Maribat Oneshots - A little salt

53. Masked Gala - Part 1

-- Marinette Background Narration --Marinette was a petite, blue-eyed girl with midnight blue hair. She lived in Paris with her parents who had a patissiere. At 13 she became Ladybug, protector of Paris, alongside her feline partner Chat Noir. Chat and Ladybug were soulmates, but not the romantic kind, no. They were best friends, siblings, not just in the suit but outside of it too. By 16 they revealed their identities to each other which only made them get closer. By the time they were 18 they practically lived at each other's places. Sabine, Tom and Natalie got so used to both of them crashing at each other's places, if either of them wasn't in their rooms then their parents automatically assumed they were at the other one's place. Most days when their respective parents/ guardians came to wake them up they found the two of them sprawled across the bed.

Half the class was still under Lila's web of lies and the other half had broken out of the trance and were on Marinette's side. Adrien had thrown the high road idea out of the window when he saw Marinette crying in the corner of an empty classroom and fighting off an akuma who had approached, it was then he realised how much this was hurting people around Lila. He apologised to Marinette and helped her against Lila, by being her alibi when Lila would accuse her and standing up for her when the class tried to hurt her or get her in trouble. Lila wouldn't say anything about it because she didn't want to get on Adriens bad side but, unknown to her, she was already the worst person ever to him.

By the end of secondary school they defeated hawkmoth, who was revealed to be Gabriel Agreste. Mayura aka Natalie fled with the butterfly and peacock miraculi. Adrien took over the company and fixed any damage that may have come to the company when hawkmoth's identity was revealed. Adrien was surprised but he wasn't too affected since they weren't that close and his dad was always neglecting him anyways. He was devastated to find his mother in the magical coma. Ladybug was able to wake her with the help of the kwamis. Adrien and Emilie took over the company and it grew more than ever. Marinette stayed behind and helped Adrien settle into his new life and she finished her high school in Francois Dupont.

----------NOW--------

After Natalie had escaped with the miraculous, she decided that Gotham will be the place she terrorises. She had gone crazy and is now completely evil with no voice of reason due to using the broken peacock miraculous for too long. Once Gabriel was out of the picture, Adrien took over the company and gave up his miraculous. Marinette moved to Gotham as soon as she learned about a villain making magical monsters which would disappear with a feather sighted every time, which looked alot like the amoks she had dealt with.

She got a scholarship into Gotham university and made her way to the city of crime. She was a fashion designer and student at day and Ladybug at night. She was MDC, an anonymous online fashion designer who made clothes for many celebrities.

Soon, she made her first appearance as Ladybug. During her third patrol the Batfamily found out about her, well technically about Ladybug. They were hostile towards her at first, they had never heard about her before but she explained the situation in Paris. Now, after a few months the Batfam and Ladybug are working together towards finding and defeating Mayura once and for all. They need a way to get back the miraculous from her ASAP, if not there would be no way to save her.

Robin and Ladybug were running across the rooftops of Gotham. So far they haven't found any motive behind Natalie's attacks other than to cause chaos. The two of them were on patrol together in the east side of Gotham, they had just defeated the latest amok. They'd grown close over the last two months. To be honest Robin had actually been the last one to accept and trust Ladybug. The others were actually pretty quick to trust her once she saw the videos of her and her partner defeating akumas. They'd also seen her interactions with both Diana and Arthur, who'd come to visit when Bruce told the league about this new magical superhero who wore ladybug themed spandex and had a yo-yo for a weapon. Arthur and Diana both bowed down to Ladybug and the Kwamis. Especially Arthur to Plagg. The others were quite surprised to see a princess and a king bow down to a girl and some "flying magic mice" in Dick's words.

Robin and Ladybug raced to their usual spot, the tallest building in Gotham, the Wayne Enterprises head office right in the heart of Gotham. Ladybug let out a small giggle and collapsed onto the roof of Wayne Enterprises while Robin just smirked and lay beside her. They both lay there staring into the blank night sky with the moon shining down on them, panting. They turned to face each other, they were staring right into each other's eyes. Slowly both of them started inching closer, they could feel each other's breath in their faces. Suddenly Robins comm crackled to life and he pulled away awkwardly and urgently. He clicked his tongue at whoever was on the other end and rolled his eyes at them.

When he seemed to be off his comm, Ladybug asked, "Soo. What's up? Who was it?"

"-Tt- it was Nightwing, he says father has asked for our presence at the cave and Wing wants me to get him a double cheeseburger and large fries from Red Robin Yum! on the way home. Robin replied with another eye roll. Ladybug laughed at his and his brother's antics and jumped off the edge of the roof, screaming, "Race you to Red Robin's".

Robin rolled his eyes again but this time affectionately at her antics as he followed her trying to over take on the way. They made it to Red Robin Yum, Robin won because he took a shortcut he knew to get there first. Ladybug asked him about it all the way home but he just smirked at her.

They finally made it to the cave and crashed onto the floor. Ladybug started giggling while Robin just lay there. Suddenly someone cleared their throat making them both jump up and compose themselves. They both looked up to see Batman looming over them. She still didn't know who they were and they had no idea who she was.

Batman just looked at the two and led them to where the others were waiting. He went to the front of the crowd and started speaking.

"Coming Thursday, Bruce Wayne is kindly hosting a masquerade gala to honour everything we do for the city. We will not be making an appearance. You are free to go as your civilian self but do not compromise your identity in any way." Batman said.

As soon as he finished there was a chorus of "No way"s and "I have better things to do old man" (guess who said that?).

Batman just sighed and dismissed everyone. Ladybug was considering going to the gala as Marinette if she got an invite. It would be fun to meet all the new people without having to reveal her name.

She bid everyone a good night and went back to her apartment to get some sleep herself. She got home and got ready for bed but when she walked into her bedroom she saw that she'd left her laptop on. She went to shut it down but saw an email from Bruce Wayne. She rubbed her eyes, not being able to believe it. She clicked on the email and realised it was a design request for suits and dresses for the gala. He needed 5 suits and 3 dresses and a jumpsuit. She realised that she was on her MDC account, which suddenly made the situation make a lot more sense.

She jotted down everyone's measurements and colour preferences in her notebook and started sketching. She fell asleep half way through sketching her first design which was Bruce Wayne's. The next morning she woke up to a half completed sketch of a suit. She'd finished the blazer and waistcoat but still needed to do the tie, shirt and pants.

She looked over the measurements and for some odd reason she felt a sense of familiarity, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She ignored that thinking there was no way she'd ever have met or even accidentally come across a Wayne. 

(1461 words)

- Toodles