Green Eyed

Harmonies of the Multiverse

THEME

When Jupiter collides with autumn, a single moment is born between two entities. Equal harmonies with balance, dancing along a fine line of too far and too near, of brightest and dimmest, of perfect alignment. People say that on an equinox, the sky divides into two parts, golden light and silver darkness.

For Damian Wayne, it meant heading to the rooftop instead of sleeping peacefully in his bed, staring at the sky, but not seeing anything. His eyes would remain blank as they stared up at the twinkling stars almost covered by the rancid smog. He learned at too young of an age that life was not about myths and fairytales, but of monsters in the form of flesh and bone which held their smiles on their face and their daggers in your back.

The equinox meant facing the demons of his past.

He always knew he was never the best person. He wouldn't ever be as selfless as Dick, he wouldn't be as level-headed as Tim, or even as passionate as Jason. He wouldn't have his father's ingrained need to help the dying cesspool they lived in, and he would never have Alfred's heaven-bound level of patience. There would always be that selfish, rash, cold-hearted, narcissistic, impatient prince lying inside of him, waiting to rear its foul head. It surfaced every second he held a blade in his hand, at every mob member terrorizing innocents and criminals alike, every abuser, every villain. A voice inside him purred to rid the world of their filth, of their moral grime. And every single time, it grew louder and louder and louder and louder.

Each time a criminal escaped through his grasp was another chip in his fortitude.

Each time an innocent civilian broke a smile at him, only to die minutes later from an explosion was a stab in the wall between morally good and vengeance.

For every stabbing heart, for every gutless cry of a mother who lost their child.

Wouldn't it be so much easier to erase them before they could commit such barbarisms?

The cold kissed his cheeks, so much like a viper's poison, and he shook his head, banishing the thought from his mind. Ah, she's still inside my head.

Maybe symphonies are built on a beautiful melody. However, the melody would never work if they worked on different concepts. The one his father blasted into his mind was a righteous march, darker in tone than most melodies, but an overarching victory for Good reigned. It taught him patience, morals, ethics, light against darkness.

But, his mother taught him the cellist's devil nature. The darker tones, the echoing, vibrating puppet master giving the audience the illusion that the melody is in control, but in reality, all the melody can do is fall victim to the villainous, tragic whirlpool of misery, murder, and fascist brutality. She placed the blade in his hand, had him earn her love through feats of glorious atrocities, built him up from the ground up into the perfect weapon, too jagged and unpredictable to be used for Good, but whittled down, rusted and corrupted for far too long to be remolded into something useful.

Now, he didn't know where he belonged. Did his melody rise above the dark cello nurtured in him? Or will the melody drown under the alluring, tempest bass driven through his heart, buried deeper than the center of the Earth?

The wind, maybe sensing his demise, could do nothing but blow harder to calm his feverish head filled with questions he could not answer. The somber cold stung the sweet chapped lips all too used to the desert's ice and fire of his childhood, but it stung more bitterly as the North Atlantic ocean blew in the new change in season. Gotham was an outlier. A ghost town of improbabilities and plausibility all clashed together to create a cesspool of madness, hate, and impossibilities.

He wondered why his father, or his ancestors before him, would ever want to stay in a city like this for the rest of their rich, detached lives. Why they would ever choose to spend their lives in this miserable landfill, giving what they have to make the ever-draining city a better place. Why they gaze at the buildings and streets with fond gazes. Why they find it so easy to smile at a Gotham native without feeling like they will get a knife's edge poking their sternum the moment they show their backs.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he cursed God that he was not given this ingrained sense of belonging and mercy to Gotham like all of his family before him.

Pages rustled on in the breeze, and, by miraculous luck, the cover tipped open. Blue light shone through the darkness beyond his closed eyelids, but he did not notice beyond the salty river squeezing through the crevice.

"S'il te plaît, ne me dis pas que tu pleures." Please, don't tell me you're crying. Soft French carried over the quiet din. "I never know what to do when you are crying."

He pried his eyes open, and a vision filled his eyes. A girl, no older than he was, but with a more youthful smile cracked in sorrow, dressed in a midnight blue evening gown glowing in the darkness, blowing in the wind to its own rhythm as it reflected the stars ten times brighter than Gotham Fair's lights. She floated over the torn book of ancient Tibetan magic he brought with him that night, just like he did every solstice, her legs crossed underneath her in an informal squat. Cheeks blossomed like dusky luminescent wisteria, and constellations made of stars brighter than Rigel lost across the bridge of her nose. Her blue crown of hair burned a halo around her, framing bluebell eyes that looked older than a thousand of his lifetimes staring deep into his own green eyes.

The only word he could say was, "Marinette."

Her grin made his heart's symphony subito pianissimo. "Hi, Damian. Happy Autumn Solstice."

================

not me wanting to make this a full fic ;v; (hence the chapter title "theme")

for @jumpingjoy82 for the maribat gift exchange 2022 (i posted on time on archive, just not on tumblr ;v;)

This is hilarious

my friends bullied me into making this. and then they bullied me into posting it. im sorry

Duke and Tim middle child antics?

I know Jason and Cass are also middle children but Duke and Tim are the Middlest if you know what I mean

They walk around the house opening doors but not closing them

Their secret TikToks are of them doing increasingly stupid dances on patrol and seeing how long it takes for the others to find out. Right now they're at 232 videos and counting

They duct-taped Barbara's Pringle can shut. She blamed Damian

Jason forgot a bottle of Coke outside. Tim and Duke set up a science experiment watching it over the course of 9 months. It gained national recognition. The rest of the batfam never noticed

They recorded an album of Dick's shower singing

Their favorite track: Dancing Queen (L'Oréal remix)

Yeah Damian exists but let's be real Tim and Duke are the only Gen Z batkids

They dyed each other's hair and no one batted an eye

Dick bought two pairs of Ray-Bans and both went missing the next day. He blamed Jason even though Tim and Duke were right there, rocking their matching shades

They locked Damian out of his Club Penguin after too many failed password attempts

They also convinced him the Batmobile had a secret chicken incubator function

Steph loses her charger often but rarely notices because either Alfred or Bruce will replace it when she does. Tim and Duke, meanwhile, collect them and plan on regifting them to her on the 10th anniversary of losing her first one

Cass knows where they hid her hairdryer, but it's in Tim's room and no amount of survival training could prepare her for that

Bruce forgot to add Duke to the family phone plan so Tim hacked the account and added Duke himself

Sometimes Tim and Duke get lumped into a single entity during headcounts and just watch as everyone panics thinking they're missing a person

ok hear me out but ..

Damian is an avid Wild Kratts fan.

Also bonus:

Edit: Thank you for 1000 on this silly post I made! <3

Dick: Hey guys what’s up?

Damian: Silence! this is a debate I intend to win.

Dick: huh?

Jason *eating popcorn* : You’re gonna wanna see this

Tim: BY FAR IT IS ONLY LOGICAL TO ASSUME-

Steph: LOGIC HAS NO PART YOU’RE JUST BIASED

Jason: They’re fighting over who was the loosest cannon Robin which caused the most chaos

Dick:

Dick *reaches for popcorn*

Jason *slaps his hand* : Nuh-uh Goldie only the one with the title of MOST CHAOTIC ROBIN gets to eat popcorn

Tim: YOU ARE A LITERAL ASSASSIN WHOS TRIED TO MURDER SEVERAL PEOPLE

Damian: REMIND ME OF YOUR BODYCOUNT?!

Dick: what now-

Drake: THAT WAS BARELY ANY AS ROBIN

Steph: Dudes I was literally Robin to piss off my dad and became friends with poison ivy and Harley

Jason: You’re all just competing for second place

Dick: .. wait what about me?

Everyone *stops and stares*

Damian: Nightwing, this is serious

Tim: Yeah dude I remember your reputation as Robin and you haven’t changed

Batman: .. are you all done with the bust?

Steph: BATSY! Just who we want to see! So.. tell us, who was the most chaotic robin ever

Batman *without hesitation* : Nightwing

Penguin *tied up after the bust* : Yeah it was blue

Damian:

Tim:

Steph:

Jason:

Dick *steals popcorn* : Y’all better start putting respect on my damn name

The first time Damian calls Tim his brother is when Tim is beating his ass at Mario Party and after Tim steals yet another star Damian throws his controller down and yells, "I am your BABY BROTHER!"

sometimes i say things on twitter and then make a little graph about it

Roadside Inspiration

“Eyes on the road!” Adrien’s voice boomed throughout the car; voice distorted through the car speakers.

Marinette squeaked, eyes snapping back to the road as the car swerved slightly, which on the backroad she was on, was particularly dangerous.  The roads were narrow with no shoulders.  There was barely enough room for two cars and no room for error.  “Don’t do that!” she screeched back, one hand flying to her chest to calm her now racing heart.  “And I am keeping my eyes on the road.  I know how to drive a car, Adrien!” she growled, fully ignoring the fact that at the time, her eyes were not, in fact, on the road.

“You’re seriously going to tell me you aren’t allowing yourself to get distracted looking for the perfect view in all the lavender?” he scoffed.

Marinette opened her mouth and snapped it shut.  “Yes,” she answered resolutely, with a curt nod to emphasize the point despite knowing full well that he couldn’t see it.

Adrien snorted at the baldfaced lie.  “Sure, Maribug.  We’re just leaving Marseilles now.  How far from the venue are you?”

“Prat,” she grumbled.  She may get easily distracted and she may not be used to driving a car, it wasn’t like she had many opportunities in Paris, but she was an excellent scooter driver and really, how different was it?  And she was keeping her eyes on the road!  It was just the occasional glance to the side to look at the stretching fields of lavender.  It was a positive thing really.  They encourage you to be aware of your surroundings when you drive!

Keep reading

I firmly believe that Jason Todd was the scrawniest Robin by a very wide margin (he was both short and a beanpole) he earned the nickname Little Wing by literally being a spec of a child.

Sure, all the robins were small (they’re kids) but Jason was notably scrawny.

This is why basically no one saw it coming that he was Red Hood. My man died, fucked off for four years, experienced puberty and came back 14 inches taller and built like a fridge.

OHSHCAU (Keysmash)

Part 1

Summary: Flowers fluttered past her, carried by some kind of impossible breeze. One smacked her in the face. (Or the Ouran High School Host Club AU. Or the Keysmash AU for the cultured people of the MGI server.)

Marinette literally just wanted to find a quiet place to study.

The library had been full of people that apparently didn’t know that they were supposed to ‘sh’. The classrooms were locked. All of the clubrooms had clubs going on (which, duh, but it was still disappointing).

So, she made her way through the school, considering just giving up and resigning herself to doing her work on the floor even if she knew it would leave her with a back that ached for the next several days…

And then her eyes landed on a room at the end of the hall. The door was ajar, but she could only hear a faint murmur of conversation and the quiet clinking of porcelain.

She considered it for a few moments before sighing to herself and hiking her bag up higher. It was either this or beginning the painfully long trudge back to her house immediately after her gym class. She was already sore, she just wanted to relax for a few minutes.

So, she pushed the door open wider.

Flowers fluttered past her, carried by some kind of impossible breeze.

One smacked her in the face.

She brushed it off of her nose, only to find herself blinking up at the most popular person in the school.

Richard Grayson-Wayne smiled at her, pretty as ever with his perfectly gelled hair and perfectly pressed clothes. She suddenly felt a very strong urge to check her reflection in a mirror and sniff herself to make sure that her after-gym shower had been enough.

“Oh, are you a new guest?”

“Guest?” She repeated, a little dumbly. Forgive her, for he had taken her by the hand and started leading her inside and she was confused.

But then she glanced around.

Everything in the room was needlessly extravagant and expensive, but so was the rest of Gotham Academy. That wasn’t what she focused on, though.

Horror seized her as she realized what, exactly, she had stumbled into.

Because, as she looked around, she recognized more and more of the school’s most popular kids, and all of them were attending to the many people (usually girls, but not always) crowding them. And she remembered what, exactly, Richard Grayson-Wayne’s extracurricular was.

She jerked her hand away, eyes wide. “Uh, no, I think you’ve got the wrong idea, sir,” she said. And then internally freaked out because why the hell did she call him sir? He was two years older than her! Damn it! She could feel her face flushing in embarrassment.

He smiled and brought his hand up to cup her cheek. “Am I not your type? You can take your pick of the others, you know.” He smoothly moved to loop his arm around her shoulders and lead her further into the room. “What are you into? Women? Men? Both? Strong people? Smarts? A sense of humor or a mischievous streak? A stoic type? A princely person?”

“Um, listen, I was just looking for a place to study,” she said, slipping out from under him and taking a few careful steps backwards.

He smiled. “Of course you were,” he said in that tone people used when they were only humoring you.

She gave an awkward little laugh, still doing her best to back away from the situation in the most literal sense she could. “Seriously, I’m just going to go –.”

Her back hit something and she whipped around, her eyes wide, just in time to watch a vase pitch itself off a pillar.

She reached for it. Her fingers just barely brushed the handle. And then it hit the ground.

The porcelain shattered upon impact.

She stared at the shards, her hands resting on the pillar it had just been resting on as if trying to replace it, wishing that she could simply put the pitcher back together by sheer force of will. The color drained from her face as it slowly began to sink in that this was reality, that she had just broken a vase that had to be expensive considering everything else at this school was.

Marinette slowly turned back around to find everyone looking at her, their attention pulled by the loud crash. She swallowed thickly, her gaze flickering between the broken vase and Richard rapidly.

She needed to say something. Anything.

“I mean. It was kind of ugly.”

Anything but that!

At least someone was amused. A woman with blond hair – Stephanie Brown, she remembered her being on the news a while back – turned her head to snicker into her hand.

She cleared her throat. “No, sorry, that was weird to say. I’ll – I’ll pay for it.”

A dark-skinned boy made his way over, frowning lightly. The glittery, gold makeup dotted across his cheeks like freckles seemed to shine as he looked her over. She recognized him to be one of the kids in her science class, but his name eluded her. “Aren’t you a scholarship kid?”

“She is,” an unfortunately familiar voice chimed in. Her eyes narrowed in on Tim Drake. He was glaring at her over the rim of his rich kid teacup.

Marinette’s face suddenly remembered how to circulate blood, but it had overcompensated in its rush to fix its mistakes. A blush rose to her cheeks. “Okay, and? What of it?”

This got another laugh, but this one sounded different. A little colder. Someone clicked their tongue. A boy with tan skin around in his chair, stroking a cat in his lap, like some kind of D-list Rogue. “Then can you really afford it?”

She glanced at the vase again and shrugged. “I mean… probably? It can’t be more than a few hundred, can it? It’ll be a bitch, but –.”

A woman wheeled over, her wheelchair coming to a stop just in front of the pillar Marinette was still leaning against in the worst attempt at acting natural anyone had ever seen. She recognized her as one of the library assistants. Barbara Gordon didn’t even bother to look up from her phone while she ruined Marinette’s life with a mere sentence: “We were about to auction it off for charity, and the starting price was fifty thousand USD.”

Marinette choked on air. “Fifty… fifty thousand?!” She repeated. She barely fought off the urge to scream about how it wasn’t even a nice looking vase. She figured yelling at the people she was suddenly indebted to was, probably, not a great idea.

A guy in a leather jacket gave her an empathetic look. She pretended not to notice for the sake of her own sanity.

“That’s a joke, right?” She tried, ignoring how desperate she sounded even to her own years.

A woman lazing in the window shook her head, black lipstick-covered lips just barely curled into a frown.

“Any chance I can pay this off in parts?” She asked, resisting the urge to start doing math on her fingers to figure out exactly how much she was going to have to give up to work all of this off. She would do that later, when there were no eyes on her. “I – I don’t have a job right now, but I can get one, I promise, I’ll find a way to pay you back –.”

Richard clapped his hands together once, but this time his smile held no real warmth. “Don’t worry, I can think of a job that just opened up.”

*****

“Marinette, I left you alone for ten minutes,” Adrien said, pinching the space between his brows. He was currently messing with chemicals, so touching his face was not advisable, but he was wearing gloves so he was still, at least, more safe than 99% of other high school students would be.

“It was closer to an hour and a half,” she mumbled, watching the beaker in front of her bubble. She was very dedicated to lab safety, thank you very much.

“How did you even manage to become the – did you say you’re the host club’s dog? What? Like the kink?”

She groaned. “I can’t think of a less literal translation, okay? It’s like… they want me to clean, set up events, help them with clothes, serve drinks and food…”

“Servant? Assistant?”

“Sure,” she said, throwing a hand up frustratedly. “But could we maybe focus on the rest of my problem instead of the fact that English isn’t my first language?”

He gave her a mildly amused look that she didn’t return. And then he sighed, picking up his mortar and pestle again. “Okay. Well. I could always –.”

“If you say you want to pay off my debt for me I’m pouring this down your throat.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly, obviously not too fond of the idea if he was preemptively touching his neck. “I see. Well. Then. I guess we’ll be seeing less of each other.”

“Thank fuck for that.”

He elbowed her in the side. “Don’t think you can get out of doing your half of the presentation.”

She groaned and burrowed into her Batman hoodie. “But if I do the presentation I have to dress up…”

“Yeah? I have to dress up every day, make sure to always have an entire section of my backpack devoted to skin and hair care products in case of emergencies, bring extra clothes to school, and –.”

“Shut uuuuuup I get it,” she huffed, moving her now-luminescent pink liquid off its burner. “Rich people have their own problems or whatever.”

“We do. Like making sure we make good connections while in school, something you –” he poked her cheek. “– need to work on. Maybe this host club thing will be good for you. Help you put yourself out there or whatever.”

“You just want to laugh at me.”

His lips twitched into a grin. “True.”

She scowled. “Put down the mortar and pestle.”

He seemed to want to say no, he wasn’t stupid enough to not know why she wanted him to put it down, but then thought better of it. He resigned himself to his fate, sighing and setting it aside.

She tackled him off of his chair.

*****

Marinette was pretty sure that they were making her set up the auction she had accidentally ruined purely to spite her. Like, sure, setting up everything was technically her job, but the chances of this being her first assignment were abysmal.

She forced herself to breathe through it. Go to her happy place. Four in. Murdering the Waynes but also keeping her scholarship. Four out. Good.

She carefully made her way back and forth, setting everything in their respective spots, at an inching pace – she was not going to add more debt by breaking something else. Then she went around making sure the lights shined on them just so to make them seem shinier (“rich people are like magpies,” she had been informed with a sage nod). Finally, she checked that all of the notecards were in order and that the mics were all working.

She spun around in the middle of the room, going over everything with a critical eye, and then nodded once to herself.

She headed to the ‘dressing room’ (it was a closet they had repurposed).

“I’m done, Richard.”

“Dick,” he corrected lightly, leaning in to check his teeth.

She raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”

His eyes widened and he whirled around, holding his hands up in a half placating, half surrendering gesture. “Nonono, I’m not calling you that, I’m saying that’s my name. Dick. Short for Richard.”

“I know. I’m just sorry.”

Dick sputtered. Damian made a wheezing sound that might have been a laugh.

Unfortunately for Damian, the wheeze drew Marinette’s attention. She groaned. “Oh my god, put the cat down, you’re in a suit for fuck’s sake,” she hissed. She looked around until she found a lint roller, and then thrust it towards him. “Trade me.”

Damian looked affronted. “I’m not putting down Alfred.”

She had to force herself to ignore the fact that he had named his cat Alfred of all things, she needed to concentrate on what was really important: threatening him.

“You are going to put down Alfred. I suggest you do it willingly.”

It was Dick’s turn to snicker at his brother’s misfortune.

Neither spared him a glance, too locked in their staredown. Marinette had thought for a moment that Damian was going to actually try and throw hands, but at least she would still be winning in that case because he would have to let his cat go to do so.

Eventually, Damian heaved a long-suffering sigh and handed off the cat. She set Alfred in her hood just so she could cross her arms over her chest while she watched Damian struggle with the lint roller for a solid seven minutes. She might be indebted to these people, but damn if she wasn’t going to be passive aggressive about it.

Dick grinned, leaning his arm on her shoulder. She felt short, in that moment, but it wasn’t her fault that the man was freakishly tall.

“You’re the best hire we could have ever had,” said the man who was unaware she was considering kneecapping him to make herself seem taller.

Not that she was going to tell him.

“I’m being held captive.”

“Same difference,” he joked.

And, despite herself, a tiny smile made its way across her face. His happiness was strangely contagious. No wonder he was so popular in the host club.

She reached up to tap him on the nose. “You haven’t done your stage makeup yet.”

He yelped out a curse and then ran to look for the makeup brushes, muttering under his breath about how that was what he had forgotten.

*****

Marinette stumbled into the library, a hand absently rubbing an ache between her shoulder blades. Her eyes locked with Babs’.

“Is it in ye –?”

“No,” Babs said, still tapping away at her computer.

Marinette slumped against the doorframe, letting her head knock against the wood. Maybe it would give her good luck.

“Life is a tragedy and I’m nothing more than Shakespeare’s bitch.”

The woman sighed and pushed up her glasses to rub an eye. “I’ll check it out for you when it comes in. Give it to you during the host club.”

Her posture brightened instantly. “Really?”

“Yeah, just don’t lose it. I have a perfect record when it comes to turning my books in on time and I don’t want you to ruin that.”

She grinned and did a mock salute. “Aye-aye.”

*****

Marinette absently stacked the plates, cups, and spoons on top of each other to take them into the next room for a quick wash. She kind of liked finding the optimal ways to stack things, it was like a very high-stakes game of Tetris. She carefully picked up her tower and was pleased to find that it didn’t shake in the slightest.

Only to blink when Jason stood up, holding a tiny stack of his own.

“Let me help.”

She stared blankly for a moment before she finally caught a quiet gasp nearby. Her eyes flicked in that direction and found a customer practically cooing over the basic human decency Jason had displayed. She sighed a little. Right, they had an audience. She pulled a slightly wobbly smile to her face.

“Sure. Thanks,” she said carefully. In the end, even if it was just to forward his image as a ‘baddie with a heart of gold’, it was still help and she wasn’t intent on saying no just to be petty.

Or, at least, that was what she had thought until he had kept doing it. Almost every night, without fail, he would help her clean up after everyone. Even if all of the guests were gone by the time he got away.

She finally gave in one day, her hands almost elbow deep in the sink water:

“Why do you keep helping me? You know that this isn’t your job, right?”

He gave her a strange look for a moment.

And then he gave the slightest of smiles. “I was poor, once, too.”

She nodded slightly. They went back to work with a quiet sense of solidarity.

“Also, you take too long to wash dishes on your own.”

She splashed him with the sink water.

He gasped, puffing up in his mock offense. “Hey! These pants are supposed to be cared for! They’re hand wash only!”

“Then this is perfect,” she said, grinning. “It’s totally deserved.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So is this.”

He used the cup he had been washing to scoop up some water and dump it over her head.

She stared at him for a full minute in stunned silence. And then a grin broke out over her face.

He suddenly looked like he was considering running away.

In the end, they finished the day more clean than the dishes, but hey. It’s the thought that counts.

(Just kidding. Sanitation doesn’t work like that. They overloaded the dishwasher to fix their mistakes.)

*****

Marinette sighed and set the cake down on a table, then turned to leave.

She stopped short when she saw Tim in the doorway, his bag half off his shoulder where he had been about to fling it away from himself like he did every day while opening up the clubroom.

“How’d you…?”

She shrugged and held up a keyring. “Asked the janitor.”

His brows furrowed momentarily, as if he were thinking, but then he just shook his head to dismiss the thought.

“Why do you have a wedding cake? Did you have a Vegas wedding or something?”

She groaned internally and forced herself to straighten up to her full height. “My parents are bakers. The wedding they catered today didn’t end up happening. Bride got cold feet – uh, literally, she was murdered, y’know? – and they said to give this to my friends.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So you brought it here?”

“Well, Adrien doesn’t have a cheat day for another two weeks, and if I ever have another slice of cake it’ll be too soon. This is kinda the last place I’ve got. Besides, it could please your guests.”

“Couldn’t you just give it out to the people in your homeroom?”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you want the cake or not? Because I have to go to class soon. Unlike you, I’ll get thrown out if I don’t attend every one of my classes, Drake.”

He snorted. “Aw? The scholarship student is struggling in her classes?”

“That’s not why, and if you really think that then you’re dumber than I thought,” she said, curling her fists at her sides.

A couple of complicated expressions flicked over his face, none of which she could get a good read on, but Steph’s head appeared over Tim’s shoulder before either of them could say something they regretted.

“Shut up and let the nice girl give us cake, Tim,” Steph said, smacking him over the back of the head as she brushed past him to get in the door. She grinned at Marinette. “Thanks for the food.”

Marinette gave a tiny smile in return.

She smiled even wider when, as Steph passed, she asked Marinette under her breath if she wanted to join her in throwing a slice of the cake into Tim’s face. As if it was even a question.

*****

Duke squinted at the needle in her hand suspiciously. His arm was already sanitized and the needle was prepped, it would only take around thirty minutes for her to get a sufficient amount of his blood to analyze. “Are you sure you know how to do this?”

She huffed. “Of course I do. Don’t be a pussy.”

“That’s sexist.”

“Okay? And not volunteering to help for my project is anti black.”

There was a beat before the pair of them broke into quiet snickers. Quiet, because neither of them wanted to get caught slacking off in the middle of their research class.

Marinette tapped the needle. “Don’t worry, if you’re good I’ll give you a cake pop.”

His smile almost seemed to light up the room. “Sounds like a deal. Stick me.”

(Later, she had found herself staring at his vitals with mild confusion. He almost didn’t seem human. And then she had quietly dismissed them as an outlier. Maybe she’d ask if he had been a victim of a Rogue attack recently when she saw him at their next host club meeting. Or not. That was kinda personal.)

*****

Marinette liked Cass. Neither of them really talked, but Cass didn’t talk much to anyone anyways.

Still, the girl was a soothing presence. Sometimes, when the days were slow or while they were waiting for the club to start, they could be seen sitting in the same window. Cass would listen to music. Marinette would do her homework or read a book.

It was pleasant.

At least, it was pleasant most of the time. It turns out a silent person can be a bad thing. Marinette now had a permanent chemical burn on the back of her arm because Cass had come up to her at the wrong time, had tapped her on the shoulder, and Marinette had flinched so hard in her surprise that she had ended up spilling an entire beaker over the back of her wrist.

She was pretty sure the seven solid, apology-filled minutes where Cass had helped her rush to the nurse’s office to stem the blood bubbling on her arm was the most she had ever heard her talk before.

*****

Marinette glared at her reflection, aggressively applying stage makeup to the area under her eyes. She would have to wash it all off right afterwards, stage makeup looks strange when up close and not under the effect of near-blinding lights. And then, after that, she would have to sit still while Adrien applied even more, but wildly different makeup to her face, for the second half of the conference where she would be forced to shmooze for the sake of funding.

But that was a problem for later. She needed to make sure everything was perfect.

Anything less than the best score in the school could throw her scholarship into jeopardy.

At least this was getting her out of her usual host club duties. Marinette and Adrien needed to present, so she would have gotten out for a few hours no matter what, but a solid number of the (actual, willing) host club members were in their age group. Duke, Tim, and Steph all had projects today as well.

They had canceled the host club for the day. Maybe the others would be attending the presentation, maybe not, she didn’t really care.

All she cared about right now was making sure she didn’t look like some kind of ethereal being made of light on stage.

A head dropped onto her shoulder and she rolled her eyes. “You look like a ghoul.”

Adrien grinned. “I think this is the best I’ve ever looked.”

“True.”

He gasped. “Rude.”

“I mean, you kinda set that one up for me,” she said, gently shoving him off so she could straighten fully. She patted down her deep red dress, checked her black heels to make sure they weren’t going to slip, and then turned to him. “Good?”

He hummed thoughtfully, tipping his head to the side. And then he shook his head, motioning for her to turn around. “I told you you needed to do something with your hair,” he said.

She huffed. “I did.”

“Letting it out of its usual pigtails is not ‘doing something’.”

“I mean… if you want to define the words –.”

He snorted. “Shut up. Let me fix this.”

She waited impatiently for him to brush her hair and pull it into a strict bun.

She scrunched her nose at her reflection. “I look like a teacher.” She pulled a strand out to frame her face.

He tucked it right back behind her ear. “Well, you’re teaching these people –.”

“You’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met.”

“You’re looking in a mirror. Time to meet someone even worse. Nettie, meet Nettie.”

She pulled away the moment he was done. “The moment this is all over I’m beating your ass.”

“I mean, you kinda set that one up for me,” he mocked.

“I’m not kidding, Chaton. Meet me in the parking lot at 7pm.”

He only grinned, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his suit, and jerked his head to point towards the stage.

*****

Marinette and Adrien had chosen the safest possible option. Even if neither of them really cared about how the overexposure to chemicals had affected the average Gothamite’s physiology – they already knew that it would boost their immune systems in some areas, weaken it in some areas, and just generally cause a myriad of lung and heart problems, they weren’t stupid – it was something they knew was both a popular question at the moment and something that rich people would want to know so they could start finding solutions for themselves.

Which meant they might get funding from people that weren’t just Adrien’s Dad. Not only did Marinette not want to rely on him, grades and future teams/assignments were determined by how much funding you received. They were already at a disadvantage, Marinette’s parents weren’t rich and couldn’t make a sizable contribution like every other family at the academy could. They needed to win over anyone they could.

And they had done pretty well. Marinette had only stuttered and considered asking Adrien to anti-Bruce-Wayne her parents a single time.

They’d made up for it in the questions portion. The subject of chemicals was something they both knew an ungodly amount about, so they answered every question sent their way without a hint of hesitation. In the end, they’d gotten quite a few people to come up to tell them that they would be donating to their ‘cause’.

She hadn’t expected one of the people they had won over to be Bruce Wayne, though.

Marinette fought to not shrink back as the man that sponsored the scholarship program she used began to head her way. He was Gotham’s sweetheart, and a bit of a dunce, but he still held more power over her than she would prefer.

And he had his kids in tow. Even more people that could choose to ruin her life on a whim. Fun. She definitely wanted more of those.

She got a thumbs up from Cass, at least. Thanks, Cass.

As for the rest of the Wayne kids… they were currently looking at her like she had spontaneously sprouted an extra head. She made a tiny ‘what the fuck’ gesture with her hand, but they were too stunned to give her any kind of meaningful response.

Marinette looked to Adrien, and he looked back at Marinette, both of them making sure that they looked as good as was physically possible. They took the moment to share quiet ‘do you know what’s going on with them?’ looks, and ended up with nothing.

And then they threw a pair of identical smiles the Waynes’ way.

“Mr. Wayne!” She said with false cheer. “It’s so nice to see you! How is business going?”

He grinned. “It’s been great. You didn’t hear it from me, but I’m pretty sure our stock prices are about to jump.”

Adrien laughed lightly. “Oh? I’ll be sure to tell my dad to invest.”

Marinette wanted to die.

“Ah, yes, good investments are good,” the man said, giving him a daft kind of smile. And then he reached out and patted Marinette on the top of the head, making the tiny strand of hair tucked behind her ear fall back into her face. Luckily, the man didn’t notice. “Like her. Back when I first started sponsoring you, even I never could have guessed that you would become so smart.”

She forced a blush to her face. “Well, I’m just really good with chemistry. I’m just glad that it was accepted as being close enough to biology to count.”

“Our mutual love of chemical experimentation is what brought us together in the first place.”

Marinette leaned in conspiratorially, cupping a hand over her mouth to stage-whisper to the others: “Don’t let him fool you, he’s talking about the time he blew up his microwave.”

“For science! It was an experiment!” Adrien said with false offense.

Bruce chuckled good-naturedly and started rifling through his pockets for a checkbook. “Well, it would be wrong to give money to all my other kids and leave you out, don’t you think?”

Marinette stared at him for a moment, her fake smile fading slightly in favor of pure confusion. “Sir, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m not one of your kids.”

And, sure, she knew that Bruce Wayne’s kid situation was a little strange. There were only five actual Wayne kids: Dick Grayson-Wayne, Jason Wayne, Cassandra Wayne, Damian Al Ghul- Wayne, and Duke Thomas. There was also the weird gray area that was Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Barbara Gordon, all of whom had one or more living parents but often found themselves grouped with the others because of how close they were to the Wayne family.

But Marinette? Marinette was a scholarship kid that was being forced to be around them all. She had talked to Bruce Wayne a grand total of four times, and one of those times was happening at this exact moment.

Bruce Wayne blinked once. Twice. Three times. And then he smacked his palm against his forehead. “Oh! Right! Sorry, the others talk about you so much that sometimes I forget you aren’t my kid.”

Marinette sometimes wondered if a man could truly be this dumb.

“Ah, don’t worry, I’m sure my parents could identify every single one of them in a line up with how much I talk about them,” she said, forcing her sweetest tone even as her gaze cut to the Wayne kids in a way that screamed ‘I have talked about murdering you multiple times’.

The Waynes now looked like they had just watched her grow a third head and were now resigned to the fact that she could apparently grow more heads. An improvement? Maybe?

Bruce chuckled and patted her on the head again. “They are little scamps, aren’t they?”

“They’re sweet, though,” she lied through her teeth. “I enjoy every minute we spend together.”

“I’d hope so!” The man said cheerfully.

And then Bruce, the godsend, the best person to ever exist, wrote a check and dropped it in her donation box. Marinette only just refrained from pumping her fist.

Still, the smile Adrien and Marinette gave after that was far more genuine.

Adrien smiled. “That was very nice of you, Mr. Wayne.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“Of course! And, please, both of you, call me Bruce.”

“I don’t think you understand how much I just… can’t do that.”

He chuckled and gave her one last pat on the head – Adrien looked like he wanted to cry a little as his careful work started to come undone for real – before heading off to do whatever it was rich people do.

His kids didn’t join him.

Marinette turned to Steph, Tim, and Duke. “Good job on your presentation, Duke.”

(Listen, she liked Steph well enough, but Tim was a dick and she would rather die than compliment his work. Especially not when he was her main competition at the school.)

Tim didn’t even seem to register the snub, for once.

This gave Duke plenty of time to snicker and tell her, “I totally bombed. My partner didn’t even read the note cards I gave her.”

“I mean, yeah, but you’re not supposed to say that.”

He could only shrug a little, somewhere between amused and annoyed.

Dick didn’t give her much time to register the motion, though, as he came up and rested his hands on her shoulders.

She blinked at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re weirdly touchy?”

“I – wha –?” He shook his head, and she wasn’t sure if that was an answer or if he was just dismissing the question. “You’ve been attractive this whole time?”

Marinette ignored the fact that Adrien had chosen to break down laughing. It was surely unrelated.

She looked up at Dick for a moment. “I mean… duh?”

“But…” Damian said, sounding almost pained. “Every time we’ve seen you, you’ve worn a hoodie and jeans.”

“Yeah, because I’m not really interested in looking good for – I don’t know – fucking Kyle from my Calculus class.” She huffed. “Besides. Nice clothes? Makeup? That stuff is expensive. Way too expensive to use when I’m not getting any kind of return, y’know?”

Steph nodded her agreement. Ah. Working class solidarity. It does exist, after all.

And then Babs wheeled herself closer, looking mildly amused. “And if you can get a return?”