So this is something I've wanted to write for.. I'm not sure how long. I really love the Damian/Marinette pairing, and have read some truly amazing stories about them.. but there were often a few things that just didn't quite fit, at least to me. Which means this story will have a few things rather different from the usual Damian/Marinette fanfics, guess I'll see if that goes well or becomes universally hated.

I read one story (can't remember which), and it inspired a specific scene that will only come much later in this story, and I sort of started planning it forward and backwards from that specific scene.. Hope you enjoy?


Despite the less-than-normal upbringing he had had, and the tragedies he'd lived through, Dick Grayson still considered himself a genuinely happy and positive individual. A fact that generally distinguished him from the rest of his brothers - or even his adoptive father - as even at their best they were mostly either brooding, plotting or training.

Which didn't even touch on the fact that there were several.. issues between many of them. Problems from their past, conflicts in their present and fears for the future - the latter mostly caused by the rampant paranoia that was just as likely to bring them together as it was to tear them apart.

Personally, he thought his brothers cared more about each other than any single one of them would admit, but considering Tim was more or less abandoned by his parents, Jason's mother had him up to the Joker of all people, and Damian.. well, being raised by Ra's al Ghul certainly didn't make him inclined to build trust with anyone easily. Even Dick himself found it harder than most to trust people - whether that was a natural trait or something he picked up from years of living with Bruce he couldn't say - but where his brothers would glare and scowl and analyse whenever they didn't trust someone, he had learned to mimic Bruce's ability to appear a guileless and well-meaning civilian.

The charming adopted-son-turned-detective to Bruce's respected playboy-heir-turned-loving-father-and-businessman.

After all, consistently smiling and laughing hid his true thoughts and feelings just as well as the cold and aloof persona his siblings preferred - though admittedly Jason was more 'angry' than 'aloof', and Tim was more likely to look sleep-deprived than cold and calculating.

Back to his original point though; he was without a doubt the most positive/optimistic of his father's sons, adopted or otherwise. He was also the eldest, and the most experienced with regards to their so-called 'family-business' of trying to beat/scare the crime out of Gotham.

Yet even he was having a tough time coming to terms with the utter catastrophe their earlier stakeout had become.

It had, ironically, supposed to have been a quick and easy take down of a low-grade smuggling ring. The kind of mission that had plenty for each of them to do, and was supposed to serve as a bonding experience while Bruce was up in the Watchtower dealing with an urgent League matter.

And honestly, it hadn't started off too badly.

Sure, there had been the usual insulting nicknames from Damian, sarcastic snipes from Tim, biting comments from Jason.. but after years of working together, he liked to believe that they had adopted more of a bantering tone than an antagonistic one.

Especially compared to the cruel way those words had been thrown around in the early days when they had just started working together.

Unfortunately the stakeout had revealed the drug shipment they had been waiting on - a standard cocaine smuggling operation - had been infiltrated by Scarecrow, with the sole purpose of unleashing several drugged and unpredictable addicts onto the city, each hopped up on a significant amount of his new, slow-acting batch of fear toxin.

Still, it wasn't too much of a problem - while it was more dangerous than they had expected from this particular mission, as long as they followed their admittedly-hastily-assembled-plan, they'd likely still have been home in time for a decent nap before breakfast.

That wasn't what had happened.

The plan had gone to shit minutes after first contact with Scarecrow's thugs; it seemed the mad doctor had already been dosing his own men with the drug, as they started panicking and screaming the moment Damian and Tim dropped in - and while his youngest brother could be terrifying at times, this reaction was completely disproportional - and the thugs had attacked them with a savage desperation that surpassed what Damian and Tim had been prepared for.

They probably would have recovered from that - Damian was a terrifying fighter after all - but Jason had jumped into the fray making some excuse about joining the fun; but Dick hadn't missed the tenseness of his shoulders or the urgency in his tone as he moved.

While Jason may talk a lot of shit about everyone, himself included, Dick had known him both before his death and after it - and one of the biggest changes he had noticed was Jason's newfound disregard for his own life when it came to the lives of the rest of their family. All of them can and have taken hits for each other, but Jason fought as if he could single-handedly prevent any of them from experiencing what he had gone through.

More often than not, his actions caused their missions to go FUBAR. Bruce, hypocrite that he was, had told each of them multiple times to never prioritise the mission above their own lives - but they were all used to success, and overachievers besides. Failure often led to raised tempers, extended arguments, and cutting barbs.

Which is exactly what happened when Jason's reckless abandon got his arm broken.

Again.

Which made both Tim and Damian lash out at him (because of course this family couldn't show concern like normal people) - which made Jason lash out at them (see previous), followed by all of them lashing out at him when he tried to talk them down.

Thus, their current position in the Manor kitchen; each glaring, glowering or brooding as was their want while Alfred made them dinner/breakfast - nocturnal crime fighting made terms like breakfast and dinner a bit harder to use.

It had been an idea Alfred had.. strongly suggested when the whole family started working together that whenever they returned, they would have dinner/breakfast/lunch (depending on when they returned) together, no exceptions.

An attempt to keep them all from disappearing into this life completely, if he were to guess, but one that worked rather well considering how much they all ate - and the fact that Alfred's suggestions were treated as all-but-laws.

Admittedly neither Babs nor Kori would let him become consumed by this life, but as the one who had first followed Bruce onto Gotham's roofs and started the mantle of Robin.. he felt like he had to set an example.

Something he felt he was decidedly failing at at the moment.

None of them had spoken a word since returning beyond the usual greetings to Alfred, and the silence at the kitchen table was becoming stifling.. but for the life of him, Dick couldn't think of a way to break it. Much less a way to mend the strain forming between his brothers - especially with Bruce off-planet, and their sisters were off on some bonding trip through Metropolis.

He had just decided to give in and subtly signal Alfred asking for help, when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye - quickly followed by Jason jumping up and pointing a gun in the same direction, only for him to slowly lower his weapon.

Damian had leaped up as well, but was turning his head in every direction - presumably only reacting to Jason's sudden movement - while Tim's face was simply frozen in disbelief.

Dick felt his own jaw drop from shock as well - because in the middle of the kitchen there stood a young girl (he guessed she was around Damian's age at 17-18) with vaguely translucent features, looking at everything in the room with confused sort of curiosity - everything, except the other inhabitants of said room.

He vaguely wondered why no one had asked her anything yet, but noticed just a moment later that Tim, Jason and Alfred seemed to be looking between the new girl and Damian - Damian, who seemed unable to see the girl, judging by how he was glaring at a spot just slightly to the left of where she was standing.

It was at this point that the girl started moving forward, still looking around with that confused look on her face - too distracted to realise she was about to walk into one of the chairs. Acting on instinct he lunged forward to grab her arm and pull her back:

"Watch out for the..-" only to freeze in shock as his hand not only passed through her arm but she walked right through the chair as if it wasn't even there.

"Oh hell no! No to ghosts, no to magic, no to whatever the hell this is!" Tim exclaimed, almost leaping out of his chair in his efforts to get away from the girl. Which didn't surprise him - Tim was at heart someone who preferred to be in control, and magic.. Well, all of them had experiences with magic.. and most of it involved someone or something messing with their minds.

Which is why Jason was now tracking the girl with a gun in each hand, looking about one loud noise away from unloading into the intangible intruder. Realising things could go very badly if everyone didn't calm down, he decided to speak up:

"Uhh.. hello? Ghost girl..? It doesn't look like you can see us, but can you hear us? Because my brothers are getting a little freaked out.."

"Up yours Grayson! I'm perfectly calm."

Judging by the way his fingers kept twitching on the triggers though - he was not, in fact, perfectly calm.

At least Tim's freakout seemed to be isolated towards staying as far away as possible while trying to figure out the origin of the.. ghost girl? Honestly though, the fact that Damian hasn't already tried to decapitate her was..

Which was the exact moment Dick realised several things.

The first was that Damian hadn't twitched a muscle since the girl started moving; the second was that while the girl seemed to be meandering around, she had one hand outstretched and reaching as if she was looking for something in the dark; and lastly.. she had almost reached Damian.

Without pausing to think further, he leaped over the table and made to grab Damian by the shoulder to pull him away, but unlike the ghost girl he couldn't just move through furniture and it cost him just enough time that she reached his brother first.

With the arm that had been about to grab Damian still outstretched, he could only watch as the girl reached out and put her hand on Damian's chest, roughly above where his heart would be.

And judging from Damian's sudden indrawn breath he could feel the touch, which was.. he was trying to remain calm, but damn if this wasn't starting to freak him out as well.

The girl slowly raised her hand up until she reached Damian's face and finally rested her hand against his cheek - which was weird enough as is, but then Damian (self-proclaimed Heir-to-the-demon, former assassin, and the most guarded person Dick had ever met that wasn't named Bruce).. actually closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.

Then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, the girl vanished - leaving behind a butler with a considering look, three confused brothers and one blushing former assassin.


Jason never could stand silence, regardless of circumstance, so it surprised none of his family that he broke it first:

"Alright - so Demon Spawn has some kind of Ghost-Girlfriend. Why didn't anybody tell the resident dead-man-walking?"

"Shut it Todd, I have no such thing! This was.. clearly another one of your ill-thought out attempts at a hoax - and there was no girl here!" Damian countered furiously, which Jason expected.. what he hadn't expected was Damian's confusion.

"Uhh.. Okay, so I just finished checking the security systems and nothing. The ghost doesn't appear on either the regular security cameras nor on the hidden infra-red ones either.." Tim chimed in, sounding mildly disturbed at having no actual proof to back up what he just saw.

"You really didn't see anything, Damian? She was standing right in front of you less than a minute ago - this might be a serious problem." Jason said slowly, trying to convey that there was no joke or trick in the works.

He wasn't sure whether it was his tone of voice or the fact that he used his brother's actual name, but he could see he got through to Damian when his glare-of-suspicion morphed into his scowl-of-confusion (Jason wasn't joking - just as Cass communicated largely by gestures and looks, Damian could convey a variety of things depending on the way he glared, scowled or stared.

"Ttch. At first I was simply reacting to the way all of you suddenly braced for battle, but then.. There was a noise. I'm mostly certain it was a.. the sound of a bell? Except I knew instinctively it was something more.. I could not move or think; it only lasted a few minutes before.."

Jason was mildly unnerved by the way Damian trailed off; his brother didn't do uncertainty. He also didn't do.. whatever the hell that look on his face just was. Yearning? Confusion? It was.. oddly reminiscent of the look he used to get the first few months with Bruce, whenever he did something the league would have praised him for yet his family did not.

He wished Cass was here; maybe she could have dealt with whatever the fuck was happening, because Jason? He didn't have a damn clue what to say. Grimacing, he turned towards Dick (because as much as they would deny it, everyone in the family was willing to follow his lead when Bruce was away) and managed to catch the wide-eyed look currently shared between him and Alfred.

Tim must have noticed the same, because he suddenly spoke up:

"Alfred, Dick..? Do you know what just happened..?"

Dick stared at them with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, before turning to Alfred with a pleading expression.

Jason felt more than saw the way he, Tim, and Damian scowled at their elder brother - the only reason he would ask Alfred to do the talking is because he suspected they'd hate whatever the explanation was.

Alfred himself pursed his lips; though not in irritation, more as an affection while he gathered his thoughts.

"I.. this event doesn't exactly fit anything I've read or heard of before, you know. In fact, I'm almost certain there were some extenuating circumstances involved, though I have no idea what.. I'm at a loss as to.." Dick rambled on, apparently not having the patience to wait for Alfred to speak.

Jason felt his eyebrows raise higher and higher.

He honestly thought this was just going to be a confession that Dick had done something stupid with unintended consequences for Damian (the less said about the family trip to Peru, the better), but if that were the case he would have admitted it by this point.

The first Robin was direct like that.

Alfred did not ramble, however, and his words fell like an anvil.

"What Master Dick is so eloquently trying to say, is that we believe this was likely a soulmate event. While it is markedly different from anything I have heard of before, the chime-like bell described by Master Damian is a widely-accepted indication that one has taken place."

Soulmate Events.

A term used to describe the moment when soulmates first meet, or when the events that eventually lead them to each other first occur. It was an umbrella term used due to the massively different ways soulmate-bonds presented. Even their own family had several different bonds.

Bruce was born with a 'tattoo' of a tree on his back that grew as he aged; with the largest branches holding the names of the women he would love and be loved by through his life - when Damian first came to the mansion, he carried a letter from Talia with but a single sentence.. The branch has withered. A final goodbye, where she acknowledged keeping Damian from Bruce had irrevocably ruined their relationship. As far as he knew, Bruce only had two healthy branches left on his tattoo.

Dick's soul bond made him and his soulmate subtly glow when they were touching - a fact which had caused a lot of trouble in his dating life, until a particular day when he threw his arms over Kori and Barbara's shoulders, and the three of them had lit up like a Christmas tree. It had been touch and go for a while, largely due to how hurt all of them had been by Dick's behaviour when they were all teenagers, but they seemed to have worked everything out. At the very least, all three of them seemed happy with the way their lives had turned out.

Alfred himself had told them all the very amusing tale of how he had met Julia's mother back during World War II - he had been captured behind enemy lines, though managed to escape the black site they were holding him at when the place was 'invaded' by a savage goose. He had been very confused at the time, but took advantage of the distraction to steal a plane and escape.. only to have the very same animal keep attacking and chasing him away from his extraction point, and he eventually ended up at the French encampment of one Mademoiselle Marie - who was herself being harassed by a similar bird.

Cass had a small tattoo of a bat covering the scar of whatever her soul-mark had been - which was just one more reason that David Cain never passed through or near Gotham without having several bones broken. Honestly, should his family decide to follow a more.. lethal form of justice, Cain should be one of the first to die in his opinion.

Jason himself was born with the sound of.. No. He stopped that thought before it could fully form. It didn't matter anymore.

Tim, Steph, and Damian were the ones who didn't have any of the common or easy-to-spot indicators, so none of them knew what theirs could be.. or at least, Damian hadn't known.

Damian narrowed his eyes.

"You are sure of this?" he eventually asked, and warning bells started going off in Jason's head at both the emotionless tone of voice and the blank expression his brother had donned.

It gave him flashbacks to Damian's first year at the manor, randomly ambushing Dick, himself and Tim on some quest to prove himself as Bruce's true heir. The others must have noticed the same, as they simply nodded at him with wary expressions.

Slowly folding his arms behind his back, Damian nodded once before simply saying:

"I see. I will.. think on the situation."

And with that he turned around and quickly disappeared down the Manor halls in the direction of his room, leaving three worried brothers, and one concerned butler/grandfather figure.


Thousands of miles away, in a city vastly different from the one this event occurred in, something similar was playing out in front of another group.


As she sat drinking an excellently made strawberry milkshake through a Ladybug-themed straw, Marinette took a moment to appreciate the.. unexpectedness of her current whereabouts. She would be turning 17 tomorrow; she had spent the majority of the day with her family, but tonight she was having a sleepover with her closest friends.

That wasn't that strange - friends had sleepovers. They celebrated things together.

No, the surreal part was the fact that she considered Chloé and Kagami her best friends - had you told a younger Marinette that she would be having Friday-night sleepovers with Chloé and Kagami of all people, and enjoying every moment of it, she would have blamed it on some mind-altering Akuma.

Still, Tikki had always said the future is unwritten and anything could change.. And several things did change.

For one, Lila's lies had finally caught up to her, and her entire fabrication had collapsed - she had actually gotten into legal trouble when several celebrities she lied about had ended up taking her to court for defamation. She had dropped out of Collège Françoise Dupont, and last Marinette had heard, she had been assigned mandatory therapy.

..Her friendship with Alya hadn't made it. Alya had apologised to Marinette, and Marinette had accepted it, but things had been stilted for a while before the both of them admitted that neither could see the other the same. Marinette had been too hurt, and so had Alya - after all, Lila's lies wouldn't have worked nearly as well if Marinette didn't have to keep so many secrets from her then-best-friend.

When classes were rearranged as they advanced to the next year, Alya and Marinette hadn't been assigned to the same class - so while they were still friendly, Alya had become close Aurore Beauréal.

It had also been Alya that encouraged her to try and make new friends, eventually managing to convince the girl to try and hang out with Kagami.

She was almost embarrassed by how easily she and Kagami clicked when she stopped letting her jealousy get the better of her and just took the time to get to know the other girl. Another change was Chloé approaching her to apologise for the way she acted when they were younger. Marinette wasn't as surprised that she and Chloé got on well, at least after they worked through a lot of their issues with each other, she was a bit surprised by the.. suddenness of the change, and halfway suspected something in the blonde girl's life had changed that lead to her taking those first steps.

One of the most important things that changed was that she and Adrien had discovered each other's identities - it had honestly worked out for the best, as the lack of secret identities meant Adrien could confirm she wasn't his soulmate.

It had been something of a relief to both of them.. Marinette had long since fallen out of love with Adrien, and Chat Noir's feelings for Ladybug had been largely motivated by his soulbond. Adrien had one of the stranger ones, in her opinion - a number between his shoulder blades which showed how dangerous his soulmate was.

It.. was a big number. A 14 in a world where the average person was a 7 - it was almost enough to make her empathise with how overprotective his parents had always been; it also made sense why he'd expect a superhero to be his soulmate.

He hadn't been completely wrong, in a sense - his soulmate did turn out to be a miraculous holder, just not the one he had expected. Without the hesitation caused by thinking Ladybug was his soulmate, Adrien let himself be completely honest with Kagami, and they started dating again.

It went much better this time, and after she became a permanent holder (Marinette had discovered a way to change the appearance of the miraculous jewelry with Tikki, which made it easier for permanent holders to keep theirs), she had finally agreed that Chat could tell her his identity - leading to the discovery that they were soulmates.

Which was.. another interesting discovery. Apparently all Black Cats and Ladybugs were born with the same kind of soul bond - Black Cats always had a bond that warned the Cat and his soulmate how dangerous the other was.. And Ladybugs always meet their soulmates in a dream the night before they turn 17.

So, you know, kind of a big day for her.

Not that she was nervous! Nope, not this girl. Nervousness and Anxious panic were the hallmarks of the old Marinette - the younger Marinette! She is now Old Marinette - not old like before, but old like age! She was mature - because tomorrow she would turn seventeen - and tonight she'd meet her soulmate! Everything was totally not stressful.

"So are you going to tell her the milkshake she's been slurping has been empty for five minutes already, or should I?" an amused sounding voice interrupted her thoughts.

Startling, Marinette looked up at where Chloé had nudged Kagami, who was staring at Marinette with a mixture of humour and worry.

Blinking down at the glass in her hand, Marinette had to admit that she may have been a bit more nervous than she thought.

"You are worried – is it because you will most likely meet your soulmate when you dream tonight?" Kagami asked.

"I don't see why she needs to be – the amount of soul mates who never find happiness with each other is barely 1 out of every 10000, and that's before you exclude those born without one," Chloé surprisingly interjected.

"It's more than that," Marinette responded with a sign, "even if it goes well – even if by some miracle it's love at first sight, and instant connection – there's still my place as Ladybug to consider. I mean we've been after him for years, and we're still no closer to stopping him than we were when we started!"

Both of her friends pursed their lips in frustration – they had each taken after Marinette with regards to vehemently trying to stop Hawk Moth.

Shaking off her thoughts of Ladybug, tonight was one of their rare nights off, she instead turned to Chloé with a raised brow and said:

"When did you become so pro-soulmate by the way? In fact, I distinctly remember you deriding it because.." she trailed off, suddenly unsure about bringing up her parents' complicated relationship.

She saw Chloé play with the straw in her own milkshake, looking like she was considering something, before she paused and looked up.

Yet before she could say anything, Marinette felt a particular shiver go down her spine - something experience had taught her was related to the miraculous. She made to ask Tikki if she knew what the strange surge of magic was, before she was startled by the way Kagami suddenly leaped upright, staring at a point in the opposite of where she had turned as she spoke to Chloé.

With the ease of heroes long since accustomed to akuma's showing up at random times in random ways, she and Chloé stood and whirled to face whatever Kagami was looking at as well.

She didn't notice anything out of the ordinary at first (though that didn't mean anything, considering how many invisible/camouflage akumas they've faced before), and she turned her head slightly to ask what had attracted their attention initially.. before realizing that they were both glaring at a specific point in front of her.

Her mind ran through several akumas that might clarify why only she wasn't seeing the apparent invader, when she felt.. something.

Marinette didn't know how to describe it - it was like a wave crashing over her, a pressure preventing her from moving, a force that knocked her breath away.. and the strangest part was the sensation that all of this was good, that it was something meant to happen.

She could vaguely hear her friends calling out to whatever they were seeing, but the sound was soon replaced by the chime of a bell - the echoes of which drowned out anything else. Marinette felt herself relax, despite the situation - the beautiful sound somehow being calming, despite being the only thing she could hear for the moment.

Suddenly her breath caught in her throat, and she felt something.. someone? No, it was definitely someone approaching - Marinette couldn't understand how she knew, she still couldn't see anything, but.. it was like whoever was approaching her had his own gravity and it was pulling her towards him.

The pressure kept growing, until she felt a hand cupping her cheek - it should have been unnerving, feeling something she couldn't see.

It wasn't.

Marinette could feel several things through that touch - affection, amusement, worry, a burning protectiveness.. and even a touch of fear. Giving in to her first instinct, she closed her eyes and relaxed into the touch, letting out a slow breath.

Then, as suddenly as it had happened, the sensation vanished - leaving behind two worried heroines, one confused kwami, and one blue-eyed girl longing for something she couldn't express.


Several city blocks away, in a secret basement, a man ruled by his grief fell into further despair as he realised the magic he had attempted - a modification of one of the spells in the Book of the Miraculous - had not allowed him to switch places with his soulmate but instead had simply inverted their soulmark.

A bond that used to show the first words they would speak to each other.. now showing what he presumed would be his last words to her.. and her last words to him. Words that she said during their vows.

Au-delà de l'infini. (Beyond Forever)

There would be a period of reprieve from akumas as the man recovered from the energy he expended to perform the spell.. There would be a period of reprieve from akumas as the man recovered from the energy he expended to perform the spell.. but when he eventually did return, the attacks would be much less frequent.. but all the worse for it.


First chapter over - what did everyone think? Or not everyone, since I doubt any fic has had every reader comment, but anybody with a comment or critique.. Let me hear it! Reviews help you grow as an author, and as any fanfic writer can probably attest, comments feed the little ego monster that pushes you to write more.

That being said, this has been a long time in writing (mostly between other stories and IRL stuff) so I can't say when the next chapter will be - I have this planned out pretty far, with several subplots, but my time is rather limited due to work.

I will also be adding other pairing tags/character tags (on AO3) as the story goes, but feel free to ask if there's a specific character you're curious about - I don't mind answering.