Entering the room felt anticlimactic. Perhaps he’d expected her to be back, but she wasn’t. Obviously, she wouldn’t be. Whatever meeting was going on would likely be as delayed as the photoshoot by the hero and villain tangle going on outside. Well, these Parisians might be the kind who let something as simple as a supervillain attack derail their day but Damian had lived in Gotham for quite some time now. Something as routine as a supervillain wasn’t going to deter him from his welcome vigil in the room.

The sketchbook was exactly where he’d left it, along with everything else. Good. A part of him he hadn’t realized was on edge relaxed. He wasn’t going to betray Marinette’s faith in him. Not when it was as open-eyed and aware of him as hers was. His fingers traced the edge of her design. How many masks did he own? And how many of them looked like this?

To have someone cut right through them, particularly someone who looked like her, it was a little terrifying and a lot compelling. Damian had to admit, he wasn’t usually someone who cared about appearances. Physical beauty had minimal effect on him, as more than one young socialite in Gotham had discovered. It was a product of his upbringing. Watching mother use her body as a weapon left with a keen awareness of how shallow most people were along with a vague sense of disgust at the entire notion. So no, Damian wasn’t the type to find himself caught up by a pretty face.

But he was the type to get caught up by competence.

And Marinette was compellingly competent.

The back and forth where she’d demonstrated she could keep up with him in combat had been appealing, but it wasn’t until she slipped away and immediately went to work drawing that he’d realized he was starting to want her. The sight of her frenetic scribbling, seeing the design unfold on paper as she worked made him feel like he was a blade, drawn forth in her hands.

He could understand father’s relentless attraction to mother in some ways as a result. And why he was the only person she had a weak spot for. Because father found more than her appearance compelling, and being seen like that, to have someone know you that deeply when you were so used to hiding, was hard to resist. It was a little uncomfortable, suddenly understanding his parents so much more than he wanted.

But that was the fear, fear of being used by someone who didn’t care how much they hurt you in the process of getting what they wanted. And Damian didn’t think he had it in him to deny her anything she wanted. Not after seeing her design. Not after watching her create.

He’d asked her for a kiss out of sheer desperation, a defense thrown up against the falling in his chest just to know if she would jump with him. Because he didn’t want to contemplate what it would be like to hit the bottom without her. Because he didn’t think he could manage the climb back up alone.

So Damian didn’t think about the half-moment of despair her refusal had caused until she’d blurt out the rest of it.

The way she saw him… it was just something he didn’t want to lose.

Nor did he want to lose the way she kissed him, or how her body responded to his. Throwing her against the wall had been a desperation tactic, a maneuver to regain control, a suicidal charge into the core of her with the hope that he might last long enough to inflict as much as he received. The reward, the opportunity to put his teeth to work against her neck, had been more than he’d imagined and yet still not enough to satisfy. He wanted to leave teeth marks across the entirety of her, marking her skin irrevocably as his so she knew who she belonged to.

And he wanted her to do the same to him in turn so she wouldn’t forget that there was an obligation inherent in her victory. Because being at her mercy might be an acceptable outcome but that didn’t mean he planned on throwing any of their spars. Damian would go down fighting, unwilling to surrender until he’d exhausted every possible avenue of attack on her body.

Her exceptionally competent body.

It was the totality of it, every piece. He didn’t need to wax poetic about parts, the curve of her back, the swing of her hips, the litheness of her neck, none of it really mattered. What mattered was that they were hers, just like he would be. And while Damian could appreciate things like the calluses on her fingers it wasn’t because they were beautiful in themselves. It was because they spoke to the complete picture, demonstrating how her hands could bring to life the designs her mind dreamt and her eyes envisioned.

He could have sat there, turning over her hands and exploring the little markings in them for hours while sitting there with her sketchbook. Marveling at the simple miracle that was the process of creation. It was a little astounding, and more than a little attractive, to watch her assemble a series of lines and sketches into clothing. He had an acute desire to sit in the room as she made… anything just to see what it would look like.

And then to create something… ephemeral and exclusively experiential… with her after. Because, Damian admitted as he shifted uncomfortably, if the simple thought of watching her work had him this… wound up then actually seeing it would leave him a needle, driving into her until she was sewn up into him.

Trapped like one of Ivy’s pheromone enraptured followers, one kiss and there was nothing except her in the whole world. Of course, Damian wasn’t obsessed like one of her plant zombies. He could see the world beyond Marinette, although doing so only made him want her in his world more. It was better, if he were being honest, because it was only against that backdrop of everything else that she stood out so much. It was the countless other people he’d met, good and bad, that made him so certain of this lightning connection and so confident in his admittedly extremely sudden attraction. So he was trapped, seeing her now and knowing what could be would make going back to what was all the more uninteresting.

It was just… unappealing, not taking the chance on her. However it ended, whether good or bad, Damian would be more for the attempt.

Was this how father had felt the first time he put on the cowl? Possessed by some romantic madness that promised the certainty of death on one end and the immortality of heroism on the other? Damian felt as though he were perched on one of the crumbling gargoyles that adorned the gothic structures of his home city. The cracked stone beasts leaned out onto the maws of sin that were the rain-drenched streets of Gotham, teetering above the same mad abyss so many had dove into and never surfaced from. Leaning over it, hanging on by the stretch and strain of his muscles, poised to let go. To find out if the bottom promised the gulf of rejection or the joy of reciprocation.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

And for all that Damian might drown he still wanted to dive into Marinette. Because the potential was enough. Just the presence of it.

It was just enough to push him the requisite step forward. Like the moment Robin dove from a gargoyle, and for a split instant between inhale and exhale there was nothing holding him back from the hungry city below. Just for that half instant before he fired his grapple and felt the heft of it recapture him, when he was completely at the mercy of the whims of the universe.

And now here he was in free fall, completely at the mercy of the whims of Marinette. Hoping that the next thing her lightly calloused hands created was for him, for the both of them. Hoping that she wouldn’t just pull him back to his perch looking down over the potential below, but that she’d be willing to dive in with him. There was a buzzy sort of energy in him, nerves he hadn’t felt since the moment when mother had dropped him off in Gotham and told him to go find his father. Alone.

Damian wasn’t afraid. Fear wasn’t allowed for the Son of the Demon. He’d just been anxious then, and anxious now, that was all.

He stilled his hand by placing it on the table, the glint of a stray bit of silver catching his eye. It was the needle she’d used to prove herself. Still lightly dusted with his blood and her blood. The two were mingled, wedded by the matching cuts on their fingers. It was, admittedly, unsanitary but Damian found he didn’t mind. If things continued to progress as they had so far, they would be exchanging far more bodily fluids than a bit of blood.

He picked it up, running his fingers along the edge up to the sharp point. It was as honed as any of his blades, made for extremely tight stitching and fine detailing. He could imagine that the thread from this needle might be almost invisible, leaving behind a secret in the outfits Marinette graced with it.

And here he was, sharing in it. Given full license to stay here when she wasn’t present. Given access to her materials. Given trust over her sketchbook. Given part of her.

Still not enough pieces of her to satisfy.

Working with a needle like this would be dangerous. It was long enough to cause genuine injury, sharp enough it could penetrate before the victim even knew it was there. A weapon masquerading as a simple, ordinary, tool. He’d seen poison coated needles wielded by League members that were duller than this one. Yet Marinette had plucked it out of the air without hesitation or difficulty.

And it wasn’t ignorance on her part either. He’d run his fingers up her forearms, he could feel the tiny scarred points where she’d clearly pricked herself before. She had to know what this thing was capable of, and she wanted to use it anyway.

Interesting.

Damian was starting to have the sinking realization that the more he discovered about Marinette the more he would want to know her. The sinking feeling was from the fact that he was starting to realize there might not be enough of her to satisfy (not when the more he had the more he wanted). Still, he would be happy to pin her to a wall with her own overly lethal sewing needle pressed delicately against her neck and see if it were even possible to have enough of her to satisfy. It would just be training, finding out if anything she did could break his control and weighing his desire to penetrate against the danger of the needle.

He had this sudden vivid image of her wrists sewn up above her head, her fingers wrapped tight to hold the needle in place as he tasted her neck. As he moved lower, one eye on the delicate threads, a promise in place that he would walk away the second any of them broke. Idly, the thought crossed his mind that it would be an interesting experiment. Knowing if the real danger of the needle or the intangible threat of the extremely delicate threads snapping would be more effective at keeping her in place.

Just an experiment, that was all. Detectives needed to run experiments at times, to decipher evidence. And if he treated her body like a crime scene, covering it with tape, meticulously searching it (for clues), and then taking photographs of everything then it was just his training coming out.

Damian wasn’t sure exactly what the need was for a precise measurement of her breaking point, yet. But given that she knew his (ears) the information would doubtless have applications in the struggle for dominance that would inevitably unfold between them.

He might lose, but he intended to make certain she earned her victories.

He pricked his finger on the needle and let out a shuddering breath, reaffirming the fact that he was in fact awake, alive, and still embedded in reality. A fresh bead of blood ran down it, recoating the metal. Damian watched impassively as it slowly petered out before reaching his pursed fingers holding the implement aloft.

Slowly, he tilted it to look at the part where her blood had dried. Still fixated, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled bit of paper that held her number. Carefully, he smoothed it flat against the table and began typing on his phone. His eyes never left the needle.

A half-minute later his phone began to vibrate. Damian’s eyes left the needle for the first time, glancing down at the screen before he answered the device and pulled it close to his ear.

“Hello. I know you did not expect to hear from me so soon, but the situation here has changed. Irrevocably.”

“As such, I have a request. One that will require your assistance.”

He paused, waiting for the person on the other end to finish before continuing. Damian pursed his lips in silence, suppressing any reaction.

“I appreciate your consent,” he said finally. His eyes narrowed, honing in on the needle as he continued. “As for what I require, the situation demands tact. Simply put, due to an entirely unanticipated and impossible to avoid incident I require a new wardrobe.”

He fell silent again, listening to the response before adding in a slightly more agitated tone, “As I stated, it was unavoidable. I now have no suitable attire and will require your assistance securing appropriate, and discrete, replacements.” He tilted the needle slightly, letting it catch in the light. “Indeed. There are only a few places suitably trustworthy and suitably close enough to avoid alerting the press. Just for convenience, I would suggest the Bourgeois Fashion House. The alien’s modeling will provide an appropriate cover.”

Damian set the needle down, carefully, rubbing his fingertips together to ensure there was no residual blood. Then he turned to the sketchbook and opened it to rest on the page with the hoodie design.

“I am aware you find Audrey tedious and pushy. I am also aware you do not consider her or her husband entirely trustworthy either, which is your actual objection to my proposal. Dick informed me of the real purpose of this visit before we arrived in Paris. My request will not interfere.”

He traced the outline of the design on the sketchbook before continuing. Carefully, oh so carefully ensuring that his fingers did nothing to mar the pencil work.

“There is a certain designer working here known for discretion and secrecy. Not particularly well known yet, but my research suggests they would be an appropriate choice.”

“No, I do not believe Audrey knows their name either. Barbara will not be able to run a background check, admittedly, but I suspect the reason for such secrecy is the age of the designer and nothing nefarious given the amount of time they have been designing and their fame profile. However I am aware this presents a complication.”

“What do I intend to do about it? Well I am not asking for your assistance tracking down a name. I am asking for your trust.”

“Do I have it, father?”

Damian paused, waiting patiently for a response that was slow to come. When it arrived, he nodded lightly.

“Thank you. As for the designer, the name is MDC.”