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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year

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The Enemy of my Enemy is ALSO my Enemy, Part 6

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If nothing else, Jason would like to put on the record that he had tried.

He was so close to being happy, to being revived and having everything be fine, he had watched his own papers drop into his lap and had nearly cried out of sheer joy. It was the first set of paperwork he had done in quite a while – he had joined Melisande and Bucky in giving Gabriel all the things he didn’t want to do, which just so happened to be pretty much everything – but it was worth it. He was going to come back, he was going to be able to see his family again, be able to touch Marinette and Adrien for real. It was amazing.

Which, really, should have been a warning sign for him.

Because, before he had even finished the first page of his stack, a bell had rung.

He glanced up as the hatch in the ceiling opened, more out of habit than anything, and his eyes landed on a familiar face.

He practically fell out of his chair in his haste to get to Marinette, his hand snatching her file out of the air as he went. His free hand landed on her shoulder, shaking vigorously.

“What the hell?” He hissed the moment blue eyes showed a sign of opening.

Marinette blinked blearily at him, her eyebrows drawing together as if she were struggling with a particularly difficult puzzle, and he knew that her consciousness was still not quite tethered to her body yet, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as she shook her harder.

Finally, the final piece of her mind snapped into place, and her own hands came up to rest on his shoulders. Whether this was to get her balance, make him stop, or if she was just that shocked by seeing him, he would never fully know, but as blue eyes peered back into his own, he figured it was probably the last one.

Arms continued on to wrap around him and he gave a tiny gasp as he was pulled into a tight hug.

And he knew he should go back to grilling her, should be screaming about how she was supposed to be done – safe – and that she shouldn’t be here, should question what had happened…

But he indulged himself for just a moment. How could he not? Usually, the hugs he got from her were somewhat hesitant, tainted by the fact that her soul was just barely hanging back with its hands not touching him. They were both there now, for a reason he would get back to soon, but at the moment he was going to enjoy being crushed into her chest, her hands gripping the back of his suit so tightly he could feel her fingernails pricking his skin even through the fabric.

And it had been so long since he’d been able to touch her.

He pressed his face into her shoulder, giving himself a moment to just breathe. She smelled like blood. He hugged her closer. Some terrible part of him wanted to absorb her into his chest, to give her a place within his ribcage where he could make sure she wouldn’t be able to get hurt again.

Every hug has to end eventually, but neither of them seemed all that intent on doing so any time soon.

Which, he supposed, must have been why fate decided to break up their unfortunate little reunion:

“Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng?” A voice said from behind him.

Marinette went tense in his grip.

She slowly picked her head up, peering up at Gabriel Agreste for just a moment.

“It was you,” she said, recognition flickering behind her eyes. “I thought the timing of your heart attack was suspicious, but… it was really you…”

Jason was still close enough to hear her take a deep breath. It was strange, breathing when you were dead because it wasn’t actually necessary, it didn’t feel bad if you simply forgot and you wouldn’t have to gasp for air when you realized you had stopped, so he knew that the breath she took to steady herself was more out of habit than anything.

But, perhaps, because breathing wasn’t something that their bodies needed, the air didn’t have any kind of calming effects for Marinette.

She pulled away from Jason, got out of the chair, and flashed a too-bright smile.

And then she lunged for Gabriel’s throat.

Jason grimaced at the sound of a fist crunching against the man’s skin, definitely breaking something important.

Melisande eyed the fight that had broken out. “Aim for his penis.”

Bucky didn’t even look up from the papers he had taken from Jason’s desk to pick up the slack. “Too predictable. Go for the eyes.”

Those two never had gotten over the whole Hawkmoth situation.

But, to be fair, neither had Jason, so…

He hummed absently as he thumbed through the pages of Marinette’s file. His eyes found their way to the stats that he almost never paid any real mind to, and he grimaced.

She was set to be brought back within the hour. That was good.

What was less good was the way that she had died because of the League of Assassins. He narrowed in on the fortunately not too-graphic description of her bleeding out from several injuries.

He took a deep, steadying breath. The fact that she was there meant that she was set to be revived soon, so, really, no harm done.

Except for the harm that he was going to bring to the League. He was going to be revived soon, he would be perfectly capable of getting his revenge.

… actually…

“Hey, Marinette,” he said.

Her shoulders tensed at his tone. Her fist stopped in midair, still cocked by her ear. She slowly turned to look at him.

“I’m about to be brought back. You got killed at the League. Care to tell me whether that was a coincidence?”

Her mouth opened.

Closed.

Opened again.

She grimaced and looked back down at Gabriel, who was currently a mess of broken limbs and blood and rattling gasps for breath. She sighed and pushed herself off of him to face Jason properly. “Maybe.”

He groaned a little. “When we see Adrien again, we’re having a talk about risks.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, we’re bringing you back. I think it’s worth it. You’re worth it.”

Jason did not know how to respond to that. He sighed and reached out, pulling her into another hug. “So are you.”

She giggled and wrapped her wings around him – her hands were very much covered in blood, so this was probably for the best – and he took a moment to appreciate them. He had expected the ladybug wings he had seen on all of the akuma victims, but he supposed it made sense that they would be different. She couldn’t very well revive herself. So, she had been given whatever wings the universe thought would fit her. Apparently, the universe thought she was a bird. One with bright pink wings, so perhaps a flamingo.

He opened his mouth to tell her about it, and perhaps ask why she had ended up with a flamingo being her animal, only for water to fill it.

And then his head was breaching the surface of the water.

He struggled for air, his body automatically starting to go through the motions needed to keep his head above the churning green, his eyes darting around desperately. He knew, logically, what had happened, but his heart pounded in his chest regardless.

Green light bounced off the cave walls. Shouts echoed around him, but they were muted, as if he was still under. The water frothed around them, churning as he worked to pull himself back together in a very literal sense.

There was a frankly alarming number of assassins standing by the edge of the water, refusing to go in on some vague idea that it was too sacred for them to touch, and certainly too good for them to throw weapons in in fruitless hopes that the three of them might somehow manage to die faster than the Pit could heal them.

Adrien stood over both of them. Water crept up his legs like snakes, twining its way up his body, seemingly searching for things to heal. A frankly worrying amount of throwing knives were tucked between his fingers like claws. His usual staff was slung across his back, but he didn’t seem all that interested in using it at the moment.

He heard a gasp nearby and looked over to find Marinette, her hair stuck to her face and blood sloughing off of her in literal waves.

Jason stretched out an achy limb to grab her arm and hook it over his shoulder, kicking back in the water to try and get them both to float while their injuries were forcibly healed.

For a moment, she leaned into him, her face coming to bury itself in his shoulder. She made a strange, wordless whining sound. He squeezed her as best he could.

And then she pushed off of him, groaning a little as she forced herself to stand in the water that, really, was only up to their waists, and yet the act of getting out of it was almost painful. He could feel tiny hands trying to drag him back under by his clothes.

It wasn’t until he was fully standing that his ears popped and he was allowed to hear all of the yelling in full.

“Weapon,” she said.

He blinked at her.

“What weapon do you want?” She clarified.

He glanced back at the assassins. They were yelling something that he was pretty sure meant ‘traitor’. It wasn’t aimed at him, but that only made the anger that had been curling in his stomach since he’d realized Marinette had been killed grow.

“Gun,” he decided. The assassins would get their wish, he would make sure that they wouldn’t touch the Lazarus waters, and if he had to use a gun to forcibly push them back then so be it.

Marinette grinned and pointed a finger gun at him. She flicked her hand upwards like she was shooting it, and, between blinks, he found a red and black gun had appeared in her hand.

He stared at the gun she shoved into his hand for a couple of moments. No matter how many times he might have seen it, he never did get used to the idea of things just popping into existence when she willed them to.

“Infinite ammo,” she said, apparently misinterpreting his silence for wondering how to use it.

He grinned regardless and lifted the pistol.

“So, do we have a plan of escape? Or are we just waiting for Ra’s to get here so he can fight us? Because I’m going to be honest, I don’t really want to fight him.”

Marinette snorted. “Of course we have a plan. Speaking of…” She inclined her head towards Adrien.

He tucked away half of his knives without saying a word and then lifted his hand. Inky blackness danced along his fingertips.

“Are we ready, M’lady?” He asked.

She hummed lightly and reached out, wrapping an arm around them both. She twirled her yoyo once.

And then she launched her yoyo at the nearest stalactite, only giving it a half second to grip the slippery stone before pulling on it.

They were launched through the air.

The people below them screamed, but it wasn’t quite an angry one, not the kind that meant they were going to be attacked. Not yet, at least. They just sounded panicked. Jason glanced back and found that the same inky blackness that had been curling around Adrien’s hand was now spreading through the water at a rapid rate, making it look somehow, impossibly, cracked. The assassins finally streamed into the Lazarus Pit, their need to preserve the sacred waters just barely outweighing their belief that it was not meant for them.

Meanwhile, their group of three touched down on the banks and took off running.

Marinette grabbed him by the hand and dragged him along behind her as she and Adrien sprinted through the halls of the base. Jason knew from the many briefings he had gotten from Bruce and Dick that the place was supposed to be a labyrinth, and he could see dozens of halls whizz past him as they sprinted, and his eyes caught on several tripwires, but neither of them hesitated at any forks in the path. They simply continued on, following a map that was just a little too perfect for him to think that they hadn’t done, at the very least, heavy infiltration to get to this point.

But before he could really think about that too hard, his eyes caught on a group of assassins streaming down the hall after them. Now they were definitely angry – and gaining on them, their weapons raised.

“Alright, I think the Pit should be destroyed now,” Adrien stated the obvious, flexing his fingers once before starting to trail them along the wall as they ran. The stone began to crumble beneath his hand, but the assassins pushed forward regardless, likely hoping to beat the inevitable cave-in.

Jason wasn’t particularly interested in letting that happen.

He picked off the assassins at the front with his gun. He hadn’t used one before, not really, but they weren’t particularly difficult things to use, and he wasn’t really concerned about being accurate. All he needed to do was slow them down, anyways.

He told himself he didn’t get a bit of a rush when he watched them keel over backward, blood and guts and viscera spraying from wherever he had hit. That he didn’t enjoy watching them get buried under rubble. That it was a bad thing that people were dying.

But, really, should you really expect someone that had been surrounded by magic for years to not pick up a few quirks?

And they had killed Marinette.

A strange grin spread across his face as the last of the rocks settled, dust sticking to skin that was wet with water and sweat and blood and who knows what else.

But they continued running. There was no telling how many assassins were stationed around the place and, even if they might be somewhat distracted, they didn’t want to test it.

Their fears were for nothing, it seemed, because they came upon a door.

And, well, he probably should have wondered why things were going quite so smoothly. Honestly, it should have been a larger red flag. That never happened in the field, especially not for him.

A hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt and he gasped as the front of it dug into his neck. He wasn’t given much time to recuperate, though, because a knife was quick to replace the fabric. It wasn’t pressed down, certainly not enough to strangle him like his shirt had, and yet he still couldn’t find it in himself to breathe.

Marinette and Adrien jerked to a stop as well, though they weren’t exactly forced to in the way that Jason had. Honestly, the way that they paused was somewhat unnatural. There was no loss of momentum, no skidding of shoes against the ground. One moment they were running, the next they were not. He wondered, idly, if the magic they wielded might be having just as much of an effect on them as it did on the rest of the world.

Could you tell that Jason was trying very hard to not think about the sharp point currently pressing against his skin?

“You’re traitors,” the assassin said, and apparently she was female. Whoo. Diversity win. The person about to kill Jason again is a woman.

He was going to cry.

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we are. Congrats on figuring it out. Do you want a prize?” she said, moving to raise her hand in sarcastic jazz hands.

“Don’t move,” the assassin hissed.

Something akin to frustration flickered across Marinette’s face momentarily, but she didn’t move. It was then that Jason noticed that her fingers were surrounded by some kind of strange, gooey substance.

Adrien tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing just slightly. “How about we all let everything we’re holding go? I’m sure we can talk this out.”

The assassin seemed unimpressed. “You first.”

Adrien hummed a little, and then raised his hands, letting his knives clatter to the floor.

Marinette showed off empty hands.

The assassin seemed to realize that their being empty-handed meant nothing. Or, perhaps, that it did mean something – that their hands were now free to warp the world as they wished.

The knife dug further into his neck. He didn’t realize how much he liked the cold gleam of the metal until he could feel warm blood dripping down his skin.

“Disappointing,” Adrien sighed, giving a smile befitting of the model he once was. It was perfect, but there was nothing genuine about it, and his eyes flashed coldly.

“You were both talented. Fix the Pit and let me kill this boy, and you just might not make an enemy of the League.”

Marinette hummed, her head tilting to the side at a just slightly unnatural angle. She turned her head to look at Adrien, who seemed, remarkably, even less enthused than she did.

The assassin gave a theatrical sigh that didn’t quite cover up the cold smile starting to play across her features. “I suppose I’ll just have to make you fix it, then.”

Jason tipped his head back to rest against the woman’s shoulder. The knife followed him, but that wasn’t why he’d done it.

He pressed the gun against her side. Tilted at a careful angle that would, at the very least, puncture her lungs upon firing.

“Sorry. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

He pulled the trigger.

Pain seared through him and he bit down on his tongue to stifle a scream.

And then he was on his ass, groaning and cursing as he hit the tile. The world had transformed. His eyes darted around desperately, as if he somehow still wasn’t sure that he was dead even though he knew what a slash across the throat meant, but he was disappointed to find the same office walls that he had practically grown up in. Two people leaned over him, and tears began to sting as he recognized Melisande and Bucky.

“What, kid, did you forget something here?” Bucky asked, his expression somewhere between mildly pained and amused.

Melisande gave him a cold look and jabbed him in the side.

Bucky didn’t even seem to notice. He caught a file with a green tab sticking out of it in a practiced motion and, after giving him a tiny pat on the head, went back to work.

Jason scrambled to his feet, drawing red and black wings close to try and comfort himself. But he couldn’t. He was dead. Again. How long would he be there this time? Did he even want to know?

Fuck.

Everything he did brought him back here. His original life. Dealing with Hawkmoth. And now he couldn’t even escape properly. Every road always led to death, that was the price of living, but this was different. Every road for him led him back to purgatory. He strangled a sob. At least, if he died, things would be over, but now he had to go back to waiting. Until Marinette and Adrien were able to get back to the Pit, or maybe even later. Maybe he would have to wait for someone else to revive him, and surely that was worse. What if the face he saw when he was brought back wasn’t friendly? What if he got sent right back here again?

Damn it.

He curled in on himself, ignoring the fact that he was doing so in a public space and that everyone could still see him.

Melisande grimaced as she looked down at Jason. She pulled the boy to his feet and he simply allowed it, unable to muster the energy to really stop her. He wanted to cry, but that, at least, was too far for him. He could handle having a breakdown in the middle of an office building, but crying was worse.

But understandable.

Too bad he didn’t feel like understanding much at the moment.

He groaned and looked around. He was somewhat pleased to find Gabriel Agreste still on the floor. He was moving, but just barely. After a couple of moments, he walked over and stomped on the man’s neck. It didn’t matter, he was 99% sure people here couldn’t die, but the wheeze and wide eyes that he got from the man were more than a little relieving.

At least, if he was back here, he would be able to rag on Gabriel again. Fuck that guy. He deserved every punch and kick and extra file Jason was going give him over the next however many years.

He tried to laugh. It came out a sob.

Melisande reached a hand out for him, and then stopped, apparently thinking better of it.

Maybe she shouldn’t have, because the hand would have done him quite a lot of good. He nearly fell to the floor again, his hands coming down to rest on a nearby table were the only thing that kept his knees from buckling fully. He took a few deep breaths, matching the desperate gasps he could hear Gabriel make as the man clawed desperately at his throat. He couldn’t help but smile a little at the sound.

The smile, like his life, didn’t last very long.

He groaned and let himself sink toward the ground.

He closed his eyes.

And then the world around him tilted on an axis and he cried out.

Something rough, but not wholly terrible, dug into his back. He flung his eyes open, but it didn’t do him much good. Red and black danced in his vision, moving so fast that he wanted to be sick.

All at once, it all disappeared and he found himself staring into brilliant green eyes.

He stared uncomprehendingly for a few moments.

Oh.

Relief flooded into him.

Ladybug had summoned the gun he’d been using. Which meant that a miracle cure was more than possible. And, now that he thought about it, his wings had been black and red.

Maybe, later, he would feel embarrassed about his little freakout. He had been trained better, really, he was supposed to pay attention to his surroundings, and most certainly himself, but…

But, for now, he grabbed Adrien by the front of his shirt and dragged him into a hug.

Adrien made a quiet squeaking sound, throwing his hands out in front of him to stop himself from unwillingly tackling Jason further into the grass, but he recovered quickly. He looped his arms around him and tucked Jason’s head under his chin. The hug wasn’t quite as tight as the one he had gotten from Marinette, it was looser, softer. More of a hand carding through his hair and the faint smell of something floral on the breeze and slotting in perfectly against a slightly-too-thin frame.

“Guys…” Marinette said after a few moments. “We really should be going.”

Adrien didn’t even move, though his hand twitched like he was about to make a rude gesture but thought better of it. “No. You got a heartfelt hug or whatever, I get one, too.”

She rolled her eyes, but her expression was nothing but fond. “Fine. I’ll stand guard.”

Adrien gave a little hum, and Jason’s nose scrunched just slightly when his throat vibrated by his ear, but that just made the blond laugh a little and press closer to him.

Jason was pretty sure that they could have stayed there forever but, eventually, his stomach growled and his face flushed pink as he drew back. “Right. Revived. I have to have food now.”

Adrien gave a tiny grin and carefully got to his feet. He offered Jason his hand, and he didn’t even hesitate before taking it.

“Alright, Mari, you can relax now.”

Marinette popped out of a bush. Jason did not see her get into the bush, but she was out of it now. He has chosen to just accept this.

She grinned at him and stretched her arms over her head. “Where are we gonna eat?”

“Could you make something at the house?” Offered Adrien. “I’m sure Plagg and Tikki want to get out and eat, too.”

Marinette hummed lightly. “Fine. I’ll whip up some food before we abandon the place. Can we –?”

“No, we’re not going to burn the house down once we’re done with it.”

Marinette sighed and looked at Jason.

Jason hesitated before shrugging. “I mean. As long as its a controlled fire and there’s no one around to get hurt, I don’t see why we can’t...”

Adrien groaned. Marinette whooped.

There weren’t any hard feelings, though.

They started off towards their house. Their house, because this was home. Jason took them both by the hand, and neither of them so much as flinched. Marinette intertwined their fingers. Adrien swung their arms back and forth.

After a few moments, Marinette huffed. “I’m offended that you’re taller than me now.”

He, too, hated that he was so large. It was throwing him off more than he’d ever admit out loud.

However…

“Yeah. That’s because you’re my baby sister.”

“Listen here, you little shit –.”

“I spent years in the afterlife, so I’m older.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, biologically, I’m older –.”

“We don’t even know that for sure –.”

Adrien sighed. “Guys, we just got the gang back together… or whatever the Americans say… can we just enjoy being together for a couple of minutes?”

Marinette and Jason glared at each other around Adrien for a moment before settling. He was right, after all…

Adrien’s eyes gleamed. “But, for the record, you’re the youngest.”

“Ha!”

“Oh, you conniving bitch –!”

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