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momostodoroki · 4 years
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hey everyone! last night I published "softly I entered (into your arms)", my entry for the @todomomo-mini-bang-2020, a Touch Your Heart AU divided into three parts that will be posted weekly! It features the most amazing piece of art by the lovely @vertigospirit 💜
you can read it here
Summary:
A todomomo Touch Your Heart! AU. After being involved in a scandal, famous actress Yaoyorozu Momo takes a job as a lawyer's secretary to study for her comeback role. Her new boss, Todoroki Shouto, gets more than he bargained for when he only asked for someone to schedule his meetings.
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momostodoroki · 4 years
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»the better half of me
a todomomo soulmates au
summary:
Shouto's life has given him a jaded view on soulmates and Momo had always envisioned meeting her soulmate in a different way. Regardless, life has a way of making things work. -
Everything is the same but soulmates are a thing.
ao3
Momo doesn't mean to find her soulmate like this.
In her imagination, she would have been out saving people, maybe helping evacuate civilians, carrying them to safety in her arms. Then suddenly, as she'd carry one of them, she'd notice their mark, exactly like hers: a perfect circle of stars. And because the back of her costume would have ripped at some point in the battle, hers would be visible too, and then there would be no doubt. They were meant to be.
Well, she supposes some of it did go according to her dreams: she was in battle, she did evacuate civilians, and she did carry someone in her arms. Only that someone wasn't a fortuitous stranger, but her classmate and friend, Shouto Todoroki.
They're barely done handing a villain to the authorities when he faints. Before the scuffle started, they were both taking a turn around the neighborhood closest to the school's dorm, and then they had to help. Momo supposes Todoroki must have lost control of his body temperature, then fainted from the imbalance.
Quickly producing a wheelchair from her stomach, she loads her friend onto it and starts her way back to Yuuei, dismissing the help offered by the police. She knows Todoroki will feel bad enough from having inconvenienced her - although it is no inconvenience at all-, so she sets out on her own.
On her way back, she sticks close enough for his head to rest a little on her stomach, preventing his neck from being too oddly bent. She wonders whether she's overstepping her boundaries, but rationalizes it by telling herself she's just looking out for her classmate. Though whether her and Todoroki are just classmates at this point is probably debatable.
They've stayed seatmates through their stay at Yuuei, and after being paired in their first year's final exam, they have become closer friends. Todoroki is her favorite person to study with, and his upbringing being similar to hers (though, at the same time, vastly different) makes him feel closer and more understanding than some of her other friends. She knows it's not their fault, it's just the way things are.
Truthfully, she would be lying if she said she wasn't always a little attracted to him. Attraction is tricky in a world with soulmates, because every non-soulmate relationship feels temporary in the way that ticking bombs do, and while she doesn't think she has some twisted duty to save herself for her soulmate, she also doesn't really have time for romance in her life.
But Todoroki makes it so easy to like him, with his straightforward personality and his quiet but vehement way of caring about the things he does. With the way he'll always order her favorite tea at the coffee shop they study at and never call her out when she takes his hand to avoid guys looking for a date. The way she'll fall asleep reading in the common area and wake up covered with the navy blue blanket she always sees folded on top of his clean laundry. The casual extra snacks after a sparring session, because he knows how fast she burns lipids. The walks like the one they were in before the villain, just to spend some quiet time in companionship with each other.
As if all that wasn't enough, he's handsome too. She does not ignore the amount of girls in her year and under who would give up their quirks to help Recovery Girl load him onto the hospital bed the way she's doing right now. To have the opportunity to see his face from up close in one of the few instances where it's not schooled into a deadpan expression. To see the circle of dots peppering the scar around his left eye-
Momo is so taken aback, she drops his head on the bed with very little finesse. She immediately feels guilty and does her best to position his head comfortably with one hand while rubbing her eyes with the other one. But no amount of rubbing changes the position or erases the dots around his eye. She is, effectively, staring at Todoroki's soulmak.
She realizes now that, when Todoroki is awake and therefore his eyes are open, the creases on his scar very smartly cover every single of the dots that make up his soulmark. In fact, the girls' dormitory (and by that she means Mina and Tooru, with the rest of the 1A girls interjecting every now and then and herself pretending to not pay attention) has spent many nights wondering where his soulmark might be. What would Mina say if she knew Todoroki's mark had literally been staring them in the face for the last three years?
And yet, the placement of it is not what shocked her. It is the fact that, down to the last dot, Todoroki's circle of stars is exactly the same soulmark that has been in the small of Momo's back for as long as she has lived. She could be wrong, but like most people (and better than most of them, since memorizing is a quirk requirement for her), she knows her mark better than she knows herself. She feels a tickling sensation in her soulmark that is absolutely her nerves, as soulmarks do not react to their pairs, and realizes she needs to get out and process things before she can talk to Todoroki.
She stammers a half baked excuse about assignments to Recovery Girl, then marches back to her dorm room in distress.
She has a lot to think about.
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momostodoroki · 4 years
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lord knows i’ve failed you time and again (but you and me are alright)
so i absolutely forgot to post this fic i wrote inspired by @vertigospirit‘s lovely art which everyone should be fawning over imho
so anyways enjoy fighting!shoto and stressed-out-because-of-him!momo, they’re my babies i adore them
-
 '"Oh, not again, Todoroki-san."
 Yaoyorozu's tone is mildly scolding. He's sitting in the nurse's office despite his protests that his split lip and bleeding nose don't actually bother him.      You should have seen the other guy    , he tells his black-haired classmate as she dabs at his lips with antiseptic. When she presses the cotton swab against his lips instead of scolding him, he holds back a groan and chuckles so he can see her cheeks color with irritation at his carelessness.
 The truth is, Shouto doesn't know why he keeps getting into fights. He knows      when     it started (it involves the birth of his scar and a life-changing visit from CPS), and he knows the only person he's hurting is himself (and hey, also the douche who called his mom a psycho), but every time his common sense tells him to take the high road, there's an image of his father commending him for 'upholding the family name' and he just… loses it. Next thing he knows, he's sitting in the school principal's office, waiting for Fuyumi to pick him up.
 He also doesn't know how he ended up bagging Yaoyorozu's friendship. He remembers her in the school entrance exams, proud but humble about her first place - an odd amalgamation of what his life could have been like, had his father not been so incredibly shitty. He also remembers her falling apart in their seventh year project for Mr. Aizawa's class, and supporting her through it. Next thing he knew, they went from saying 'good morning' from neighboring seats to spending the evenings studying together.
 It's not like he doesn't like it. He's come to enjoy Yaoyorozu's presence in his life just as much if not more than that of his other close friends: Midoriya, Iida and Uraraka. Shoto knows he can trust her.
 Especially at times like the one he's in right now, when the school nurse has all but given up on him (      I literally just treated that split lip last week, Todoroki-kun    , she'd said upon his entrance) and he's kind of a chicken about applying disinfectants. She shows up out of nowhere, school jacket forgone in the temperate spring days, hair held up in a no-nonsense ponytail. When she treats him, her hands are tender but precise, and it makes a weird warmth settle under his ribcage.
 "Todoroki-san, please stop looking for trouble." she chides, sitting beside him as she's done looking after him. Shouto would never admit it, but when Yaoyorozu looks at him with a mixture of annoyance and exasperated fondness the way she is doing right then, he's thankful that the nurse refuses to treat him anymore.
 "It's nothing." he replies, offering her an only slightly bloodied smile. "Don't worry."
 Yaoyorozu's brow furrows. They've had this conversation a hundred times - sometimes over tea, sometimes sitting down at the park while petting whatever stray cat has approached them that particular time. She hates his getting into fights, hates seeing him bruised and having to watch as his sister takes him home to get yet another 'talking to' from his father.
 (but Shouto loves the adrenaline, loves disappointing his father and, most importantly, loves having her over to bring him their homework when he's dismissed early.)
 "You're going to be the death of me." She declares, standing up and offering him her hand.
 "Or someone else, probably." he quips, following her to lunch. She gets him cold soba, and Shouto ends up thinking it's her who is going to kill him.
  -
He's really done it this time.
 Momo is standing in Todoroki-san's room, watching his sister dab ointment on the swollen skin around his left eye.      Well    , she thinks,      at least whoever he fought this time had the decency to punch him in a discrete place.  
 Todoroki-san is Momo's favorite person in the whole world. She thinks she started developing feelings for him sometime between their weekly study sessions in eighth grade and the silent but unwavering support he provided when she and her team participated in the school sports festival against Itsuka Kendo-San from class 1B. But even obviating the romantic aspect of her feelings for him, Todoroki-san is just… dependable.
 Or he would be, if she didn't have to constantly look out for him to make sure he hasn't gotten into yet another fight. She sort of gets why he does it, though not really. She knows he has a complicated family history and trusts he will tell her about it if he ever needs to or feels comfortable doing it - and for her, that is enough.
 But he's been doing so good lately, barely even gotten into a fight in almost a month. She thinks it has something to do with his last fight being against Midoriya, and the conversation that followed. He's even seemed… Happier. Not happy exactly, but more relaxed, softer around the edges.
 Momo has always admired his serious personality, but privately thought he seemed lonely. She'd felt happy to see him open up, to see him direct small smiles at her from the other side of the cafeteria. Elated to know, without a single ounce of proof, that the tingling sensation at the nape of her neck was from him having touched her hair in passing as he exited their classroom.
 She'd even begun believing he might reciprocate her feelings. She'd finally managed to ask him, heart pounding in her ears, if he'd like to grab a bite sometime, and he'd said yes without a blink of his mismatched eyes. When she'd rushed to clarify that she meant her offer in a more-than-friendly way, and he'd very faintly blushed before reassuring her that the answer was still affirmative, she had been sure this was the start of something new for them.
 And then he goes and stands her up in favor of getting into yet another fight. Momo is going to kill him - bust first she's going to get some answers.
 -
Fuyumi is the worst sister in the world.
 A great big sister wouldn't have let Yaoyorozu in. Instead, Fuyumi leads her into his bedroom and, as soon as she's done putting ointment on his bruise, leaves them alone, door closed behind her. She is      not     getting a birthday present from him.
 Yaoyorozu sits on his desk chair. For a moment, neither of them says anything: her looking straight at him with those big onyx eyes, him looking everywhere but at her. Eventually, Shoto hears her sigh, and then she speaks.
 "I waited for you outside of school." she says, and Shoto can just picture her wearing the very same red turtleneck and black skirt and standing by the door, onyx eyes hopeful. He feels like an even bigger douche, letting some idiot get the best of him and in doing so, letting her down.
 " I'm sorry I missed our date, Yaoyorozu." Shouto says, pulling at a loose thread on his blue sweater's sleeve. "I was looking forward to it."
 "May I ask why, if that was the case, you missed it?"
 Shouto thinks that if she knew, Yaoyorozu would forgive him. But he doesn't want Yaoyorozu to hear the way that disgusting jerk talked about her. He lowers his eyes, looking at her fisted hands.
 "A guy said some things about me and I… lost control." it is, technically, not a lie, but he doesn't think it's enough of the truth to salvage their budding relationship.
 "Todoroki-san…"she laments, digging into her forehead with the heel of her hand. "How many times will I have to ask you to stop getting into trouble?"
 She leaves not long after that, and though Shouto is rarely ever cold, the room seems to lose warmth without her.
-
Momo's heart is going to explode.
 She's searched and searched around the school, but she can't find Todoroki-san. She knows, realistically, that this can wait until tomorrow. She is also aware that her parents would greatly disapprove of the way she is running around and interrupting conversations and classes just to find one boy - but she might actually shatter into pieces if she doesn't talk to Todoroki-san right now.
 Because he didn't not want to show up to the date. He was freshening up after basketball practice when some idiot from class 1B started talking about how Todoroki-san had 'bagged the hottest chick in their year' and 'totally' needed to 'share the deets on her bod when he was done with her'. Todoroki-san, her kind, caring Todoroki-san, hadn't been willing to humor that douche's disgusting comments. He had fought Monoma and beat him to a bloody pulp, but had to face detention and pay for the guy's hospital bills. That's why he'd stood her up.
 And after a week of barely talking, Ashido-San had finally had enough, and let her in on the incident (which she'd learned through Kirishima-san). Needless to say, this information gave Momo a different perspective.
 So she runs, to no avail because he's nowhere to be found, and neither are her friends, so she starts the way back home. When she's waiting for her ride, she notices a commotion in the school's adjoining park. There's a crowd surrounding something, or rather some people , as she finds out when she approaches. One of the people in question is Todoroki-san, shirtless and with a gash on his arm, green uniform pants stained with dirt. The other one is a short freshman with purple hair, clearly in over his head in regards to the fight. Covering her mouth with one hand in worry, Momo approaches the fight. She doesn't notice the way the crowd parts for her, but she does feel a spark of anger ignite in the pit of her stomach.
 Soon she is at the edge of the circle, close enough that when Todoroki-san throws a punch and hits the shorter guy square in the jaw, she can't help but yell his name in horror.
 "Yaoyorozu?" Todoroki-san asks, looking around for her. She's so mad at him for getting into yet another fight and also being so hot while not wearing a shirt, so she channels that anger into grabbing him by the hand and running towards the thicker part of the little wood in the park.
 Once they're alone, she lets the anger blaze.
 "Do you have a death wish? Are you out of your mind? Is this how you're going to be all of high school?" she scolds, holding one shoulder in her arm and poking his chest with every question. "I am      tired    of watching you hurt yourself, Todoroki-san."
 "Yaoyorozu…"
 "I'm not done! I know you fought Monoma-san and stood me up because he was being disgusting about me. I would have appreciated it being you who told me that instead of Ashido-san" she tells him, narrowing her eyes at him. In response to that, Todoroki-san's cheeks turn faint pink, and he looks away in apparent embarrassment.
 "I'm sorry, Yaoyorozu." he apologizes.
 "But Todoroki-san… Does this mean you didn't just get into a fight to let me down gently?" she asks, looking at him, her onyx eyes full of hope.
 "Of course not." he replies firmly. "Yaoyorozu, I would have never consented to a date with you if I weren't sincerely, positively interested in you."
 And then she's kissing him. It's the single most impulsive, inappropriate thing she has ever done. Her etiquette tutors would have her head. But it's also the greatest thing she's ever done. Especially when Todoroki-san gets over the shock and holds her cheek with one warm hand as he returns the kiss. Meanwhile the other, oddly cooler hand undoes her ponytail so he can tangle his fingers in her hair.
 There's so much still wrong with them, but in that moment, everything is perfect.
 "Todoroki-san?" she calls after they part.
 "Yes, Yaoyorozu?"
 "Are you okay?"
 "Don't worry." he reassures her, taking her hand in his as they walk back to procure his shirt. "I'm doing just fine."
 And he really is.
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momostodoroki · 4 years
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the better half of me (pt. 3)
hey so i finished this soulmate au (though i guess it’s not so much abt the soulmates as it is about the tdmm)! i’ll be posting the final chapter tomorrow!
ao3
-
 This is, without a doubt, Momo's worst week ever at Yuuei.
 Forget her first year's final exam, or the time Bakugou-san got kidnapped. Forget that one time Mineta conned her into wearing a cheerleading uniform. This week has been worse.
 "Kyouka-san, what am I going to do?" she moans, hugging her favorite pillow as she lies in her bed. In the cramped space between Momo's desk and bed, Kyouka tunes her favorite guitar, giving her best friend a fondly exasperated look. They're supposed to be studying physics for Kyouka's supposed benefit, but they're both done with their homework and it really was just an excuse to get out of Momo's library date ("It's not a date, Kyouka-san!”) with Todoroki.
 "Yaomomo, it's okay. Just      tell     him." She says for maybe the hundredth time. Momo knows she's right, but she also knows that Todoroki has, at best, complicated feelings towards soulmates. She hates the idea of potentially losing his friendship.
 "But Kyouka-san, Todoroki-san's friendship is very important to me, I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize it. And, well…" she pauses, looking away dejectedly. "You know how he feels about soulmates. " she finishes in a whisper.
 Giving up on her guitar, Kyouka groans.
 "So Todoroki doesn't like soulmates, big deal." She tells Momo. Her best friend's eyes are ablaze with an emotion Momo doesn't quite get. "He still gets one, and it's not fair to you to deprive yourself of a resolution just to accommodate him, Yaomomo. The stars around his eye are just as much yours as they are his." She finishes, sighing deeply. Suddenly, Momo gets it.
 "Kyouka-san… did you, by chance, already find your soulmate?" she asks from behind her pillow, hoping it will muffle her excitement. Kyouka looks away, cheeks tinting slightly pink. "Oh my god! Who? Is it from our class?"
 Instead of an answer, her best friend gives her one of those looks that tell her she's been spending too much time with Ashido-san. Cheeks pinking, she slides back a few inches into her bed.
 "Well, yeah -but don't tell Ashido!" she chides, looking at Momo menacingly for a moment. Then, her gaze mellows into something softer. "I didn't get the whole soulmate deal either, at first. But honestly Yaomomo, Todoroki would be an idiot to reject you, soulmates or not. And you know what? He doesn't strike me as an idiot."
 Momo gives her a tiny, hopeful smile. One of the things she likes best about Kyouka is her frankness, and how unwilling she is to sugarcoat things. So when she says there is hope for her and Todoroki yet, Momo believes in her.
 "Thank you, Kyouka-san." She says.
 "Don't mention it." she replies, lightly. And then, menacingly: "Seriously, don't. Now listen to this song I learned the other day and tell me if we could get the rest of the band to play it…"
-
 Yaoyorozu is avoiding him.
 It's hard to prove, because she keeps herself quite busy even when she's not avoiding him -but the sudden constant absence from the Heights Alliance common area, the dashing out the door as soon as the class is finished, the myriad of excuses to get out of all their studying and training together, all since the shape-shifting villain incident… She      has    to be avoiding him.
 Shouto has tried to seek her out to try and talk things out, but whenever he knocks on her door, she's conveniently out, or busy with one of the girls, or running an errand for Aizawa-sensei. He's running out of ideas to get her to talk to him, and not knowing the reasons behind her sudden change in behavior might just drive him insane. Even when they do spend time together, there's always someone else where there used to be just the two of them, almost as if they were acting as a buffer. The quiet, companionable afternoons now turned into spaces for Jirou to compare homework answers or Asui to try and convince them to call her "Tsuyu".
 In the week since, Shouto has discovered just how much time he really spent with Yaoyorozu. He always knew he spent considerably more time alone with her than with any other of his friends -except perhaps Midoriya-, but he still thought that amount of time wasn't that long. It certainly didn't feel so when he spent it with her. Now, as she excuses herself to help Jirou with physics for the umpteenth time, Shouto finds that one hour can stretch on quite a lot more than sixty minutes. It's an odd feeling in his chest, and one he fails to identify until his weekly visit to his mom arrives and he realizes the pang in his chest isn’t      that     different from the one he’s been feeling since he realized Yaoyorozu was avoiding him: he      misses    her.
 He doesn’t quite know what to do with that information. He holds his classmates in high esteem, and he doesn’t doubt he will come to miss them when their time at Yuuei is done -but to feel this way for someone he still technically sees every day, it makes him feel… discombobulated.
 “Midoriya, do you ever find yourself missing people you see quite often?” he asks on the eight day of Yaoyorozu’s semi-absence. From across the library table, his green-haired friend throws him an odd look. Shouto knows that Midoriya noticed Yaoyorozu’s change too, and he supposes his friend must be wondering how he feels. If he’s honest, he almost talked himself out of asking him -but he isn’t any closer to figuring out why the vice-president’s cold shoulder hurts so much on his own, and Midoriya is known for being great with feelings but bad with decisions.
 “Is this about Yaoyorozu?” he asks. Shouto looks pointedly at the book he’s been taking notes from, at the one sentence he’s read a dozen times in the past ten minutes but still can’t figure out what it means. “Okay. Yes. I see my mom often, but I still miss-” Shouto throws him a deadpan look. “-okay, that’s not what you mean. Well… there is someone…” he trails off, gaze wandering to some point beyond Shouto’s head. Curious, he follows it, but he finds no sign of Uraraka. The only familiar person in the vicinity is Bakugou on the second floor, furiously taking notes with… a pink pencil? “Nevermind.” Midoriya says.
 Internally, Shouto sighs. This is a problem he’ll have to sort out himself.
-
     You know, he deserves a chance to decide too    .
 Kyouka’s words before leaving her bedroom that day haunt her. There’s no denying the truth in them -but much in the style of Momo’s first year’s final exam, her self-doubt cripples her. She wants, more than anything, to tell Todoroki-san about their matching soulmarks. She’s allowed herself to dream late at night about him being happy as her soulmate, seeing her as someone he can rely on and be open with. But she’s also aware that Todoroki is far from the romantic soul that her fantasies dream him to be. There is a part of her, in the deepest of her heart, that is utterly convinced (and terrified) that saying the truth is going to irreparably tear their friendship apart -much more than it already is. So she keeps quiet.
 Even Kyouka’s heartfelt assurances don’t keep her from obsessing over the what-ifs. She spends most of the week in a daze, and on the second friday since discovering her soulmate, Momo’s distractions finally catch up to her.
 Class 1A is having a natural disaster rescue simulation in Ground Omega when it happens. She’s been paired up with Iida and Sero, as well as Asui in scouting and first-response medical care. Not far from her team’s area, Todoroki and his team (Uraraka, Tokoyami and Koda) have set up a transport line for getting injured civilians to a refugee camp.
 Momo chances a look their way in spite of herself, and with a rapidly-beating heart she finds Todoroki looking straight at her. There’s barely any hint of an expression on his face other than cool determination, but hundreds of hours spent discussing books and tea and so many other things have given her the uncanny ability to read his eyes just as well as any book. And if she can trust herself (which, admittedly, is getting harder by the second), she thinks Todoroki’s blue-and-grey eyes are full of sadness.
 She didn’t do that, did she?
 Her mind sort of splits in two, as though her quirk had produced a second one. Part of her is focused on producing more medical supplies for the civilians that Asui keeps bringing in from the river, while the rest of her is stuck on coming clean to Todoroki about their soulmarks. She's so concentrated on not messing either train of thought up (as she both needs to make sure the medicines she makes are perfectly balanced lest she poisons someone and make a decision, because this choice will not get any easier), that she fails to notice the tremor in the earth under her feet, mistaking it for her own trembling hands. Seconds later, a ten-foot tall wave rises from the river.
 It hits before Momo can react, pushing her back towards Ground Omega’s woods. As the water carries her, something in her clicks, and she concentrates as hard as she can on making a lifeboat. She feels the fabric in the back of her costume stretching, then rupture. Not a millisecond later, the lifeboat springs out from her back. Momo allows herself one moment of self-satisfaction before clinging to the lifeboat’s side, about to climb on.
 But before she can pull herself up, there’s a sharp pain at the back of her neck, and everything goes dark.
-
 Shouto has to admit, as far as natural disaster drills go, this is a pretty hardcore one.
 Even for Yuuei, the height and intensity of the second tsunami-like wave is overkill, so Shouto deduces whoever’s behind it must have forgotten the civilians were actually paid actors who could sue for damages. Either way, he and his team scramble to take control of the situation, and they do it successfully -for the most part.
 Not too far from them, he catches sight of Asui and Sero helping civilians out of the water, with Iida sprinting back and forth carrying people so fast he barely touches the water -like some sort of twisted, steam-punk Jesus. Shouto vaguely wonders if his engine can take the water damage. Yaoyorozu would probably know the answer to that, but they’re not any better than the previous week.
 Shouto looks around in spite of himself for her, and finds her some yards away, letting the wave take her as her brows scrunch the way they do when she’s deep in concentration. A lifeboat springs up from behind her, and she holds onto it -but the woods are gaining on her fast.
 Signaling Tokoyami, Shouto takes off in her aid, freezing the water to slide his way to her. Given the state of their friendship, Shouto doesn’t know that Yaoyorozu would appreciate his help at all -but he could not live with himself if something happened to her and he just let it. He’s almost by her side when she’s hit in the head by a broken tree branch -and then she goes under.
 He distantly hears Uraraka screaming Yaoyorozu’s name, but it all fades as he throws himself into the water. It’s dark and muddy under the surface, but Yaoyorozu’s hero costume shines bright red even under the murky water. She sinks almost as rapidly as he swims to her, but he manages to catch her by the waist and propel himself upwards with his ice. He emerges, gasping for air, with Yaoyorozu unconscious in his arms.
 Shouto gives himself a second to push the hair back gently from her face, then brings her to the cliff where Aizawa-sensei and All Might scramble to make sure everyone is accounted for. Midoriya and Jirou are there to greet him, and he hands her over with a trembling in his hands that he didn’t even know he had.
 “She was under for about a minute.” he tells them, voice cracking in spite of himself. Midoriya rushes to take her off his arms as Jirou assures him she will be just fine. Shouto refuses to believe the opposite, so he just nods and hands her over to be taken to Recovery Girl. He’s about to go back into the chaos of things to clear his head when something catches his eye.
 He looks at Yaoyorozu’s body, hanging limp in Midoriya’s arms. Her costume’s back is torn -and there, on the small of her back is the answer to all of his questions: a perfect circle of stars. His perfect circle of stars.
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momostodoroki · 4 years
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the better half of me (pt.2)
i forgot this was already written ksksks me??? dum??? it’s more likely than u think.
anyways now we got shouto’s pov
-
Shouto does not like soulmates.
From a practical point of view, a soulmate is a hero's biggest weakness - and because of the public nature of heroes' lives, keeping a soulmate's identity private is quite difficult. He does not enjoy the idea of someone specifically picked by the universe to be used as leverage against him. And from a personal standpoint…
Well, if soulmates treat each other the way his poor excuse of a father treated his mother, then he wants nothing to do with it. To this day, he's still surprised his parents are soulmates in spite of ending up together through an arranged marriage. Fate, he thinks, works in odd ways.
He remembers being a child and staring at the constellation circling his left eye, the tiny dots scattered around his blue eye, and wondering who would share such a pattern. Now, when he washes his face in the UA dorm's bathroom, only his scar stares back. He still remembers the exact placement of every single star, but they are harder to find under the scarred skin. He doesn't normally rejoice in having a permanent mark on his face (and the baggage it carries), but if there is a silver lining, it is that it does a good job of hiding his soulmark.
It could be much worse.  He thinks sometimes,  I could have Midoriya's mark. His mind conjures up an image of his friend's face, with his own constellation scattered across his face. He often catches Uraraka staring at it, and he wonders whether it's because she shares it. It feels too soon, too coincidental, too fortuitous that they would meet when they are both so young. But then again, most soulmates end up meeting at some point or another. The universe just works that way.
-
Shouto wakes up shortly before nightfall, in the familiar but unexpected surroundings of the Yuuei hospital wing. As the fading sun clings to the sky with weak rays creeping through the windows, he sits up and finds Recovery Girl tending to a dazed Kaminari. By the looks of it, the electric hero-in-training has exceeded his voltage use yet again. His intuition tells him he's probably better off not asking, so instead he waits until she is done to beckon her attention.
"Excuse me," he says in what he hopes is a polite tone. "How did I end up here? The last thing I remember is apprehending a shapeshifting villain down by the south side of the school grounds, then nothing." After a pause, he adds: "Is Yaoyorozu okay? Where is she?"
There's a glint in Recovery Girl's eyes that makes him mildly uncomfortable. She checks him out thoroughly before offering him a response.
"You lost control of your quirk and fainted. Momo-chan brought you here and helped me set you up, but she said she had schoolwork to attend to and left." She recounts. Shouto feels a sudden flare of irritation at himself for still losing control of his quirk despite his years of arduous training. He hates that he left Yaoyorozu to wrap things up by herself and that he imposed on her time and energy by making her take care of him. He's indulging into this sort of mental self flagellation when the school nurse adds: "Poor thing, she looked so worried. That girl works too hard."
Silently, Shouto agrees. Being privy to Yaoyorozu's personal feelings of inadequacy over her place in class 1A and Yuuei in general, he's especially acquainted with how ragged the black-haired creation hero runs herself. It's one of the reasons why he admires her as a hero and as a classmate, and it's also why he tries to look out for her in subtle ways. If only she wouldn't try to repay him every single time…
After a final check up, Recovery Girl clears him to go back to his dorm, not without telling him to stop overdoing it and to eat well. Shouto's stomach emits a rumble then, and he wonders whether their dorm's kitchen has run out of cold soba. His walk back to the dorm is thankfully eventless, and he makes it back in under ten minutes. When he walks in, he finds most of his classmates in the common area.
"Oh, Todoroki, you're back. Are you alright?" Midoriya asks him, looking up from the table, where a big game of monopoly is stretched out for most of the class to play. Given the standard size of monopoly games, he supposes this one must have been especially crafted by Yaoyorozu.
"I'm fine, Midoriya. Is Yaoyorozu doing well?" He asks, hoping not to sound too concerned. He doesn't care about what his friend might or might not think, but Ashido tends to be nosy and assume things that, although well-meaning, can be quite bothersome. The same goes for Sero and Kaminari, although he doesn't have to worry about the blond guy for now.
"Well, as well as someone who came rushing in like some villain was trying to kay-word her would be." A different voice interjects. As if summoned by his dread, Ashido stands in front of him, facing up in a way that the line of stars outlining her eyebrows is staring right at him. He's confused by her statement: while they do have upcoming deadlines, no assignment is in need of immediate attention, and it is quite unlike Yaoyorozu to just leave the way she did. Did something happen while he was unconscious?
"I don't understand." He replies. His confusion must show in his face, because Ashido only rolls her eyes at him and goes back to the board game, where Koda is exacting fake money from Uraraka after she fell on his property. He reassures Midoriya and Iida (who has walked over to congratulate him for upholding their school's honor by getting rid of that villain along with their class' vice-president) that he is alright, then goes on to the kitchen to procure something to eat.
Later, as he exits the elevator to go back to his room, he's met face to face with Yaoyorozu who, judging by the towels, clothes and hair care products she's holding, is on her way to take a bath. When she sees him standing in front of her, her eyes widen in… alarm?
“Todo-Todoroki-san!” she salutes. Her eyes dart around in a manner much unlike herself, who usually holds his gaze steadily. “A-are you feeling better?” She asks.
“Yes. I apologize for not being of greater help. I hope you will let me repay you on our study appointment next week?” he finishes in a questioning tone. He notices she flinches at the mention of their study meeting, and realizes with a start that the source of Yaoyorozu’s odd behavior is, in fact, himself.
“Ah, yes, thank you.” She replies softly, moving as if to enter the elevator. At this, he rushes to offer her space. “I’m… a little tired. Can we talk tomorrow?”
At a loss, he only mutters: “Of course.” and watches as she disappears behind the elevator doors.
He has no idea what he did to make her like this, but whatever it takes, he’s going to fix it.
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momostodoroki · 4 years
Text
»wanna find you there (wanna hold on tight)«
sooooo remember how i wrote a reveal fic about ten thousand years ago, and then a bunch of minifics to go with it??? well this is the direct sequel and also end of the series hahaha been a while hasn’t it???
anyway this work belongs to the oblivious dorks in love series and can be found also on ao3
without further ado, here it is:
-
Panic arises in Chat Noir’s chest as he witnesses his lady take care of the akuma.
This was not the way she was supposed to know. He wasn’t supposed to tell her out of desperation, but with his luck it really isn’t a surprise. His stomach churns in both anguish and relief: the secret was eating away at his feelings and now that the cat is literally out of the bag -or rather, inside the ring-, it’s as if a weight has lifted off of his shoulders. On the other hand, he dreads to see what Marinette’s reaction will be like when she finally has time to process everything. Which, speaking of, shouldn’t be very long now.
Will she be happy? Will she love him back? Or will she completely spurn him?
He stands behind her as she throws the lucky charm into the air, more Adrien than ever even though he’s dressed in his superhero suit. As the miraculous cure that sweeps over the school heals the graze on his face and brings the akumatized teacher back to normal, he can almost feel the last seconds of normality with his Lady running out between his fingers.
After she’s reassured the teacher, Ladybug turns back to him. With his heart on his hand, or more accurately on his fist, Chat Noir raises his arm for their customary fist bump, but his partner ignores him. She is all fiery eyes and tight lips as she takes his wrist and drags him away before he can even try to protest.
She jumps and jumps and jumps until they’re far enough away that the Eiffel tower is needle thin on the horizon, both of their transformations wearing off as they land on top of a trashcan in a deserted alley. When Marinette turns around to glare at him, Adrien feels the tight ball of panic in his chest drop down to churn in the pit of his stomach.
“Y-you knew!” she accuses, her face a lovely shade of pink that almost makes him forget the less-than-ideal circumstance he’s in. “You knew and you… I talked to you!” she exclaims, letting go of his wrist to cover her mouth with her hands, eyes wide with a mixture of terror and realization. “I talked to you about you!”
Adrien reaches out to touch her, but Marinette steps back. There’s fear in her eyes and even though his heart is leaping out of his chest and running towards her, he can’t do the same, he can’t bring himself to touch her when she’s so clearly backing away from him. His mind races with the millions of things he wants to say (I’m sorry I love you I didn’t want you to find out like this Please don’t reject me You’re wonderful I need you Marinette Marinette Marinette) but the words push each other in his throat and only manage to make a knot that feels almost impossible to swallow.
“M-Marinette-”
“I trusted you! And you… did you follow me?” she asks, her gaze trained on him in a way it has never been before. “Is that h-how you found out?”
“No! Marinette…” he groans. This is no place to be having this conversation. He’s too emotional and his face is all over Paris and there are people walking outside the alley; he doesn’t even think they’re still on the 21st arrondissement. Marinette is expecting answers that he’s been waiting three months to give, and his chances of still having a chance (ha!) with Marinette after all of this become slimmer with every second he wastes standing there looking at her. “Plagg, transform me.”
“There’s no cheese!” the kwami whines from inside his shirt. Marinette is looking curiously at him, her apprehension dwindling slightly at the sight of Plagg. Adrien sighs, rubbing his cheek with the heel of his hand.
“You’ve rested, it’ll be quick, and I will get you three wheels of camembert if you do this.” Plagg crosses his little arms as if considering it, but Adrien doesn’t give him a chance to. “Transform me!” he yells, and with a jolt of electricity, he’s Chat Noir once again. He hears Marinette squeak as she reaches to cover her eyes. “Don’t” He pleads, gingerly stopping her hands with his own. “No one has ever seen me for who I am.”
What he says must strike a chord within her, because her eyes stay on him even though she pulls her hands away almost immediately -Adrien tries not to think about the jolt of energy he felt even through the indestructible material of his suit. Running a hand through his hair, he takes a deep breath.
“I know you want answers, and I-I really want to talk to you, Marinette.” Adrien says, voice a lot calmer than he feels. There’s a revolution going on within his chest that he struggles to keep in line, like an outnumbered one-man army. “But this is no place to do it. My dad’s on a trip to Rome, l-let’s go to my house. We can talk in my room.”
His cheeks pink as he utters the offer, but he stands by it. His partner looks conflicted for a minute, but eventually her desire for answers wins over her reluctance to be alone with him.
“Fine.” She mutters, nodding. “But I’m going on my own.” Then she turns around and starts walking out of the alley. Adrien daringly takes her by the arm so as to stop her.
“Marinette, your kwami is exhausted. You wiped out the akuma almost by yourself. You can’t transform, and you took us out of our district. Just let me carry you.”
She looks ready and willing to obliterate him in that instant, but says nothing as he reaches out to hold her while touching her as little as possible -which is obviously an impossible thing to do if he doesn’t want to drop her, so he shrugs and just hoists her up.
Can always blame it on my social skills later he thinks. As expected, between the trip home and the time it takes him to orientate himself in that side of Paris, it takes Chat Noir almost fifteen minutes to get home and push the always-slightly open window on his lookout to leave Marinette inside his room, muttering a quick “I’ll be back” before detransforming half a block away from his house, playing the scared, lost kid as he runs up to the Gorilla.
When he’s finally in his room again, Plagg shoots out of his pocket towards the general direction of his hidden stash of camembert, knowing full well that Adrien will be too preoccupied to keep him from finishing it -as well as wanting no part in the conversation.
Her kwami soon follows him, ignoring his offering to get her something else and urging him to talk to Marinette.
Marinette, who is standing by his window looking like she wants to strangle him. There's an irredeemably teenaged part of Adrien that is giddy at the thought of having the girl he likes standing in his bedroom, but most of him is struggling to organize his thoughts. He only has one chance to save his relationship with Marinette, and this is it.
"I will only wait until Tikki is feeling better." she says. Adrien doesn't think she has seen her this angry since his first day of school. Her anger pinks her cheeks and brighten her eyes and he wishes, desperately, that she were not so attractively distracting as he's trying to explain himself to her.
He sits on the armrest of his couch, patting the space beside him so his lady can sit. Marinette looks for all the world like she would prefer to jump out of the window, but instead concedes to sit on the opposite end of the couch.
“I…”he starts, “I didn’t mean to find out. Do you remember the time you twisted your ankle on patrol?” Marinette’s eyes widen. Adrien thinks she can remember very well. “Well, I left you back at that alley, right? And then I left, but the next day I had a photoshoot, and I remember it well because père scolded me for oversleeping -but I would be late to patrol, so I went back to tell you. It was only a moment, but when I got there, you were transforming back.”
-
Marinette is going to kill him.
Her twisted ankle happened months ago. Adrien has had not one or two, but three months to tell her that he found out her identity, and instead, he let an akuma force his hand. She is positively livid.
She can understand needing time to reconcile the two identities, but there just is no excuse for the deceiving. The boy spent months both ignoring and visiting her, talking to her, letting her tell him her darkest fears and greatest hopes -most of them about him-, all the while giving her the cold shoulder at school. Marinette feels like her entire face is going to fall off in mortification.
All this time. How he must have laughed at my expense. She thinks. There is a traitorous part of her that defends him, that says that isn’t like her Adrien, that there must be an explanation. But how could he let her talk to Chat Noir about Adrien? How could he hear her wax poetics about him and not tell her she was talking to the very same boy? Oh, how she wishes the earth could swallow her whole.
“That was three months ago.” She says when he fails to continue his explanation. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you at least hint that you knew? And you… you’ve been at my house! All this time,” her voice rising as her anger takes hold of her body. “and I made you a beanbag! I trusted you! I-I..”
“I’m sorry!” he pleads, a trembling in his mouth that she doesn’t want to see. She hates that she still loves him, that she wants to hold and reassure him just as much as she wants to strangle him with her yo-yo. He does not get to do this. “I’m sorry Marinette. I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but I’ll beg for your forgiveness for as long as I have to. I didn’t want to lie, you know me. It’s me, my Lady. I wanted so badly to tell you b-but…”
“What, Chat?”
“At first, it was hard to reconcile Ladybug with Marinette.” Adrien admits, looking at his shoes. The knot in her chest tightens, because that’s it. That’s why he didn’t say anything. She always knew Marinette wasn’t as good as Ladybug, and she had always been fine with that, but hearing her crush, her partner saying it makes it so much worse. “But then I-“
“You don’t have to say anything else.” Marinette says, all the fight gone out of her, bluebell eyes obscured by her fringe. She wants to cry so badly, but she will not do it in front of him. “I’ve heard enough. Tikki, transform me.”
-
This has to be a nightmare.
Even in his worst ones, Adrien couldn’t have imagined this moment going so badly. As his Lady’s kwami zips in from wherever it was hiding, Marinette is engulfed in a pink light, then Ladybug stands before him. He realizes this is the first time he has ever seen her transform into Ladybug. He wishes it was under happier circumstances.
She’s leaving, and Adrien can’t in good conscience stop her. He can’t ever ask her to do anything for him in good conscience, hasn’t for the last three months. But she’s transformed and she hasn’t heard anything about him falling in love with her all over again, hasn’t given him the chance to tell her how he admires her strength and confidence and the way her eyes will shine brighter when she puts her mind to something. He hasn’t even begun to organize his thoughts to explain how he’s always wanted to kiss her and how he’s been so close the past three months that he thought he could die. He’s not even mentioned the closet full of gifts he’s bought her because he wants her to have everything she could ever want and then some.
“Please, Mari- my Lady, no. I’m not-“
“I’ve heard as much as I needed, Adrien.” She cuts. There’s a coldness in her tone that he’s only ever heard her use with Chloe. “I’m going home.”
Then she throws her yo-yo and goes out the window, leaving him behind. She can’t know, and now he can’t tell her, but she takes the entirety of his heart with her.
-
“Girl, what’s going on?” Alya asks, a week later.
Marinette hates that she can’t tell her. She wants Alya to hold her, to comfort her and to tell Adrien to throw himself off the Arc de Triomphe. She knows her friend wouldn’t even bat an eyelash to do it – but she would risk everything. She doesn’t believe that Alya, lovely Alya who is the most caring, most supportive friend anyone could ever have, would ever give her away. But at the end of the day, she’s protecting her by not telling her. Marinette needs to keep doing that, even if it means she has to process her heartbreak on her own.
“I’ve just had a bad week.” She murmurs, pushing a pencil around. She’s on time for maybe the first time in a month, and it just so happens to be the day Adrien will be missing school because of a photoshoot. She supposes she might have some luck after all.
“A bad week?” Her best friend repeats, incredulous. “You’ve had Adrien tripping over himself to get you to talk to him ALL week. Last time I checked, that was the equivalent of winning the lottery for you! Instead, you’ve clearly been high key ignoring him! What on earth is up with you?”
Marinette has been preparing all week for this. She even wrote a list of bullet points on the things she would say should Alya ask anything: she’s over Adrien, he overstepped his boundaries and she’s still not ready to talk about it. Marinette knows Alya is the best reporter there is, but she also knows that she’s the best friend in the world, and she won’t pry until she is sure it’s okay.
Luckily, the arrival of Mlle. Bustier saves her, and she gets away with a ‘this-isn’t-over’ look from her best friend.
-
Adrien might actually go insane.
He’s done everything he can to talk to Marinette: approached her at school, stopped over by her house only to be told she’s not feeling well and given apology cookies from her mom, even visited the gym where she trains with Kim and Ivan. All in vain, for she will not see him. At school, she only replies if she absolutely has to, and everywhere else she is a wall. Adrien has spent much of his life alone, but he doesn’t think he’s ever been ignored.
And it hurts. Doubly so, because it is undeniably his fault. He knows how candid Marinette is, how straightforward his lady always presents herself – and he still went out and lied to her. But if she would just let him explain – if he could at least confess and be rejected, then okay. It would still hurt, but he’d be able to move on. Maybe. Someday.
So, in a last-resort attempt, he transforms for the first time in a week, dashing across the rooftops towards his lady’s balcony. He finds it deserted, deck chairs and beanbag lonely under the moonlight. He knocks on the trapdoor, knowing Marinette will know it’s him and hoping, begging to whatever power moves the strings of the world to please, please let her hear him out.
But his luck is, as always, nefarious. There is nothing out there rooting for him, and it lets him know through silence. He crouches outside the trapdoor for a lifetime, finding patterns in the worn wood as he lets his thoughts take over. There’s a voice in his head that tells him she will never forgive him, and he is terrified of that being true. Terrified of never having her smile at him again and of never being able to hold her hand in his.
Give it some time, says a voice in his head, suspiciously reminiscing of Plagg’s. She’ll come around. And for his sanity, he really hopes she does.
-
The night Chat Noir visits her balcony, Marinette sleeps in her chaise.
She does this because she knows she wouldn’t be strong enough to hold back from opening the trapdoor and spending yet another stupid night listening to him, hearing him give her empty apologies. And how could she do that to herself? How could she let him fool her again after he deceived her for so long?
Marinette is so angry. She feels like her anger is going to tear her apart and she hates that. She is not a resentful person, she doesn’t hold grudges for long, not even for Chloe. She wants to move past this and mend bridges with Adrien and be friends even if his very existence breaks her heart, but no matter how she tries, she can’t. Every time she takes a deep breath and resolves to put it behind her, she remembers the nights spent on her rooftop, talking about nothing but especially about everything and she cannot believe he betrayed her like that. She cries and rages and feels as though a volcano were perpetually erupting inside her chest, and no matter what she does, it never stops.
If she is honest, Marinette knows much of the anger is not at him. Sure, he deceived her -but she never gave him the slightest hint that she’d want to exchange identities. As time goes on, she is better able to realize that. She doesn’t even think she would be so mad, if only he hadn’t also learned of her crush and cruelly let her confide in him. Much of the anger is on herself, for thinking she could ever have the most handsome boy in Paris return her feelings, for hoping against hope that she could, just this once, be enough.
-
The akuma shows up in the worst of times.
It’s a really strong one, too, a young girl who got bullied -surprisingly not by Chloe- looking for retribution. She’s holding an oversized make up brush that Ladybug suspects is where the akuma hides, and whoever she paints over suddenly has their most embarrassing features or secrets out in the open. All over Paris, people lose their make up at best, and at worst, get some sort of holographic text on top of their heads divulging their deepest secrets. Ladybug worries, because that sort of akuma could very well unmask her and Chat Noir, and she really can’t afford that. With things as they are now, losing one of them may well mean losing both.
And the longer the girl is akumatized, the less it seems like they will be able to beat it. Ladybug knows she can’t afford to hold onto her grudges, not when the fate of Paris is at risk -but trusting Chat Noir is so hard. It’s not like when she found out anymore, she has no more shock to get her through the motions on autopilot.
On his end, Chat Noir tries to pun and act like nothing is wrong (they can’t afford to show Paris, and by extension, Hawk Moth, that something is), but they keep missing each other’s cues, keep tripping over each other in their attempts to corner the akuma. Every time they’ll attack her, she will swipe at them with their brush, and Ladybug and Chat Noir, out of sync and unable to confide in each other, struggle to keep up.
Eventually, they get an opening when she finds her bully, and she loses all interest in their miraculous in favor of exacting revenge. Chat Noir seizes this opportunity to swipe at her legs with his staff, but she holds onto the baton at the last second and uses the momentum to twirl around with it, Chat Noir still attached to the opposite end of it. She turns and turns until she resembles a spintop and then, in the blink of an eye, she lets go. Ladybug is horrified as she witnesses Chat Noir’s rapidly retreating figure, then hears the crack of concrete as he crashes against a building in the city center.
She can’t really recall what happens after. She remembers her heart constricting in anguish at the distant yowl, only audible to her because of her enhanced hearing. Then anger, white and blazing and blinding as she conjures up the lucky charm and she can’t even understand what she has to do with this stupid phone until- oh! Of course. A taunt over cyberbullying and she feels so bad because the mere idea of it is so wrong but Chat Noir is hurt and she can’t take it, not when they’re like that, not when she hasn’t forgiven him and maybe won’t get to and- a toss of her yoyo and the brush is broken and time to de-evilize!
The poor child barely gets her bearings before Ladybug is sprinting away, frantic in her need to get to her partner’s side. He’s unconscious at the foot of a building, a crowd of concerned citizens surrounding him. Ladybug fights back tears as she arrives, taking his head in her arms and tenderly brushing his bangs away from his gaze. Please, please let him be okay, she pleads silently.
She hears, far away even though it’s right on her earlobe, the beeping of her earrings. Chat Noir must have longer, because he didn’t use his Cataclysm, but even so his transformation won’t hold with him knocked out like that. Ladybug holds him in her arms, placing his head carefully in the crook of her own neck, and zips away with a tiny, forced smile towards the cheering crowd behind her.
After locating Adrien’s bodyguard, Ladybug lands on a tall roof, away from prying eyes.
“Plagg, if you can hear me, I think he needs medical attention.” She murmurs, a trembling in her voice. “Please, drop the transformation.”
There’s a flash of green light, and then the black kwami floats before her, a concerned look on his big green eyes as he approaches his unconscious charge.
“Ladybug, he hit his head pretty hard.” Plagg says, touching a tiny paw to Adrien’s cheek.
“Don’t worry, he will be okay.” She replies. In truth, she’s not sure if she is reassuring him or herself. Either way, she really hopes she is correct.
-
After dropping him off with his bodyguard, Ladybug finds a secluded place to detransform and goes back home. Once there, she waits until nighttime to transform back and make her way through Paris’ rooftops until she’s at the foot of Adrien’s always-slightly-ajar window. There’s a lamp turned on in the upper part of his bedroom that bathes the room in faint golden light, and through it she’s able to make his figure out laying on his bed, sleeping.
She walks in, stepping softly as to not wake him. Ladybug chances a look at his face and is worried to see a small frown on his brow, but his face is otherwise peaceful. Plagg emerges from under his blanket, green eyes slightly bleary as he rubs them with a tiny paw.
“I thought you didn’t want to see him.” He comments. She doesn’t, but she does, but- oh, it’s so hard making up her mind. She’s not done processing her feelings, and she can’t stop worrying about him.
“I… needed to make sure he was okay.” She admits. “We are still partners.”
“Can I tell you something, little bug?” Plagg asks, after a moment of silence. Ladybug knows he’s going to speak on behalf of Adrien, and really why wouldn’t he? Adrien is his holder, after all. She isn’t sure she wants him to -one part of her wants to move past this, but another one is still conflicted on her feelings. She’s silent as she deliberates, and before she can make up her mind, Plagg takes her silence as an affirmation and continues. “Adrien messed up big time hiding what he did from you, but that kid is the finest wheel of cheese ever made. Not a single bit of mold. You don’t have to listen to me, but I think my sugar cube would agree with me when I ask you to please give him a chance.”
Ladybug doesn’t mean to go back to being Marinette. Not in Adrien’s room, when he could wake up anytime, and not after what Plagg said. It’s Tikki who pushes the detransformation, and it’s her bright blue eyes looking at her full of meaning as she floats up to her face. Marinette holds in a groan, because Tikki never scolds her unless she’s wrong, and she hasn’t so far. Is she really overreacting?
“No, Marinette.” Tikki says softly, as though reading her thoughts. “But you’re not allowing youself to see the full picture either.”
Marinette wonders what she means by that. With a sigh, she comes to the conclusion that her worries have been quelled, and stands up to start her way back home. As she turns around, a white square calls her attention and, not without a little guilt for snooping, she checks it out. It’s an envelope with her name on it in Adrien’s cursive script.
“He was going to give it to you.” Plagg says, around a mouthful of cheese. “Jus’ take it.”
Pursing her lips, Marinette puts the letter in her pocket before transforming and making her way back home.
-
 “Ma bien-aimée Marinette,
 I won’t bother you with apologies; I know I don’t deserve forgiveness for lying to you, and I won’t ask for it no matter how desperately I want it. The last time we talked, you left before I could explain, so I’ll try to do it as swiftly as possible. Please bear with me for a few paragraphs.
 I’ve always thought you were amazing. Ever since the first day I met you. I don’t know if you know this, but you were my first friend. But no matter how I tried to talk to you, you would always clam up around me. I knew I was the issue, because you didn’t react that way to anybody -not even Chloe.
 When I found out you were Ladybug, I was shocked, but also quite glad. You already were a sort of superhero for our class, so it made sense that you would be the face behind the actual superhero. Only such a valiant, confident, uplifting, charismatic, inspiring, trustworthy girl could be Ladybug. As Chat Noir, I’d always wanted to get close to Ladybug, and here I had the perfect opportunity to do it. Around Chat Noir, you weren’t nervous or tongue tied, and I could finally see the girl under the costume that I so often dreamt about. I regret that in the process, I hurt you.
 Before your fall, I had always been in love with Ladybug, but only through it was I able to know and love Marinette.
 Yours,
 Adrien.”
-
Chat Noir gets to the Eiffel Tower three hours early.
It’s been a week, and his doctor just cleared him after the concussion he got in the akuma attack. he surmises he might have recovered earlier, had he not woken up the day after and found out Ladybug had taken his letter.
“She what?” he’d asked Plagg, nauseous and drowsy and about to willingly choke on his own vomit from anxiety. “And you just gave it to her?”
“Well, it was for her wasn’t it?” Plagg had replied, not paying him any mind over his camembert slice. “Kid, she needed to hear you out, and she wasn’t willing to let you speak.”
“Oh Plagg,” Adrien had moaned, covering his face with his hand and falling back into bed to sleep out his concussion. “I just hope it works out.”
So now he stands there, impatient and anxious and confused because Marinette asked him to meet her here. And she hasn’t wanted to see him in nearly three weeks, so his anxiety is at its breaking point. If he adds the fact that she must have read his letter a dozen times by now (or even worse, not read it at all), he might just purposefully slip off the railing he’s perched on.
He’s entertaining a thread of self-destructive thoughts as he imagines what she might say (I hate you How could you do this to me I don’t want to work with you anymore This is the end of my being Ladybug Never speak to me again I’ll never return your feelings) when she appears. Her Ladybug costume has never seemed so much like an armor.
There’s an emotion in her eyes he can’t quite figure out, but it looks like a serene kind of sadness.
“Hello Chat Noir.” She says, sitting down at the of the railing. Tentatively, Chat Noir sits down next to her, close enough to touch should she extend her hand, but not so close as to invade her personal space.
“Bonsoir, ma Lady.” He replies, sheepish.
“I read your letter.” She says, and despite having known from the beginning that it was a very likely scenario, his heart still constricts inside his chest. He has a feeling about this moment -it will either make them or break them. He hopes, ardently, that it’s the former. “I… god, Chat Noir. I’m- I can’t-“
For a second, he almost feels like she’s taken off her mask. The way her tongue-ties is so incredibly Marinette, and he loves her so much, but she’s going to reject him. He knows it.
“You don’t have to spare my feelings, my lady.” Chat Noir interrupts, a small, self-pitying smile gracing his face despite his best efforts. “I’ve always known someone else was in your heart.”
She looks at him with wide eyes.
“What?” she asks, stuttering forgotten as her face seems to constrict in… anger? “How can you- and after all this time! You’ve been stringing me along and falling in love with Ladybug and calling her all those formidable things all the while knowing it was me under that mask! Of course I was never going to live up to her! And you knew how I felt about  you and still-“
He’s had so much time lately to get used to Marinette being angry at him, and he has had his fair share of anger from his Lady. Yet as she goes on her angry rant, Chat Noir finds that he’s shocked. Not at her demeanor, but at her words. “Falling in love with Ladybug”? She’s Ladybug! And he’s in love with her! And… how she felt? His head fixates on that thought so hard that it makes him feel dizzy.
“M-my lady,” he interjects, daring as he holds the fist she’s been waving at him for the past few minutes. “H-how you felt about me…?” he asks, hoping against hope.
“Oh, please.” Ladybug says, scornful. “Like you didn’t know I’ve been in love with Adrien for forever.” She admits, red to the tips of her ears, but Chat Noir doesn’t know if it’s anger or embarrassment that is coloring them. And frankly, after her last statement, he doesn’t find it in himself to care.
She loves him, and he loves her, and they may be in shambles, but it’s not all lost. A dazzling grin takes over his face.
“I love you too, my lady.”
“You wrote that.” She says, looking away with that sadness seeping back into her bluebell eyes. “But you’ve got it wrong. Valiant? Inspiring? Charismatic? That’s Ladybug. Not me. You’re in love with someone who doesn’t exist.” She looks away but he still notices the way her eyes go glassy and he can’t believe she really thinks that’s the truth.
“Marinette.” He calls. She gasps, softly, and looks up. The tiniest of tears have escaped from the corners of her eyes, and he reaches out to wipe them away with the tenderest of gestures. “Please, detransform.” And he does so as well, silently willing Plagg and finding the contrarious kwami complying with his request easily for once. Ladybug stays silent, looking for all the world like she’s going to bolt right then and there, but there’s a flash of pink light and then Tikki floats between them. The red kwami looks at her charge sternly, hugging her face tightly before dragging Plagg away to the upper side of the tower.
“Marinette” he starts, choosing his words carefully. She’s not looking at him, so he crosses the distance between them to hold her face in his hands. And because he knows he might not get to do this another time, he takes the time to caress her cheeks with his thumbs, to drink in her tiny nose and the silvery flecks in her bluebell eyes. He may only be fifteen, but he knows he will never love someone this much, not after her. “The first time we met, you left when we defeated Coeur de Pierre, and I told myself “whoever is under that mask, I love that girl.”” Marinette looks up at him. “You may not think so, but every single quality of Ladybug’s is yours, Marinette. She is lovely and amazing because you are. I’ve had three months to confirm that. Three months to fall in love all over again.”
“B-but if you loved me… why didn’t you say anything?” she asks. She sounds small, something that doesn’t fit Marinette at all. She’s too grand for this world, yet her shoulders hunch as if trying to make herself smaller. “y-you knew how I-”
“I didn’t.” he quickly assures, shaking his head. “If I had, I wouldn’t have hesitated.” And, because he might not get another chance, because he loves her and she loves him and they’re as close as the top of the world as Paris gets, Adrien pulls her face in and kisses her.
In the kiss, Adrien pours all his love for her. He’s clumsy and inexperienced and he doesn’t know if he isn’t just slobbering all over her, but she doesn’t pull away. She lets out a little whimper, motionless for what feels like eons until her hands come up to fist at his shirt and she starts returning the kiss in earnest. She’s not any better a kisser than he is, but to him, nothing could be better.
Eventually, Adrien lets go of her face, and Marinette stumbles backward a few paces. Because of their precarious setting, Adrien holds her hand to steady her, watches as she takes a breath so deep that he wonders whether she had been breathing at all the past few minutes. Her face is still greatly flushed, and one of her pigtails has come undone. With his free hand, he undoes the other one, watches as her hair tumbles freely over her neck. She looks at their joint hands, pensive.
“Let’s start over, my lady.” He proposes, squeezing her hand. He hears Plagg’s snicker somewhere out of his sight, and he knows the kwami will tease him incessantly later.
“B-but Adrien… What about our identities? And Hawk Moth? There’s so much at risk.” Marinette makes fair points, but Adrien is such an unlucky person, he always takes his victories wherever he can get them. This, he knows, is his greatest victory, and he isn’t prepared to give it up.
He pulls her in, hugging her to him. How could he have gone so long without her in his arms? She fits there perfectly. Marinette doesn’t resist, and that’s how he knows he’s won this battle.
“As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine. After all, who could beat the luckiest girl and the handsomest cat in the world?” Marinette snorts, then laughs a happy laugh, ringing in his ears like tiny bells. She beams at him, and Adrien knows that he’s the actual luckiest guy in the world.
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momostodoroki · 4 years
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Hey so i know I've been dead for a while but if anyone remembers me and happens to be into todomomo, I recently wrote a soulmates au for this ship that consumed my life and u can read it here
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momostodoroki · 4 years
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I cannot tell yall how fortunate I feel to be working with the people I am on the tdmm mini bang. I've felt really bad lately and today I just spent so long thinking about how just talking to them makes me feel so good and at peace. I hope if they see this that they know how grateful I am for them
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momostodoroki · 7 years
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y’all so this is the start of my soulmate love square au which i started forever ago and never got around to finishing; i’m still considering whether i should or shouldn’t so if y’all have any thoughts on the matter they are more than welcome!!!
As far as the world knows, Marinette Dupain-Cheng doesn’t have a soulmate mark.
Which is ridiculous, because everyone has a soulmate mark. Not everyone ends up meeting their soulmate, of course, but that doesn’t mean their mark isn’t there. All people have a soulmate mark in their body.
It all starts the day she is born, when the doctors holding and inspecting her tiny, newborn body find it unblemished except for a patch of minuscule freckles scattered across her cheeks and nose, a few of them even dusting her shoulders. Her parents, needless to say, worry upon being informed, but the happiness of seeing their long awaited daughter healthy and gurgling in their arms beats the worries of a distant future away for a few years.
“Maman, why don’t I have stars?”
It’s Marinette’s first day of école primaire, and she comes back from it with the question Sabine Cheng hoped she’d never have to answer.
“I… well, ma chèrie, you just don’t.”
Looking away from her sewing, Sabine finds her daughter sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her tiny hands clasped together, braided pigtails bouncing with the swing of her six-year-old little feet. She’s too young, in her mother’s opinion, to be asking these things, too young to ask something for which no one has the answer to.
“That’s just dumb, Maman.” Marinette replies, getting off the chair with determination. “I’m going to find my stars.” Her daughter announces and, even though her heart is breaking, Sabine can’t help the smile that splits her face as she watches her daughter walk up the stairs in a manner that is way too reminiscent of her father’s to be anything but endearing.
That night, Marinette spends almost an hour in the bathtub, much to her mother’s dismay; but trudges into bed exhausted and empty handed, not a single mark in her body but for the freckles that stand out more prominently in the summer sun.
In spite of that, Marinette doesn’t let herself be saddened because of her soulmate mark (or lack thereof). That is, until fourth grade, when Chloe Bourgeois joins her class.
Chloe’s father has just been elected president, but his many other businesses and investments have given him the money and opportunity to raise a perfectly spoiled, bratty child. Putting her in public school is merely a political move. Marinette first comes into acquaintance with her when she walks into her homeroom perfectly on time, only to find her entire class gathered around the new student.
Marinette approaches the crowd; pigtails bouncing as she notices the new girl is holding her bangs away from her face. Craning her neck, she manages to see the arch of dots scattered across her forehead.
“…My daddy says they’re a crown because I’m a princess.” Chloe informs them, delighted to be the center of attention. “And that I’m gonna marry a prince someday.”
That prompts different reactions from her classmates. Some of the boys dismiss her, some of the girls sigh dreamily, and everyone starts showing each other their marks like it’s the first day all over again.
Marinette backs away slowly, hoping to get past the commotion before someone-
“You, with the ugly overalls!” Chloe yells, and since Marinette is the only child in her class who wears overalls, there is really no one else she can be talking to. She turns around ready to defend her favorite pink overalls, but Chloe cuts her off before she can even start. “Where are your stars?”
She shouldn’t be surprised by this question. It’s the first everyone always asks. Marinette’s answered it a million times to a million different people, but she’s ten and her overalls just got insulted and this girl has a crown for a soulmate mark and she wishes she just had-
“Marinette doesn’t have a soulmate mark,” She hears Nino say. Her friend comes to stand in front of her, as though defending her; Marinette wants to speak for herself, but her throat is too tight and Chloe’s crown of stars stares at her from a few steps up, intimidating.
“Well, it’s for the best,” Chloe says, scrunching up her nose in disgust, “any mark would look horrible in that outfit.” And then she goes to her elected new seat, sweet Sabrina holding her bag as she trails behind her.
Marinette wonders if she’ll ever get to play with Sabrina again now that Chloe is there.
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momostodoroki · 7 years
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i was looking at my old love square drafts and i found a soulmate au i didn’t remember i was writing and i kinda want to go on but also i’d like some feedback so would you guys look at some of it and tell me y’alls thoughts?
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momostodoroki · 7 years
Conversation
tae kwon: [can't find joon hyung in a crowd]
tae kwon: KIM BOK JOO IS UGLY AF
joon hyung: [from across the room] wHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY ABOUT MY GIRLFRIEND-
tae kwon: yep, there he is
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