledge the sudden bright question in his mind of where or what the name on his skin somewhere was. It was much more concerning that some sort of magic had affected the whole world, without any immediate cause to be found.
“You sound just like Bruce,” Dick rolled his eyes in return, stepping around him and out of the room. “Well, you can rest easy at least for now. We’re pretty sure there's nothing wrong with the tattoos themselves, it’s just how they showed up that’s stumping everyone.”
“I’ll evaluate the situation myself, thanks,” Damian said wryly, and then he closed the door, leaving Dick out in the hall, making more affronted noises.
He told himself it was reasonable to need to see what had happened to him, and not just unbridled curiosity that had him changing immediately, eyes scanning his mirror for anything out of place. It wasn’t difficult to spot- the second he’d lifted his shirt he could see the delicate black lines scrawling across the left side of his ribs, just below his heart.
Marinette Regina Dupain-Cheng.
He memorized it quickly and covered it up the second he could force himself to, the name echoing in his mind. Marinette Regina Dupain-Cheng. Marinette.
He’d wait to hear what Father discovered before he did anything about it. For the moment, knowing the name that had been stuck to his skin was enough to soothe the uncertainties this situation had forced upon him.
*****
Marinette groaned as her parent’s muffled whispers reached her. “Maman, Papa? What’s for breakfast?”
“Come here, Baobei,” Maman called, and Marinette gave her a kiss on the cheek as she came into the kitchen. “We wanted to let you sleep in a bit longer, but it’s just truly bewildering, isn’t it?”
Of course, her parents had been up since five, to start the bake and open the storefront. They’d known for hours now, and it had apparently lessened the shock a bit.
“I just don’t get it,” Marinette said, honestly, her mind swimming. “It has to be magic, right?”
She didn’t want to lie to them. But she couldn’t tell them she was Ladybug and that it was her fault! If she watched her words, she wouldn’t have to be dishonest… technically.
“Nadja posited that it was Ladybug in her morning show,” Papa said, and Marinette shrunk further into her seat.
“I don’t particularly care why right now,” Maman gave Marinette an affectionate kiss on her forehead as she set a plate down in front of her, and Marinette couldn’t help but lean into the gesture. “We wanted to be the first to let you know, but I suppose your friends must have texted you.”
“It was Alya,” Marinette admitted, fingers tearing nervously into a croissant.
“We want you to know that nothing’s going to change,” Papa said, and Marinette felt her heart jump.
“Why would they?” She asked, aware of how her voice rose higher. “What’s gonna change?”
“Nothing!” Maman assured her, smacking Papa on the shoulder. “Your father said it oddly, but we really do mean that. Whatever the world decides to do with whatever knowledge this is, we want you to know that we have your back. We’ve already seen some of the arguments that have started over whether people should show their names or hide them, or give them out-“
“I had to kick out that couple at seven,” Papa grumbled, crossing his arms.
“-but we wanted you to be able to make your own decision, and to know that we’d stick by you.” Maman finished.
It made sense, and the sweetness of her parents made her tear up, her fingers finally pausing in their annihilation of the croissant. “I don’t know if I want to do anything about the name right now. Alya seems so excited, but it’s just so sudden and new-“
“Then you wait, and you make your decision when you feel comfortable,” Papa said softly, grabbing her hand, letting her drum her fingers nervously against the inside of his palm. “Nobody is going to make you feel uncomfortable, whether they want to know about the name or whether they’re the person with that name. We love you, honey.”
“I love you too,” She smiled gratefully at them. “I’ll take my time with it, and I’ll let you know when I decide.”
She felt a soft, comforting nudge against her side, and rested her hand lightly on her purse, as if trying to say the same to Tikki.