The money weighed heavily in his hand and the sound of the car driving away could still be heard.

His laugh echoed in the hallway.

Apparently Marinette wasn't going to let it go.

Neither was he.

Game. On.

Me: Well played, Angel.

Marinette: I just thought you should know that angels don't always play fair;)

Me: That's good. Neither do I.

His family didn't waste time with pulling him down to the batcave and having him tested for laughing gas.

Not only the current version, but every version that had ever been produced.

They all came back negative and they had to accept that he had been laughing volountarily.

That's what lead them to this situation.

The situation being him chained to a table in bat designed handcuffs.

"Are we sure nothing or no one is controlling him?" Stephanie asked the others.

Jason snorted. "We aren't even sure this is the brat."

"He's got a point," Tim admitted. "We can't rule out the possibility of a shapeshifter."

This would take a while.

"Okay," Tim began, "now that we know you're this universe's Damian and you're not a clone, android or shapeshifter and that you are not under any kind of mindcontrol or brainwashing we can safely start asking questions."

Like they hadn't already asked 87 questions to verify his identity.

But sure.

Ask away.

It's not like he had anything better to do with his time.

"What did she mean when she said your first date?"

That he had been prepared for even though it was a surprise that father asked it.

Didn't mean he had to like it anyway.

"She meant our primary date." He sighed. "It's not that difficult. You're adults. Shouldn't you know what a first date is?"

It was a testament of time that they didn't react to the jab.

Instead Dick seemed to light up at the information. "First? As in more than one?"

Tim shook his head. "Let's take this from the beginning."

"You ran into her on the street?"

"I believe both of us were to blame for the collision."

"A thrift store." Stephanie frowned. "What did you do there?"

"Had a look around." He shrugged. "Not much more than that."

He determinedly didn't look Cassandra in the eye.

"And that was how we decided that it would count as a date."

His oldest brother had his head in his hands. "How could I forget to cover romantic relationships with you?"

"Even without doing that your voice haunted me with advice."

"That's something I guess."

"That's why she left money in our plant?" Jason guaffed. "She'd definitely a keeper."

"Then we made vegetarian pizzas while socialising."

Tim's eyebrows were crinkled. "Anyone else stuck on the 'friend from school' part?"

Marinette: Escaped the wolves yet?

Me: Said the girl that threw me to them.

Marinette: They can't be that bad.

The chaos around him told a different story.

"He's her best friend slash brother?"

He practically snarled.

"You mean to tell me that class of blundering buffoons without an ounce of decorum is her classmates?"

"Wait, wait, wait! Lil'd, didn't you know each other's last names?"

The glare was an answer in itself.

The story in it's entirety, except some choice details to preserve his dwindling reputation, was told.

It had taken a very long time with an unreasonable number of questions and doubts.

He honestly didn't even know why he was still trying to save what was left of his reputation since it would undoubtably be in vain.

It was already in tatters considering some of the arguments he'd had to use to convince them to not investigate his girlfriend like a common criminal.

He gave it until the end of the week before it would be in total ruin.

Maybe less depending on how many more random meetings he'd have with Marinette.

He might as well kiss it goodbye.

It was nice while it lasted.

"I guess we at least won't have to adopt her yet."

He didn't like the sound of that.

The thought alone of Marinette being his sister made him want to throw up.

"Yet?" It was rather impressive that he managed to not croak it out.

"I've known you for years." Tim looked him in the eye. "Sorry, if I'm not willing to put all my eggs in one basket. Especially when that basket is the odds of you bringing a girl into the family."

The bang from when his head hit the table could probably be heard all the way up to the manor.

"That and it would be a waste to throw away the papers when we've already started on them."

Eventually he gathered whatever sanity he had left.

He stood up from the chair, dumped the picked cuffs on the table and left.

No one stopped him.

Some papers were lodged beneath the dinner table.

He didn't have to remember who sat there to know who they belonged to.

The purple pen was enough.

Father would from now on be considered a traitor.

He found three copies of filled adoption papers around his office.

There were also a frightening amount of blank ones.

He grabbed all of them to be sure.

Dick had begun filling them in and had one copy in one of the cereal boxes and another hidden in chandelier.

Through the years he'd learned a lot about the Robin before him.

One of the first things he figured out was that Tim was by all definitions a strategist.

That's why the twenty copies of all completed paperwork hidden all around didn't surprise him in the slightest.

There was no way one of the world's greatest detectives hadn't seen the resistance coming.

Thankfully Cassandra's writing skills weren't at official paperwork level yet.

He would never find anything she hid.

The most shocking discovery however was Jason's contribution to the adoption conspiracy.

He hadn't made as many as Tim, but all the copies were different.

Jason had written up papers for several options.

They apparently all depended on how Marinette herself would like to go forward.

Only one was completely correct.

Then there was one where she claimed to be Bruce's illegitimate half aunt's newly orphaned granddaughter.

Another had her as Alfred's goddaughter in which he'd met her father during his MI6 days.

There were even one where she was Jason's long lost little sister.

The second eldest certainly didn't lack creativity.

The huge pile of papers were cut up into tiny pieces and then burned to ashes.

He scattered them with the wind.

Another job well done.

Me: The interrogation's over. You'd be surprised how much paperwork I've had to obliterate.

Marinette: Paperwork?

Me: Adoption papers.

Marinette: I thought they were kidding about that!

Me: I can assure you they weren't. They decided to keep them as a back up plan if our relationship should fail. They had multiple copies I had to find and destroy.

Marinette: What if I wanted to be a Wayne?

Me: On my dead body will that be through adoption. Only through marriage.

Marinette: Okay, then I'll just have to marry Tim. He proposed earlier anyway.

Me: HE DID WHAT?

Marinette: Yeah, he went down on one knee and everything.

Me: Excuse me. I have to commit a murder.

Marinette: Don't expect my help with hiding the body.

"DROP THE KNIFE, DAMIAN!"