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Under The Bats' Wing

Chapter 5: Green

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Marinette disappeared after the akuma did, and so did Damian Wayne.

Nobody had seen them, he and Alya had asked just about every Gotham Academy jacket they saw, and their own classmates were just as clueless.

“Ooh, how scandalous!” He’d heard Chloe and Sabrina whispering theories to each other, but that wasn’t his concern. Marinette had told him-- Chat Noir him-- that she and Damian were not romantically involved; he’d just have to take her word for it. Alya also seemed unsure, but in the skeptic journalistic way.

“They definitely knew each other before this. The question is how?” Alya had left him with that thought on the bus ride back to school. She was right. They ran down the possibilities-- met him over social media? There was no indication Damian Wayne even had any form of social media, and if they took it a step further and looked at his brothers, Marinette’s accounts ran nearly parallel there was so little interaction between her and the Wayne family. They didn’t follow the same tags, didn’t have mutual friends, didn’t tag each other or even pursue similar interests. So, that left connections outside of Marinette. Jagged Stone? Nope, none of Damian’s brothers followed him or seemed to be a fan. Jagged Stone had never even performed in Gotham. Her grandmother? She was a cool woman-- cool enough to also not have any social media. It was possible, though, that she was still acquainted with them in personal life, but they lacked a way of contacting her short of asking Marinette for her grandmother’s phone number like a bunch of weirdos. So that left Mister and Missis Dupain-Cheng. Maybe they’d have answers?

“Chat Noir!” A plate of croissants, laid before him with eager hands. That was what greeted him as he knocked on their front door. He smiled at them, or uh, he tried to, and took one in gracious fingers-- er, claws. Tom and Sabine gave him their warmest smiles, but he was worried, too. He could see the restrained panic in their eyes, the strained way Sabine took the plate back to the kitchen counter, the way Tom sighed with shallow air. “I take it you came looking for Marinette?”

“I came looking for answers, actually. I know Marinette isn’t here.” He bit into the croissant and hummed. “Your goods just get better and better, sir!”

Tom smiled, but the way he shifted uncomfortably told him the compliment hardly registered. “Things have gotten worse since that night.”

Chat nodded. “I know. Marinette was targeted by an akuma today, though I’m sure you’ve heard that. Um, have you guys ever gotten any orders from Gotham?”

“Gotham?” Sabine returned to the living room, wiping her hands on her apron. She glanced at Tom, unsure. “Not that I recall. Why?”

Huh. So no connection through her parents, then. “Do you know if um, Miss Dupain has ever visited Gotham?”

“Well, she’d been all over the world! I’m sure she’s been there once.” Tom took a seat on the couch, patting the seat beside him. Sabine followed, resting one hand on her husband’s lap. Chat circled around and stood in front of them. He would have taken a seat, but he wasn’t planning on talking long. “Why are you asking about my mother? What do you think Gotham has to do with Marinette?”

“Today the the museum, I found her with Damian Wayne. They’re friends. I was wondering if you could tell me how that happened?” The surprised looks on their faces told him all he needed to know.

“Damian Wayne?”

“Bruce Wayne’s son? Are you sure?”

He hated to do this, really he did, but there was still a ball in his chest that felt green and it was spreading, and he needed to make it go away. He needed answers, Alya needed answers, and if he had to do something… questionable to get them, he would. He could hear Ladybug’s scolding voice and see her eyes in his mind, crossing her arms as she shook her head at him. You had no business, Chat Noir. If you needed information, you should have gotten it some other way . Well, he was sorry, and he’d do whatever he had to to make this up to Marinette, but she’d been not herself lately. Marinette was pale, and tired, and she was texting odd things and hiding from her friends, and when he’d had her under his arm, she hadn’t acted like herself. Blushing, stuttering, it was what she did around Adrien, not Chat, and he just needed proof it wasn’t because Damian was there-- no, no, he just needed to find out why she’d been acting so strange. Marinette didn’t go around making friends with rich kids. She didn’t like a lot of rich kids. She hadn’t liked him. So why was Damian so different? “I know this is going to sound bad, but… would you mind if I looked through her room?”

Though there was clear hesitation on their part, Tom and Sabine were willing to let him look around, so long as they joined him. He imagined they’d never so blatantly disregarded their daughter’s right to privacy, but he also imagined there usually were no secrets between her and her parents. He and his father were the same way. No secrets, no snooping, not that his father needed to snoop. He knew his schedule like the back of his hand or his latest design. He’d gotten the impression that her parents were a little more lenient, didn’t need to know her whole schedule, but the implicit trust was still very much there. Marinette, so caught up in whatever was wrong, was squandering it. Ladybug’s flashing eyes hit his soul again. I’m sorry, Ladybug, but I have to save her . From what, he wasn’t sure yet, but he’d promised to himself a long time ago, maybe even before Weredad, that he would always, always come for Marinette. No amount of Ladybug’s ire, even in light of her recent cagey, buttoned-up behavior, could make him go back on that.

The thought gave him pause. Ladybug had been acting funny since Miracle Queen, and originally he’d pawned it off on the role of being The Guardian. She was stressed, he understood that, and he was there for her. They were partners (even if she didn’t want to be anything more, even if he could feel a piece of him break every time she said that, he’d always be there for her). They were still perfectly in-sync, still knew that, if one of them went left, the other would go right. They were still the perfect partners, but he was worried about her as a friend. She wasn’t telling him things, he could tell, because she watched him like she wanted to say something, with those big bluebell eyes of hers, and then she’d pull back. She’d say nothing. He’d tried to reach out to her. “Are you feeling okay? Something going on in your personal life? You look a little tired. Ladybug?” She winced every time he said her name . She jumped every time, laughed at him, waved him off, smiled-- or tried to. He was worried, to be honest, that she was thinking of placing the Ladybug miraculous in the hands of another, since she had to take the role of Guardian. He’d have to stop her sometime soon, have a serious talk with her, try to steer her away from that if he could. But he wasn’t so sure it was the new role that had her acting weird. Especially now that Marinette was going off the rails, too.

There was nothing odd in her room, not for Marinette anyway. Some tossed up, rolled-up sketches of designs tossed in the bin, several of which he thought were actually pretty good. Her computer didn’t have any weird files on it, at least nothing more incriminating than some saved bookmarks to YouTube links-- all of which lead to different fashion shows in which he’d participated (he’d grinned from ear to ear and added a heart emoji by one of the bookmarked tabs. He’d looked particularly dashing in that one with her hat). He’d been hoping for some suspicious emails or something, but all he found were subscription emails to various store websites. He’d found her diary, but it was in a very sophisticated lock, and when he asked to take it with him, he’d gotten a very stern, very icy, glare from Tom. He’d set it riiiight back under the bed where he’d found it. Her parents had found a sketchbook filled with gifts for friends with upcoming birthdays, none of which were noted to belong to Damian Wayne or any of his family members, so that was interesting. He made a note of that, and hummed as he scanned the room for something more incriminating, and eventually his eyes landed on something.

Well, it wasn’t incriminating. It was… a strange sign, maybe a reflection of her recent odd behavior. The pictures of him-- Adrien him-- that used to sit on the board against her bed, the pictures that were proof that she admired him, that she was his fan, those pictures were gone. What replaced them wasn’t even photos with friends, or even pictures of Luka, or other models, or something meaningful. No, the space where his pictures used to stick was empty. A boring, dull, cork board. No design pieces, no notes to herself, not even something he could use like an invitation to a Wayne High Society party. Just open space where he used to be.

There was something about that, something about the way she hadn’t even replaced those pictures, that left his lips twisting, quivering. He thought he’d feel a sinking pit in his stomach, but that green ball he couldn’t identify, that churning, growing feeling grew vines. It stretched into his chest, leeched down into his stomach, and made his fists clench. He leaped down to the floor below. “Marinette… I thought Marinette was Adrien’s fan?”

Sabine laughed, a small, weighted, not-quite-happy laugh, but it was trying to be one. Her hands were busy searching through Marinette’s school bag, gently sifting through folders and books. It was a good place to search, something Marinette had on her almost as often as she had her little side satchel. “She is, but he has a girlfriend, now, she told us. It pains me to see her go through this again,” Weredad, still, lingered in the stale air between them, a miasma that never went away. “But Adrien can’t help the way he feels, either. Marinette tells me Kagami is a very nice girl.”

“So she’s just… over him? Just like that?”

“Chat Noir,” Tom’s hand was on his shoulder, heavy, so very heavy. “You should know it’s never that easy.” He nodded, or he thought he did.

“Tom! Chat Noir! I think I found something!”

He was at her side the next second, and so was Tom, and both leered over her shoulder as she withdrew her hand from Marinette’s backpack, something black, and thin, and sharp, between her fingers. He wasn’t sure he was seeing what was in front of him, and even if it explained the sudden familiarity with a Gothamite, and maybe her most recent disappearing acts, or her questionable sleep schedule, it raised a million other questions, and he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to a single one of them. A batarang sat in Sabine’s careful hand, a small, blinking light attached to the right wing. “Oh, Tom…” Tears welled in Sabine’s eyes. “You don’t think…?”

Tom and Chat exchanged frightened glances.

In the next moment there was a small blip sound effect, the kind that was so obviously a cell phone notification. Tom huffed and reached for the cell in his back pocket, drawing the screen open with his finger. “It’s Marinette. She’s asking to stay the night at Alya’s house.”

Sabine turned to Chat. “She’s not at Alya’s, is she?”

“No, Missis Dupain-Cheng… I don’t think so.” He leaned down to Sabine and extended a hand, a request, to take the batarang. She looked at him with bloodshot eyes and a tense jaw. He watched her, tried to tell her with his eyes, because maybe it was habit by now, that he could be trusted. She raised her chin and took a deep, shallow breath, then handed it to him. “Believe me, Missis Dupain-Cheng, I will save Marinette, no matter what she’s gotten herself into.”

She gave him a watery smile. “You better!”

He smiled back. “Tell her it’s okay to spend the night there. I’m going to make some calls.”


“Augh! Okay, okay! I give, I give!” She raised the hand closest to her head, the one that wasn’t pinned behind her back, and hit the ground twice-- her white flag. Damian huffed and pulled his knee from her back.

“You’re too defensive. You’ll get nowhere if you don’t take initiative.” Boy, if she hadn’t heard that before. “Dick has been going too easy on you.”

“Really? Because my bruises say otherwise.” She sat up and rubbed at her wrist, rubbing the tension out with her thumb. She was stupid to think she’d get a day of rest at the Wayne Manor. The morning had been so nice! She’d woken to the rising sun, warm covers, and a polite knock at the door from Alfred, who had prepared a breakfast that would have made Papa jealous. Hot eggs, crispy bacon, cheese, bread, her choice of juice from orange to apple! She’d been in heaven, for sure, and it must have shown on her face because Dick had laughed at her and told her that Alfred always made plenty, that nobody-- save for Jason, who had gone home-- would try to steal her plate. Her face had turned an unflattering shade of red, she was sure. They were a super rich family, just like the Agreste family or the Tsurugi family. She should have been on her best behavior, how embarrassing…

“If you have the energy to scarf food like an ingrate, you have the energy to train.” That’s what Damian had said, and though every inch of her told her to put him in his place, she knew from the look on Batman’s-- Bruce’s-- face that there was no getting out of it. Besides, Dick had scolded Damian for the jerk behavior, so she supposed she could spare him her scathing reply. Damian glanced at her as she sat up, stood tall like a grown man, even in his little body. He walked like he owned the world, and eyed her like she was a part of that. “Your bruises are a symptom of your inability, and you’d have much worse if he were stricter. You won’t get such leniency from me.”

She smiled. “If you fight as good as you draw, I might be in trouble.”

“I fight much better than I sketch, Dupain-Cheng.”

“Poor Jon, must get punched in the gut by your affection all the time, then.”

His face turned red. “Would-- you--!” He heaved a sigh. “I told you, Jon is my partner, and nothing more.” And he could say that until he was blue in the face and she’d never believe him. She giggled to herself.

“All right!” She pushed herself to her feet and raised her fists, the way she imagined people who did karate reared to fight. Damian watched her with crossed arms and a cocked brow. She grinned, feeling more like Ladybug than she had in a long while. “So, wanna teach me what a good offense looks like?”

And he did. It hurt, a lot, but it worked. Damian was meaner than Dick was, more ruthless, went for cheap shots if she let him, but that was for a good reason. There was no cheap shot in a life or death fight, the kind he went up against. Hawkmoth might not have had plans to kill her and Chat Noir, but one day he could, or somebody else could. Especially if she and Chat ended up with The Titans. She took a few cheap shots herself, one even a kick to the groin, but Damian had seen that coming from a mile away and blocked it; he’d given her a smile, though, for trying that. She started taking riskier swings, punches at his chin, at his chest, even though only two landed, and he’d let that happen, she could tell. He talked like Dick was soft for taking it easy on her, but he was, too. He took a swing and she blocked it with one arm and swung back with her other. He dodged it and twisted around and kicked her in the lower back, which she used to propel herself forward with a flip. She landed on her feet and he nodded at her. In a few moments, he’d had her pinned to the ground again, twisting the same wrist like a pound of putty under his hands. She wasn’t going down the same way, not again. She was flexible, enough to use that. She trapped his hips between her calves and lifted her hips off the floor, then sent him rushing forward with a kick, slamming him face-first into the ground in front of her. He fell forward and tumbled until he landed on his back with a grunt. He panted. “Hah… not bad, amateur.”

She grinned, but she wasn’t about to pretend that pulling that off had been easy. That lift and the following kick had put her on her back, same as she’d done to him. “Not so bad yourself, Boy Wonder.” Both of them sat there for a few moments, catching their breaths. It gave her a moment to think, take it all in. Batman wasn’t a threat, wasn’t planning on taking away her Miraculous the first move she made, not anymore. Now, he was a mentor, kind of, somebody who wanted to mold her and Chat Noir into even better superheroes. She could live with that. The stress of impending doom was no longer hanging over her like one of Stormy Weather’s clouds, and in the case that she and Chat Noir needed backup, she wouldn’t necessarily need to risk putting other miraculouses in circulation, no matter how temporary, to win. Things were looking up. She raised her head to look at Damian, and he did the same to look at her; they both chuckled. “Chat would have a field day with your sour attitude, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know, since you’ve been keeping him from us.”

She tensed up. “I… I have n-no idea w-what you’re talking about.”

“We need to make a better liar out of you, too, Dupain-Cheng.”

Of course they’d noticed. She could only hold off from telling Chat Noir for so long, awkward broken heart or not. They’d been patient with her, gave her the benefit of the doubt when she told them that she hadn’t had the opportunity to tell Chat about them, yet, but after Hypno-Harpy, there was no way they were going to buy that anymore. She'd had ample opportunity to tell him, and she could tell Dick had known that, that they’d all known that, and they’d kept their mouths shut. “I-I just didn’t want to involve him in this, you know? I didn’t exactly want to be under Batman’s thumb, I wasn’t going to just let your dad have Chat, too.”

Damian sat up, folding one arm over his bent leg as he watched her. She stayed where she laid on the floor, eyes closed, because maybe her eyes would betray her if he saw them. Or maybe she wanted to pretend she was still in the Wayne Manor kitchen, having breakfast. Just not here, having this conversation. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with what you told me last night, would it?”

Oh no. She sat up, cheeks turning pink, hand waving away his accusations frantically. “M-Me liking Chat? N-No! No way! Why would it?” Damian just sat there, unmoving, aside from the slight narrow of his eyes and the rest of his deadpan stare. “...Okay maybe it has a little to do with that.”

“This is for his own good, Marinette. What partner will he be if he’s always three steps behind you?”

“You’re right, I know you’re right! I just… I need a little more time, okay? Talking to him…” Hurts. Talking to Chat, seeing Chat, hurt. She was just reminded of the way he looked at Ryuko, the way Adrien looked at Kagami, about how she wasn’t enough to keep Chat, and how she’d never been enough to catch Adrien. He didn’t care about her anymore, and she knew it, she’d known it for weeks, maybe months, and she’d been keeping it locked away in a box of other revelations she wasn’t ready for yet. Like how she wasn’t ready to be The Guardian. Like how it was her fault Master Fu was gone. How Kagami was gorgeous, and cool, and powerful, and confident, and it had always been a matter of time before Chat saw that and dropped her and Adrien saw his chance with her and took it. She’d been so relieved when Chat had stayed true to Ladybug when she’d “confessed” as Marinette, but of course that was going to happen. Marinette was never going to be Kagami, and neither was Ladybug…

“You’re spiraling again. You have the same look on your face. You don’t think Chat Noir is a part of the mafia now, do you?”

“Oh hah, hah…” She sighed, and shrugged her shoulders. Because that wasn’t funny.

Damian tilted his head, an inquisitive look in his eyes. “Father will not wait much longer. He will tell him if you don’t.”

“No! Please, just… give me some time. I’ll tell him about you guys, I just--!” She bit down on her tongue.

“If you want my advice, let go of him.” She sat up, and watched him, and he watched her with eyes that dared her to make the wrong move and turn away. He wanted her to heed this advice, and that meant her full attention. Like a teacher. “Attachments are a weakness and a pain. If you aren’t worth loving, then don’t get disappointed when other people see that.” She swallowed, and he glanced away. As true as that was, it was painful, and she could tell it was a lesson Damian seemed to have learned a long time ago. She wanted to argue with him, but was there a point? He was right. She hung her head.

“We’re worth loving, Damian, maybe we’re just asking the wrong people to love us.”

“Perhaps you are…” His eyes narrowed, and then he stood. “But I was under the impression a father was supposed to love his son.” She blinked. This wasn’t about Jon?

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m his blood son, and he hardly trusts me! Mother always told me stories about him, wonderful, fanciful things about his strength, his power.” He crossed the training mat to the bench where Alfred had left some water for them both. He grabbed one and tilted it back until he’d sucked half of it down, wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist. “She always told me I’d make him proud, but since I got here, I’ve been nothing but a disappointment. Father chose them. I was a burden my mother threw upon him, that he puts up with.”

“Damian… I’m sure that’s not true.”

“You wouldn’t know! You’ve only been here for a handful of weeks.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t, but I can’t imagine your dad not caring about you--!”

He twisted away, and she stood and followed after him. His back was rigid, stone, cold, fists clenched at his sides as his water bottle, now empty, bent and shriveled under his hand. “Then why does he always berate me when I do my job? Instead of a good work, Robin , I get lectured and benched! Father thinks I’m a monster! And maybe he’s right.”

Her fingers brushed against his knuckles, and she could feel his skin was soft, even with all of his training and sketching, smooth like baby skin. She pulled lightly on his fingers, telling him to unclench, and slowly he did. With his fist unfastened, she traced her hand up to his arm, tugging at the bend. He turned to her, begrudgingly, and she stepped closer. “Damian, you’re not a monster. I’m sure your dad loves you, you’re just butting heads a little! Maybe try to talk to him?”

“I have tried! And all it gets me is grounded. I’d rather be in the field than kept prisoner in my own house.”

“Yeah… I guess I get that.” Adrien’s green eyes and small smile flashed through her mind.

“Damian! Damian! You’ll never guess what happened--!” She froze, as did Damian, as a flash of blue and red came barreling down the stairs into the batcave, but there weren’t even feet, not on the steps anyway. She squeaked and clung to Damian’s arm, and he tensed under her touch. There were a few moments of silence as the blur took shape and appeared as a boy their age, floating a foot off the floor and a foot away from them. The realization came slowly as she pieced together raven hair, big blue eyes with long eyelashes, lanky legs that floated off the ground. He floated there, staring at them, blues even wider than she imagined they regularly were. He blinked. She blinked. Damian stared. Superboy’s eyes trailed the way down to her hands on Damian’s arm, and they stayed there for a few moments, ten seconds longer than was comfortable, before they trailed back up to her face.

Damian set his free hand on his hip, while she waved and gave Superboy a very awkward smile. “Jon.”

“Uh, hey… Damian.” Superboy’s nose scrunched up, lips pursing like he was trying to figure out what to say, or trying not to say it. He landed a few feet away from them, but looked like he wanted to get closer. “Um, nice to meet you. I’m--”

“Superboy! Jon Kent! Yes! Hi! M-My name is Marinette!” Like an idiot, she offered her hand to shake, and he took it, shooting her a small smile, though she could tell there was a little strain.

“You probably know her better as Ladybug.”

“Damian!” She hissed and pulled away from him, stomping angrily. Domain just smiled.

“Ladybug? As in Ladybug and Chat Noir? Cool! What are you doing in Gotham?” His eyes lit up, like a little boy on Christmas day. His beam was infectious, just as bright as Adrien’s smile on the best of days, less restricted, freer. He got closer, arms raised in eager anticipation. She smiled right back, feeling the tension drain from her body. This wasn’t so scary, after all.

“Batman decided he wanted to train Chat Noir and I, so I guess I’m gonna be a regular face around here for a while.”

“Marinette and I were just training, since Dick has been doing a wretched job of it.” Superboy’s eyes trailed back down to their hands, which were only a few inches from brushing.

“Oh… training, huh?”

“Yes, now are you going to share what had you barging down the batcave door, or are you going to stand there gawking at the girl, Hickville?”

“I’m not gawking! There are plenty of pretty girls at school, you know, I just feel bad this one is spending her free time with you!” Pretty girl? Her? Her cheeks flushed.


There were only a few moments he’d seen the day of that Alya was speechless. One of them was that first time Carapace made an appearance, this time, it was because there was a batarang in her hand, and Adrien Agreste had put it there. She stared down at it, jaw unlatched and hanging wide open, eyes not quite wide, but lost, looking at the batarang, or past it, into a sea of nothingness. He wasn’t sure what was going through her mind, he hadn’t even told her that he’d found that in Marinette’s backpack, but he’d called her and told her that he had news on Marinette, so he imagined she already knew. The small red light blinked up at her, reflecting off the frame of her glasses. He watched with interest as she digested. “You… this… Marinette is being tracked by Batman?”

“I don’t like it, but it means we were right to go looking. If Batman has taken an interest in Marinette, it means she’s gotten into something bad.”

“But… I just don’t understand! How! You’d think Ladybug and Chat Noir would have gotten involved, but Batman? From all the way in Gotham? Something’s not right.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing as he dug up the courage to say it, because he was right, and he knew it, but Alya would be mad. “We have to ask Marinette.”

Alya looked at him for a second, brows furrowing, and then she scoffed. “Sunshine, you’re wrong if you think she’s gonna talk.”

“But we have the batarang now! It’s proof that she’s hiding something.”

“Do you want her to lie to us again? Because that’s how you get her to lie to us again.” She shook her head. “No, we need more. We need a working theory, we need more evidence…” her eyes lit up. “Or… we need to ask somebody else.”

He squinted at her. “What? Alya, if she hasn’t told you, she wouldn’t have told anybody!” No, if even Alya, even her parents didn’t know what Marinette had gotten herself into, there was no way anybody else had heard a peep about this, whatever this was. He had to hand it to Marinette, she was awfully good at keeping secrets when she wanted to. Belatedly, he thought she would have been a good Miraculous holder, had she not accidentally outed herself to him as multimouse. “Besides, we can’t just go around asking our class about this, it could get her in even deeper trouble.”

“Oh we won’t be asking our friends,” Alya whipped out her phone, swiped in her code, swiped up, and scrolled until she landed on the contact she wanted. The hand she held the batarang in set it to her bedroom’s desk, while the other busied itself holding the phone to her ear as it rang. She shot Adrien a glance over her shoulder, and a wink. “We’ll be asking Batman.”

Notes:

8/20/20: Sorry, guys. I think I'm gonna have to wrap this one up here. This fandom is a little too angry, a little too ready to jump at their not-preferred character's neck, and a little too immature. This fic is going to be discontinued, at least for now, and marked as complete. I'm sorry for those of you waiting on the next chapter, I just really can't muster up the want to write for this fandom anymore.

That said, I am still in the batfam fandom, and I feel like I'm really thriving there! (Only reason this story might not be totally dead, actually lol) 😁 So if you all still wanna see and interact with me, you can totally catch me on my socials:
https://iamwhelmed.tumblr.com/
https://detectivedamian.tumblr.com/ (my batman/batfam sideblog)
https://www.instagram.com/sometimesicosplay/

I'm friendly, and I always answer asks-- or try to! lol Thanks for reading!

Notes:

3/29/21: Let me say this once more: I am never, ever writing for this fandom again. I've said it everywhere I could have thought to say it, and I'm done with this fecking fandom haunting me. I'm done with the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, I'm VERY done with its pick-me-self-righteous big names, I'm done with entitled readers, its pansy writers who bend backwards FOR those readers, writers using characters as mouthpieces for their dumb opinions, and I'm done with this fandom's fetishism of minorities disguised as activism. It's toxic, this fandom culture is toxic, and no I don't want to do a zine, no I don't want to continue my maribat fic, and NO I will NEVER rewrite the Vic fic. These stories stay up to mark my progression as a writer. Deal with it.