Of Glitter and Gold

Chapter 3

"He got it wrong." Damian's head turns to the girl, her hand up and a look on her face that says the real answer is obvious. Her hair is in a side braid, a few shorter locks framing her face with a look that says 'you deserve it'.

"I don't get answers wrong." He snaps back, how dare she suggest that he did something wrong. Ms. Nguyen seems curious as to what the Parisian did. He almost feels bad for the girl, she's going to feel embarrassed when she's proven wrong in front of everyone.

"Why do you say that, Marinette?"

"Both share a greater common factor than what he put, he should have factored out a negative six instead of a one."

"Would you show your work, please?" Ms. Nguyen sounds surprised, offering a marker to the Parisian. Marinette nods and walks up to the board, Damian doesn't return to his seat, watching the girl scribble on the board with hercurvy handwriting.

1. -42x^2-216

-6(7x^2+36) --> 42/6= 7 216/6= 36

Once she finishes, Dupain-Cheng returns to her seat Damian glaring at her as she does so, she sticks her tongue out at him, again. Damian is livid, how dare the pathetic girl not only correct him like that but then have the audacity to insult him so childishly.

Damian returns to his seat, hearing whispers as he walks, despite his classmate's best efforts at concealing them.

"She corrected him and she was right." Some girl remarks, her neighbors make an even more infuriating comment.

"You know what's scarier? He got it wrong." That word, wrong, echoes in his mind. Damian Wayne does not get anything wrong. In that moment, Damian is beyond pissed off- he swears to himself he'd get her back for it.

Marinette doesn't feel bad, he did the same to her back on her first day, and while she isn't one to hold a grudge she feels justified in correcting him.

Word of Marinette one-upping Damian spreads like wildfire, the Parisian doesn't see the big deal- he just got a question wrong, who doesn't sometimes? She reasons that it's because he's a Wayne or something before moving on with her life. She has more important things to do than obsess over getting back at a spoiled rich boy.

Marinette enrolls in a self-defense class, martial arts classes, whatever she can find. The self-defense class is alright but the martial arts and boxing lessons are the most helpful. Right on the first day she starts to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the human body, how to refine her own fighting style, and how to react. She's hardly begun going to lessons but it's a start.

While the extra training is good, Marinette needs to design a new costume- she wants to stay true to the ladybug but needs to adapt the suit to blend into Gotham's darker cityscape. She draws up a couple of options, wanting to get ideas down. She ends up getting stuck between two. The first had deep green cargo pants with lots of pockets and a black long sleeve shirt, it also had black combat boots and her usual yo-yo.

The second design was primarily black. Sleek legging, a long sleeve shirt, black combat boots, the only things that weren't black were her mask, yo-yo, and her neck which would all be red with the signature polka-dots.

"What do you think, Tikki? Plagg?"

"Looks great, bug." Plagg comments, grabbing a Gougeres, a cheese puff made with pastry dough, from the plate on Marinette's desk.

"I agree, the first one should be perfect, very practical! And it leaves plenty of room for surprises!"

"Surprises? What type of surprises?" Marinette asks, smiling in curiosity.