demon's daughter

II-III

Tom and Sabine are extremely generous, and insist that they are happy to help anyone who escapes the League. The League stopped trying to send assassins to kill Sabine after the sixth failed attempt, and they leave the bakery alone now, which makes it all the better place for Marinette to stay.

She gets the entire third floor of the bakery as her bedroom. It already has a loft bed, desk, and chair, as well as a skylight that leads to a rooftop balcony. The bedroom, however, lacks any sort of personality, and Marinette throws herself into decorating in order to forget the absence of her twin.

When she is finished, the walls have been painted a dark emerald (A/N: #53DOE if you want the exact shade, though I don't know why you would want it) and the desk and chair are painted black (because dark green goes a lot better with black then white). Marinette purchases a black vanity and dark green chaise with black accents to fill some of the empty space, and buys a new sewing machine and dress form for her designs. She puts up a bulletin board on the empty wall next to her bed and fills it with pictures of her family, and also hangs fairy lights around the room to give it a more cozy feel. (A/N: Basically, her room in canon, but dark green and black instead of pink and white.)

Marinette still feels like something is missing from her room. A quick search on the internet shows that most children and teenagers also have plush animals or dolls in their rooms, so she makes her own. A couple hours later, a row of Gotham's vigilantes occupies the shelf above her bed, other than Starling. That would be harder to explain away than just liking the vigilantes from her home city, given that nobody outside of Gotham knows she exists.

The decorating takes about two weeks in total. Marinette spends another week and a half learning the Dupain-Cheng recipes and helping in the bakery, and she video chats with her siblings weekly, as well as Jon.

Father is distant again, but Marinette understands. He must see Damian's features every time he looks at her, the same way she sees Damian in him.

.o0o.

On her first day of school, Marinette safely pulls an old man out of the way of an oncoming car without endangering the macarons Tom gives her to share with her new class.

When the man thanks her, she offers him a macaron even though she wants to rip into him for wearing such an ugly shirt. (Loud Hawaiian print in the fashion capital of the world, the atrocity.) As Marinette crosses the street, she shakes off the feeling that the man was hiding something. It's not her problem.

Collége Francois Dupont doesn't have a uniform, so Marinette picked an outfit that represents her to the very core. A dark gray blazer with a black bat embroidered over her heart, a blood red shirt, black flare-cut pants, and steel-toed combat boots. There are numerous weapons hidden all over her body, but the public doesn't need to know that.

Marinette easily navigates the crowd (paparazzi was much worse) and locates her locker, dropping off the appropriate textbooks before finding the right classroom and entering. She selects a seat in the far back so she can survey the room. A red-haired boy (Nathaniel Kurtzberg, judging from his appearance) sits alone across the aisle from her, but Marinette does not join him.

Another red-haired teacher (why is she followed by redheads wherever she goes? Wallace, Babs, Roy, Koriand'r, and Artemis were more than enough) with a saccharine smile walks in, introducing herself as Mme. Bustier for the new students. They are asked to introduce themselves. A brunette with glasses goes first.

"Hi! I'm Alya Césaire. I'm an aspiring journalist, and I love superheroes! I moved from Nice this summer." The teacher asks if anyone has any questions for Alya. There are none.