Fate or Chance

Plans and dates

Bruce wasn't sure what he was expecting when Marinette Dupain-Cheng handed him a USB that she said would explain the situation in Paris, but ultimately he wasn't expecting...this.

It was terrifying to think of the impact this particular villain had and what would have happened if the miraculous team hadn't stopped her before she left Paris.

Mothers Wrath's punishers and seekers had been relentless and the people of the city of lights had spent an entire week hiding in fear and trepidation. There hadn't been many fatalities, in fact only one, but the crudity of the punishers' actions were frankly horrifying.

Bruce didn't know which was worse, the fact that all the terror Mothers Wrath spread with her warriors was in fact the result of a villain taking control of three innocent civilians who only wanted to protect their daughters, or the fact that the only fatality was one of the original heroes.

Looking around, he noticed that the rest of his family felt the same way he did, horrified by the extent of the Paris villain's powers and furious that unsupervised children were their only line of defense and that the Justice League had not answered the call.

"How the hell did we let this get past us?!" Jason angrily demanded, pounding the table.

"Bruce! We have to help!" Dick exclaimed, sounding a little calmer, but to those who knew him it was obvious he was holding back.

"That was horrible! And the women he manipulated were civilians!" exclaimed Duke, sounding concerned, "Can you imagine if that madman ever allied himself with someone like the Joker?"

"Thanks, Duke, that mental image is going to give me nightmares until New Year's" complained Stephanie.

"Not good, not good at all" said Cassandra staring at the screen.

"On the one hand, I'm surprised that whoever Ladybug is working with has been able to hide all the recordings of this disaster, on the other hand I wonder how Marinette Dupain-Cheng has access to the only copy," said Tim as he watched the USB with a mixture of terror and fascination.

"You better not be insinuating that Ma.... Dupain-Cheng is working with Hawkmoth, we've already dismissed that theory." Damian threatened.

"Ok, let's calm down a little bit, first of all, I think Ladybug knew that Marinette had chances to meet us in Gotham, maybe she gave her this as a proof that they need support." Barbara said in a conciliatory tone "Secondly, probably the best person to hide that information was Marinette, remember that her own mother was part of the Akuma that caused the most damage to Paris. Also, this was listed as the most important Akuma since Hawkmoth's first attack."

"Babs is right, poor girl, her mother apparently just wanted to protect her and ended up causing a siege to the city - said Dick with a compassionate voice."

"I have a question, why was this "Akuma" the most important one?" asked Duke confused "I mean, from what we have seen there was only one casualty, but other akumas have a high casualty count."

"They killed the faith of the people of Paris" said Alfred, who spoke for the first time in the night. From the moment he watched the recording of Mothers Wrath's attack, Alfred had been silent, he had tensed up when Mayura appeared, but said nothing until that moment "Until that moment, the people of Paris saw Ladybug as invincible, but it took her more than a week to beat that Akuma and she lost her original partner."

Everyone started to argue about what to do, while Bruce remained silent. Alfred seemed particularly affected by the whole mess.

"Alfred, are you all right?" asked Bruce gaining everyone's attention "Something seems to be bothering you."