#inspired by those two times capesandshapes went to prom and got super seasick on a river boat with nowhere to run

[capesandshapes]

All You Had to Do Was Stay (Post Reveal/ Pre Relationship) (3/4)

Summary:

Three years ago, Marinette revealed her identity to him. Three years ago, he promised to wait in a hotel room for her. Three years ago, she opened the door to find it empty.

Now she's expected to play nice with him, since she's the maid of honor and he's unfortunately the best man. But old habits die hard, and old feelings die harder.

"This is a wedding, not a death march, Marinette."

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It was going well.

Or, at least as well as a combination Bachelor and Bachelorette party planned entirely via awkward emails could go.

Which could be attributed solely to her and her thousands of schedules and planners, along with the fact that she checked the weather almost religiously and the tide predictions. Adrien just bankrolled most of the thing, which worked well enough seeing as he was the head of a multi-billion-dollar fashion house and she was an up-and-coming designer with an Etsy shop focusing on affordable fashion for normal people. Sure, he insisted on a few things, such as not using the Couffaine’s houseboat (He’d actually tried to argue against a boat entirely) or serving shots with Kim and Alix finally reuniting at this party—But most of it could be attributed to her.

She was pretty sure that was him trying to please her, to play nice after that disastrous night outside the bakery. He was avoiding her as much as possible, and any time he was faced with her he resolved the tension by agreeing to her as much as possible.

He was capable of learning, she supposed.

Marinette stood to the side of the bar as the boat they road on bobbed upwards and downwards, a hand braced on the counter and a glass of water that had she poured into a wineglass in the other. She hadn’t admitted to anyone, but she had a habit of getting seasick. The dim lighting of the fairy lights twinkling overhead combined with the loud pounding of music did a good job of hiding that.

She gave a small, weak smile as she looked out to her friends on the dance floor, some of them being people who she hadn’t seen for far longer than Adrien. Kim and Alix were locked in an exaggerated slow dance that had the two cackling, Juleka and Rose had stolen away to a corner, and Sabrina was excitedly explaining her business as a personal assistant to anyone who would listen. It’d been a long time since she’d seen them all, and it made her sentimental. She rarely saw anyone outside of Alya and Nino now.

“Makes you nostalgic, huh?” A deep, familiar voice asked her, obviously having slid in beside her at the bar at some point.

The side of her mouth tugged harder, and that nauseous feeling in her stomach momentarily left her. She let her blue eyes drift over, practically beaming as she took him in. “Luka Couffaine,” she said. A part of her wondered if he would come.

His long, shaggy blue hair and sharp eyes were now the highlight of the evening. Or almost the highlight. “Marinette,” he said, “fancy meeting you here.”

“Oh yes,” Marinette agreed, “it’s shocking for the maid of honor to be at the Bachelorette party.”

“Well, when she’s got a problem with the best man,” Luka began.

Marinette shot him a look. “Be quiet, someone could hear you.”

“I think everyone would have to be blind not to know,” Luka said, leaning against the bar beside her. She knew where he was looking, who he was watching. Yet, despite that, he said, “a part of me always hoped it would be us out there. Doing all of this.”

Her smile fell. “But you’re happy now?”

“Immensely,” he confirmed, and one look at his face reaffirmed that. He was still watching, still taking it all in. If her eyes traveled to the same place, she could do it too. She could look at Adrien Agreste and wonder how everything got so utterly awful. “I knew it wouldn’t be us, Marinette. We weren’t those type of people.”

“The type of people to get married?”

“The type of people to fit together without any gaps,” he explained. “No room for concern, no regrets.”

She sighed. There was more to it, of course. There was so much more to everything, like the fact that she could never do it, never give herself completely to Luka. She was always waiting, lingering in hallways at the slightest flash of the right shade of blond, and hearing familiar laughter in the silence.

She loved Luka, but she was always wanting. She needed Chat, she needed Adrien, she needed whatever form of him he would give her—

“You still love him, don’t you?” Luka asked. It was a stupid question. She’d seen Adrien six times since he came back, and half of those moments were in passing. Any rational person would say no, only crazy romantics would say yes.

So, she stayed silent.

“I want you to be happy,” Luka said finally, and it was a bucket of cold water poured on her. A reminder of reality, of where she was now, and a rush of that seasickness back to her gut. But when he said it, there was that hint of leftover desire, that underlying subtext that there was a hole in his heart, and it would always be there for her.

And the cold understanding that she never made a groove in her heart for him.

She turned to look at him, only to find him gone.

And with that came sickness.

Awful, churning sickness. A vile wave of nausea that assaulted her stomach. The boat lurched, and with it, so did she.

My god, she was going to die.

Marinette Dupain Cheng, beloved daughter and friend. Died of seasickness because of her own poor choices while planning a party to celebrate her friends’ upcoming wedding.

She threw her head back with another large wave, her eyes watering as she fought the overwhelming urge to die. Lila Rossi was at the party, slithering onto the guest list with a perfectly timed apology to Alya about an awful Instagram post. If Marinette turned any greener she was sure she’d be on Rossi’s snapchat story, paired with a caption questioning why exactly the poor girl was so sick. Another pregnancy rumor.

She grimaced at the thought and nearly fell to her knees as another wave jostled her. Luckily, a hand caught her before she could fall, the warmth of a thick blazer spread across her shoulders and distracted her momentarily.

“And this,” said a voice as she was hauled back onto her feet, “is why I argued against the boat.”

She turned both quickly and unsteadily, catching a mixture of blond and green before, unfortunately, practically falling against it.

She could have done worse.

She could have done much worse.

Such as vomiting on his Burberry jacket or ruining his Chanel shoes.

Adrien’s arms caught her easily, hooking underneath her armpits and hauling her upwards once more. “I’d make a joke about you falling for me, but all things considered… I’d say you’re sick of me.”

Badum tss.

Marinette groaned, resting her forehead against his chest only because it was the main thing keeping the rest of the world from overwhelming her. “Were your jokes always this stupid?”

“Things seem a lot funnier when you’re madly in love,” he said, and she made sure to fire back a glare in response. “That’s good,” he said with an air of authority when she looked at him, “eyes on me, focus on the conversation instead of the waves.”

“Can I have a different conversation partner?” she fired back.

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head at her as he kept a hand braced on her back, the other braced on her shoulder to keep her upright. “Do you want someone else to know you’re sick?” He asked, “because I guarantee Alya and Nino will hear.”

Ugh.

“We’re going to get you inside,” Adrien decided, evidently having spotted a door back into the cabin.

“And then?” She asked, she didn’t see how that would help.

“And then I’ll stay by you in case it all goes south, and you can play YouTube videos on my phone to distract you for another hour or two until Alya goes looking for you. Then you’ll take some selfies, come back, and we’ll wash, rinse, and repeat.”

Marinette wrinkled her nose. “I don’t trust you to stay anywhere, Agreste.”

He flinched. “Okay, fair, but… I’m your only option here so,” he tilted his head at her, looking down as he withdrew his hand from her waist only to offer it to her again. “Either you take my hand and we go, or I leave you here at the mercy of the Seine, which seems to be in quite the mood today.”

He had a point.

“Fine,” she said, slapping her hand into his. “I’ll sit next to you, but I will not talk to you. Don’t expect a miraculous turn around.”

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“I hope you know that nearly every YouTube recommendation of yours being highlight reels of Ladybug and Chat Noir is not endearing,” Marinette informed Adrien, “it makes you look self-obsessed.”

“It’s not every YouTube recommendation,” Adrien scoffed, moving beside her to point at his screen. “See? Anime.”

“Top ten anime waifus?” Marinette read out, shooting him a look.

“You know that’s not what it says,” he responded, yet she couldn’t help but note the way that he took a second look as if making sure.

They were on the ground in the cabin of the boat, nearest the hallway where the kitchens and bathroom were. Adrien was the one to declare that the safest, a place where she could get water if needed, and if worse came…

“When will this finally pass,” Marinette asked yet again as she let herself fall onto her back, she’d repeated the question with every single video finished, but her impatience continued to grow.

And he repeated the same answer, “in four hours when the boat finally docks and we end up on dry land.”

Four hours.

“You were never good in the water,” he said, “and this is coming from the guy dressed like a cat.”

She glared, slapping his thigh. “When this boat lands, the truce ends.”

His smile faltered at that, and he let himself sink down onto the ground beside her, his eyes trained towards the ceiling.

This had a time limit; all of this had a time limit. Even she had almost forgotten that. Because eventually the wedding would end, eventually there would be no more forced interactions, eventually he would go home. Eventually she would go back to her life and wonder the same damn question.

“Why weren’t you there that night?” There was no gracefulness to how it was presented, it merely clattered from her like a knife falling from a kitchen table. It was heavy and loaded, the kind of question that you swallowed down every time you saw someone, not the type that you lobbed out when you were laying side by side and wishing it had been like this so many other times.

She could feel his eyes on her.

“I…” he began, but whatever he meant to say was a false start. He swallowed the letter and tried again. “I don’t…” Know? Care? Want to talk about this?

Why did she care anymore?

What would it change?

Nothing.

“I was scared,” he said finally.

“Okay,” she said.

And that was that. That should have been that. That should have been her hint, her great sign.

“Why?”

And with that single word he rose to his forearms, looking over at her. He was in her field of vision, where she couldn’t ignore him. A hint of pink graced the edge of his green eyes, but his lips were set in an almost determined look, and she wondered if he would stumble over his words again.

“My father was just arrested for being Hawk Moth, my mother was found in my basement, I lost the only home I ever knew to police investigations, and suddenly guardians were at my door asking for Plagg—all in one day. Choose a reason, Marinette.” It wasn’t vile, it wasn’t angry, it wasn’t even cold. She didn’t know how to describe it.

“You disappeared.”

“I couldn’t stand to be in Paris any longer.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“What would I say?!” He replied, his voice loud, far louder than he obviously intended. He flinched as it echoed through the air, and suddenly she was all knives and anger.

“Hello Marinette,” she responded, “or should I say Ladybug, the girl I’ve claimed to be in love with for six years! It’s been great, a fun time and all, but man am I tired—see you in three years without a single message! Good luck wondering if it’s because of you, if you being the girl behind the mask is what changed it all, even though the only difference was one scrap of red fabric!” She glared, sitting up, “Miss. You.”

“You think that’s how it was?” He began, his eyebrows narrowed as he raised from his arms, his eyes staring holes into hers. “I told you…”

“You’d love whoever was behind the mask,” she finished, pushing off of the ground. “But let’s be honest here—Not Lila, not Chloe, and not me. Never me.” She stumbled to her feet, gripping the wall as she finally stood. “I told you who I was, and you were terrified! I saw it, I knew! I should have known why—"

“Because you’re you, because you’re Marinette, because you’re--” he was scrambling to his feet, scrambling to keep her there, scrambling to make some sort of sense.

“Because I’m Marinette?” She repeated, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to hear the mistake. To know that she was right, that this was all some stupid curse put upon her by a universe that would thankfully, in a month’s time, solve the situation.

“That’s not—Jesus Christ, I—”

He didn’t need to say more.

She began to walk away, to risk the treacherous river waves. Anything was better than this, anyone was better than him—

“Because you’re perfect,” he called before she could even begin to walk out that stupid door, and every cell in her body stopped moving. “Because you’re pretty and you’re kind. Because you have a perfect family and everyone loves you, Nino loves you, Alya loves you, I—” He thought better of saying whatever came next there. “Because you were going to be a fashion designer, and the best one anyone’s ever seen. Because you try to be good to everyone you meet. Because at the end of the day you’ll always be good, too good for me, and I’m…”

“You’re,” she was surprised that she asked it, that she could process anything.

And there was a pause, a long, heavy one. One where anything, any combination of words could go wrong.

“Because people would see you walking beside me, and you would still be good, and you would still be kind and you would still be gentle; but they’d see none of that. Because they’d look over and see me. They’d see what my father made and what my father ruined.” Quietly, he confessed, “you would be perfect and none of that would matter, because they’d look over and see Hawkmoth’s son.”

#adrienette #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #miraculous fanfiction #my fanfic #inspired by those two times capesandshapes went to prom and got super seasick on a river boat with nowhere to run #post reveal #pre relationship