#locked out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mintaka14 · 1 year

Link

This is my LBSC Secret Admirer Valentine’s 2023 exchange fic for @Rierse. Thank you, Rierse, for the inspiration and the excuse to break Luka’s brain one more time 💙😂

Locked Out 3: Get a Key

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

Luka wasn’t quite sure what he’d done in a former life to land him here in Marinette’s bed, but it had probably involved sainthood.

Last night, they’d gone to a little restaurant nearby. He was pretty sure they’d eaten at some point, but he couldn’t for the life of him have said what he’d ordered, or what it had tasted like. He’d been too caught up in the play of expressions across Marinette’s face, and the way she lit up when she talked about her work in fashion, and holy crap she was the genius who’d designed the Rock Giant album. And when he’d talked about a song he was working on, she’d been inspired to sketch an impromptu design on a napkin that had left him breathless. Somehow, it was as if she’d managed to turn everything he was hearing in his head into a few pencil lines and a suggestion of fabric. Luka’s fingers had itched for his guitar. But then she’d glanced up at him through those impossibly long lashes of hers, and he’d heard something more than music.

Somewhere around the time when the waiters were pointedly sweeping up around them and putting chairs on tables, she’d blushed and asked if he wanted to come back to her apartment for a coffee that they never ended up drinking.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything as gorgeous as Marinette, her lashes dark against her cheek and her hair a rumpled mess on the pillow. It all felt like an incredible dream, but the silk of her hair against his cheek felt real, and the adorable little snort she made in her sleep as she burrowed deeper into his side was definitely not something he would have dreamed up. Nor was the increasingly insistent demands of his bladder, and with a soft curse, Luka gently eased his arm out from under Marinette and went in search of her bathroom.

One thing dealt with, he wandered into the kitchen. Maybe he could make Marinette breakfast before she woke up. Luka found himself staring into the depths of the fridge, his brain still a foggy mess. He managed to pull himself together enough to register that it was a little short on the things that he knew he could manage to cook passably well. She’d mentioned last night that she’d been too busy at work to eat at home lately. And there wasn’t enough milk left for coffee.

The coffee mugs Marinette had started to get out were still sitting untouched on the kitchen bench, and his thoughts drifted off in a happy haze remembering what had distracted them, until the fridge began to beep insistently at him and he closed it quickly.

Milk. He needed milk.

Juleka had milk.

Luka padded, barefoot, out of the door and wandered vaguely down the hall in the direction of his sister’s apartment. He was oblivious to the startled stare of two elderly women gossiping in the hallway as he passed, and knocked on Juleka’s door. There was no response, and he tried again, the knock becoming a syncopated drumbeat while he was waiting for the sound of movement inside the apartment. He was just transitioning into the rhythm of the chorus when the door was ruthlessly yanked open, and Juleka glared at him, swathed in a robe and clearly in no mood for niceties.

“What?” she snarled at him. “You have your own key, why did you have to get me up?”

“Good morning to you, too,” he said mildly, and pushed past her, heading for her kitchen.

“Oh, you’re kidding me,” she said from behind him. “Luka, pants.”

“Huh?”

“Pants,” she repeated more firmly, and Luka glanced down at the boxers that he’d obviously managed to pull on before he’d left Marinette’s bedroom.

“Huh,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t remember putting those on.” It was probably just as well that he had. His jeans were still somewhere on Marinette’s floor, several stories up.

Juleka was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. Finally, she managed to say, “Did you even come home last night? I thought you and Marinette were just going to get dinner together.” Luka could feel his ears heating up, and he ignored her to investigate the contents of the fridge. “And now you’re wandering the building in your boxers, and waking me up at an unholy hour because you forgot your key and your jeans.”

He pulled out the bottle of milk, and set it on the counter, and then turned back to grab the eggs, and a hunk of cheese. He could work with that.

“Has your brain completely liquefied? What on earth did Marinette do to you??”

Luka didn’t answer that, but he couldn’t help the dazed little grin that curled up the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, gross,” Juleka complained. “I don’t want to know.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“At least I can assume that your date went well.”

“Yeah,” he said on a happy sigh. “Marinette’s so amazing, and sweet, and that smile that just stops the room... Jules, have you seen her smile? I could write a hundred songs just on her smile, and those eyes of hers… When she looks at me, I forget my own name…”

“No kidding,” Juleka muttered. “Not to mention your pants.”

“She’s brilliant, and creative – have you seen some of the clothes she’s designed… ?”

“I’m a model, dumbass. I’ve worked with her before, that’s how we met,” Juleka said, but he was still rhapsodising.

“… she just talks about it like it’s nothing, but the people she’s worked with, and the way her mind works…”

He glanced up to find his sister watching him with an expression that was somewhere between fond exasperation and understanding.

“You have got it bad, haven’t you? I’ve never seen you like this over anyone before.”

“She’s…” he trailed off, and gave a helpless little shrug. Words felt profoundly inadequate. “She’s like music.”

“Oh god. You’re hopeless.”

“I can live with that.” He added a bundle of fresh herbs to the collection of ingredients he was piling on the kitchen bench.

“What are you doing, dumbass? You do know that’s mine, right?”

“Marinette might be hungry when she wakes up,” he said simply, and stacked everything carefully into his arms.

He gave the two elderly neighbours a friendly smile as he passed them in the hallway, and tucked the bottle of milk into the crook of his arm as he reached out to open Marinette’s front door. His mind full of thoughts of Marinette, it took him far longer than it should have to realise that the door was firmly locked, and that he was on the wrong side of it with an armful of groceries.

Luka stared blankly at the handle, and wished he had Marinette’s skill with lockpicks – that would be really handy. So would a key.

He briefly wondered how difficult it would actually be to climb up the balcony to get in – Marinette had made it look so easy - but gave up the idea after due consideration. It would make a mess of the eggs and milk, and he wasn’t sure Marinette’s balcony door was open this time anyway.

Juleka should have Marinette’s spare key. Hopefully she’d replaced it after Marinette had locked herself out the last time.

With a sigh, he started back down the hall again, past the critical stare of the two neighbours once more and down the two flights of stairs, to thump on his sister’s door again.

This time, when she ripped open the door, he just said, “Key.”

“I swear, I’m disowning you,” Juleka growled. “For the love of all that’s holy, put some pants on before I’m kicked out of the building for harbouring a pervert.”

She reached into the bowl beside the front door, and shoved Marinette’s spare key at him.

“Put some pants on, and replace my groceries, idiot. You owe me so big here.” As he wandered down the hall towards the room he’d been staying in, his arms still full of milk and eggs and cheese, she called after him, “And if you drag me out of bed again this morning, I’m going to hunt you down and flay you alive.”

“Noted,” he called back.

Faced with the dilemma of how to put jeans on when his hands were full of breakfast ingredients, Luka backtracked to the kitchen, ignoring his sister’s snort of derision and pointed comments about where his brain was. He was fully clothed, although barefoot, this time as he passed the neighbours for the fourth time that morning. It didn’t stop them from watching him go past with scandalised expressions, identical platinum bleached heads leaning in to mutter furiously to each other once he was out of earshot. Luka couldn’t find it in him to care much.

This time, he had the key, and once he managed to balance everything, he successfully got the door open. Marinette was shuffling sleepily around the kitchen when he walked in, her hair a rumpled mess and the strap of the top she’d pulled on sliding off one shoulder when she stretched to pull the coffee down from a shelf. She didn’t seem to have heard the click of the lock, or the sound of his bare feet on the floorboards. He put the groceries down on the counter, and leaned in to drop a soft kiss on her cheek.

Luka had spent the night learning a lot of things about Marinette, things that left him fascinated and falling deeper with every second. This was the moment when he learned about Marinette’s wicked reflexes, and just how strong she was.

With a startled yelp, she spun around. Her hand shot out and grasped his wrist in a grip like iron, pulling him forward over her hip as she pivoted and swept him down with her other arm around his waist. He had no very clear idea of what happened next as he felt everything go out from under him in a rush. He hit the linoleum floor in a way that was definitely going to leave bruises later, the wind knocked out of him, with a knee digging into his chest. When he swallowed, he could feel a flat edge pressed against his throat – was that a teaspoon?

Bruises and potential head trauma notwithstanding – he was pretty sure he was seeing stars when he stared up into the fiercely hot blue eyes of the girl pinning him to the floor – he was a little distracted by the way she was straddling him, and the way her thigh muscles flexed against his abdomen. And wow, this was something he hadn’t known he was weak for, but then the situation had never come up in any of the handful of fleeting relationships he’d had. His heart was hammering in a way that wasn’t entirely due to the sudden rush of adrenaline in his system.

Oh, there were going to be bruises, and they were worth it.

“Luka!”

“Hi,” he said softly, and then made a strangled noise when she shifted. Her eyes widened in alarm.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?”

“Not the problem here,” he managed to get out.

Marinette dropped the teaspoon she was holding to his throat and moved her knee, sitting back so that she wasn’t pressing into his chest, and had a sudden realisation of what he was talking about.

“Oh. Oh.” Heat flamed up to her hairline, and Luka watched in fascination as she bit her lip.

It was entirely possible that he would live through being slammed into the floor only to be finished off by the way she released that bottom lip and let it curve up in a mischievous little smirk, even as she blushed fiery red.

What a way to go, he decided deliriously as she bent down to brush a soft, teasing kiss against his mouth.

She jerked back suddenly when someone thumped on the apartment door, and Luka almost whined.

“Marinette? Marinette Dupain-Cheng, are you in there?” an insistent elderly voice shouted.

They froze.

“Marinette, are you being mugged? I heard something!” The woman banged on the door again. “Do I need to call the police for you?”

Marinette shoved herself to her feet, leaving Luka plastered to the kitchen floor and trying to remember how his limbs worked as she ran for the door, yanking it open.

“Mme Gillette!” she said breathlessly.

Luka somehow managed to haul himself upright. His legs seemed to have turned to jelly, and it took him a while to stand, leaning heavily on the kitchen counter. When he glanced in the direction of Marinette and the front door, he could make out a narrow face peering suspiciously over Marinette’s outstretched arm. That platinum wave of carefully coiffed hair looked familiar, and Luka recognised one of the gossiping neighbours from the hallway earlier.

“There was a hooligan in the building just now. And he wasn’t wearing any trousers,” Mme Gillette informed Marinette in a scandalised tone. Luka caught the swift, wide-eyed glance Marinette shot him, and her smothered little choke of laughter. He buried his face in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair with a groan. Juleka was going to kill him for this.

“I’m sure he was –“

“I saw him trying to break into your apartment,” Mme Gillette’s voice rolled right over her. “And then I heard a banging noise in here just now, and I know you live alone, so I was going to call the police. He had blue hair and he was covered in tattoos,” she added with relish.

Luka glanced down at his arms. He hardly would have described the tattoo that coiled up his bicep and across his shoulder as covering him.

“I think he’s from one of those criminal biker gangs that’ve been on the news lately.”

“It’s alright,” Marinette tried to interrupt again. “He’s… he’s a friend. He’s a musician.”

Judging by the way Mme Gillette’s face pinched, she obviously didn’t consider musician to be much of an improvement over criminal gang. The door swung a little wider, and she caught sight of him, and glared. Luka managed a weak smile, and lifted his hand in a wave. He was deeply grateful that he was at least wearing jeans and a t-shirt now, and that the kitchen bench was concealing anything… incriminating. Mme Gillette gave a sniff that summed up her view of tattooed musicians who roamed through the hallways in a state of undress in general, and Luka in particular.

“Thank you for looking out for me,” Marinette was saying, turning a sweet smile on her neighbour. The infinitesimal softening of Mme Gillette’s expression suggested that Marinette’s charm was having its effect.

It certainly had its effect on him.

“If you’re sure don’t want me to call the police –“ she said reluctantly, and shot another sharp, suspicious look in Luka’s direction. She reached out to pat Marinette’s hand. “If he gives you any trouble, you just call me. I’ll sort him out,” she added grimly. “I can have a squad car here in minutes.”

When Marinette finally got the door closed, and leaned against it in a fit of helpless giggles, one hand pressed to her mouth, Luka said reluctantly, “I should go, before she really does decide to call the police.” He bent to kiss her, leaning his forehead against hers with a soft sigh. “Can I see you again tonight?”

“You still want to see me, after I practically maimed you just now, and almost got you arrested by my neighbour?” she teased, but he could hear the thread of nerves under it all. He kissed the tip of her nose. It was very kissable. So were her lips, and he kissed those again too.

“Sweetheart, I think that last one’s on me. I really should have remembered to put my jeans on before I went down to Juleka’s for the milk.”

Marinette giggled at that. “We really don’t have a good track record with pants, do we?”

“In my defence, you are very distracting.”

“Really?” she asked wistfully, and his arms tightened around her at the doubting note in her voice.

“Marinette,” he said with all the conviction he could muster, “I’ve been stupid for you since you turned up at the door. Jules is just about ready to kill me. I’m just hoping that I haven’t made as much of an idiot of myself as she seems to think I have.”

Like proposing the second time he’d seen her. Juleka had given him hell for that one, and he knew it was too soon for Marinette to know how she felt about him. He could wait a few months to try and convince her he’d meant every word, if it meant she’d stay.

Marinette pulled back, those expressive blue eyes of hers clouding with a frown.

“Juleka doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” she said tartly. “I know she’s your sister, but how could anyone not see how incredible and sweet you are?”

Luka laughed a little helplessly at her incredulous tone. “Please tell her that.”

“And last night was…” she broke off, turning a charming shade of pink again. She chewed her lip, and he could see her trying to come up with the right words. “Do you ever have that moment – I don’t know how it works with musicians, but when I’m designing something – there’s that moment of certainty when you know what you’re doing? For one brief, shining moment, everything comes together in your mind, and you feel like you can do anything?”

Luka rubbed his cheek against her hair, thinking of every song he’d ever written when it all snapped into focus, and the moments when he’d stood on stage with his guitar in his hands and felt the energy of the crowd, and just knew that he owned it. That electric moment of creation.

“I know it,” he said softly. He’d felt that the moment that he’d opened Juleka’s door and fallen into her eyes.

“That’s how it feels with you.”

Luka felt as though she’d just floored him again, all the breath knocked out of him in one dizzying rush.

“I don’t exactly have the best track record with relationships,” she said. “There’s a whole lot of overthinking, and plans that always go wrong, and then I do something like lock myself out of my apartment and they think I’m weird when I don’t wait for the building supervisor. I don’t get why they think I should waste time when the balcony is right there.”

He suppressed a little whine at the memory.

“You have no idea,” he managed to tell her, “how very, very hot that was. I think you’re amazing…” He kissed her perfect mouth again. He’d never get tired of doing that. “… and gorgeous…” another kiss, on the curve of her jaw this time “… and mind-blowing…” she let out a soft gasp as he pressed his lips to the pulse in her neck “… and any man would be lucky to have a chance with you.” She blushed at the unmistakable sincerity in his voice.

“Maybe I was just waiting for the right man to drop his towel in the hallway and propose to me,” she said a little breathlessly, and if he hadn’t already been fathoms deep in love with her, that would have been the moment he fell.

All thoughts of waiting went right out the window.

“How do you feel about a spring wedding?” he asked in a daze, and she gave him a mischievous little smile.

“Why wait? I’m free this afternoon.”

Take me. I’m yours.

Somehow they found their way back into Marinette’s bedroom, and the rumpled mess of her bed, when Luka suddenly thought of something. He groped blindly for his phone, which was still in the pocket of his jeans where he’d dropped them next to the bed last night.

“Seriously?” Marinette asked, one eyebrow lifting and a smile hovering around the corners of those very kissable lips as he somehow managed to dial the right number. “You need to make a phone call now?”

“Just one, real quick,” he told her as the phone rang, and was answered by an incoherent snarl. “Hey, Jules,” he said blithely. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“This had better be good,” his sister growled in response. “I did mention flaying, didn’t I?”

He grinned, even though she couldn’t see it. “Want to be best woman at our wedding?”

“That’s not funny, Luka.”

“I’m not joking, Juleka,” he said in a cheerful imitation of her tone, as Marinette buried her face in his shoulder and giggled. “Marinette said yes.”

“You’ve known each other less than a week! When are you getting married?”

“I told you. This afternoon.”

There was a long, long silence, then Juleka groaned, “Oh, gods, there’s two of you. I’m stuck with two of you.”

As an afterthought occurred to him, Luka added, “Oh, and if the police turn up looking for me, you don’t know where I am.”

He held the phone away from his ear. It took a lot to get his little sister to raise her voice, but he was pretty sure that everyone in the apartment building could hear the outraged shriek coming up from two floors below.

Luka hung up the phone in the middle of Juleka’s profanity-ridden response, still grinning, and turned to the woman giggling in his arms. He had much more important things to think about than his sister’s offended sensibilities.

He had a wedding to plan.

#lbscexchange2023 #lukanette #pro lukamari #Locked Out #Locked Out 3 #they're idiots your honor #Juleka is Done #you can hear the sound of Luka's brain overheating #zero to sixty in 3.5 #pants are important

22 notes · View notes