The categories in question !

Family ( chosen / found, blood / birth ) -Monday Rare pares ! ( Platonic or romantic ) - Tuesday Hurt / comfort ( angst and fluff ) - Wednesday A.us - Thursday Favorite "well known " ships ! -Friday Positivity ! ( this will be a day to write a fic, ship , draw or shout out a friends work in the fandom !!) -Saturday

You know how, when the school year starts up, a teacher might get everyone to go around the room and give a couple of vague facts about themselves? Or, even worse, they might split everyone up into teams based on some random, inconsequential factors and they would all be forced to work together on some dumb task? That way they can get to know new people better?

You know how everyone hates that?

Yeah. Marinette thought that, of all people, her fellow high schoolers would understand. But alas, here she was, glaring down Dick because he wanted to do a team-building exercise. Bastard. She was going to shoot him.

With a paintball gun! Because they were playing paintball!

Do not send cops her way! She will introduce neurotoxins to your system!

Anyways, she had no choice but to agree. Debt’s a bitch.

And, maybe, the idea of shooting the Waynes point blank in the face with paintballs would have swayed her regardless, but who knows. The option was never truly given to her, so who’s to say how she would have reacted?

Certainly, the Waynes would never know.

Which was probably for the best. They could end her life in a couple of phone calls.

She hummed as she absently messed with her paintball gun. They had been split off into pairs. Steph was still on the bench thanks to her copious amounts of injuries, unfortunately, so Marinette hadn’t particularly minded who she was going to end up with (she hated all of the Waynes equally, save fucking Tim, who would avoid her, anyway), and had allowed them to all pair off and leave her with the leftovers.

She was regretting that, now, of course.

Dick wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tugged her into his side. “Don’t get too competitive, please?” He said, and he sounded like he was one more ‘fuck you’ away from begging.

She glanced over his shoulder and found Tim making faces at her behind his back. He was supposed to be heading to one of the other nondescript, frankly unnerving steel tunnels that would lead them to a random place on the map. He should be spending this time with Damian so they could discuss their plans. He was not doing any of these things. He had followed Marinette and Dick to their room instead, and she would be concerned about him trying to figure out where they would end up for the sake of a tactical advantage… but, frankly, that was too smart for him.

He had no good reason to be here. How sweet of him to want to see her off.

She looked back at Dick, her eyes gleaming. “Of course I won’t. Only babies get competitive over stuff like this.”

Tim bristled. But his mic was on, so he was unable to say a word in protest. He could turn his face away from the people to mouth the curses he so clearly wanted to scream, but she could just look in another direction.

Her lips twitched into a kind of grin before she tamped it down.

Dick sighed. Deeply. “I’m guessing I can take that as a no.”

“Aw. You know me so well.”

He snickered. “Well, I’d hope so, since I hired you.”

“No one has ever lied to the people hiring them ever,” she said, nodding sagely.

He grinned. “Which is why we went with… atypical hiring practices.”

“You’ve basically kidnapped me and decided to hold my entire future ransom to make me work for you.”

“Shhhhhhhhh.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Oh, Marinette,” a voice called, and she was more than happy to let Steph drag her out from under Dick’s arm, even if this meant that a new arm was wrapped around her waist and a face came to rest close to her own.

Marinette raised an eyebrow, but wasn’t too surprised at the sudden closeness. They’d literally slept together, in the same bed, for days. She could handle a little bit of contact. And, besides, they’d both agreed that it fit their characters (a playful flirt would flirt with a girl next door, and a girl next door would blush and let it happen) and it would draw in more customers. Teenage boys and gay teenage girls would both rather enjoy watching ‘wlw content’ when given the option.

Besides, who doesn’t flirt with their friends a little? Now they got to monetize it. A win.

Marinette rested a lazy arm over Steph’s shoulder, careful not to jostle the microphone hovering by the girl’s chin. She gave it a pointed look, and Steph mouthed the word ‘off’. She untensed a little. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Your mic is off.”

“I didn’t get one,” she said, shrugging.

Steph blinked. “Oh. I can give you mine.”

“Well, if I accept that, how am I going to insult Tim without the audience knowing?”

Dick snickered. “You could try not insulting him.”

Marinette gave him a blank look.

He shrugged as if to say ‘well, I tried’. Which, did he really?

But her attention was quickly stolen away when Steph pulled something out from behind her ear and then presented it to Marinette, who looked at it how one might look at a dead rat their cat had just brought in.

“What the hell is that?”

“A mic,” Dick offered.

She glared at him out of the corner of her eyes, and then snapped her attention back to Steph when the girl leaned in to fit the device over her ear. “You’re not putting that on me.”

“What, is the scientist scared of technology?” teased Dick.

She gritted her teeth. “Chemicals are easy to understand. They’re predictable. This? Unreliable. Who knows who's listening in on those wavelengths.”

There was a beat of silence. The two Waynes looked at each other for a moment, something unreadable on their faces.

And then Dick sighed. “Listen, you know how our dad bankrolls the Batman?”

She nodded, still eyeing Steph as if the girl was going to jump her and attach the evil machine to her by force.

“Well, we get a couple of perks. Like this. If anyone tries to hack into these – which, really, why would they? – Batman will be alerted and I’m sure they will never be heard from again… or whatever it is he and his weirdo kids do.”

“Local Batman proves that all cops are corrupt,” she said, still eyeing it warily.

“Not a cop,” said Steph.

“Not corrupt,” said Dick.

She wasn’t sure who was being less realistic.

And it didn’t matter what they said, either way.

Batman was exactly the person she was trying to avoid, thank you very much. But it wasn’t like she could just say that, because being openly wary of the Batman in front of rich people was just begging for them to be suspicious of you. They were too used to their peers being affiliated with the Court of Owls. So, reluctantly, she let Steph place the mic.

The girl drew back slightly once she was sure everything was in place (and, more importantly, that it would stay in place even while they were all running around).

Steph grinned. “There. Done. All you’ve got to do now is press the button and you’ll be live. Anyways. Blush like I said something suuuuper hot, m’kay? They’re staring.”

“Maybe if you do something hot, I will.”

She hummed thoughtfully before she brought her free hand up to cradle Marinette’s face. She tilted her head up, her thumb caressing her cheek, their noses brushing. A quiet click sounded next to her ear as her headpiece was turned on.

“Fixed,” Steph said. Quiet, but close enough to the mic hovering by Marinette’s chin for their audience to hear.

“Thanks,” Marinette mumbled. Thank god she had melanin to hide the reddening of her face somewhat, but she was pretty sure it was obvious regardless.

“Anytime,” Steph teased, going so far as to press a kiss to Marinette’s nose before drawing back. She glanced at Dick. “Your mic is off, too.”

“What, not going to fix mine for me?” Dick joked, lifting a lazy hand to flick the knob by his ear.

Steph snorted. “I’d rather die.”

Dick grinned and immediately tugged Marinette closer to him again. Woe is her. If only she could retaliate by beating his ass like she so wants to do. She hates debt. Thankfully, he didn’t wrap an arm around her this time, instead he let her go in favor of crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re just jealous that you don’t get to teach this sweet little underclassman the ropes.”

Marinette was fighting a valiant battle with her face, trying to keep the unimpressed annoyance off of it. “You’re so kind.”

“Of course! It’s my job as the club leader to make sure that your introduction to the group goes smoothly!”

They wouldn’t be bothering with all of this otherwise.

For you see, a large part of being a Host was based around how physically attractive you were, and if they wanted her to be popular enough to pay off her debt, they would have to introduce her to the potential customers in a way that would draw their attention in that way. So, it had been decided that Marinette’s official introduction should be some kind of physical activity. Especially since their clients were all fellow teens, and likely would see a bunch of people fighting for their lives in slightly skimpy clothes and go ‘ooooooooooh’.

Steph rolled her eyes so hard she must have seen her brain back there. “It would have been easier if we’d just done a pool party.”

“My! A pool party?! Steph, have you no shame? What about her innocence?!”

“Dick. She’s wearing a crop top and yoga pants.”

“A crop top, yoga pants, and tasteful armor,” said Dick. His attempts at defending her honor were… definitely attempts. Marinette could give him that.

Marinette crossed her arms over her chest, grinning. “Would you prefer I work out in a hoodie and sweats?”

“Well,” said Steph. She brought her hands up to press against her own chest, winking. “I don’t want that.”

A glance up at the crowd showed that the people had caught the jist of what she’d said thanks to the overdramatic body language she had opted for. Thankfully. Marinette wasn’t sure how to naturally repeat that for the sake of the people watching.

Her eyes caught on one particular person in the crowd, though.

Fu, leaning against his cane heavily, watching her.

“Alright, Steph, stop flirting with the new recruit,” Dick said, slinging his arm over Marinette’s shoulders again, tugging her closer to his side. “Shoo. Scram. Other synonyms that start with ‘s’. I need to teach her how to shoot – shoot! No, wait, I’m thinking of ‘shoo’, and I’m pretty sure I already said that. Anyways. Leave so I can teach her.”

Marinette’s head jerked around to look at him, her eyebrows disappearing behind her hairline. “I know how to shoot. You just…”

She pointed her paintball gun at a nearby wall and pulled the trigger. A disappointed look crossed her face when, despite the gun clicking to tell her that the trigger was working, nothing came out.

“Hm,” she said, eloquently.

He snickered. “Well, I know why that happened, but before we fix that…” He reached a hand out to adjust her fingers. “Let’s not keep our fingers on the trigger. Unless you want to shoot at anything that dares to surprise you.”

Marinette absolutely wanted that. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say that while in character, so she was stuck smiling and saying, “Thanks, Richard.”

“Dick,” he corrected lightly, as usual.

“You don’t understand how much I can not call you that,” she said. Even if Dick was, often, a dick, and she didn’t usually mind going with whatever nickname or name someone called themself, it’s hard to say the word and still come across as demure.

“Well, then, you can call me something else. How does ‘my liege’ sound?”

Marinette snickered into her hand. “Terrible, King.”

“Oh. Hate that.”

“Got it, Queen.”

He sighed.

“Themporer?” she tried, batting her eyelashes.

“How many of those do you have?”

“So many, gender nonspecific monarch.”

“That one feels like a stretch.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, it is a bit of a mouthful.”

“You know, I’m starting to realize that you use humor to stall.”

Marinette’s face flushed at the direct callout. That had been unnecessary. And she couldn’t even curse him out for it. She hated life.

Whatever. She’d roll with it (not like she had any other choices). She gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “What do you mean? I was trying to figure out your royal-title-specific pronoun preferences! I had only the best of intentions.”

“Of course, of course. Pretend to get ready to shoot your gun.”

Marinette huffed, mumbling that he was ‘no fun’ as she lifted her paintball gun.

He walked around her slowly, knocking his foot against the inside of her own until she moved them to be shoulder width apart, bending her arms so the recoil wouldn’t hurt as much, bending her knees slightly so she wouldn’t fall over at the lightest of hits…

“You sure know a lot about this,” Marinette said, eyeing him warily.

“Dad made me take some self-defense classes after I got held for ransom for the eight and a half-th time.”

“Eight times is a lot but I guess that’s still surprisingly competent for hi – wait, half-th?”

“Yeah!” he said, and then did not elaborate.

She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting.

He checked her form one last time before nodding to himself. He squinted at her gun for a moment, before cringing.

“I – uh – I’m not used to turning off the safety from an outsider’s point of view…”

“Then here,” she said, starting to stand up straighter and hand it over to him, only for him to rapidly shake his head.

“No, no, no, we need you in that position for as long as possible to get your body used to it.”

Marinette fought back a grimace, her eyes briefly flicking to the people still watching them intently. Dick, as the self-proclaimed ‘king’ of the Host Club, was easily the most popular among guests. She did not want to put a target on her back by looking like she was trying to come onto him. Or because it might look like he was coming onto her. She hated this fucking job. They were coworkers, damn it. She shouldn’t be stressing about getting, like, Court of Owls-style assassinated for being near him!

“Just – just… do it quick,” she said.

He nodded sharply.

Arms wrapped around her from behind, a chin coming to rest upon her shoulder. Warm breath just barely wafted over the side of her neck, earning a few goosebumps. His hands ghosted over the back of her own, briefly, fixing the positioning of her fingers once again (he really didn’t like her tendency to hang onto the trigger, apparently) before flicking the safety off.

He pulled back the second everything was in order, hands up like he was already actively surrendering. They sent the people watching them mildly embarrassed looks. It isn’t doing them much good, though.

Quick! Take legitimacy away from the intimacy!

“I need to stop bringing desserts from home, you’re getting heavy.”

Dick spluttered. “What?”

“I said what I said.”

She would apologize later.

… wait, would Babs count mental damage as adding to her debt?

She was going to apologize so profusely later.

Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair, briefly pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “Tell me why we made you the girl next door again?”

“Out of ideas,” Marinette said.

“Right, right. Any chance we can change it?”

“Well, you’re the king and all, you can choose,” she said, before winking and blowing a kiss to the people up on the viewing platform. “But, hey, everyone knows that most ‘harsh’ people are just hurt people trying to protect themselves from more harm. I’m sure that, with the right person, I could actually be the soft, kind person I portray. After all, every act needs at least a little bit of truth to work, right?”

She glanced at Dick out of the corner of her eyes. He gave the barest trace of a nod.

Good.

She had a bit of a reputation in the school. Not really because she was outright mean to people – she would never say half the shit she said around Adrien and the host club members to people she didn’t know, not without good reason – but because pretty much every student knew about her… antagonistic relationship with Tim. Because during the last finals season they had only been a step above fistfighting in the middle of the hallway. And not even because they had been scared of punishment or expulsion, but instead because Duke and Steph had physically dragged Tim away before he could jump at her.

Whatever. It was totally water under the bridge and she definitely didn’t want him dead anymore.

(Yes, Tim and Marinette could just put aside their differences, and show that they had changed… but Marinette would rather just kill him, to be honest.)

Regardless, it would be hard to convince the general population that the person that had almost fought another member was all that shy and kind. So, they needed to rework her image. Recontextualize her personality.

Whether or not Marinette or any of the other host club members really believed what she was saying didn’t matter, all that mattered was that their guests believed it. Thankfully, they had years worth of toxic media to back up their claims, and the rich kids who had never had real reason to distrust what they’d been told fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Great. The goal for today is done. Now, if only she could get out of this stupid paintball tournament. She has changed her mind. A chance of shooting Tim in the face is not worth having to simulate a battle.

Maybe if she annoys Dick enough he might just call it off?

She watched him out of the corner of her eyes as they continued down the hallway. He caught her stare and, instead of being confused or upset or uncomfortable, sent her a tiny smile.

Yeah, she didn’t think it would work. You can’t annoy someone with as many younger siblings as he has. They are immune to outside annoyances by this age, she is pretty sure.

There’s no getting out of this.

She almost laughed. Story of her fucking life.

Dick rested his hand on the doorknob, glancing back at her.

“Ready?”

She flashed a wink. “As I’ll ever be.”

Their door opened up into what seemed to be a trench, carved into the ground. Once they had clambered out of the trench, their clothes already stained with dirt (at least she didn’t have to pay for any of it), they found themselves in a heavily wooded area, with a couple of concrete structures dotted around.

She walked to a nearby tree. All of them looked long dead, blackened, as if they had been burned. As if this was a real battlefield.

She rapped her knuckles against it lightly, and wasn’t surprised to find that, whatever it was made of, it wasn’t organic material. Judging by the sound, she would guess styrofoam, paper mache, paint, and a dream.

A quick check of one of the structures revealed it to have no ceiling.

The entire world around them was fabricated to give the people so far above them, standing on the glass and peering down at them with excited grins she didn’t want to look at, a good view of what was going on. No leaves, no roofs, nothing was allowed to take away from their fun.

Oh shit, she thought. This is what it feels like to be in the Hunger Games.

Or to be in one of Riddler’s escape rooms, she supposed.

She watched Dick carefully toeing at the dirt, checking to see how far down it went. Whether it could actually be used as padding, or if the metal hidden beneath would give some nasty bruises if someone fell on it for any reason. Such as dramatically falling over when shot ‘dead’.

Her lips twitched into a wry kind of grin. And he’s supposed to be the ‘dumbest’ one. Who does he think that he’s fooling?

It wasn’t until long after he had confirmed that the ground was, in fact, soft enough for them all to drop dead on without issue, that an alarm alerted them to the fact that the grace period was over, and they were now supposed to be hunting each other to the death.

Marinette brushed her bangs away from her eyes, taking advantage of the opportunity to see how the audience had dispersed themselves. They were, largely, grouped into four spots. No guesses why. Sureeeeeely not because this was where the four pairs of competitors were…

Okay, that wasn’t fair to the customers. There was no way for them to know that the glass wasn’t a one way mirror like they’d been told. They shouldn’t be aware of the fact that this was all a play that had been planned out well in advance. The Waynes weren’t the types to let on that they weren’t quite as ‘airheaded’ as they often portrayed themselves to be, for whatever reason.

Still… Marinette stretched lazily, rocking back and forth on her feet, trying not to laugh aloud at just how obvious they were all being.

“So, are we heading to the center or skirting around the edges?” she asked.

“Center,” he said, because that was where most of the male clients were, and therefore where Babs and Cass were likely to be. “Let’s see whether there’s a Hunger Games-style cornucopia or something.”

Marinette clicked her tongue lightly. “You can’t tell people what we’re ripping off.”

“I think they already know.”

She huffed, but it’s not as if she genuinely cared.

Without further ado, they were off.

*****

They happened across Babs and Cass in the middle. They seemed to be doing the same thing that Marinette and Dick were, picking around for anything that might be useful. As if the people who had made this place would make an entrance in a spot where they had special items.

“Find anything?” Dick asked, pointing his gun at Babs.

Cass retaliated by pointing her gun at him. He did not seem particularly pleased about this development.

Marinette wasn’t pleased, either, because this meant she had to point her gun at Cass in retaliation. Fuck this script for making her defend Dick Grayson of all people.

Their guests looked to Babs, expecting her to point her gun at Marinette and complete the circle, leading to a dramatic standoff…

Only for Babs to hold up her hands in the universal sign of surrender. “We don’t have to fight,” she said. “It’s better if we don’t. We can’t have Jason or Tim’s teams winning.”

If nothing else, Marinette had to admit that this strategy would have probably worked on her and Dick even if it wasn’t scripted. Because fuck Tim Drake. And, in Dick’s case, Jason, in particular, cannot win, because he would be insufferable about it. They would both take shady deals in a heartbeat if it meant that the other two teams wouldn’t win.

“What do you get from this?” Marinette asked, because it was expected of her.

Cass shrugged. “Fun.”

Valid reason. Marinette (and Dick, too, though she loathed to admit it) could sometimes be fun.

As for Babs…

“If we’re the last two teams, I want to shoot Dick in the face.”

Dick gave a screech of offense, complaining about his ‘beautiful face’. But Marinette sees now downsides! They shook on it before he could get a word in edgewise.

“Alright, team, let’s roll out,” said Babs.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Dick whined.

“No. We are misandry-ing,” Marinette informed him.

“Perfect. Us girlies have to stick together,” Babs joked lightly.

“True. Can’t wait to kill ‘my liege’ for the sake of women everywhere,” Marinette said, snickering to herself.

Dick snorted at the ‘my liege’ callback, and then seemed to process what she had said. He pressed a hand to his chest. “Excuse you, I’m a girlie, too.”

“Woo, slay queen,” Marinette deadpanned. And then she frowned to herself. “Is ‘my liege’ a gendered term?”

“I… think so?” said Babs. The grammar rules for royalty is not the kind of thing the average teenager is looking up, after all. And, if Babs doesn’t know, then Cass (ESL speaker) and Dick (a liar pretending to be the ‘dumb one’ in a group already known for being stupid) had no shot. Pain. She must live without knowing for the next few hours. Why does god hate her so? Truly, she has suffered more than Jesus.

… perhaps it is jokes like that that make god hate her.

Whatever. She did not believe in Him, therefore He could not hurt her.

Anyways.

“Let’s roll out, then, I guess,” she said.

“Only I’m allowed to make that joke,” said Babs.

Marinette blinked. And then her face reddened. “Oh — I—!”

Cass shook her head in mock disappointment.

Marinette huffed. “Is it too late to un-team?”

“Nah, we shook on it, it’s binding,” Babs said.

Well. If that’s the case. They rolled ou— started off in search of others.

It was, honestly, a lot of meandering around. If they managed to go in the right direction too many times, the illusion would break, after all.

But, if nothing ‘entertaining’ was happening, they needed to work extra hard to have interesting conversations to listen in on. Which was hard. Usually, they entertained their guests by flirting, which was easy and didn’t take that much mental energy, but that was no longer really an option. They weren’t going to flirt with each other, especially since Dick and Cass were siblings and Dick and Babs were exes (Dick once again ruining things for everyone, shame on him). So…

Marinette walked alongside Babs. “If you don’t mind me asking, how the heck are you able to use your wheelchair when the ground is like this?” she said. The wheels didn’t look all that special, after all – it was all clearly high-quality, don’t get her wrong, but it wasn’t like she was looking at the wheelchair version of four wheel drive. And the gun in her lap was barely even moving.

“That’s the most fucked up question anyone’s ever asked me,” deadpanned Babs.

Marinette huffed. “Now, I just don’t think that’s true.”

“When have I ever lied?”

“I’m still convinced that the debt was a scam,” she sniffed.

Babs rolled her eyes but distinctly didn’t deny it. Because she couldn’t, clearly, not because she just didn’t feel that this was worth her time or energy. “This isn’t any worse than going down sidewalks.”

Marinette envisioned the Average Gotham Sidewalk. Then looked at the ground. She supposed that the sticks kind of resembled used syringes, now that she thought about it, and the dirt was surprisingly much smoother than the pothole-riddled concrete.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay, makes sense, yeah.”

Well. She had done her job. Someone else needs to pick up the slack, now.

Babs sent her a flat look that said she needed to say something that would interest the audience, not just her. She fought the urge to grumble under her breath. The microphone would pick that up, too.

She turned to look at Dick.

“Okay, philosophical question: if you are aware that you are in denial, is it really denial, or is it a weird form of acceptance?”

It was silent for a moment.

“Er… I guess… acceptance?”

“But then it’s not denial. Different stage,” Cass said.

“But if you’re aware of it, it can’t be denial,” Dick argued.

Babs sighed. “How ‘aware’ is this ‘awareness’? Because, I’m pretty sure, even people in denial kind of know things are weird.”

“Nonono, you’re aware of the denial,” said Marinette. “Like, you know the thing you’re in denial about is bad and you go ‘nahhhhh’. But it’s a conscious decision.”

“Then… ugh. Denial, I guess.”

Babs and Cass started arguing. Marinette was pretty sure this was the most talkative and passionate she had ever seen Cass.

As for the guests… they were either arguing vehemently themselves or watching other people argue with amused grins.

Marinette, discreetly, gave a little bow in Dick’s direction. He gave a huff of laughter.

By the time they stumbled across another person, Cass seemed pissed off enough to go all out. This wasn’t intentional, but it was still funny to watch Duke go from relatively calm and in control to immediately ducking behind a tree for cover for fear of death.

Until he started firing at them all, too, and they were forced to book it to the nearest shelter.

You might argue that they were cowards, and should help out Cass, and you’d be right, but…

They wouldn’t be much help, to be honest.

The way Duke and Cass were fighting was insane. Like they already knew what each other’s movements were going to be ahead of time, and thus were more intent on waiting for the other to slip up than outright outsmarting each other.

Marinette whistled lowly. “How often do you guys come here?”

“Here? This is the first time, actually,” said Dick, brightly. “But we have something like this back at the Manor.”

She hated rich people.

(This fact has been made abundantly clear over the past few chapters, but she would like to say it again. And again. For as many times as it would take for them to stop pulling Rich People Shit.)

“Woooow,” she said, trying to infuse as much fake cheeriness into her tone as was physically possible when her main thought was about how, technically, friendly fire is possible here. “What a perfectly amazing use of your money.”

He nodded his agreement. Whether or not it was joking did not matter when her blood was boiling beneath her skin. She started to lift her gun, intent on either helping Cass or betraying both Cass and Duke at once, only for a stray bullet to nail the wall by her head the moment she started to poke her head out.

She stared at the purple paint for a moment, eyes wide, before slowly shrinking back into hiding.

She was still pissed off, though!

Before her eyes could drift to Babs and she could weigh the moral implications of sending her out first, a handful of skittles was shoved in front of her face.

“Want some?” said Jason.

She nodded, taking all of the red ones and popping them in her mouth. Dick did the same, but with the green pieces, like a weirdo (who the hell prefers green?). Babs wasn’t nearly as picky, just taking a handful of the rest and popping them like pills.

And then she started to lift her gun.

Marinette nearly choked on her sweet treat.

“JASON?!” Dick yelped.

They scrambled for their own guns.

Jason managed to get a shot off on Babs before he was covered in yellow. Maybe they shot him more times than was strictly necessary, but that was what he deserved for using Skittles against them. Honestly, the fact that Dick didn’t believe in the death penalty was the only thing saving him right now.

As for Marinette… well, she had been too intent on looting his ‘corpse’ for more candy to bother with murdering him via paintball gun. After all, what if the Skittles ended up getting blood or — god forbid — paint on them? She wouldn’t even be able to kill him in retaliation for messing up her snack.

She grumbled when she found paintballs, but pocketed them for extra ammo, in case Cass won and needed more.

Then, finally, she procured her prize: a sharing size bag of candy.

Life is good.

Unless you are Jason Todd.

“Maaaaan,” he groaned. “Those are mine, y’know.”

“Shhhhh, you’re a corpse, you can’t speak,” Dick said, holding his hand out for some.

She set the paintballs in his hand instead.

And then watched on in horror as he bit down on one without thinking.

Dick stared at her for a moment, purple dripping from his mouth.

Marinette swallowed down the temptation to joke about him looking like a vampire in favor of frantically looking up whether paintballs were nontoxic or if they were about to cut this paintball tournament short.

… which she wouldn’t mind, actually, now that she thought about it...

She considered the google page saying that they were nontoxic (for humans, at least, apparently they were not good for animals, which Damian was going to be distressed about when he learned), wondering whether an ambulance visit would be added to her debt. And then decided she didn’t want to risk it.

“You’re fine.”

Want to know who wasn’t fine? Cass and Duke. Apparently, in the time it took for everything to settle, Duke and Cass had killed each other off. Or, well, Duke had slipped up and Cass had ‘died’ in solidarity with him. Mildly concerning behavior, but it was a paintball game and therefore has no real indication of actual behaviors. Hopefully. Marinette genuinely liked Cass.

No time to linger on that particular line of thought.

“If Tim wins I’m pulling a Cass,” Marinette told Dick.

Dick raised an eyebrow. “You’d already be ‘dead’ if Tim wins.”

She thought this over. “Then I’ll come back as a zombie and be killed again. Perfect.”

Jason did not seem to find this funny, but maybe he was still bitter about having his Skittles stolen. Dick grinned and, really, that’s all that matters.

“What do you think real life zombies are like?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nonexistent.”

“Don’t know what I was expecting from the scientist,” he huffed.

“Fiiiiiine,” she said. She thought, long and hard, about what a real life zombie would be like. Blüdhaven got nuked a while back (deserved, fuck Blüdhaven), and she hadn’t yet heard of zombies, so radiation poisoning wasn’t going to do it. So probably an intentional thing — Jurassic Park style experimentation, or something. Which means that the circumstances would be controlled… except zombies would probably escape the labs, if Marinette were to ever see them. The body would have to be very cold to slow down decomposition. It wouldn’t even halt it entirely.

“Gross,” she decided.

Dick stared at her. “All that thought and you come up with ‘gross’?!”

“I’m not wrong. They’d be gross.”

“That is not the point!” he groaned. “Talk about whether you think they’d be fast or slow, strong or weak, intelligent or not! Talk about whether their decomposition would affect them!”

She snickered. “Careful, Richard, or you’re going to make people think you have a brain in there.”

For a moment, he froze. And then he purposefully relaxed, each muscle individually untensing, one by one. He laughed lightly, but it was a tad bit forced (when wasn’t it, though?). “Yeah, the zombies will come after me if they know.”

“Being stupid has its benefits, yeah?”

He chuckled humorlessly.

Before he could come up with a proper response, though, Tim wandered into their area, drawn by the sound of gunfire from Duke and Cass’s fight. Marinette and Dick pointed their guns at him immediately.

Tim narrowed his eyes. He pointed his gun at Marinette, but seemed hesitant.

Marinette fought off a smirk. She loved having plot armor. At the sight of her face, he only seemed more irritated, which was even better.

But there was nothing he could do.

He set his gun down.

“We could take him as hostage,” Dick offered. “See if that lures Damian –.”

“Nah, too risky,” said Marinette. Without any further ado, she shot Tim.

Tim fell over, and not entirely because that was standard for ‘dead’ people. He hugged himself. His dignity, breaking. In a very literal sense.

It was very quiet. Marinette’s hand found its way to her mouth.

Dick looked at her, his eyes wide and horrified.

“I know I hate you, but… I didn’t mean… I forgot that men have… Tim, I’m so sorry.”

Tim made a pitiful sound.

Shakily, he lifted a hand in a thumbs up.

She made a heart with her own hands. This did not seem to help in the slightest but, frankly, there wasn’t much else she could do.

Luckily, she didn’t need to think about it for long before she was distracted — a voice called from behind them: “Found you.”

She whipped around and shot Damian in the chest.

There were a few moments where no one knew what to do. The boy stared at the paint staining his armor bright yellow. Marinette’s grip felt clammy on her gun.

Dick tipped his head to the side consideringly.

She met his eyes.

She was no longer amused by the intelligence lingering in his gaze as he scrutinized her. She narrowed her eyes at him, briefly, daring him to say something. She wasn’t the only one hiding things, after all.

Play along, she told him. Help me fix this ending.

He relaxed his expression carefully.

They had an understanding. Despite Marinette’s supposed incompetence with guns, when startled she was quick to shoot and accurate. Despite Dick constantly acting as if he was dumb, there was clearly a brain hidden somewhere there. They both knew more than they tried to let on. Maybe that was why they didn’t have much trouble identifying each other’s acts… but, so long as their own secrets remained intact, they could keep each others’.

It was a little nerve-wracking, and yet, strangely, nice, to have someone you don’t have to lie to. That can see past it even when you try.

She smirked and lifted her gun. “See? This is why you keep your finger on the trigger, Dick.”

He grinned and held up his hands in surrender.

*****

Marinette and Dick grimaced as a cooler full of paint was poured over their backs. They definitely felt victorious right about now. This was their prize for winning. Yay them.

Sure, they didn’t exactly, genuinely earn the win, but that’s besides the point.

He looked at her. “You’ve got red in your hair.”

She yelped and brought a hand up to try and get it out, only to remember just a second too late that her hands, too, were covered in paint. She stared at the glob of paint-covered hair hanging limp in front of her eyes for a moment, devastated, and then glared at him.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I was just pointing something out for you,” he said ‘innocently’, unable to quite keep himself from smiling.

She hummed, and then slapped her hand onto his hair. He hissed and reflexively his hands flew up to touch the sore spot, only for him to realize that now he had been the one baited into getting paint in his hair.

“Marinette,” he said, smiling sweetly.

For a moment, one could almost see the regret flickering across her features.

And then he rushed forward to try and trap her in a hug. She shrieked, managing to get only a few steps before she was snatched up, dragged into the evil monster. She barely even had time to fight back before she was thrown over his shoulder, only able to yell off-brand curse words and try to writhe around in hopes of freedom – or, at least, in hopes that she could smear her own paint over every part of him she could reach.

Within minutes, they were swirling messes of red, blue, purple, and the occasional scrap of visible skin.

There were people laughing at their antics.

Both of them froze.

They looked up, and found the other members of the Host Club were enjoying the show.

As well as a few guests, but they couldn’t really retaliate against them.

So, Dick set Marinette down and they met each other’s eyes and silently resolved to make up for that by attacking their fellow club members twice as much to compensate.

*****

Marinette heaved a sigh as she sat on a bench, scrubbing paint off her arm with her millionth wet wipe of the day. Where did the green even come from?

It was then that she realized someone was nearing her.

She looked over her shoulder and found…

Well, someone her age. She recognized her, vaguely, from her English class, but their name eluded her.

The girl smiled nervously at Marinette, wringing her hands and somewhat avoiding eye contact. “I – uh – was wondering if you could Host for me sometime?”

Marinette stared at her for a moment, processing.

And then she lit up, practically jumping from her seat in order to shake the girl’s hand.

“That sounds great! What day would you –?”

She drew her hand back, and cringed at the red strings of paint now connecting their hands.

“I… don’t know if I have more wet wipes,” she said, blushing.

The girl smiled, amused. “If you walk me home, I’ll consider it even.”

Marinette hesitantly took her hand again, intertwining their fingers. “Okay. Don’t know if that’s much of a punishment, but if that’s what it takes to repay you…”

~~~~~~~~~~

TBC

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