Devastating

Chapter 6

Marinette's P.O.V.

After taking down the criminal, Marinette remembered that she had an audience and tried to act as nonchalant as possible. Deciding that calling the police would be a good idea Marinette turned to Damian, holding the thug firmly against the ground, she asked,

"Dami- Do you think you could call the police? My hands are full at the moment." In her rush to call for help she didn't fully say his name, though she had to admit it was a cute nickname.

Damian just stood there with his lips parted for a minute before he snapped out of it, he fumbled for his phone and called the police telling them what had just happened.

The police arrived a few minutes later and Damian approached one of the officers giving an account of what happened while another officer walked toward Marinette and collected the bleeding criminal. Marinette thanked the officer and gave a quick account of what happened, not going into details about how she incapacitated their attacker.

The officers left once they got their statements and information, they said the teens could return home while eying Damian oddly. Marinette thanked the officers as they left and before Damian could question her she grabbed his hand and dragged him in the direction of her hotel, she prattled about how kind the officers were before commenting on anything and everything that came to mind. She continued on like this, hardly giving herself time to breathe for a few minutes until Damian firmly tugged on her hand stopping both of them.

Damian looked her in the eyes and asked her,

"Are you ok?"

"Of course I am, just a little shaken, sorry. I tend to ramble when I'm nervous or anxious but really I'll feel fine once we're both in our rooms and safe!" She was also rambling to keep him from concentrating on what just happened, not wanting him to ask too many questions.

"That's good, I suppose. May I ask you a question?"

"You just did, Dami." The bluenette answered with a small giggle.

Damian was quick to catch the nickname, "Where did you get that nickname? And you know that's not what my question was. Could you tell me where you learned to defend yourself like that? It was quite impressive and I was just curious because while I am relatively aware of the situation in Paris I doubt you would have a need for such skills in the city of lights."

She knew this question was coming, luckily she was prepared to answer. Marinette knew Damian wasn't an idiot and was probably good at discerning whether or not someone was lying or not, so she stuck as close to the truth as she could.

"O-oh that. Well, my Maman always wanted me to be able to defend myself and because of the akumas, my parents and I decided it would be good for me to take some self-defense lessons. I got really into it and took more advanced classes eventually sparring a couple of times. It's very fun!"

The answer seemed to satisfy Damian and they continued to walk to the hotel. They walked in comfortable silence for a few blocks, after they rounded another corner Damian asked:

"Marinette, could you tell me about that butterfly terrorist you have in Paris? There isn't as much news coverage as one would think, or at all really, but my brother was in Paris during an attack and we began watching the local news coverage but we don't believe what we see. And I understand if you don't want to speak with me about it because a terrorist is a terrorist and we just met-"

Marinette recognized the look in his eye as he stared at the ground, almost pleading 'Ground, please swallow me.' She stopped him before he could continue, remembering the times she's rambled and prayed for someone to stop her. She cut him off: