soulmate-game:

Oneshot #3

Just one (1) imagining of Mari and Damian meeting as kids.

Darkness clung greedily to every street corner, and perhaps nobody would truly know whether it was the sheer viscosity of every shadow or the scope of talent in the newest Robin, but even clad in bright greens and reds and yellows the brand new vigilante easily slunk around unseen.

A shrill scream rang out in the air, sounding young. Unfortunately (or fortunately) Robin wasn’t the only one with the ability to slink around unseen in the Gotham night. His father and mentor followed close behind as they both made a beeline towards the newest disturbance.

What they saw was… not exactly what they expected. See, they had expected a little girl in the midst of getting kidnapped. While they weren’t exactly wrong, they had not at all been anticipating the kid’s apparent mother to be there.

Or that said mother had already beaten down four of the five traffickers after her daughter with a broken mop handle from the nearby dumpster.

The little pigtailed girl cowering behind her mother was scared without a doubt, tears pricking the corners of her startlingly bright blue eyes, but she was making a valiant effort to stay brave. She was biting her bottom lip, doing her best to suck in the tears and stay as silent as possible. And when the fifth and only attacker to remain conscious managed to slice along her mother’s arm with a knife?

Well, neither vigilante about to jump into the scene expected the terrified girl to grab a little grocery bag of trash that was nearby and toss it at him.

“Don’t touch my Maman!” She yelled in heavily accented English. The weak knot holding the bag broke when it hit the guy’s face, releasing used tampons and a half-empty bottle of milk over his head. The momentary surprise and disgust allowed enough time for the clearly Chinese mother to land another smack with her broken broom handle, and for Robin to jump down and take the fight away from the two civilians.

Batman stayed back, tying up and securing the already defeated traffickers while keeping a close eye on his son. The last thing he needed was for the boy, only on his second month in Gotham, to traumatize the little girl with murder.

But Batman made the mistake of dragging the goons to the corner of the alley by the street. When Robin rose his sword to deliver a killing blow to the guy’s heart, the Bat was too far away to make it in time.

“ROBIN!” He barked, hoping the tone of his voice would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Instead, a tiny hand came out of seemingly nowhere and latched to Robin’s wrist. The boy froze. Suddenly in front of him, blocking his blade from reaching its target, was the girl. They were the same height, he realized, and her blue eyes bore into his with startling ferocity despite the tears.

“He’s… asleep,” she told him, clearly meaning “knocked out” but lacking the right words to say it in English. “No killing. Will do nothing. Will only make you bad like him,” she told him sternly, scolding the vigilante despite the clear difference between them. One, a girl who threw a trash bag and the other, a boy who would kill with a katana without a second thought. “Maman needs… doc-tor,” she stumbled over the word, but despite the accent managed to get it out decently understandably. “Help her instead of hurt him.”

“Marinette!” The adult woman had finally gotten out of her shock, one hand pressing her sleeve over her shallow but long wound tightly even as she ran over to her daughter. She started to speak in French, and was halfway through asking her daughter if she was okay when Robin sheathed his sword without a word. As soon as the weapon was put away, a bright flash of green light erupted from where Marinette still clutched his wrist.

As if stung, the kids sprung away from one another. They both blinked, and when their eyes reopened it was to their vision suddenly being sliced in half like a video game. One half was their own perspective, the one they were used to seeing. The other was…

From the kid they just met?

Robin found he was staring straight at himself in half of his vision, and Marinette realized the same thing. They were seeing from both of their perspectives at once.

Bright, green-and-pink letters flashed before their eyes in bubble text, reading: Soulmate Game! Romance, Start (but not too fast)!

“YOU’RE my soulmate?” Was the first thing Robin asked, voice incredulous and unflatteringly surprised. “But-but you’re so tiny, and clearly untrained! Far too naive, and reckless, and you are wearing a bright pink skirt at night in Gotham City. There’s no WAY you can be my equal!”

Marinette puffed out her cheeks angrily. She might not have been the best at speaking English, but she was good at understanding it. She just had trouble forming the words sometimes, her mouth being too used to Cantonese and French to easily adjust to the more blunt and enunciated American English.

“And you’re mean and dumb and scary, but I didn’t choose you! Maybe it’s my job as your soulmate to make you nicer. Here, smile!” She lunged forward with all the audacity of someone who did not know Robin AT ALL. Pinching his cheeks a bit too roughly to be accidental, she pulled them apart and lifted them up so that he was “smiling.”

He batted her hands away, albeit a bit slower than usual. The multiple perspectives were incredibly disorienting, and he found himself confused as to which one he should focus on. Marinette didn’t seem to have that issue, easily shrugging off his rude gesture and lunging forward to try her assault a second time.

This time, when he tried to knock her hands away, Marinette grabbed one and locked it behind his back.

“Wha— I thought you were harmless!”

“Not my fault,” she cooed with false sweetness. “I never SAID I was har-harmless,” she kept his hand firmly pinned at the base of his spine, and while Robin knew he could twist away, she was still a civilian and his soulmate and he didn’t want to hurt her. Much. He did have the urge to flick her forehead though. “Maman teach me a little. She says she will teach more when I get older. See? I will be equal with you! Maybe not yet, but later!”

Damian bit his lip, forcing himself not to scowl. His grandfather had been of the mind that soul bonds were next to worthless, but his mother had a different opinion. She had raised him to treat his soulmate as nothing short of his equal. If he was an assassin Prince, then his soulmate would hold the same title. The universe paired everyone with who it deemed as the most complimentary to them. The one whose strengths would cover their weaknesses and vice versa. If he was strong alone, having his soulmate by his side would make him and his empire exponentially stronger and more stable.

So said his mother, anyway.

So he would not attack her. Not outside of a spar, that is. And they WOULD spar. He was not allowing his soulmate to only know rudimentary self defense, it was an insult to his name.

Whether he meant Al Ghul or Wayne, he didn’t know yet. Maybe both.

“Your mother TAUGHT you a little,” Damian corrected instead of insulting her like he would have normally done. Not much of a step up, but noticeable enough for his father to raise a brow behind his cowl. “Now let go, I thought you wanted us to get your mother first aid?”

Marinette huffed, clearly not pleased with his attitude still, but relented. She backed away from him, and followed him to where their parents were waiting for the police and an ambulance to arrive. The sirens could already be heard not far away. She waited until after her mom had a bandage firmly wrapped around her cut, which had also been properly disinfected, and had turned the police’s offer of a ride home down. She offered to give her statement the following morning instead.

The officers had been bemused, but Sabine didn’t care. Her daughter’s soulmate was a vigilante, and there was no way she was letting either of them run off without a talk.

“Don’t you sneak away, Batman!” The woman’s sweet but somehow terrifyingly stern voice cut through the otherwise silent air, stopping the vigilante in his tracks. He had been about to pull one of his signature vanishings, but apparently Sabine’s motherly instincts were not having it.

The little Asian woman firmly poked a finger into the much larger man’s chest, leaning in fearlessly with righteous fury in her almond shaped eyes. “My daughter is your prodigy’s soulmate, so you don’t get to just leave. Whether you like it or not, their connected now and I’m not about to let you keep them apart for her “safety” either. My little baby deserves a chance with her Destined. And that means she’s gonna be in danger because of your night life whether we like it or not, so I don’t care how painful this is gonna be for you. You’re letting us in on it. But ground rules? She’s not joining you. You might have taken other kids on this dangerous hobby of yours, but she won’t be one of them. What you CAN do is help me train her, so that she can at least protect herself from whatever danger might follow her because of this. What you CAN’T and WON’T do is ignore us once we go back to Paris and expect that I won’t hunt you down and make you regret ever trying to get rid of us. You and I are gonna make sure our kids get to have their soulbond and enjoy it to the best of their ability, and you don’t get a choice in the matter. Understand?”

Robin and Marinette were left blinking at the fearless woman as she laid into the well known vigilante and one of the founding members of the Justice League. Even more impressive, Batman didn’t seem to be capable of arguing with her. Every attempt was thoroughly thwarted until he was left with a growl of defeat in his throat and a triumphant Chinese mother smirking at him.

“Are you sure SHE isn’t my soulmate?” Robin whispered to Marinette, earning a snicker.

—*—*—*—*—*

THREE YEARS LATER

“The stadium is this way, Ladybug!” Adrien pointed the correct direction, but his heroine partner was still lagging behind.

“Hold on!” A familiar static had given her the warning she needed. Far too familiar static. “Keep going, I’ll—“

“Marinette, are you alright? Who is with you?”

The girl cursed under her breath, glad that at least she was the only one who could hear the voice.

“You’ll what? What’s wrong?” Chat Noir asked, slowing down as he looked back at her in concern. She sighed. Best to tell the truth.

“It’s my soulmate, just finish heading where we agreed! Right now he can hear everything I can hear!”

“Oh meowch,” the cat themed hero flinched. “That’s not great. I’ll just, uh,” he took an awkward step to the side before hauling tail away. Everyone knew better than to get between soulmates, especially when one was in potential danger.

“Who was that?” The icy voice of Damian Wayne persisted, and Marinette could pretty much FEEL the suspicion through their bond. At least he was still in Gotham.

“Just a friend! From school, yeah! A friend from school!” Unfortunately, though the pigtailed girl might have learned a lot when it came to combat ever since her soul bond was completed, she had never improved her ability to lie.

“Uh Huh. Suppose I believe you, What is their name?”

“Uh, Cha— Chane! Chane—“

“Marinette.”

“I’ll explain later! Gotta go, Akuma attack, taking cover!”

“If you’re taking cover then it is best I remain on audio only mode in order to make sure you get to safety.”

Marinette dropped into the stadium, a giant robot that should have only been inside the game Ultimate Mecha Strike Three slamming into the ground behind her.

“What was that? I thought you were headed to safety! That means AWAY from the danger, Marinette!” Yep, that was genuine worry in his voice. The girl winced, she’d be getting a lecture later for sure.

“Uhh, sorry I really—“ she dodged alongside Chat Noir, struggling to focus on both the conversation and fight at the same time. “Can’t talk— right now— very busy trying to get to safety!”

Another voice, completely deadpan and just as familiar as her soulmate’s, filtered in from Damian’s side of the audio connection of their bond.

“Oh really? That’s why you’re fighting a giant robot in the center of the stadium right now?” It was Nightwing, and he was in full Protective Brother Mode. Meaning, he was not amused at all and now she had double the lecture in store for her. Marinette gulped.

Her vision split in half, a sensation she had grown very accustomed to over the years since herbond was first completed. It no longer disoriented her like it had at first.

And her new perspective showed her and Chat Noir, right as she ordered her partner to try Cataclysm on it, in the stadium. Startled, she looked up to see two costumes figures standing with their arms crossed in the nosebleed section.

“Merdé, I am so dead,” she whispered to herself as she focused back on the gaming-themed Akuma. Having seen enough villain attacks in Gotham, she knew better than to assume they had won that easily. Therefore, she was not nearly as shocked as Chat when their enemy reformed his robot. Robin used the moment to drop in next to her. “I thought you weren’t coming to visit until NEXT month. You just got back from, you know, DEATH,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

“I wanted to surprise you. Looks like I have good timing,” he replied equally softly. “And before you catastrophize—“ he started as all three of them pressed the red orb next to them, and jumped into the robot that spawned for them. Which… only had two seats…Robin shoved the cat hero out of the way. “—I am not angry that you are a hero. Merely surprised you did not tell me as soon as it happened. Oh, and feline boy, Ladybug and I will handle this. Just stay back and be quiet.”

“What— Who are you, and why are you taking my partner from me?” The blond asked, thoroughly caught off guard. Ladybug just got into her seat and sighed.

“Chat Noir, meet Robin. He’s one of Gotham’s vigilantes and my soulmate.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes, really,” Robin responded impatiently, his hands finding the controls of the robot easily. “And honestly, Ladybug, I suspected something like this would happen eventually. My family tends to be a horrible and very invasive influence. And it isn’t as if you lack the necessary skillset. Batman and I made sure of that much at least.”

“Uh, how are you guys doing this so easily?” Chat Noir piped up from where he watched as the two soulmates easily moved their robot with a fluidity that seemed profoundly natural. Marinette just smirked at her Parisian partner secretively.

“Robin and I are pretty used to combat games.”

Her soulmate laughed. She didn’t know if it was because of her inside joke, or the fact that he just found out their robot came with a cat saber.

—*—*—*—*—*