The white patch that took up the entirety of Damian's left cheek was more than distracting for Hiro to look at whenever the older boy decided to chew.
"So your face got dragged along the curb?" Hiro asked, choking back a giggle as Damian nodded.
Toyman hummed as the boys continued to eat their cereal bowls standing.
He obviously wasn't hiding the wound of having his skin scratched and peeled by a cement pavement. He was hiding a wound of pride.
After last night's dinner, the Boy Wonder took it upon himself to look into Mayura. It was safe to say that she was indeed close enough to Adrien to be a viable suspect.
The woman who matched Marinette's description went by the name Natalie Sancoeur, Gabriel's personal assistant, who suspiciously handed in her resignation around the same time Adrien went missing.
Using Brother Eye, which Hiro complained was taking up too much power to run 24/7 like he requested, they soon found out that Miss Natalie bought a direct ticket to the Bahamas, a plane that she never even bothered to show up to the airport for.
Tracking her last known moments via security cameras around the city, she was seen pulling aside a manhole cover connected to the city's drainage system.
So, as any good detective would do, he was scouring the worst drainage system in the modern world for a missing woman. Each wall was soaking wet, and the humid atmosphere was stuffy and on the edge of suffocating. Too many unnecessary turns into dead ends were made, and he had to stop every now and then to figure out if the rats were running away from incoming murky waters. It was worse than chasing down The Rat King down the Gotham sewers.
Just as he was regretting not taking up Toyman's offer of sending a drone in first, he heard a pair of voices bickering with each other from the adjacent drain.
“We need to that butterfly bastard ourselves!”
“She said it was too dangerous”
Robin crept up closer to the where the entrances of the drains met and set up a mirror to peer into the other one. Two girls, one tall and lean in white and blue bunny-like suit, were pacing around the shorter one dressed in a gray mouse suit hugging onto a ragged book with mouse themed stickers on it. With their masks on their faces, Damian wasn't sure if he had actually seen these two around the city before.
“Then why hasn't Mayura come back yet!” The bunny girl huffed. “
The mouse girl put her fingers in knots as she pitched her shoulders.
“Maybe… she listened to Pigella and took off too,” her soft voice echoed. “She could have had a change of heart. I do that all the time.”
“Mayura stood her ground at the meeting, Poly,” the bunny-eared girl crossed her arms. “Something doesn't feel right. She wouldn't just leave the Book of Miracles and not be here to guard it.”
The two stood in silence and sighed.
“Any word from Noir?”
“Nothing,” the tall girl replied.
“It's like he and Ladybug disappeared from the news,” the mouse girl hugged the book to her chest tighter.
“Well, there haven't been any big crimes that have happened lately. The police are pretty competent these days. We should be grateful.”
Seemed like Adrien had eyes on him, too.
“Bunnyx,” the short girl says with worry in her voice. “Should… we run away-”
“No way!” She held onto the other girls' shoulders. “The Cool Cat put his trust in us for situations exactly like this.”
“But I'm scared,” Poly trembled.
Bunnyx bit her lip. “Me too, but we need to do what the adults are afraid to do. I have a plan.
The tall girl leans in closer and begins to whisper into the other's ear, prompting Damian to lean in closer. Just as he pulled out two tranquilizer darts from his utility belt, he felt a hand on the square of his back, making his open go wide through his mask.
He swung around and stabbed both darts into his assailant arm. To his surprise, it was the mouse girl he had seen through the mirror. A double? A clone? An imposter?. Whoever she was, she squeaked, ruining the element of surprise he had over them.
“Someone's around the corner,” the double standing with bunny alerted as she pushed the other back.
“Run!”
Damian pulled out his katana as the bunny themed girl made it to the end of the drain in one leap while the mouse ran down the opposite drain.
“You've got a lot of nerve showing up here!”
Her white boot met Robin's blade with a cling.
“I'm not your enemy!”
“Didn't know that the butterfly's lackeys got PR training too,” she grunted as the speed of her kicks increased.
Robin ducked under a few kicks before he caught her foot and swung it upwards, throwing her off balance.
The moment her foot hit the ground, she spun around and connected her foot to his gut. Robin gritted his teeth through the pain before bringing his blade to her neck, making her freeze mid kick to his chin.
“Lady Noire sent me.”
“Never heard of her,” she growled.
“She knows that Mayura has been watching over her like a guardian angel. She wants to repay the favor.”
The girl put her wet foot down slowly as she studied the boy in front of her.
“What do you want?” She questioned with a clenched feet
“The same thing you do,” Robin put his katana down and showed him the R on his armor.
“Ahh, so you're the one they sent for Blackfire,” she said to his surprise. “No wonder you've been so quiet.”
“Tell me what you know,” he demanded.
“Nah-ah, let's trade. Words for words.”
Robin grunted as he pulled up his sword.
“How can trust that you or your friend would pull out any magic tricks from your hats?”
“For starters,I ain't wearing one,” she pointed, “And you haven't gone in for a killing streak, so you're desperate about what I know.”
He hummed.
“The Gym Lockers in François Dupont at 10.30 am today. No weapons, no costumes,” she said
“No can do,” he shook his head.
“Worth a try,” she kissed her teeth. “Okay, we can meet up at the same place however you want to look, but you need to bring this Lady Noire of yours with you. I'll bring Poly with me, too. Then we can talk.”
Before Robin could even object, he felt a distinct stinging on his cheek after a girl hopped past him like a blur with a snicker.
“That's for grabbing my leg!” She yelled as her footsteps moved further and further.
He tried chasing her down, but she was just too fast to consider that possibility. When he put his hand to his cheek, it was burning, making him wince.
The moment he made it back to his hotel room, the first thing he noticed was hand imprint taking up his entire cheek. That girl was incredibly fast and petty. It was giving him a migraine trying to figure out how to capture her.
So now he was zoned out, staring at Hiro's lips flap on and on over affairs he hardly cares about on zero sleep.
"So let's say she, hypothetically, became recently single, has a good work ethic, and is potentially experiencing somewhat of a heartbreak that needs... let's say a handsome dark knight such as yourself to soothe her," Hiro took a sharp inhale, "You wouldn't take the chance to ask her out on a date?"
Damian paused, mid chew of the breakfast cereal he had to sneak into his own hotel room because he was secretly missing Alfred, before he dropped his spoon into a bowl of milk and set it aside.
"No comment," he said as he straightened up against the wall in favor of leaning against it.
"Are you sure?" The younger boy pushed. "Because I'm just worried about how much you seem to be smiling to yourself since last night."
Damian crossed his arms and frowned. Why was he being interrogated by an amateur?
"There are more things important -"
"-than your love life?"
"-than same trivial tasks," he warned. "Count yourself lucky that the Titans listed you as a reserve member or else Nightwing would keep you in briefing."
Hiro threw his head back onto Damian's bed and sulked as Damian sighed.
Was he really that obvious? Last night was...refreshing for a lack of better words in his opinion. Although he still had his costume underneath the suit, which made him somewhat uncomfortable with him crossing and uncrossing his legs for the latter portion of the night to ease the accidental wedge he gave himself
The company, minus the brat, was enjoyable to say nonetheless and Marinette's eyes... he wished he had stayed with her longer.
He blinked his mind of his own trance.
His peace was settled on the mission at hand.
"Hiro, I need you to look into the grid for some footage of people entering the drainage system through manhole covers around the city."
"What? Did you hit your head on the curb, too?"
“Do you want to go back to Metropolis?”
“No,” he pouted, dreading the thought of his vacation/mission ending. “I'll compile a list of names within the hour.”
“Good, now get out of my room.”
As Hiro marched himself out, Damian couldn't help but wonder if Hiro had anything better to do than mess up his neatly made bed.