She's Sunshine, She's Grace, She'll Punch You in the Face

Chapter 68: Distracted by Grace

Marinette felt like she was walking on air while she was on her way to the training room with Damian. Her grin never left her face ever since she found out the truth about Damian being her soulmate.

"Who would have though that Plagg of all people would be the barer of such wonderful news? Everything makes so much more sense now." Marinette looked up at her soulmate.

"I know." Damian looked down at the ring on his finger. "If you would have told me a month ago that I would be gladly accepting a ring from a girl that I met just a few weeks ago, I would have admitted you straight to Arkham for being clinically insane."

"When you put it like that, yeah." The bluenette giggled. "But it's not that kind of ring. I am sorry that you have to deal with Plagg though. He will make your room smell like cheese."

"A small price to pay when you find your soulmate." He grinned as the two finally made their way into the training room.

"Hey, Marinette." Dick smiled when he saw the couple enter. "You ready for some one on one training?"

"You bet." She finally let go of Damian's hand to stand in front of Dick. "What do you have planned today?"

"I know you want to use the trapeze but I think we will save that for last. I think we should do a bit of gymnastics to start out with after we finish out stretches and maybe a little bit of training with my weapon of choice. How does that sound?" He smiled at her giddiness.

"Sounds great! I'm ready whenever you are." Marinette began to stretch.

"I am loving your enthusiasm, Marinette." Dick followed suit with the warm up stretches.

While they were warming up, the rest of the family slowly made their way into the training room as well. Soon enough, Dick made his way over to the balance beams with Marinette in tow.

"You ever use one of these?" Dick asks.

"No, but I have had to balance on small spaces before." She stared at the waist high beams.

"Good." Dick jumped his way onto the farthest beam and looked down at her. "You think you can follow my movements?"

"I can try." She nodded as she hopped onto the beam next to his.

She walked up and down the beam and had no trouble when it came to her balance. Smiling, she looked back over to Dick.

"I'm ready." Marinette made her way to the same side of the beam as he was on his so she could try to mirror his movements.

Marinette watched as Dick held hid hands behind his back and faced himself parallel to the bar. She mirrored his movements the best she could as he effortlessly did a font flip and landed perfectly on one leg.

"Back straight and chest out when you land." He smiled over at her.

Nodding, she corrected her position as she mirrored the same move he did again.

It didn't take her very long to really figure out how to work on the balance beams. Within five minutes, she was already masterfully mimicking every move Dick makes, even jumping from beam to beam with graceful precision.

"It's like dancing." She smiled at Dick as she finally understood the pattern he was making with his movements. "Only not on solid ground."

Hearing the word "dancing" caused Damian to stop his work on the speed bag to look over at Marinette. He admits that he never really cared to watch Dick when he would work with the gymnastics equipment but watching Marinette was a completely different story. There were those graceful movements he always loved to see coming from her. He hadn't realized he was staring until someone cleared their throat beside him.

"Aren't you supposed to be training, Damian?" Bruce stared at his son. "Or did you forget where you were?"

Damian looked up at his father for a moment before turning his attention back to the speed bag. "I did not forget."

"Try to stay focused." Bruce walked away with a smile on his face that his son could not see.

Dick and Marinette finally finished with the balance beams and were now at the uneven bars.

Marinette found that she liked these much better than the balance beams because they gave her more of a feeling of freedom. Anything that let her fly through the air, even for only a short moment, was much more exhilarating to her. Dick only had to give her a few pointers here and there but otherwise, it came pretty natural to her.

Damian kept finding himself staring at the bluenette and he had to quickly scold himself for slacking on his training duties. Bruce watched his sons inner struggle and couldn't help but to smile at how hard he was really trying to concentrate. Even Tim and Jason would catch him staring at the young girl and chuckle.

Damian didn't fully snap out of it until Dick and Marinette made their way to the mats in the center of the room to do weapons training with Dick's practice Escrima sticks. He found that it was easier to focus at the task at hand when she wasn't working with equipment that required such grace.

"These remind me of the Black Cats miraculous weapon. It's technically a staff but it can be split into two parts just like this." Marinette held the sticks in her hand as she explained this to Dick. "I had to wear the Back Cats miraculous a few times so I don't think I'll be completely new at this."

"Well these are only my practice ones but my real ones are of course electrocuted." Dick stepped back to give her some space. "Show me your stance."

Marinette held them firmly in each hand and squared her shoulders, bringing her feet apart for better balance.

"Don't hold onto them too far onto the bottom or too close to the middle." Dick stepped forward to readjust how she held the weapons. "You need to hold onto them here for the best control."

"Okay." She nodded.

"Remember to not prioritize one over the other. They work the best as a pair but could always be useful alone if you were to lose one or the other. Obviously try not to do that but you catch my drift." He smiled at her as he backed up. "You ready to give them a whirl?"

"Am I sparring against you?"

"Yep." Dick got into his own stance.

"Weaponless?" She raised her eyebrow.

"Yes." He chuckled.

"You don't even want to try out my yoyo?"

"Maybe you can teach me how to use that at a later date. Let's focus on my weapon first." He smiled.

"Okay then. I'm ready."