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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 6 months

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(Never) Satisfied, Part 1

Chapters 1-5!

Masterlist is here

Chapter 1

Never does life truly feel complete.

Stories are allowed to feel complete. Are supposed to in most cases. You’re supposed to turn that final page or watch the credits roll or watch the stage lights dim… and you’re supposed to be content with how the story ended. Whether the ending is happy or sad, it’s supposed to be an ending. All of the arcs, all of the themes, should be tied up with a nice little bow.

And Marinette… well, she would admit that she had expected something similar. She watched as Gabriel Agreste was stuffed into a cop car – the tall fucker hit his head on the top of the door – and, even from a distance, she could hear the fervor with which the cop slammed the door. And she waited. For that single sigh of relief, for the tension to drain from her shoulders, for that complete feeling that was supposed to come with a job well done. The door had closed with a ringing sense of finality. She could finally rest.

The tips of the butterfly pin dug into her palm.

Chat Noir ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face, and he gave her a hesitant smile. “It’s over,” he said, and she could tell he meant it.

She bit her lip. “Not quite.”

His eyebrows knit together.

“It’s… his son, Adrien Agreste. We don’t know if he was in on it.”

It was a surprisingly good point despite the fact that she had made up on the spot. Maybe they should have taken that into account before they had arrested Gabriel. If Adrien was involved in this, then he was definitely going to be more cautious from now on. It would take ages for him to drop his guard, they would have to continue working for what could be months – decades, even.

She tried to ignore the way the thought made something that might have been elation bubble in her chest.

But humor tugged at the corners of Chat Noir’s lips. “Oh. No. That won’t be a problem.”

It was her turn to frown at him, but he waved her off.

“I’ll explain when the reporters get here,” he said.

He bumped his shoulder against hers, and she gave him the best smile she could.

“I can’t believe you’re making me wait,” she huffed, giving up on trying to smile in favor of an overexaggerated pout. It was much easier to do that, anyway. “Aren’t I your best friend?”

He laughed and ruffled her hair, pushing her head down slightly with the force of his half-noogie. “Oh, hush.”

She did not, in fact, hush. She batted at his hands and continued to complain about how he had messed up her hair until the reporters came.

(And maybe for a bit longer than that.)

She sighed as the pair of them leaned over the railing of the Eiffel Tower.

Detransformed in front of each other for the first time. But not strangers.

Marinette’s eyes scanned over the skyline, looking for akumas (habitually or hopefully, even she didn't know).

“You know that you can’t keep the ring anymore,” she said carefully. “Now that you’ve broadcasted your identity to the public.”

He winced. The pleasant smile that had come over his face as he watched the parades, the fireworks, the people of Paris finally getting their conclusion… it faded slowly. He cast his gaze upwards. “I know,” he said, and his voice came out shaky. “But…”

“It’s dangerous for you to have it,” she reminded him.

Part of her wondered if she was punishing him. For revealing his identity, for being a coward when it came to helping her out while Lila isolated her from all of her friends but brave for the sake of the city and his own ego, for ruining her chances of continuing on with this life with a simple detransformation. She certainly had reason to, and she would never deny that she could be petty.

But whether she was doing it to punish him or not, she still had a point.

Still, her eyes landed on her partner, on the person that had once been her friend, the person that still was in some ways, and he had tears spilling down his face, and that part of her ached.

She pulled him into a hug. He slotted himself against her perfectly, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

“It wasn’t healthy for you, anyways,” she mumbled, absently playing with the tiny curls on the back of his neck. “And you’re free, now, you don’t need Him anymore. You can be yourself, as yourself.”

He sobbed harder. His nails dug into the back of her shirt, but she paid it no mind. Neither of them had been allowed to cry in years, it was no surprise that he was pent up. It had been inevitable, really.

She rested her chin atop his head and closed her eyes.

They stayed like that for a long time.

Marinette blinked out of her stupor when she felt a hand tap her on the shoulder.

She craned her neck to look at her mom, still absently working the dough in her hands. It wasn’t quite the right texture yet, but it was close.

“Head up front,” her mother said, swatting at her arm lightly to get her to move so she could take over.

Marinette yelped and backed up, grinning as she evaded the hits, her hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, okay mom, I’m going!” She dusted her hands on her apron. “Is there someone I need to scare off?”

Her mother rolled her eyes with a fond smile. “For the last time, Marinette, you don’t need to get rid of every person you deem a ‘Karen’.”

“But I wanna!” She huffed. “They’re evildoers! I must vanquish them!”

“So dramatic,” Sabine chided lightly, and swatted Marinette again. Marinette gave an offended screech that went completely ignored. “Someone’s waiting for you at the counter.”

Her eyebrows knit together, the playfulness disappearing from her expression in favor of pure, unadulterated confusion. Adrien was in therapy at the moment – he wasn’t stupid enough to skip, and he was definitely not stupid enough to let her find out he was skipping this easily – but it couldn’t be anyone else.

She poked her head around, and only ended up more confused when her eyes landed on the only person in the store. Audrey Bourgeois stood at the counter in clothes that were far too warm for late summer, with a white trench coat to compliment her signature large sunglasses and even larger hat. She probably didn’t want to get infected by the ‘poor’ness of the bakery… though that begged the question of why she was visiting her parents’ bakery at all. Surely, she could get food catered to her by her private chefs back home in America?

She slowly made her way over to the counter. “Mme. Bourgeois,” she said, tipping her head forward respectfully. “What brings you here?”

The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re MDC,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

Her eyes widened and she backed up a half step. “What? How do you –?”

“If you have money, you can find out anything,” Audrey said shortly.

Marinette gave her a flat look. “Jagged let it slip, huh?”

It seemed the woman had spontaneously gone deaf. She continued on with her point: “I like what you have made so far, and I would like to buy you.”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth several times without managing to say a word. What could you even say to that?

Oh, right.

“I’m not for sale?” She said slowly, sounding more unsure than she probably should have. But give her a break, she was very confused.

She tilted her sunglasses downward so she could peer directly into her eyes. “Aren’t you? You’re not going to get far in this industry on your own – your designs are amazing, but fashion design is an industry that even I will admit is heavily affected by nepotism. You need backing. I can help you.”

“And if I don’t care about being ‘world famous’ or whatever?”

She scoffed. “Don’t you get tired of standing around here, baking all day? Will you really feel happy when you inevitably take over for your parents after they retire? Do you not have any dreams of your own? Don’t you want more?”

Marinette’s mouth went dry.

Because she did want more. Desperately. She had been puttering along after Hawkmoth’s defeat, unable to find anything that gave her anything more than momentary happiness. But the thing she missed so much was no longer an option, not really.

She bit the inside of her cheek, quietly considering.

“What would change if I did this?”

Audrey’s lips curled into a victorious little smile. “I would like to relocate you to America, to be closer to me.”

She nodded slowly. But something poked at her mentally, and she ran over the words a few times in her head until she figured out what exactly had thrown her off.

“Where in America, exactly?”

Audrey’s smile lessened just slightly. Clearly, she had been hoping that that wouldn’t come up. She sighed. “Gotham,” she admitted.

Marinette’s eyes widened.

Gotham?

Something sharp flickered over her expression but she was quick to tamp it down. She reached a hand across the counter, the grin on her face just barely off. “I think I can handle living in the most crime-ridden city in the world if it means I get to take advantage of this incredible opportunity you’re offering.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 2

The flight was far shorter than she thought it would be, all because her thoughts were on one thing – or, rather, one person: Chloe Bourgeois.

She wasn’t sure where they stood. Back during their school days, they’d had a kind of truce, if only because they both hated Lila (admittedly, for different reasons). It was nice to bitch about her over lunch. But they didn’t have much connecting them beyond that, and Lila was no longer around, which meant that the nature of their relationship was up in the air.

Maybe things would be better?

Her hopes were dashed the moment she saw Chloe.

She stood there, in practically the exact same outfit she had worn to school every day, leaning against a conveyor belt. She was on her phone, doomscrolling from the looks of it, her other hand just barely holding onto a piece of cardstock with Marinette’s name on it.

Well, actually, upon closer inspection, it said ‘Marinete’.

Great.

Well, if Chloe was going to be petty, then why shouldn’t she?

“Interesting that you were sent to get me,” Marinette said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Is your mom’s company doing so poorly that you can’t even afford a butler or whatever to come and help? Because I would have preferred if she’d disclosed that before hiring me.”

“Mom said you’d want to see a familiar face,” Chloe shrugged. “I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how she is.”

She sighed. Yeah, she certainly did. “Well, let’s get this over with, then.”

Chloe hummed her agreement.

Marinette managed to open and sort out a single box before she flopped onto her bare mattress, groaning. “Tikkiiiiiiiiiii…”

Tikki poked her head out of her purse. “What?”

“Can you magic all of the moving and stuff to be done?”

“‘Can you magic all of the moving and stuff to be done?’” Tikki repeated, and Marinette could hear the laughter in her voice even without looking over.

“You got what I meant, didn’t you?”

Tikki snickered to herself. “I suppose that’s true. No, Marinette, I can’t.”

“... maybe I’ll ask Stompp,” she sighed, glaring at the ceiling as if it had personally offended her. It had. It was blank, without her usual fairy lights, but she didn’t want to unpack. She hadn’t come to Gotham to be normal, hadn’t even come here for the job opportunities (she would go to work, obviously, she rather liked not starving to death), but she needed to do all of that other stuff before she could go out and do any superhero-ing.

Tikki sighed fondly. “Honestly, that would probably be better, but I don’t think you should skimp out on things like this. It builds character, and it’s not as if these normal, everyday things are bad .”

Marinette made a face of mild disgust to convey just what she thought of that particular opinion.

And then she frowned, the first part of the sentence registering a little bit late. “Why would it be better?”

Tikki’s amusement bled out of her. She hesitated, glancing to the side.

“Tikki,” she said, sitting up properly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The kwami looked sheepish. The exact expression she made when she got caught sneaking bites out of the cookie dough back at the bakery.

“Remember how Master Fu mentioned how Plagg and I are two halves of the same whole?”

“Yeeees?”

“When Plagg isn’t active, I get weaker.”

Marinette frowned to herself, mulling this over. It had been a little over three years since Hawkmoth’s defeat, and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t noticed the kwami getting quieter, but she had assumed that she was just winding down during peacetimes. After all, she loved to preach that Marinette should enjoy her ‘retirement’, why wouldn’t Marinette assume that she was simply trying to prove that she was right by leading by example?

But that certainly put a damper on her plans to be Ladybug again…

Unless, of course, she found a new person to play the part of the Cat.

She… didn’t want someone else to play her Cat. She loved Adrien, replacing him felt wrong. Like a betrayal, even if she knew that he could not – should not – be a holder again.

And, even if she had been interested in another Cat, it wasn’t as if she could go grab someone off the street. Ethics and sentimentality aside, miraculi only truly bind to people with specific personalities. As Guardian, she could tell when people met the general criteria, but the cat miraculous was tricky. People who held the cat miraculous were to be chaotic, and if they were too chaotic they had a tendency to become corrupted.

She sighed and toyed with her own miraculous, spinning the earrings around and around in her ear. She couldn’t properly bond with any others, so she was either to give up her own for a while so she could find a new partner or she would have to limit her use of the miraculous until then.

Damn it.

She bit her lip, thinking hard.

Okay. She needed to find someone to be her Cat, then.

She was stubborn, she would admit that this was one of her more unsavory traits (it was good during a fight, but outside of that it led to problems), but she wasn’t intent on hurting Tikki just because she was a little bit bored.

She had lived with her boredom for three years now, she could handle another few months.

Unfortunately, that left her with nothing to do.

She looked around at her bare apartment, at the boxes piled high in one corner. It was a small place, a one-roomer, because getting too nice of a place would make her a prime target for getting robbed, and she could not let that happen when there was a box full of all-powerful jewelry hidden in her closet. She should really get to work decorating the place because, at the moment, she didn’t think it would be all that good at providing inspiration for her job, and she would only get so long to settle in before she would be expected to start coming up with designs…

Nah.

She looked at her friend, her eyes gleaming. “Want to explore the city?”

Tikki sighed.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 3

She checked to make sure that her door was locked about five times before she left.

And then doubled back to check just one more time before she’d even gotten ten paces away.

She narrowed her eyes at the lock. Most locks are relatively easy to pick given the right tools and even a base understanding of how they work. And that's if someone didn't just break the door down entirely. She didn’t like the idea of leaving the miraculous box behind one flimsy piece of wood, not when she was in the most dangerous city in the world, but she couldn’t exactly take it with her either, it wasn't the most inconspicuous thing to carry around.

She slipped back into her apartment and made her way over to her closet, where her miraculous box lay hidden behind all of the other boxes that she hadn’t wanted to unpack yet. She squinted at it. It was certainly flashy, a bright red ball with the occasional compartment tucked inside. She took the ‘box’ (she supposed it was a ball, actually, if you wanted to be exact about it) into her hands and tilted it this way and that, examining it for a moment.

And then she closed her eyes, envisioning it as a sewing kit instead, filled with different textiles and threads and a pincushion, all so she could hide the miraculi in the false lining at the top…

The feeling of it molding itself to her whims was strange, almost as if she was playing with some particularly warm playdough. It was the complete opposite of her Lucky Charms, which were often strangely plastic-like no matter what the things they were modeled after were ‘supposed’ to be made of. She wasn't sure she liked it, but at least she would only have to do it once before...

She peeked an eye open, and brightened up immediately upon seeing that it had worked.

She's still got it.

She hugged the miraculous box to her chest, relishing in her not-so-stellar accomplishment for just a few moments longer.

Then, as always, it was back to it.

Marinette put it on her desk. Pulled her sketchbook out of her backpack and set it on the table as well. Tossed a couple of pencils onto it. Skewed the angle of the sketchbook just slightly.

She stepped back to admire her work.

There. She looked like a frazzled artist who had been desperately trying to jot down her ideas before they disappeared. It wasn’t out of character, and wouldn’t draw any eyes.

Secure in that her Guardian duties had been taken care of for the time being, she finally left.

(After checking the lock another seven times. It never hurt to be careful, did it?)

It was just starting to get dark. People were still out, though, walking with a kind of hurriedness that suggested that they were just as aware of the time as she was. Huddled in small groups, craving safety in numbers.

When the group nearest her passed, they slowed down just slightly, as if inviting her to join, and she did so, because she wasn't really sure what else there was to do.

She pulled out her phone for directions, as any good Gen Z person should, deciding that the thing to prioritize during her first expedition through Gotham was food. She hadn’t gone to get groceries yet, and she really wasn’t intending on doing it right then, either, she wasn’t even sure her fridge was cool enough… so… she looked up local bakeries. There was one decently close by, but in the opposite direction, she would have to settle for walking an extra ten minutes…

But as the sharp-eyed reader might notice, she had made a fatal mistake: she was on her phone, visibly lost, while walking through Gotham.

It wasn’t long before her skin started to crawl. If there was one thing that she could always sense, it was when there were eyes on her. One might think that her time as a famous superhero would dull that sense, eyes were always on her, it should be no big deal after a while, but instead it had been heightened. There wasn’t a moment while she’d been wearing the suit that she wasn’t aware of the fact that people were watching her, depending on her.

This person wasn’t quite as innocent as the other people she had saved, though. Whoever was watching her had so much evil intent that she was starting to feel a little sick to her stomach on their behalf. She bit the inside of her cheek, the purse on her hip warm even through her clothes.

Okay.

Okay okay.

She broke off from the group suddenly, turning down an alley, and wasn’t that surprised when the teen who never seemed to take his hands out of the pockets of his jacket followed after her.

She checked herself in her phone screen. Out of an abundance of caution, she had headed out in a dark hoodie pulled low over her hair and a face mask to try and block out some of the pollution that hung heavy in the air. It was a pretty common outfit in Gotham, anyway, she might as well assimilate. And, as a secret plus, her identity was decently well-hidden. She could go all out without it being traced back to ‘Marinette’.

But she really didn’t want to face the other end of whatever weapon that lay in the teen’s pocket without any kind of magical protection.

So, as the teen stepped into the alley behind her, she mumbled the words that had been on the tip of her tongue for what felt like a lifetime:

“Tikki, spots on!”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 4

The first thing that she noticed was that her Ladybug outfit was different. Over the years, as she’d become a stronger holder, her outfit had gained more and more intricacies and details, until it was basically unrecognizable – save for the signature red and black color scheme. Now, though, she was back in her original jumpsuit. Now, she was getting more and more tired by the second, as if the suit had recognized that Tikki didn’t have as much magical reserves as usual and had started pulling from Marinette to compensate. She tried not to think of what that could mean.

This was relatively easy to do, because the teen had snapped out of his shock. And he had a gun! Joy!

“What the fuck?” said the teen, pointing his gun at her. The mask he had been about to pull over his mouth and nose was askew, only serving to make his head look lopsided, as if he was looking at her in confusion.

Which he was also doing, his eyes were practically popping out of his head.

Okay, not entirely past his shock, then.

Marinette flashed a peace sign. “Well, since I’ve done my super cool magical girl transformation, how about you say you’ve learned your lesson and won’t try to rob ‘weak’, unsuspecting people –?”

He tried to shoot her, but his hands were shaking, and the bullet whizzed past her ear.

She didn’t give him the chance to try again. Her yoyo shot out and looped itself around the barrel of his gun, and one quick tug sliced the end right off.

He gave a quiet hiss of frustration and retaliated by throwing the weapon aside.

She had to admit, she was not expecting that. Her eyes traced the motion absently, surprised that he had managed to toss it perfectly into a nearby dumpster despite the fact that they were in a fight, only to remember that they were in a fight, just in time for a fist to connect with the side of her head, throwing her back a bit.

Right, this wasn’t an akuma. You can’t just destroy their weapon and watch their will to fight dissolve into nothing, for it had never been their will in the first place. But this teen? This person who was probably just in dire need of money? He had nothing but willpower and a healthy dose of adrenaline. He wasn’t going to go down unless she made him.

But this wasn’t an akuma. If she hit him too hard, he would die. People were surprisingly fragile.

Damn, she really hadn’t thought this through at all.

She latched her yoyo to her 'belt' to make sure she couldn’t feel tempted to use her Lucky Charm.

A kick towards her stomach was thrown in hopes that he would her off guard while she was considering what to do.

Amateur, she thought vaguely. Don’t throw a kick unless you know it’s going to land. You really are just a kid.

She grabbed his foot and pulled him off-balance, her free hand coming up to sock him.

There was a whirl of silver.

The teen was yanked from her grip. He hit the wall behind him.

For a moment she almost didn’t process it, her fist just barely missing his nose, instead sailing past him to crack the brick by his head.

The teen shrieked and tried to scramble away, but he was unable to. And not because of her.

He hadn’t just hit the wall, he’d been pinned.

Was that a shuriken?

The teen struggled to pull out the shuriken for a second but, with a few more flashes of silver, all of his limbs were successfully taken out of commission.

She managed to track the trajectory on the last one, following it back up to where someone was crouching on the roof. She didn’t need to wait long to get a good look at him, though, because he dropped to the floor beside her.

“That was my arrest,” she said, her nose scrunching up in distaste (both at the fact that he had stolen her win and the bright greens, reds, and yellows of his outfit).

Robin walked right past her, to the teen, and gave him a quick hit to the head. The kid stopped moving. He nodded once, to himself, as if confirming that he had done a good job, and then turned back to face her. "I don’t see why you care.”

“Because I’m the one who went through the effort to fight him! You don’t just go and steal someone’s win at the last second!”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have a point to this?”

“My point, is that you can’t just rush in and get the last hit! I worked hard for it!”

Robin sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can have the arrest, I don’t mind giving it to you.”

“Giving it to me?”

“Sure. I’ll let you take him in.”

She clenched her fists. “Let me?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Would you prefer I say this in French?”

Her hand flew to her mouth. In her anger, she hadn’t realized she’d been speaking with her actual accent.

She had wanted to try and fake one for a while, at least until she’d managed to get her way to an American one, so she’d be able to claim it was a coincidence that she’d had similar a look and theme as the Ladybug that had once protected Paris. She could shift to something else, but it would only be more suspicious now.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Ultimately, it wasn’t about the arrest or even the last hit. It was

about the fact that he was being an absolute prick about it. Acting like it was some honor that he

wasn’t going to prevent her from getting an arrest she would have rightfully earned if he had just given her the chance.

But, as mad as that made her, she wasn’t going to argue further. He knew what her actual voice

sounded like, she couldn’t really risk making him too angry.

“I’m an American,” she told him.

He looked unimpressed. “Are you now?”

“Yup,” she said, pulling out the shuriken and shoving them into his hands.

She pulled out her yoyo, all too aware that he was staring at her, and bound the teen as tightly as she could without hurting him further.

“You have a weird weapon.”

“Thanks,” she muttered sarcastically, throwing the teen over her shoulder.

She sent Robin a mocking salute as she set off toward the police station.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 5

Marinette leaned against the wall of the police station, exhaustion threatening to tug her down. She swiped a hand over her eyes, but her mask prevented her from getting any kind of relief from the action.

Apparently, choosing to drop the teen off inside the station instead of out front like a pet cat bringing a mouse to its owner had immediately given her away as being unaffiliated with the bats. Which meant she got a surprisingly warm welcome. Or maybe it was because she was polite and wasn’t, quote, ‘disappearing in the middle of conversations’. It might have been funny if she wasn’t so appalled. Were all of the bats really so rude that they would only respond in vague grunts of affirmation and denial? Should she be more or less offended that Robin actually took the time to sound out syllables while arguing with her?

Anyways.

Yeah, it had taken a lot out of her. Especially because, the entire time she’d been trying to find a way to politely decline being interrogated and wriggle her way around small talk with leading answers (because, happy or not, cops are still cops), she had also been dealing with the miraculous eating away at her stamina. She found herself wishing that teen hadn’t chosen to try and rob her – not because of the attempted mugging itself, that was whatever, but because she really could have used that restaurant trip right about then.

She would deal, she supposed, since there wasn’t any other option.

She walked down a couple of blocks to detransform, waiting just long enough for Tikki to drop into her purse, and then started heading home. She tugged her hood lower over her head, trying to avoid eye contact even as she rushed through the streets. She was fucking starving, but she would rather go hungry for the night than be stabbed.

Something told her that she wouldn’t be able to call Tikki for a Hail Mary again, at least not that night.

And wasn’t that a strange thought to have? That she was back to having proper limitations on how she used the miraculous? After all these years?

She bit the inside of her cheek, nerves quite literally gnawing away at her. It wasn’t helping that she was currently walking in the dark in Gotham and there were people eyeing her and she was fucked –.

She tasted blood when someone dropped down in front of her. She shrieked, stumbling back a few steps, only for a hand to grab her by the wrist, catching her before she could hit the ground.

She looked up at Red Robin, who was smiling sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to scare you that bad,” he mumbled, apologetic but distinctly not apologizing.

Which, after her experience with Robin, wasn’t all that surprising, if she was going to be honest.

Still annoying, though.

She narrowed her eyes at him, if only slightly. She righted herself, running her tongue over the torn skin of her cheek, checking the damage, and wasn’t particularly pleased to find that that hurt.

“Saying ‘that bad’ implies that you were intending to scare me a little,” she said.

He stared at her for a moment, processing this, before snickering. His expression split into a cheeky grin that was no less real than his previous apologetic look, but certainly more natural on his face. “I have a reputation to keep up, you know. Bats have to be spooky bitches, those are the requirements to apply.”

“Maybe don’t say ‘spooky bitches’, that doesn’t really help,” she advised.

“I’ve already gotten the job,” he waved off her concerns. “They’re stuck with me, now.”

She knew, somewhere, that he was just trying to help her relax. She had done this before as Ladybug, joking around with someone she knew was stressed out – it was practically her go-to move, seeing as emotions weren’t really her forte – so it shouldn’t work, but… it did.

“Sorry about scaring you,” he said, his grin softening once again, into a smile.

She nodded, however hesitantly. She could hold a grudge, she wanted to hold a grudge, but he genuinely did seem guilty about the whole ordeal, since he had gone to the effort to soothe her.

And, besides, she needed to know why he had decided to drop down in front of her.

“How did you…?” she said, tugging on the strings of her hoodie, trying to force herself to relax and look nonchalant when all she could think about was how she stood out and how bad that was for a Guardian …

“Know that you’re new here and could use a hand? You’re… both too nervous and not nervous enough.”

She paused, if only momentarily, to give him an odd look. “That doesn’t make sense.”

He huffed. “It does, you just don’t have enough experience here to get it yet.”

“I think you might just be bad at explaining things.”

He gave her a sour expression. “I’m not, I’m not! Look, okay –.” He pointed at a random man. Said random man did not seem particularly happy about this, immediately turning to disappear down the first alley he could find. “He wasn’t paying enough attention to our conversation to know that we mean him no harm. So, he’s less anxious than you. But. If you look around, you’ll see everyone is looking up for bats –...” he trailed off. Everyone was looking at him, actually, not up. This both proved and disproved his point. His face flushed beneath his mask. “Er, I guess, not right now, since they already know where I am… but! If they hadn’t! They would be looking up to make sure they weren’t about to get dropped on.”

Marinette thought she might have understood what he was getting at.

However, was she going to admit that? No.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re terrible at this.”

She loved lying.

He groaned, but there was something amused tugging at the corner of his lips. “You suck. And here I was, coming down to help walk you where you needed to go, but if I’m terrible…”

Uh oh. Consequences.

“Haha noooooo no no,” she said hastily. “I said you’re terrible at explaining things, I’m sure you’re great at this whole vigilante thing! And, as long as your day job doesn’t have anything to do with explaining things, I think you’re set!”

Red Robin made a pained expression.

“Oh… I think I might be the first person to say this, but man, you’ve got to quit your day job.”

He stepped back a half-step, clutching his heart, as if he were wounded.

She looped her arm through the crook in his elbow, and only took a moment to snicker at his stunned expression before she started dragging him along. “C’mon, you’re my hostage now, and my ransom demand is cookies.”

“Oh, there’s a bakery back that way,” he said, pointing behind them. “I think it’s pretty good.”

She spun them around sharply and ignored his bemused grin as she started off in the general direction that he had pointed.

Getting a snack was a quick, almost normal affair. If it were not for the fact that Marinette was buying an entire baker's dozen of cookies ‘for herself’ and Red Robin dropping a hundred dollar bill into the tip jar as an apology for freaking out the workers by simply existing within their vicinity.

“Damn,” she breathed, looking at the tip jar. “I take it back. Do not quit your day job .”

He gave an abrupt puff of laughter, tipping his head back, and she couldn’t help but smile a little in return.

It was fun, she didn’t mind the company.

Not until she reached her apartment building.

“Uh, how about you drop me off here?” she said.

The lenses of his domino narrowed, if only slightly. “Yeah? Why not?”

“Because of the drugs I’m hiding,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. She elbowed him in the side, hard , not bothering to hold back when he was wearing as much armor as he was. “I’m still unpacking, the place is a mess.”

His suspicious expression softened back into a smile. “That… makes sense. Sorry. Too used to people being shady here.”

“Someone needs a better work-life balance,” she teased, as if she had any leg up in this kind of conversation.

Of course, he couldn’t know this, so he only smiled and nodded.

“I’ll work on it,” he said, giving her a two-finger salute. “You should sleep before your work-life balance is affected, too.”

“Too late,” she sing-songed, lifting her hand in a lazy kind of wave behind herself as she started up to her apartment.

Weird guy, she thought as she took the stairs. At least he’s better than Robin.

At least he didn’t disappear in the middle of the conversation like the policemen lamented. Maybe this is why you shouldn’t trust cops.

She gave an amused little huff at the thought, glancing towards the street absently, and found that Red Robin had disappeared into the ether.

Okay, maybe there was some truth to it, then.

She stepped into her apartment, toeing off her shoes and taking only a moment to make sure she locked the door behind herself…

And then dropped into bed, groaning. She should probably get out her snack but, now that she didn’t have someone to riff off of to distract herself, she was so… drained.

Perhaps in a literal sense, thanks to the miraculous.

She felt something poke her cheek, and lifted a bleary eye to see Tikki, holding out a cookie for her.

Marinette smiled, however strained it might have been. She lifted her head, propping it on her hand, and took the cookie with her other. Tikki beamed, grabbing the rest of the container and promptly emptying it over her own head. Marinette didn’t really see the cookies get eaten, it was more like they simply dematerialized the moment they got within an inch of the kwami’s mouth, but whatever.

She nibbled at the cookie. It didn’t quite bring her up to par again, not in the way it did for Tikki, but it was still nice to have a bit of sugar to wake herself up.

“Is this how you felt after fights?” Marinette asked.

Because it wasn’t like she hadn’t been tired after her encounters with akumas, don’t get her wrong, she wasn’t a superhuman (not technically, at least), but the tiredness she had felt had been akin to the way one might feel right after a particularly good workout. In desperate need of a rest, perhaps, but satisfied with a job well done.

This was just…

Exhaustion.

It probably didn’t help that it was late, but she had pulled plenty of all-nighters in her day, and this was something more. A bone-deep kind of tiredness, as if she had put her very soul through a wringer, and now she desperately needed to lay down before her will to live withered away into nothing.

Tikki nodded.

Guilt was quick to bubble up like bile in the back of her throat, and Tikki was quick to try and soothe her worries:

“Usually it’s not this bad, though. With no Plagg…”

Emphasis on ‘try’, for she felt no less terrible. Marinette grimaced. “I’m sorry, Tikki, I didn’t want –.”

“Please don’t say sorry if you intend on doing it again.”

She… didn’t have much of a response for that.

“I – I’m not planning on it,” she said, eventually, awkwardly. “I just – if it comes up again –.”

Tikki cut her off with a sigh. She reached out and patted Marinette on the arm. “Don’t worry, I know… why you came here, I know you’re eager to get back into things. But, if you choose to keep doing this, it will likely have ramifications for both of us.”

She nodded slowly.

Tikki smiled. “Now, there is a way to fix all of this. You can get a partner.”

Marinette blinked. She nodded. She knew this, they’d already gone over this.

But Tikki was looking at her like she was supposed to be realizing something, so Marinette was forced to put some thought into it.

Unfortunately, she came up blank.

Tikki sighed, again, though this was more fond than sheerly exasperated. “Robin. I’m saying Robin could be a good fit for the Cat. Did you really not notice all of the Chaos radiating from him?”

Marinette thought back to the conversation they’d had. Nothing about him had particularly jumped out at her, and all of the things that had caught her attention hadn’t been exactly good qualities worthy of a miraculous.

Not that Tikki seemed to agree:

“And, oh, he’s already a hero, so we know he’s not going to get corrupted. It’s perfect –!”

“I didn’t really care enough to check for something like that over all the yelling,” Marinette cut her off, her tone utterly flat, even if she felt like a dick for doing so. It was best not to get the kwami’s hopes up, after all. “But I don’t think we’d be good as partners – because of the aforementioned yelling, you know.”

Tikki crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe you could talk it out with him –.”

The doorbell rang, cutting her off from whatever she was going to say. Marinette sprang up, glad for the excuse, and waved for Tikki to hide.

She gave the kwami three seconds before flinging the door open. “Hey!”

Chloe stood there, leaning in the doorframe, breathing heavily. Marinette would think Chloe had run there, but she distinctly remembered Chloe’s constant insistence that she would never run even if her life depended on it. Besides, there was red rimming her eyes, and that suggested that the Chloe Bourgeois was on the verge of a breakdown.

But, surely, she was misreading things. Even if Chloe was emotional (already doubtful, really), why would she go to Marinette –?

“You – you’re Ladybug!”

She should have just let Tikki lecture her.

#never satisfied #satisfied #maribat #timari #timinette #timmari #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #red robin #tim drake #thought id try something new for this one #so buckle down for a longer read #i say as if 7k in one sitting is really THAT much coming from me

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