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marimeetsmischief · 1 year

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Wishes & Wands (and other miraculous adventures) - Part II

A (mildly) late chapter two update! I really loved writing this one.

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Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Summoned Heroes, Magic Powers, Fluff, Mildly Sarcastic Narractor, Rivals to friends to lovers (eventually), Plagg is a book, Tikki is also a book, Actual Cat Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Slow burn, Ladynoir, ML Big Bang 2022

Summary: Wishing upon a star has been something Adrien grew up doing, but he never imagined it would end up like this. Sucked into a world of fairy tales that need to be brought to completion, he faces stories that are far more different than he's ever heard them told, and the endings aren't always quite what he expects. He'll have help along the way, though, with his trusty (and lazy) magic storybook, and a mysterious girl who seems to always be one step ahead of him.

Part II: Pumpkins, Mice, and Magic Wands

In which Adrien learns about the importance of alarms, a little faith, and the magic of a good make-over.

Careening backward, Adrien could feel nothing but wind all around him. The rushing air tore through his hair and clothes and he couldn’t help but flail his arms, trying to catch at anything until the ground suddenly came rushing up at him and he landed with a quiet thump. Somehow, the crash was cushioned and he felt no pain, only lush grass underneath him and warm sunlight above.

“-power…” he finished, staring up at the suddenly open sky; all of the trees that had been surrounding him were now replaced with open air. “Huh. Hey, Plagg?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Am I… inside the book?” he asked, trying to figure out how this all worked, even though he’d probably be better off not knowing and trying would only worry him further.

“Well, it’s kind of a pocket dimension that’s part of a web of connections to the rest of the stories. The book acts as a gateway and connects them to the source power of all of the stories, which…” Plagg trailed off, pausing for a second as he sensed, rather than saw, his chosen’s confusion. “On second thought, it’ll just give you a headache.”

“I think you’re right,” Adrien mumbled awkwardly as he started to push himself onto his feet, brushing his hands over the back of his pants and looking around. “Well, where are we supposed to go?”

Just as he asked the question, his eyes searching the horizon and the setting sun, he heard a sound from the distance behind him. Whipping around, he saw a carriage thundering down a road worn into the fields, a modest trail of deep ruts from old-fashioned wheels carved into the dirt just meters from where he stood. Only having a few moments to decide, he started to walk towards the carriage, trying to get a closer look at the riders. As he did, he was struck with an overwhelming feeling of familiarity, and as they approached he began to sense why.

The carriage held three women, with a driver sitting at the front. One of the women faced away from him, and all he could see was her hair, piled high and elaborately styled and ornamented. The two ladies sitting across from her seemed young, maybe his age if he had to take a guess. Their hair was just as carefully curled and pooled at the top of their heads, both with ridiculous feather ornaments pinned to the front. He frowned as an idea formed in his head, reaching for his storybook.

“Hey, Plagg?”

“What do you need now, kid?” the book asked, stretched out in the grass in the rays of the setting sun.

Adrien turned to him and knelt, picking the book up. “Can you show me the Cinderella pages again?” he asked, looking between the book and the carriage that was almost at his location. The pages fluttered even though the air was still and landed on the first page of Cinderella, a sound almost like a yawn escaping from between the pages.

“Beautiful of face, but vile and black of heart…” Adrien murmured to himself, looking back up at the carriage that was now passing him. Its occupants didn't even spare him a glance, though he could swear he felt sharp eyes on his back as he continued to walk along the road and headed back the way they had come from. He could make out small snippets of their conversation, superficial talk about outfits, namely whose looked better, and a quick mention of a prince. “I’d call those evil step-sisters if I’ve ever seen any, Plagg.”

The possessed book didn't really answer, only letting out a quiet noise that almost sounded like a purr.

Adrien kept his eyes on the pages as he walked next to the road, reading over the sentences that had already filled it. It seemed like whatever had happened before, the story had been left incomplete at the first night of the King’s Ball, and Cinderella was supposed to be getting her magic makeover any moment now.

He finally reached the end of the road, where it turned into a tree-lined path that was more overgrown than the road he’d walked along. Branches hung over everywhere and he found himself having to duck down quite frequently to avoid them. After just a few minutes more of walking, he found what he was looking for: an ivy-covered and poorly kept chateau that had seen better days. The yard was weed-ridden and uneven, vines of ivy climbing up everything in sight. It looked as if one person was trying to take care of it all, a small garden maintained enough that he could see trellises with flowering plants twined around them.

He carefully crept into the yard, slipping over the low stone wall and glancing around, looking for any sign of the soon-to-be princess he was supposed to be assisting. After circling the front yard and edging his way into the back, he had almost given up hope when he heard soft murmurs coming from an open window.

Peering in, he saw blonde curls spilling over the shoulders of a figure kneeling in front of the hearth. She seemed to be leaning forward and speaking to something small in front of her. He crept closer to the window, trying to get a better look at what she was talking to. As he started to get close enough, something cracked under his foot and he froze, watching the blonde inside turn around. He dropped down, trying to get out of view of the window.

“Hello?” she asked, glancing around the kitchen surrounding her. “Is someone there?”

Adrien could hear her get to her feet, moving around the table and going to the window. He crept to the side, moving around a corner and praying that he was not visible to her as she peeked out. The last thing he wanted was to be caught sneaking around her garden at sunset.

She hummed softly, seeming to have given up and going back to what she was doing. This time, he could hear faint chirps answering her murmurs, and he narrowed his eyes in confusion. It almost sounded like she was having a conversation with a bird, somehow.

Trying to put the strangeness out of his mind, he reached for Plagg, where the book was hidden against his hip and flipped to the latest pages of the story. Skimming the paragraphs, he read about how Cinderella had called birds to help her sort the lentils from the ashes of the fireplace. As he got to the last words that had appeared in the book, he noticed that what it described next hadn’t seemed to have happened yet. Left behind by her step-mother and sisters even after she’d completed their menial tasks, the book detailed how she fled to the large tree behind her home and spoke to her mother.

Just as he started to wonder if he'd gotten the right house after all, he could hear her mumbling to her bird about visiting mother’s tree. He whipped his head around and tried to spot the tree, finally letting his eyes stop on a large willow tree that overshadowed most of the yard.

Adrien hurried to the tree, not quite sure what his plan was but having the distinct feeling that he needed to reach the tree before she did. He climbed its branches nimbly and found a spot high among them that was covered by leafy foliage. Before too long he could hear a door open and shut in the distance, and he hoped he was hidden well enough in the branches of the tree.

Cinderella, or at least the girl he was assuming was her, knelt at the roots of the tree, pressing her hands into fists in her lap. At first she was silent, but the more his ears adjusted to the sounds of the wood, he could hear soft sniffles and stuttered breathing.

“Mother… I’m sorry. I know you asked me to be gracious and kind, always, but it is so hard. My step-sisters are awful, and I don’t know if I can handle any more of their taunts.” She shuddered, her arms curling tightly around her chest. Looking down at her from his perch, Adrien noticed how tattered and dirty her clothes were compared to the manicured perfection that had adorned the three ladies who had left in the carriage.

“All I wanted… all I still want is to feel different for one night. To feel human, and worthwhile, not just an outlet for their cruel words and coldness.”

Adrien flinched a little as her words resonated with him, drawing his mind back to the thought that had brought him here in the first place. Wherever here was, dream or even real magic, he had wished for an escape the same way.

He opened his book up, seeking out guidance on what he could do next. “Plagg,” he whispered, hoping the weeping girl below him wouldn’t hear. “What are we supposed to do?”

He knew from most versions of the story that some form of assistance came to the protagonist, usually in the form of magical transformation. But as far as he could tell, there was no one in sight, and it didn’t appear that help was coming to her at all. He frowned and looked around, stretching up to see through the leaves and waited anxiously for something to happen.

“You heard what the old man said,” Plagg grouched quietly, floating out of Adrien’s hands and resting midair. The book opened wide as if it was some kind of lounge chair and Adrien was struck with the distinct feeling that if the spirit within it was physical, he’d be stretched out on top of it. “You might not always be playing the support role you expect. Are you just gonna wait to see if someone saves her, or are you going to do something, kid?”

“But what am I supposed to do? I’m not a fairy godmother, and I don’t exactly have magic, now do I?” Adrien questioned, struggling to keep his voice low against the helpless frustration building in his chest.

Plagg snickered, the book snapping shut and landing back in Adrien’s open hands. “Oh please. You’re anything here, kid, as far as your mind can imagine. Did you really think you’d be closing these stories without any kind of powers?”

Adrien shook his head slightly, thinking the question through. “I mean, I guess not, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do anything. It’s not like anyone taught me how to use these magic powers or whatever they are.”

“Well, I hope you can stop overthinking it before the story decides for itself. The ending won’t wait forever, not while you’re in the story. Time has to move forward somehow, so do something fast.”

Not sure what that meant, Adrien struggled to think of how exactly he was supposed to interfere in the progression of this story without messing it all up. His mind reeled with versions he had heard or seen before and finally the obvious solution hit him. He couldn’t wait forever to see if a fairy godmother showed up to fix everything with a magic wand, so maybe, if Plagg was telling the truth, he could just be one himself.

Closing his eyes, he focused on the weight of the book in his hand and thought about every time he’d seen magic in movies and comics. Maybe if he just pictured in his mind what he wanted, wished for it hard enough like he had when he’d been brought here…

Before he could doubt himself further, he began to form the idea in his mind, following the train of thought until he had pictured a wand, dark wood shaped carefully and practically aglow with magic power. He could feel the leather cover of the book warm in his hands, growing hotter until the heat almost burned, his hands peeling away from it and tingling with power even after they’d been separated.

He opened his eyes, thinking he’d just dropped the book down on the head of the girl he was supposed to be saving. Instead, the book hovered in the air right where it had been in his hands, and the cover parted, pages moving with invisible wind. He saw light in the cracks between them, and at first he thought the binding of the book was glowing until the pages stopped moving and he could see a picture had appeared on the pages of Cinderella’s story, a wand laid flat across the width of the page. It seemed to shimmer when the moonlight above hit it, and the shadows were so in-depth that it was like he could reach out and touch it.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he did exactly that, and felt his fingertips pass through the page and curl around the wooden wand.

“Woah,” he murmured, remarking on the odd sensation of his fingers being partially inside of the page. It almost started to get uncomfortable, and he quickly pulled back, but was surprised to feel the wand pull free with his hand.

It grew larger once pulled from the pages, expanding to fit his hand properly. It was almost 10in long, and more ornate than he had pictured it, decorated with curling silver tendrils and small green gems. He wrapped his fingers more tightly around it and gave it a tentative flick, and felt the leaves around him shudder as a harsh gust of wind passed through them. Eyes narrowing in thought, he swirled the wand in a circle over his own head and felt a warm weight settle on his shoulders. Looking down at his arms, he could see he was now covered with a green cloak and hood, and grinned.

“This is easier than I thought,” he murmured, pinching the soft fabric over his body and pulling it away from his chest to get a better look at it. He let the wand hover again over his face, a black mask appearing over it, obscuring the upper half of his face.

“Yeah, yeah, kid. Now that you’ve gotten your costume change, maybe it’s time to do what we’re here for?” Plagg said, yawning. His voice almost seemed quieter than before and Adrien wondered how exactly taking the wand from the pages had affected the spirit.

“Right, sorry,” he finally mumbled, shaking his head and resolving to ask Plagg about it later. “Let’s go be a fairy godparent, I suppose,” he added with a shrug.

With a little more magic, he conjured a holster of sorts for the storybook, with a black leather strap that he slung over his shoulder so that he could carry – and hide – the book a tad more discretely. Once Plagg was securely tucked into it with some minor complaining, Adrien began his descent.

He slipped down from the branch he was seated on, trying to make as little noise as possible as he watched below them carefully. The girl had wrapped her arms around her knees, curling up and hiding her face, which was perfect for Adrien’s intentions. He finally made it to the lowest branches without her looking up, and with almost cat-like grace, slipped down and landed on the roots of the great tree.

This finally made the girl look up and he smiled as warmly as he could when their eyes met, seeing the fear and desperation appear in her own.

“Who are you?” she asked, caution lacing her tone as she started to uncurl her limbs, struggling to stand up with the way that her legs shook under her. Still, she seemed to grit her jaw with determination and he couldn’t help but admire it.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m just here to help,” he explained, frowning a little as he tried to figure out what to say to explain this without making her more nervous. “What’s your name?”

She hesitated before seeming to give into her own curiosity, holding a hand out to him. “I’m Aurore,” she answered, and he grasped her hand in his own, giving it a soft shake. “You haven’t answered my question though.”

Adrien flushed a little, pulling his hand back to rub the back of his neck as he gave her an awkward smile. “Consider me a fairy godparent. I’m here to help make sure you get your wish.”

“My wish?” she questioned, her eyes narrowing again as she looked at him more carefully.

“You wanted a night of freedom, right? I want to make that happen.”

“Really?” she said, surprise flickering across her features, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d known her wish, or because he was offering to make it come true. “But how? I’m not exactly dressed for a ball, and I don’t even own anything that would be considered nice enough.”

He held up the wand in his hand, giving it a dramatic flourish as he bowed forward, a grin on his lips. “At your service, my lady,” he said, laying the charm onto his tone a bit overly thick for someone who was supposed to be making sure that she fell in love with the prince.

“Oh, I’m not a lady,” she murmured quietly, looking down at her messy clothing and callused hands. “I’m just a servant at this point.”

“Not tonight, you aren’t. Tonight, you’re going to be the most beautiful lady at that ball, and you’ll have the night of freedom and magic that you wished for, alright?” He grinned at her, his eyes reflecting the genuine care behind the words despite the cheeky expression.

She hesitated for a moment but finally nodded, her spine straightening as she tilted her chin up. Smiling back at him finally, she placed her hands on her hips. “Alright then, what do we need to do?” she asked, looking at the wand in his hand curiously.

At the reminder that he had to figure out how to get her dressed up and to the ball, he frowned again. “Hmm, well, let’s see if I can remember how this goes. First things first,” he said, looking around the yard until he spotted what he was looking for, in a patch of overgrown garden.

He walked over to it, picking up a large, orange pumpkin, humming to himself as he carried it back to the open part of the yard. “Transportation!” he exclaimed, giving her a conspiratorial grin and setting it down between them. “And if I give it just a little…” he murmured to himself, trailing off as he circled the pumpkin with the wand outstretched in his hand, making small circles over the orange vegetable.

Before his eyes, flecks of light fell from the tip of the wand and shimmered down to land on the rind of the pumpkin. A quiet creaking started, coming from deep inside and he took a step back, pushing Aurore back with him. The whole thing glowed with golden light for a moment and then it began to grow, first to their knees, and then hips, up and up and up until it towered over their heads. The vines attached to its stem twined and curled outward, forming wheels and ornaments as they morphed from green to gold. A delicate pattern of gold circled the pumpkin that was now a carriage, complete with a door, windows, and seats inside, as well as at the front and back for a driver and a footman.

He looked over at Aurore and grinned. “Not bad, huh? This is my first time turning any vegetables into carriages, and frankly, I think it went quite well.”

The girl didn’t really seem to know what to say at all and stood there in obviously stunned silence. “You know, for a minute there I was so sure that you were just crazy,” she remarked after a long moment.

He immediately whipped around to face her. “Well that’s just rude. Such little faith in your fairy godparent,” he murmured, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. He glanced around again, still piecing together the tasks ahead of him.

“The carriage is nice, but how is it going to move?” came a hissed whisper from his side, and he was suddenly reminded that Plagg was still there.

“What did you say?” Aurore asked, tearing her eyes away from the gleaming gold and white carriage to look at him with concern.

He coughed out a laugh and waved his hand, quickly trying to deflect away from any mention of the talking book attached to his side. Hearing a soft squeak, he noticed an upside down planter, turning it over and finding just what he’d expected: two small mice. “How do you guys feel about being horses for a night?” he said with a cheshire grin, ignoring the small squeaks of complaint as he picked the mice up in one hand.

Waving the wand over both, gold sparkles once again fell from the tip and coated the animals, and he set them down in front of the carriage. They sat still, sniffing the open air cautiously and Adrien couldn’t help but wonder what they were feeling of the transformation. Before even a few seconds had passed, they began to morph into stark white horses with twitching ears. Both animals looked around, then at each other, whinnying and shuffling their feet. He was sure the world looked a little different and more surprising from their new height.

“What am I missing?” he murmured to himself, pacing back and forth beside the carriage. Suddenly, the idea clicked in his head. “Do you have a dog? Or maybe a lizard?” he questioned, looking around.

Aurore suddenly looked nervous, as if concerned about what else he could possibly want to transfigure. “Well, we have a cat? He’s a bit old though, he mostly just sits around instead of chasing the mice.”

“That’ll work, bring him out,” Adrien said, nodding to himself as he continued to pace. He waited until she was inside, searching for the cat before talking out loud to himself. “Alright, carriage, horses, the cat will make an acceptable footman, but what else?”

He could feel that he was forgetting something, and it nagged at the back of his mind as he tried to remember all of the steps he’d seen in movies and other retellings of this story.

“Oh, a driver!” he finally said out loud. He looked around again but wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of leaving Aurore to be driven around by another animal turned human. He glanced down at himself instead, frowning and then shrugging.

Waving the wand once again over his own head, he felt the warm tingle of magic settle over his body and his cloak and plain clothes had been replaced with a white and gold uniform that looked reminiscent of the uniform he’d seen worn by guards in most fairy tale adaptations. Even the mask had turned white with gold accents.

“Ugh, kid, warn me next time you plan to cover me in magic dust,” he heard, remembering that Plagg was still attached. When he looked down, the book was coated in lingering gold flecks and he carefully removed the holster from himself, dusting it off and setting it on the bench of the carriage.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his hand scratching at the back of his neck once again. “This will have to work,” he said looking down at himself once again, then turning as he heard footsteps and saw Aurore come up the stairs with an uncomfortable looking gray cat in her arms.

“This is Tom,” she said, scratching behind his ear and then holding the cat out.

Adrien smiled, reaching out to give the cat a few scratches of his own. “Well, Tom, it’s a pleasure to be working with you.”

Wasting no time, he swirled the wand in a quick circle over the cat’s head and let the gold dust shower onto the cat’s fur, then gesture to Aurore to set him down. The cat glowed brightly, shifting to stand on his back legs as he grew and grew until he was Aurore’s height, his feline face replace with human features. Where the cat had been now stood a gray haired man with a thin, whiskery mustache and white uniform that matched Adrien’s own.

“Perfect, we’re all set,” he said, pushing the former cat towards the door. “Tom, your only job is to open and close this door, and help your Lady in and out of her carriage. Got it?” he quizzed, and Tom nodded simply in response, licking the back of his hand and wiping it over his face. Adrien grimaced.

“All ready to go, Aurore?” he said, trying to ignore the footman grooming himself next to them. Aurore frowned and looked down at herself, then back at him with a raised brow. “Oh, obviously, I’m sorry.”

Adrien quickly pulled her a few steps away from the carriage, circling around her. “Well, I’m not as much of a fashion aficionado as my father, but I’ll try my best,” he said, trying to just picture the fancy dresses he’d seen in movies and fashion shows. He gave the wand a swirl over her head and a few flicks to shake some extra dust off for good measure. A soft wind swirled around them, picking up petals and leaves from the garden in its breeze as it curled around her. For a moment, she was almost completely obscured from his view by the rush of flowers, but with a bright flash of light, everything converged towards her and a beautiful ball gown began to form. Layers upon layers of glittering silver and blue fabric coated her form. The few remaining flowers and petals landed on the dress and melted into silver embroidery along the trim of the skirts and bodice.

Aurore looked down at her dress in awe, swishing the skirts around herself with a joyful laugh. “This is incredible. It’s more than I ever dreamed,” she said in an admiring sigh, smoothing her hands down over the skirts.

“One more thing,” Adrien said in a hum, touching the wand to her loose hair first, and then flicking it twice at the ground. Her hair coiled up into an intricate crown of braids complete with threads of silver twined into it and ornamented with almost lifelike looking glittering baby blue flowers. On the ground in front of her appeared a pair of delicate glass slippers that reflected every bit of starlight in the garden.

“Glass?” Aurore asked, looking cautious.

“It’s… traditional?” Adrien offered, not sure what other explanation to provide her with. “I made sure they’ll be sturdy and comfortable, please don’t worry.”

She hesitated for a moment more before slipping off her own worn flats and stepping into the glass slippers instead. She closed her eyes for a moment, wincing as if she was expecting the shoes to crumble but they held up perfectly, and the blinked in silence, taking a few steps in them. “Huh, they actually are fairly comfortable,” she said, amazement clear in her tone. You could even hear a faint clink as the heels hit the rocky ground, and she seemed to be more careful to avoid anything sharp even though Adrien seemed certain that nothing would shatter the shoes.

“Ready to go, my lady?” Adrien offered, bowing in the same way he had when he’d first introduced himself, gesturing to the carriage door that was waiting open for the cat-turned-footman standing and waiting for Aurore to take her place.

Everything was in place, and for some reason she still hesitated. “Can I… really do this?” she asked, her shoulders slumping down as she shrank into herself. “Pretend to be a real lady, in front of all of them? They’ll see right through me.”

Adrien could hear the hopelessness seeping into her voice and he immediately stepped forward to comfort her. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and shook his head. “Not a chance. I’ll tell you a trick that I learned from… well, something I used to do. Keep your chin up, and a half smile on your face. It’s all the perception of confidence. They’ll only see whatever you project into the world. If you move with certainty and never look down, they won’t be able to see past their own motivations, I promise you.”

She nodded slowly, seeming to square her shoulders and meet his gaze finally. “What do fairy godparents do before they’re fairy godparents?” she asked, a small smile lifting the corners of her lips.

Adrien froze for a moment, looking back at her in dumb shock before laughing, linking his elbow with hers to lead her to the carriage. “Now that, sadly, is classified magical information,” he said simply, flashing her a wink as she took the footman’s hand to be lead into the carriage.

“Fine, fine, I won’t pry,” she pouted, seating herself as comfortably as she could in the carriage with the cloud of skirts surrounding her.

Adrien made sure the door was shut completely behind her, and then stepped around the front of the carriage, hopping into the driver’s seat. He knocked twice on the surface of the coach before picking up the reins and gently urging the horses forward. The former mice seemed a little over-excited to be such a size, and move so quickly, and they took over with a jolt, almost sending Adrien tumbling from his seat. Holding a little tighter to the reins once he’d gotten readjusted on the bench, he just shook his head and set off down the long road that led away from the property.

After a carriage ride that felt shorter than it was, night truly began to fall, and the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the grand front steps of the palace. He stepped down from the driver’s seat, eyeing the horses as if to silently tell them not to move a muscle. To his great relief, they stayed in place while he stepped around, where the cat-footman was already opening the door for Aurore. Adrien held his hand out to her, beating the footman to doing so and she smiled at him as she took it.

“There’s one more thing I forgot to mention,” he said as she gingerly stepped out of the carriage, leaning slightly on his arm. “The magic… as wonderful as it is, can only last so long. It will wear off at midnight, and we’ll need to be well on our way back by then, alright?”

She nodded, letting go of his hand as she moved to stand between the steps and the carriage she had just exited. “Until midnight is more than I’d ever thought I’d have. Truly, thank you,” she said with sincerity crystal clear in every word.

He nodded back and then gestured towards the steps, shaking his head. “Go on, have the night of your life, Aurore. Don’t keep the party waiting for its star,” he teased, smiling warmly at her.

She smiled back and turned, beginning the walk up the stairs. Adrien watched her the entire way until he saw the doors at the top open wide, bright light and echoes of waltzes pouring out of the opened doors. When they had safely shut behind her, he hopped back up into the seat of the carriage, leaning back in his seat comfortably to wait the night out.

Adrien had barely closed his eyes and felt like drifting off when he jumped upright with a start at the sound of a bell chiming, coming from a tower high above his head. A quick glance at the tower confirmed that it was seconds from midnight. His eyes widened and he bolted up from his seat, taking the stairs two at a time until he reached the doors and opened them for himself without bothering to wait for the guards positioned in front of them to do so.

He eyes scanned over the party, spotting a head of blonde hair dashing into the crowd from a doorway off to the side and pushing her way through the throng of people. “Hurry, Aurore,” he whispered to himself, watching as she barely made it through the dance floor before the second strike had echoed. She ascended the stairs toward him and out of the ballroom, turning back to watch a suited figure with chin-length dark hair follow behind from the doorway she’d run through. Aurore finally reached the top of the stairs, smiling brightly and flush with life from her run and from the night itself.

“I’m late, I’m sorry, I know you said we should already-”

“There’s no time.” He pushed her towards the doorway as the third chime cut them both off. “I’m going to tell you to do something, and you’re going to think it’s odd, but just trust me,” he said, letting her walk ahead of him as she left the ballroom.

He turned back once more, now identifying the figure that he’d seen following Aurore as the prince, judging by the guards that now circled around the suited figure. One in particular caught his eye, and as if feeling his gaze, they turned and met his eyes, frowning slightly. He was struck immediately by how blue those eyes were, locked onto his own, and how much life blazed within them. He stood frozen under their gaze, even when the prince and the guards started to force their own way through the crowd. It wasn’t until Aurore tugged on his arm that he shook himself out of it.

“What were you saying?” she asked, pulling him out of the doors as he followed in a stupor, still picturing bluebell eyes in his mind.

“What?” he asked, finally looking at Aurore as they descended the overly-long stair case to the sound of the fourth chime. “Oh, a shoe!” he quickly said, stopping in place and jerking Aurore back with him.

She turned back, wide eyed and her brows raised. “A shoe?”

“You have to leave one behind, on the steps,” he said quickly, pointing down at their feet and gesturing wildly. “Don’t question it, we’re not going to even make it back to your home if we don’t leave right now.”

“Alright, I’ll do it. Let’s just hurry,” she said, her eyes darting quickly back to the doorway above them. She delicately stepped out of one of the glass slippers, leaving it on the very last stair before picking the other up and holding it as they walked back to the carriage.

Barely a second had passed before noise sounded from the top of the stairs and the bell tower simultaneously. The doors burst open once more, a dozen guards piling out of them and rushing down the steps. Adrien and Aurore took one glance at each other before starting to run. They wasted no time as they reached the carriage and she threw the door open and threw herself in, jostling the whole vehicle. Shutting the door behind her, Adrien moved around to the front of the carriage, hopping up onto the bench and flicking the reins immediately. The horses pulled forward with a lurch, their slow trot becoming a rapid gallop within moments as they sped away from the steps of the palace.

Turning the corner to exit the gates while the bell was struck again, Adrien risked a glance back and saw that some of the guards had already found horses and were mounting them as quickly as they could. He spurred the horses faster as the first of the guards swung their leg into the stirrups. It was the same girl from before, her bright blue eyes digging into him as he tried to get as much ground between them as possible. Soon, they passed beyond the border of the gates and out of sight.

“Plagg,” Adrien hissed, leaning to his side to address the book still laid on the bench seat next to him. “How many chimes was that?”

“Six,” Plagg’s voice said disinterestedly, propped against the back of the bench.

Adrien groaned, shaking his head as he snapped the reins again to try anything to get the carriage to move faster. They were quite a bit away from the gates of the palace at least, but not even halfway back yet, and he didn’t know if they could cross that distance fast enough.

Seven.

The bell rang again, the sound still loud enough to reach them even as they raced away from the tower. Adrien glanced around the side of the carriage, making sure they weren’t being actively pursued yet and almost relaxed with relief when he saw no one behind them. He wasn’t sure how long the horses could keep this paces but the answer was certainly not indefinitely.

They passed over bridges and under towering trees, and every chime of the bell tower made Adrien wince.

Eight.

The carriage tore through the small town near the castle. It was blissfully empty and abandoned with everyone at the festivities.

Nine.

Adrien felt the carriage begin to shudder and he knew what was coming, taking another glance behind them to see if the palace guards were catching up yet.

Ten.

The horses in front of him sprouted round ears, their tails twisting together until it was a single pointed cord of skin instead of horse hair. The carriage shuddered even more now, and sparing a glance down at his hands, he could see the gold leather reins turning into green vine under his fingertips. He didn’t even need to look back to know that the white of the carriage was turning orange, and he could feel the bench he was sat upon shrinking.

Eleven.

“Aurore, we’re not going to make it!” he said, raising his voice over the din of clattering hooves and rattling wheels. They were at least passing out of the town now, which meant they had passed the halfway mark and would be left with grassy road through the field and forest.

Aurore leaned out of the window behind him, her brow furrowed and her knuckles white from her grip on the edge of the shrinking window. “What do we do?”

“We get ready to jump,” he said back, gritting his jaw and steering the carriage towards the edge of the road. “When the final toll sounds, jump.”

If she had complaints, he didn’t hear or see them, busying himself immediately with strapping his storybook back against his side securely and holding the wand inside of his hand. Then, it happened.

Twelve.

He threw himself off of the side of the bench, tucking into a roll as he hit the soft ground of the meadow surrounding the road. Landing on his back with a grunt, he heard a loud creak and then a crash, sitting up in time to watch the now normal sized pumpkin smash into a rock. Looking around, he spotted the cat looking around in confusion, his nose turned up and sniffing the air before running off and then Aurore not too far from his own landing spot, sprawled on her side with the slipper tucked in against her stomach. Her dramatic ball gown had turned back into the worn slip it was before he’d transformed it at the start of the night. He took a deep breath and forced himself to his feet, wincing at the slight ache from standing up.

Adrien moved to Aurore’s side as quickly as he was able, gently shaking her shoulder. “Are you alright?” he said.

She groaned but nodded slowly after a moment, rolling onto her back with a sharp inhale. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

He laughed, nodding back at her with a slight grin. “Honestly, me either,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

The sound of hoofbeats echoed from down the road before either of them could say anything more and they both whipped their gazes in that direction, seeing the group of guards from the palace finally approach. Adrien held his hand out to her and pulled her into a seated position from where she’d been laying down. He crouched down next to her, putting his finger to his lip as he looked at Aurore.

“Stay low and stay quiet,” he whispered. The grass was tall enough that he could only hope it covered them well enough for the moment, but the crushed grass from their landing would be too obvious from the road.

He led her forward in the field, trying to move quickly but carefully enough to avoid too much movement from the grass around them. A glance behind him showed Aurore following his steps as much as she could, moving on her hands and knees through the grass. They worked their way to the edge of the forest in good time, and he ducked behind a tree, watching Aurore take cover behind a bush across from him. Just as they’d both hidden themselves, the guards reached the spot where they had jumped from the crashing carriage.

He could see a few of them slow down, noticing the remnants of the pumpkin and the patches of smushed grass. The same guard from the ball knelt at the edge of the field and he could finally get a clear look at her.

Her eyes still stood out the most, startlingly bright blue under the moonlight to the point he almost thought they were glowing. Once he was able to tear his gaze away from them though, he looked at the rest of her. She was dressed in a guard’s uniform that matched the others almost exactly, but instead of the black and gold that the other guards wore, her coat was bright red with gold trim, and black pants with a gold band down the side of the leg. Her hair was plaited back away from her face in twin braids, and he could clearly see the calculating expression on her face in the bright light of the open field, her brow tensed and her eyes scanning the distance.

Her gaze swept over their location and he could feel his heart beating rapidly against his throat. The sound was loud enough in his own ears that he almost worried it would give away their hiding spot.

Aurore tensed across from him as well, and he turned his face to her, trying to reassure her. He gave her his best confident smile, trying to soften the tension in his brow and jaw for just a moment to at least give her the illusion of confidence.

She seemed to accept it for a moment before she looked back at the road and her eyes widened, flicking wildly back and forth between him and the group of guards. He looked back himself and saw the same guard slowly walking towards them and he felt the panic rise in his own chest.

Just when he thought they were going to be caught for sure, he heard a horse in the distance and the guard snapped toward the sound at the same time he did. She rushed back to her horse, swinging up into the saddle with ease.

“That way!” she called out, her voice sounding lighter than he’d thought it would.

The guards took off in the direction she pointed ahead of her, but she stalled for a moment. Her eyes ghosted over their location once more before she mouthed something silently. She frowned, slipping something he hadn’t noticed she’d even been holding back into a sleeve on her saddle. She shook her head and urged her own horse forward, finally following after the guards who were now nearing the edge of the woods.

Adrien heaved out a sigh of relief, slumping back against the tree behind him. Silently, he thanked whatever force of fate or luck had distracted the guards, knowing that without it, there was no chance they’d have stayed hidden for long. He took a moment to catch his breath before turning to Aurore.

“Ready to get home?” he said, slowly starting to stand up. He held a hand out to her to help her up.

She accepted the hand with a grateful nod. “More than ready. I think that’s enough excitement for one lifetime,” she said with a quiet laugh.

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering slightly and he frowned, giving the wand a little flick and covering her with a dark blue cloak. She looked over at him, nearly tripping in shock as the warm fabric wrapped around her shoulders. “Thank you.”

He nodded in response, giving the wand a wave over his own head to revert the white uniform to the more relaxed outfit he’d had before, and then pulling his dark green cloak over his own shoulders.

“I hope you’re alright walking back. I don’t think transfiguring any more forest animals would be advisable for tonight,” he said, starting to walk along the edge of the treeline parallel to the road.

She shrugged, her arms swinging lightly at her sides while they walked through the woods. “Yes, it’s not a problem for me. I walk most places.”

Nodding his head at her slowly, he looked over at the glass slipper cradled in her hands. Even though he’d known from reading iterations of the story, he was still surprised to see it in her hands after they’d landed, when everything else he’d done had worn off right at the last stroke of midnight. It meant that at least something about the story was going right so far, and maybe he’d be able to end it the way it should be.

Adrien curled his hands around the storybook in them, wishing he could see for his own eyes if the story was writing itself the way it was supposed to. He knew without being told, though, that looking at the pages in front of the story’s main character would not be advisable under any circumstances. It felt like something he’d always known somehow.

After a short, silent walk, they reached the edges of the property and passed over the wall. Aurore’s step family’s carriage hadn’t pulled into the drive yet, and he could see the tension in her shoulders melt away at that fact. She turned to face him.

“Thank you for everything. This night was more than I ever imagined. The dancing, the dress, the prince…” she said, trailing off in quiet reverence.

“The prince?” he questioned, a smile on his lips as he prodded her for more details.

She blushed, her cheeks turning faintly pink as she turned to look at the willow tree in the far back of the yard. “The prince was wonderful… and kind, and gentle, and charming. Everything people described and more. We danced for what felt like hours,” she said. Even with her back partially turned to him, he could see the shy smile on her lips.

“It sounds like you really had chemistry,” Adrien said, moving to stand at her side. “Do you think anything will come of it? They seemed fairly determined to catch up with you.”

“It’s… a little unlikely.” Aurore paused, humming slightly and crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Why? What prince would give up a chance at love?”

Aurore sighed, her hands curling around the edges of her cloak as she pulled it taut around herself. “Her name is Mireille. She’s the oldest of her siblings and fought her family and the court to be called prince instead of princess, since the throne is her birthright, not any of her brothers.”

Adrien couldn’t help but grin widely at this information, enjoying the little twists that the fairy tale continued to throw his way. “She sounds amazing, then. It sounds to me like she’s someone who would go to great lengths for the things – and people – she cares about,” he said with a pointed look.

Aurore flushed. “It’s not that simple. She’s supposed to marry someone titled to strengthen the whole kingdom.”

“Why do they have to be titled to give strength? You seem plenty strong to me,” Adrien said. He glanced at her, brows furrowed in concern even if she was faced away and couldn’t see it.

“Not that kind of strong. I can’t provide armies or money, and I’m definitely not what her parents have in mind. They want a successor, heirs. Someone with the right knowledge and skills to make the whole country better. Not a plain, country girl.”

Frowning, Adrien sighed and looked away from Aurore and out at the road they walked. “What does Mireille want?”

She shrugged quietly, not daring to voice the answer she hoped was true.

“It’s not like I’ll ever see her again, so does it really matter?”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” he said, not explaining anything beyond the simple statement.

They ended their walk in silence, each contemplating the events that lie before – and in Adrien’s case, still ahead of – them. When they reached Aurore’s home, they sequestered themselves in the ash covered kitchen that he’d first seen her in.

After settling a sack of grain against a corner, Aurore frowned at him. “Are you sure you’ll be alright hiding out in here? You don’t have to stay here for me anymore, I’m sure there’s someone else who deserves your magic,” she said quietly.

He glanced at the dark stone corner behind him and nodded resolutely. “Entirely sure, Aurore. I have a feeling that your story isn’t over. I won’t leave you before then.”

Smiling at her, he sat down on the floor of the small storage space in the kitchen, drawing his cloak around his shoulders as he leaned into the sack. Aurore sighed, and knowing she could not argue with him, drew the curtain closed in front of him. For a moment, she could have almost sworn that she heard hushed whispers coming from where Adrien was hidden by the curtain, and not just his own. She listened for a moment, but whatever she heard didn’t make itself known again, so she stepped away and moved to her own bed near the fireplace.

She had taken to sleeping down in the kitchen for warmth, and eventually gone as far to simply move her flattened cot with her. Now the kitchen simply felt safe to her, and she stared in slight awe at the glass slipper resting on her worn bed. She felt as thought every time she blinked, it would be gone when she opened her eyes, but the slipper continued to defy that reality. It glittered in the firelight, the dancing flames reflecting against her skin. Picking it up in her hands, she curled up in the thin cot and clutched it close to her chest, staring into the flames as darkness seeped into the edges of her vision and she drifted into sleep.

#miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #lovesquare #ml fairy tale au #fantasy au #ml fic #ml au #adrien agreste #miraculous ladybug fic #miraculous ladybug au #miraculous ladybug fanfic #marimeetswriting #wishes and wands #ml big bang #ml big bang 2022 #mwg

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unoriginalmess · 3 years

Text

A Second Mask: Chapter 4

Did that just happen?

Hello guys! It's me. I'm finally writing again. Sorry about the delay. I'm going to explain more at the end of the chapter, but I'm just going to keep the beginning short. So here is chapter 4:

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To say Adrien was concerned would be a huge understatement. He was downright disturbed. Its been weeks and still Marinette hadn't changed back to the happy, peppy, nice girl that he knew. AND SHE WOULDN'T EVEN TALK TO HIM ABOUT IT!

He tried to talk to her for a whole week after her original trasformation, but after the repeated firm rejections, he stopped altogether. He figured that maybe with some space, she might be able to work through whatever she was going through, but at this point, he's losing hope.

When he is feeling this distressed about something, he usually turns to his lady, but she has been acting weird too. Ever since she suggested they start sparring, she's started to show that she is going through kinda a rough time as well. She is the same ladybug when everyone is watching, but when it's just the two of them, she looks sad and tired. She has also started saying some concerning things while they are sparring. She has started talking about how she has started taking being Ladybug and the Guardian more seriously, and how she has less distractions now, which would be a good thing if she didn't say them so sadly.

The good thing is, the sparring has given him a chance to get out his aggression because of the whole Marinette-situation and his anger at his father in a safe environment. He didn't like the idea of hitting Ladybug at first (especially in the face) but with her not holding back on her hits, he felt more comfortable doing the same. It has helped them fight better too. He hopes that whatever Ladybug is going through in her civillian life will work itself out soon, but until then he will be there for her. He just needs to figure out how to be there for Marinette.

•••

Felix was making good progress with Marinette. After they first asked marinette about (insert fashion question of your choice here, I legit know nothing and I didn't have time to research anything for this chapter), she had started answering their questions on a daily basis. After a couple of days of that, she had started to rant to them about different things in the fashion world that were bothering her, exciting her, or confusing her that particular day. In response to that, they had started to respond to her rants with their own opinions on the subjects and even start their own rants.

It had gotten to the point where Felix would now consider them to be friends, though they know that Marinette would never call them as such, it was fine with them. They know she has trust issues, and they can understand why, so they are fine with being friends in everything but a name.

Felix was looking forward to their daily banter as they waited in their seat for Marinette to arrive. When she did, she was followed by a very pissed-looking Alya. Felix turned to look at her and noticed that she had what looked to be tears forming in her eyes. What they didn't notice was the little black butterfly that had entered through the window in the back of the room, and was making a beeline towards her.

•••

Marinette walked to school in yet another one of her newest fashion creations: a pair of oversized grey ripped jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt. She was actually really liking her new look, and the comfort that it offered was just an added plus.

She was actually feeling excited to talk to Felix about Gabriel Agreste's newest fashion flop. They were the only person that she had met that actually cared about fashion as much as her. It made her happy to talk to them. It kind of scared her how excited she was. Shouldn't she be distancing herself from everyone? she thought to herself. No. Felix isn't my friend, they aren't close to me, they are just someone I talk fashion with. Like a coworker, yeah. Totally. Felix is just a coworker. ("Liar" says the inner voice in her head)

She was shocked out of her thoughts when she was pulled to the side by someone as she entered the courtyard. Her mind immediately thought of an akuma, when the person spoke.

"Marinette! Girl," Oh it's just Alya. Wait Alya? "How long are you gonna keep up this cry for attention? Are you really THAT jealous of Lila? I know that Adrien likes her, but that doesn't give you the right to act like this! And you are hanging out with Felix, who accused her of sexually harrassing Adrien on their first day here-?" She looked absolutely furious at her, but Marinette had heard enough. She cut Alya off in the middle of her presumably long rant.

"ALYA!" Said girl jumped at both the inturruption and the tone of voice used, "First of all, this isn't a cry for attention, if anything its a cry for leaving me the fuck alone. Second of all, I'm not jealous of Lila. I'm not in love with Adrien anymore, and haven't been for a while. You knew that I was dating Luka right? Why would I care who Adrien likes? Lastly, I am allowed to hang out with whoever I choose, whether you like them or not. It's none of your fucking business Alya, and if you think that I'm just some jealous, attention-seeker why do you even care?" With that last question she stormed off to the classroom, leaving a speechless Alya behind her.

When marinette sat down in her seat, she just kept thinking about how Alya was just talking to her. How could she think that about her? They used to be best friends, and Alya wasn't even concerned about her not talking to her anymore, she was just concerned about her being "jealous of Lila". It made her so furious that she could feel tears trickling down her face. She sees the black butterfly out of the corner of her eye and without hesitation grabs it out of the air.

(Next part is taken from this post by @bigfatbreak)

"Go ahead and akumatize me- See what happens, Hawkmoth!" She screamed the words with a slight madness that the energy of the akuma was giving her, "Every leash has two ends! I just have to pull until I find where you're holding it!"

At this point, the entire class was frozen in place watching her and listening to her crazed-sounding voice threaten an actual terrorist. Marinette felt Hawkmoth's confusion and terror through the bond. What in the- She's sensing me through the Akuma?! The akuma then started to fly away, and when it couldn't it zapped her hand like it was made of lightning and fluttered through the same window it came from. Marinette felt like she had failed yet again and collapsed down on her desk, muttering, "Uuuuggghh. It escaped anyway... What a waste. I didn't realize that Hawkmoth was such a coward. He usually likes grandstand..."

She was startled when her hand was picked up by Felix's, "You likely scared him off by managing to locate him like that... A risky move, I should mention. I would ask that you not attempt that a second time. No one knows what his akuma is truly capable of. You'll want to keep off of this hand for a while, too."

"Oh, are those the doctor's orders? Why, Felix, it almost sounds like you care about meeee." Marinette was all too amused by Felix's concern for her. She also liked to tease them... AS COWORKERS DO.

"I have an investment in your presence. Now don't be cheeky and let's get you to the nurse's office," They said while holding her wrist and gently pulling her in that direction.

Marinette scoffed, "'An investment in my presence'??"

Felix chuckled while still semi-dragging her by the wrist towards the front of the room, being careful not to hurt her injury even worse, "What did I just say about being cheeky?"

On their way out of the door they passed a VERY distressed-looking Adrien. He seemed to be sharing the sentiment with the entire class of: Did that just happen?

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And thats chapter 4. It is VERY LATE! I know. I've been swamped with work, and when I went to write it, I had zero ideas on how to write this chapter. I never ended up getting those ideas. I just went where my writing took me, so if it doesn't really match the characters that's why. I will try to be better at updating regularly, but it probably won't happen. Sorry to everyone with a normal sleep schedule, but this is the time that I write things. Also I didn't have my outline with me while writing this chapter, so it might not have everything I planned to write in it.

I would like to thank you all for all of the support I've been getting on this fic. Despite all of the chapter delays, you guys have stuck with me through all of it, so thank each and every one of you. I love seeing so many people loving this au as much as I do. Without you guys this story wouldn't exist, and I would've stopped writing it after the first chapter.

As always, constructive criticism is always accepted. I love being able to improve my writing whenever possible.

Thank you for reading. Have a nice day/night/whenever you are reading this. See ya next time guys, gals, and non-binary pals.

Taglist

@queer-illusion @apasponsor @heckinggremlin @1-ahiro-1 @hewantedbeefintheparkinglot @sassakitty @lennauts @rianoel @dorkus-minimus @khneltea @welp-that-was-unexpected @mlnchlymrshmllw @lovelyautumnsunflower @chariphrasis @lovesbooks @komatsuna-yuki @polyvirnl @innocentlyguiltyfrenchfry @qhobias @ive-tumbled-down-a-rabbit-hole @hammalammadamdam @cloudydaysomewhere @alcoholic-barney @basenikon @xxbehindthemaskxx @corporeal-terrestrial @shadowymemoirs @moonlight-densetsuu

#a second mask #feralnette #feralnette au #felinette #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #adrien agreste #felix culpa #marinette dupain cheng #here it finally is #idk why some of the tags arent working

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gentil-minou · 2 years

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First sentence: Adrien had a small suspicion Marinette was stronger than she looked, but strong enough to accidentally sucker punch him off his feet was entirely unexpected.

She helped him up and apologized, profusely and ardently, pigtails bouncing adorably on her shoulders when she shook her head. But he couldn't focus, helplessly entrance by the concern burning in her bright blue eyes.

"My sorry Adrien—I—I mean," she stuttered, and goodness her words never made much sense but in this moment he could listen to her babble for hours, "I didn't see you there, and I guess I, uh, got spooked." She bowed her head down low, peeking up at him from beneath long delicate eyelashes and how was it possible for Marinette to look so cute?

She was always cute, of course. Adrien ranked her high on his Cutest People List, constantly vying for the top spot with Ladybug (Though his lady always pulled through, though only just).

Something was different today. But what was it?

He tenderly poked the swelling beginning to form just under his jaw, wondering whether it would leave a mark he'd have to explain to Father. "It's alright, Marinette! It was an accident," he reassured, feeling a lightness in his head when the frown on her face was swept aside with that sweet smile that suited her best. "It was my fault, I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that—"

He winced at his prodding, a little too much force on the last poke. Yup, there would probably be a mark after that.

Soft, gently hands brushed the underside of his jaw, and Adrien opened his eyes to see his very good friend very, very close.

Marinette turned his head, face just millimeters away and standing on tiptoes to get a better look at him. Adrien watched her bit her lip before she said, "It's a little red..."

One finger stroked the place she'd hit. Once, twice, a third, and Adrien found the rest of the room seemed to disappear. A few stray strands of her hair tickle the side of his face as she peered closer, and he wondered if it felt as soft as it looked.

She smells like the bakery, he thinks. Warm and delicious.

The thought in his head, coupled with the rising heat racing into his cheeks made him leap back and away from his very good, just a friend and oh why is his heart racing like a mile?

Marinette, with those blue, blue, too blue eyes tilted her head to stare at him. "Adrien?"

"Oh—uh ha. Uh," he stammered, looking at anything else to save himself from embarrassment because what is wrong with him right now? "Fine am I? I—I mean I'm—I'm fine I think! I mean I am! Fine, I mean."

The way Marinette looked at him made him feel like he'd grown two heads, but of course sweet, lovely Marinette only stepped forward and kindly responded, "Are you sure? Did you bump your head when you fell?"

She reached forward again, delicate fingers that were surprisingly strong but even softer than he thought possible, and Adrien panicked. He fell backward, landing roughly on the hard tile floor of the art room. He crashed into a tray of paint, the contents of which decide his designer jeans are as good a canvas as any other. A decidedly not modellike (said in his father's voice, as always) screech escaped from his mouth and Adrien wondered how there was any blood left to make his heart pound on his chest when it felt like the entirety was currently staining his face Ladybug red.

He lifted his head, nervous to see Marinette's reaction to his absolute mess of a self.

And there she was, smile bright and hypnotic, hidden behind those wonderful hands of hers as she giggled at him. He was helpless but to smile back.

When did those heart bubbles start appearing behind her head?

#epilogue: he becomes convinced there's an akuma and mari says no and he's like no way but also marry me pls #of course i'd say write a ficlet but then write a mini drabble because this is the kind of person i am i guess fhjkdshfd #but adrien falling for mari and being a dumb is MY FAVORITE OKAY #miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrien agreste #ml fanfiction #ask game #bushy writing #thank you this was lovely <3

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ladyofthenoodle · 3 years

Text

fic: and say you want me

3114 words of lovesquare hurt/comfort

ladrien talking about ladynoir, sometime well after rocketear when they've fought and kinda made up

read on ao3 or under the cut

Basking in the glow of victory, Ladybug felt her grin stretch so wide that her cheeks twinged at the edges. Eagerly, she turned towards her partner with her fist outstretched. “Po—”

Chat was already a few steps away, lips pressed together firmly as he looked at something in the distance. “Good work as always, Ladybug,” he said quietly, glancing her way.

A moment later, he was gone.

Her fisted fingers stretched out towards his retreating form as if they were tethered to his tail by marionette strings. Ladybug yanked them back, capturing her traitorous fingers against her chest with her other hand.

Chat Noir had been clear: he didn’t want her reaching out.

She had to accept that, even if it hurt.

(Especially if it hurt. The way she’d hurt him.)

Trying to collect herself, Ladybug reached to wipe the sudden dampness on her face. The sky had been ominously overcast throughout the battle; it must’ve started to rain.

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to head home. She wasn’t ready to be Marinette yet, wasn’t ready to hear Tikki’s baseless reassurances, wasn’t ready to be alone with her thoughts again.

Even after everything, the battle felt incomplete without a fist bump from her partner.

(He was still her partner. He was. They’d both said it, so it had to be true, right?)

Thankfully, there was one more mission for Ladybug today. Chat Noir hadn’t explained why he didn’t want to check on the akuma’s target, but Ladybug was grateful he did. She could use the distraction and had assured him she’d catch up with the civilian in question as soon as she could

Besides, even now, the sight of Adrien’s smile never failed to brighten her day.

Adrien, however, wasn’t where she’d last seen him. She couldn't find him anywhere in the vicinity she’d left him either. Which left her with the last resort: she’d have to go check on him at home.

By the time she’d fed Tikki (carefully avoiding any opening for conversation all the while), transformed, and made her way to Adrien’s window, the skies had fully opened up.

Ladybug didn’t mind the downpour; good things happened in the rain.

Adrien, however, seemed to feel differently.

(He hadn’t fallen in love in the rain.)

Adrien had scrambled to the window at her knock, his lips forming her name as he fumbled at the latch.

“What are you thinking?” he scolded as he ushered her in. “It’s pouring!”

“I—” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “I was coming to check up on you. If you were okay — after the akuma? ”

Adrien’s worried frown melted into something softer. “You came all this way? In the rain?”

“I couldn’t find you right after.”

“I was right where you left me.” Adrien looked puzzled. “Wasn’t I? I thought I went right ba—”

Ladybug shook her head, only to freeze with horror when water droplets escaped from her soaked ponytails, interrupting Adrien’s sentence. Her stomach twisted as she realized she’d been dripping water all over his floor.

“Oh no,” he muttered, following her eyes to the puddle on the floor. “I’m so sorry.”

He was sorry? She was the one who showed up uninvited just to damage his expensive-looking floors.

“I should’ve gotten you a towel right away—I’ll be right back.” His voice sounded far more strained than made sense to Ladybug. Was Adrien really that attached to his flooring? Would his father punish him for water damage?

Ladybug felt the blood drain out of her face and her fingertips grow cold. Of course he would. Her stomach twisted. Gabriel Agreste will pull Adrien out of school, and she’ll never see Adrien again, and then he will publicly state that Ladybug is a menace to interior design, and everyone will know Ladybug ruined Adrien’s life! And Alya will know that Marinette is actually the one that ruined Adrien’s life, and Chat Noir will realize he doesn’t want to forgive her after all because who could forgive the stupid girl who ruined everything, even if hurting him is the last thing she ever wanted—

“Ladybug?” Adrien’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Distantly, she registered the large stack of fluffy, clean towels in his hands. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” She winced internally at her voice—she was barely convincing herself, let alone Adrien.

The worried frown he’d greeted her with earlier returned, but he didn’t challenge her.

“Let’s dry you off,” was all he said, and then she was enveloped in softness and the scent of laundry detergent.

She didn’t resist as Adrien led her over to the couch and set her down on a second towel he’d laid out while she hadn’t been paying attention, or when he wrapped a third towel around her neck and gently lifted the corner to wipe the tears off her cheeks.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Adrien’s voice was softer than the Turkish cotton towel tucked around her shoulders.

“I—I’m supposed to be checking on you.” And she couldn’t even do that right. Now he was worried about her.

“Consider me checked on, then,” he reassured with a smile. “And available to listen, if you want. Since you’re already here.”

A worried grimace passed across his features as he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “But no pressure! I know you’re very busy, and—”

“No!” Ladybug’s voice was too loud; Adrien jumped. “Ah, I mean, no, I’m not busy, I’d love to stay, I just… don’t want to bother you.”

“You’re not a bother.” The warmth of his voice seeped into the cold damp of her bones and loosened something inside her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Ladybug shouldn’t burden Adrien with her problems. She knew that.

But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this warm and safe and cared for. Was it when she’d told Alya? Or even earlier?

And she was trying to be better about trusting people more. About sharing her burdens and accepting help. Didn’t this count? She needed to be more open.

Why not start with the person she’d been keeping something from the longest?

“I love you,” she blurted.

Adrien’s eyes bugged out.

Abort! Abort mission! Too open! Close it back up!

“I mean!” She could save this. “You’re very kind! And selfless! I love that about you! You’re super great, ha ha ha!”

“Not always,” he muttered under his breath, something dark flickering in his eyes for a second as he glanced away. But before Ladybug could puzzle out what that meant, Adrien was looking at her again with the same gentle expression he saved for the most bizarre of Marinette’s verbal blunders. “But it’s nice to hear you think so.”

Ladybug opened her mouth to say something — maybe to reassure him, or to ask what he meant, or apologize again — but Adrien spoke before she could.

“I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t have anyone to talk to,” he admitted. “I don’t want you to feel that way.”

Oh, Adrien. She’d let him feel that way too?

“I bottled everything up because I didn’t want to burden anyone.” He was looking away again. Ladybug wanted to cup his cheek and turn him towards her, to tell him that she’d always be there if he needed her, that she never wanted him to feel alone again, but that wasn’t something he needed to hear from Ladybug.

(Adrien needed to hear that from Marinette.)

“But holding things in just made things worse,” Adrien continued, his eyes meeting hers as he reached out to rest a reassuring hand on her knee. “Please don’t do that. You don’t have to talk to me. I know we aren’t close. But please, talk to someone. Can you talk to Chat Noir?”

“N-no,” she choked out, the words hot in her throat.

“Oh.” Something went flat and wrong in his face, and she felt it in her chest. “Of course.”

“He h-hates me!” Her whole face was hot and wet and her voice was shaking and then suddenly Adrien’s arms were around her and her tears were seeping into the cotton of his shirt against her cheek.

“No, no, no, Bug, don’t say that.” His voice was soft and low as he rubbed her back. “He doesn’t hate you. He could never hate you.”

“Maybe not… hate,” she admitted with a sniff. “But he doesn’t like me very much right now either. I don’t know if he’ll ever like me again.”

“You think he… is that what you need to talk about?”

She nodded into Adrien’s shoulder and felt his arms tighten around her.

“I screwed up,” she confessed. “I was given some… extra responsibilities and I didn’t know how to manage them. And I ended up hurting him. I almost destroyed our partnership—”

“But you’re still partners. You fought together today as well as you always have.”

“We are, and I thought we were starting to heal and things were getting better, but…” Adrien’s arms tensed around her. Should she really be telling him this? What if he didn’t feel safe, knowing that the relationship between the heroes of Paris was still rocky?

“If you’re still partners, what’s the problem? Did he do something to upset you?”

“Of course not!” Her defense came automatically before she realized it was a lie. With a deep breath, she corrected herself, “He didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t be upset by it.”

Concern was etched across Adrien’s face, almost as if he thought he might have unintentionally upset her too. “But you are.”

“And that’s not fair to him!” Adrien looked like he wanted to argue the point, but she wasn’t finished. “His feelings are important and if he needs space, I should respect that, not pout and cry every time he doesn’t fist bump me.”

“He forgot to fist bump you?” The color had drained out of Adrien’s face.

“He didn’t forget.” Some distant part of Ladybug was shouting that she should be reassuring Adrien, who looked totally horrified, but now that she’d started talking about it, she couldn’t stop. “He… I thought things were getting better, but then today... he didn't want to touch me, or look me in the eye, and that’s fine, I shouldn’t be upset by it, I’m the one that ruined things and I need to live with that. I have to accept that there are things I can’t fix.”

“Of course you can fix it,” Adrien insisted. Something in the back of her brain pinged at the way he moved his hand to her shoulders and met her eyes. “You’re Ladybug. You can fix anything you put your mind to.”

The raw earnesty in his eyes was tempting; Ladybug wanted so badly to believe him, but... “Not if he doesn’t want it fixed.”

Adrien’s eyebrows shot up. “You think he doesn’t want that?”

“He was pretty clear that the renewal of our partnership didn’t include anything beyond a professional relationship.” Ladybug bit her lip and shied away from Adrien’s still puzzled gaze. “He doesn’t love me anymore.”

“That’s what—” He sounded almost harsh for a second, before closing his eyes and inhaling slowly. Calmer, he continued, “Did he say that he didn’t think you could fix it? That he didn’t want you to try?”

“No, but—”

“Then you still can.”

Ladybug envied Adrien’s faith in them. “Chat doesn’t even want to see me outside of akuma attacks. He said he needed space.”

“I didn’t mean— I thought that’s what people said when they were still upset, you know, when they can’t just go back and pretend nothing ever happened.” Adrien’s hands dropped into his lap. He sounded so lost. “Isn’t—isn’t that what you’re supposed to say then?”

And just like that, she was standing in the rain again as a doe-eyed boy offered her an old umbrella.

Most of the time, Adrien seemed so at ease with social situations that Marinette forgot that the sum total of his friendship experience before they’d met was Chloe. He probably really had no idea how resolving a fight between friends was supposed to go. Marinette had seen how Chloe and Sabrina made up when they fought, after all — thankfully, Adrien hadn’t bought into that model of friendship.

“Sometimes,” Ladybug admitted. “Sometimes it means, ‘Let’s take things slowly, I still want to be friends, but it’ll take time to get back to how it was before’ and sometimes it means, ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ I hoped it was the former at first, but…”

“But then he didn’t fist bump you,” Adrien finished for her.

“It wasn’t just that,” she admitted, twisting the edge of his towel in her hands. “He hasn’t exactly reached out, you know? And that’s the thing about asking for space — only the person that asked for it gets to decide when they’ve had enough space. You’re supposed to wait for them to tell you they’re ready.”

“Maybe… maybe Chat Noir doesn’t know that?” Adrien hedged. “Maybe he didn’t realize you were waiting for him to say something?”

Ladybug bit her lip and considered the possibility. “Don’t take this the wrong way, please, but Chat’s a pretty social guy. I’m sure he has plenty of friends that he’s fought with before.”

To her surprise, Adrien laughed. “Unlike me, you mean?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry about it, really,” he quipped before turning serious once more. “But what if you’re wrong? What if this is all new to him, and he doesn’t know what to say or when to say it? What if he’s scared, too?”

“What if I push him, and ruin whatever relationship we’ve managed to salvage?” Her tongue was thick in her throat and her words squeezed out thin as reeds. “He asked for space and I need to respect his boundaries.”

“Well, maybe he was stupid to ask for that. Maybe he regrets it.”

“He’s not stupid!”

Adrien ignored her outburst. “Maybe he doesn’t need any more space, but he doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe he was worried that if he told you he wanted to be more than your partner, that he wanted to be your best friend, that he’d wanted any place in your life you were willing to make for him, that you’d say you were happier the way things are, that keeping each other at arm’s length was exactly what you’d wanted all along—”

“Adrien!”

“Sorry,” he apologized immediately, shrinking down into the couch. “It was just a thought.”

Just a thought. There was no way that Chat Noir actually thought that, right? Hadn’t she reassured him? Wasn’t it obvious how desperately she missed him? That’d she do anything to get back to the way things had been six months ago?

That she’d do whatever it takes to make it up to him? That she’d put the pieces of his heart back together piece by piece, no matter how long it took, if only he’d let her close enough to do it? If only she knew how?

“You should tell him that.” Adrien’s voice interrupted her train of thoughts... which apparently weren’t thoughts at all, since Adrien had clearly heard her. “I think… I think he’d really… really like to hear that.”

He sounded a little bit like he was about to cry. Ladybug couldn’t understand why he’d been so affected by this, but she clung to his words anyway.

“Remind him how it used to be,” Adrien continued. “You and him against the world, a duo.”

Wait—

“Tell him again how much you were struggling, that you were falling apart, that you never meant to leave him alone and in the dark, that you’re sorry it took so long to tell him why.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore; his gaze fixed on a framed picture across the room.

She recognized the picture — it was one she had on her own corkboard from the day she and Alya had tagged along with Nino to keep Adrien company at the Grévin wax museum. Marinette herself stood on one side and Adrien on the other, with Alya and Nino between them.

(She should’ve stood next to Adrien when Alya suggested it. Should’ve done a lot of things differently.)

There was no way Adrien knew just how fitting his visual target was, not unless — well, not unless it was even more fitting than Ladybug knew. Was he…?

“If you told him that, he’d understand,” Adrien continued, oblivious to the slow realization struggling to emerge in her mind as he spoke. “You wouldn’t be pushing him. He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t think so. I think he’d be relieved to know he hadn’t made you wait too long, that he—”

Overcome with a sudden burst of determination, Ladybug reached forward to grab his hands. “I’d wait forever.”

Adrien blushed.

In retrospect, that was probably an extremely bizarre response on Ladybug’s part if her hunch was wrong. She released his hands.

“Oh, um,” he murmured and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sure forever isn’t really necessary.”

“I hope not.” Ladybug hoped her smile was more reassuring than it felt. “But he should know that I would. That I want him as my partner and more, that I’d make space for him in any part of my life he wanted, that I hate the way things are now and all I want is to be closer.”

“What if…” Adrien’s eyes searched hers, green and glimmering, and she called on every bit of strength she had to not look away or backtrack, to look back at him and let him find whatever he was looking for. “What if he said he wanted all of it?”

He leaned in closer, reaching to envelope one of her hands between his own. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart was pounding against her rib cage so hard that she’d be surprised if Adrien couldn’t hear it.

“What if he wanted to be in every part of your life?” Adrien sounded a bit breathless too.

“Then I’d let him in.” This time, the words slid out like butter. For once, she knew exactly what she wanted to say. “And I’d tell him I wanted to be in every part of his life too, as soon as he was ready.”

“I’m ready whenever you are, milady,” he whispered back.

Much later, Adrien would tell her that he’d said that expecting an identity reveal, but apparently they hadn’t worked out all the kinks in their communication just yet.

Still, he didn’t complain when she decided to kiss him instead.

And she didn’t complain when he kissed her the next morning at school, either.

(Did he really have to look that pleased with himself when Alya dragged her off to interrogate her, though?)

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous fanfic #ladynoir #ladrien #ml spoilers #noodles writes

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nobodyfamousposts · 4 years

Text

New York Special Salt: Confrontation

So....kind of had a thought on whether certain parties would respond poorly to discovering the stunt Alya and Nino pulled.

Salt to follow. Don’t like salt or characters being called out, don’t read below the cut:

"Wait. Wait. Wait." Adrien held up a hand to get their attention while cradling his head with the other. He couldn't believe this. He didn't want to believe this.

But he couldn't ignore it, he realized, as he lowered his hand and gave Alya and Nino a glare.

"Did you seriously lock us in a room with a fake supervillain just to see us make out?”

Nino floundered. Alya, however, went on the defensive.

"We were just giving you two a little alone time."

Neither Adrien nor Marinette looked happy with that response.

"I'm seeing someone!" Adrien exclaimed.

"I'm trying to move on from him!" Marinette cried.

Adrien balked at that. "Wait, you like me?"

"You're seeing someone!" Marinette repeated. "I couldn't just get in the way of that! I like you and Kagami is my friend!"

"At least someone cared about that." Adrien said, shooting Alya and Nino a dirty look.

“Nino, what the hell? You know I’m dating Kagami.”

The DJ winced. “I know. I just thought…well, you and Marinette have a lot in common.” He rubbed the back of his head. “And it’d be easier to double-date if it was the four of us and—”

Adrien glared, looking startlingly similar to his father.

“Alya made me do it!” Nino exclaimed, pointing to his girlfriend.

Alya turned on him in outrage. “Nino!”

This only made him turn on her, a full rant on his lips.

“Adrien!” Marinette started, moving in front of him and getting his attention. “It’s my fault! I like you and they knew that and they were just trying to help me—”

She was cut off at the abrupt way he turned to her and his intense stare.

“A…Adrien?”

“Marinette.” He stated, taking her hands in his own and smiling so sincerely at her.

“You are the kindest, most warm-hearted and honest person I know. It's what I've always admired about you. You apologize and try to make up for even the slightest of mistakes. You take full blame for things that aren’t completely your fault. You constantly help and defend people in need. You easily forgive others when they wrong you and try to help them regardless.”

In an instant, the warm sincere smile was gone. “I am asking you, for once: Don’t.”

“But—but it’s my fault—”

“Did you ask them to do this? Was this a plan you were in any way part of?” He questioned her.

“Well, to be fair I have made some pretty convoluted plans in the past—”

“Marinette.”

Her name was sharp on his tongue. Brokering no argument. Demanding a simple answer.

She winced.

“No.” She mumbled, a mix of bitterly for the truth and guiltily for the lack of defense for her friends.

“Then for once, let me stand up for you.”

…well.

…What could she say to that?

She allowed Adrien to gently push her behind him as he squared off with Alya and Nino.

“You lured us into a room with no idea what was going on. You trapped us there and had us think we were in danger. You created a villain that made us believe no one loves us—which even with the fact that we weren’t ‘technically’ in danger, was a rather cruel thing to do.” He spat out, sounding especially hurt.

All three of those present winced.

“What part of any of this seemed like a good idea?” He demanded.

“We were just trying to give her a chance—”

“Did you even ask her? Or me? At what point did either of us tell you that being forced into an anxiety-inducing and potentially life-threatening situation was on our to-do list for this trip?”

“But it wasn’t life-threatening! Neither of you were hurt!” Alya pointed out.

Like that excused it. Like that made this any better.

“You didn’t know we wouldn’t be, Alya! We didn’t know what was going on! We could have hurt ourselves trying to escape!” He countered, practically seething at this point. “What were you thinking?!”

Alya narrowed her eyes and steeled her resolve.

“Marinette was going to give up on you before either of you had a chance to see if it would work! I had to help!”

The pigtailed girl covered her face with her hands. “I was trying to move on, I promise!”

“And you couldn’t try talking?!” He shouted back at Alya. “You couldn’t just TELL ME?!”

“Chill out, man. Marinette tried.” Nino spoke up, trying to defend.

“I didn’t mean for this—” Marinette cried. “I just wanted a good trip as friends!”

Alya rolled her eyes. “Marinette tried many times, but she always flaked out at the end, so I just tried to set up a stage she couldn’t run from at the last minute—”

“Then why didn’t YOU just tell me yourselves if it was that damned important?”

Suddenly, everything went quiet. Marinette looked up, tearful.

Nino backed up, warily.

Alya…actually looked a bit pale.

Adrien was shaking at this point, but forcing himself to remain steady.

“You both knew Marinette liked me. Fine. Sure. Apparently she was having trouble telling me this. That’s okay. You knew she felt this way and was having trouble telling me. I get that.”

He glared.

“What I don’t get is why it was necessary to go THIS far instead of just TELLING me what was going on yourselves?!”

“Marinette didn’t want to—”

“But she wanted to be stuck with me on a plane to the point of a panic attack? She wanted to be shoved in a room with me? She wanted to feel threatened with a supervillain attack on top of the anxiety of being pushed to confess to me? If she couldn’t tell me and you two weren’t going to tell me, then WHY BOTHER WITH THIS AT ALL?! What was all of THIS supposed to accomplish that simply telling me yourselves wouldn’t?”

“We…” Alya hesitated. “I was just trying to help.”

“If you wanted to help, you would LISTEN to your best friend when she tells you what she wants!” Adrien shouted, gesturing to Marinette. “She just said she wanted to move on! She wanted to NOT have to confess! She wanted to just try and be friends! And yeah, I’m shocked and a little frustrated that I never caught on to any of her feelings before now, but that’s because I’m a teenage boy who is new to feelings and I didn’t know about hers!”

He glared at Alya.

“What’s your excuse?”

Silence.

It took a moment for Adrien to force himself to calm.

“I’m in a relationship. I do not want to cheat on Kagami. Marinette doesn’t want to disrupt what we have. Forcing us into a locked room together to force her to confess when she’s not ready and doesn’t want to would not result in any sort of happy or healthy relationship between us due to those factors. Which you both should have known.” He said, shooting another glare at them.

“But—”

“I’m still new to how friendship works. But this…this isn’t how a friend acts. You don’t push a friend into a position they’re not comfortable with. You don’t discourage them from doing what’s healthier for them. And you don’t keep setting them up to fail.”

Alya gaped. “I…I don’t want her to fail!”

“You aren’t helping her to succeed.” He pointed out. “And if you truly think that forcing these situations neither of us are comfortable with is supposed to be necessary, then maybe you should rethink why this is really so important to you.”

Adrien took Marinette’s hand in his and started leading her to the door.

If the situation were different, maybe Marinette would have felt her heart flutter. But as it stood, she could barely tell over the way it was pounding in her ears from the anxiety and stress of this whole situation.

“I’m going to take Marinette. And we’re going to talk about where we stand as friends.” He shot a final glare at the other two.

“Maybe you should consider the same.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

#ml salt #ml special #ml drabble #alya salt #nino salt

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the-fusionist · 3 years

Note

Give me damianette fluff or jasonette fluff with a song

A/N: Hello, all! I am back! This is a very late answer, which I'm sorry for @rebecarojas07. But, it's here now! I went a little off from the prompt and it's a little angsty in the beginning, but it gets better! Also, constructive criticism is welcome, since its been a while. Also, no beta, we die like Jason Todd. I wrote 1800 words just now and I am hoping they mesh well together.

Warnings: Some cursing, slight angst, cheating, hand holding, and kissing

Song: PUBLIC - Make You Mine

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Marinette cried as she sat on the rooftop while Tikki hugged her.

She was here in Gotham as Ladybug in order to deal with a crisis involving a missing miraculous with Zatanna and Batman, along with several other American heroes she had gotten to know. The mission had taken her a month and she had needed to go undercover for a large portion of the mission, severing contact with her boyfriend, Adrien Agreste. It should all have been fine, they trusted each other.

Now he’s a former boyfriend.

Alya Cesaire was a rock in Marinette’s life, and she was always there for her. If it hadn’t been for Alya Cesaire, her most reliable confidante, the break up might have never happened so soon and she would have stayed oblivious. If it hadn’t been for Alya’s pictures, Marinette would probably have never believed it herself. Five pictures of Adrien Agreste and Lila Rossi, making out on several different occasions.

She wanted to believe it wasn’t true, but if she was being honest with herself she should have seen it coming. Heck, Tikki had seen it coming. They had been having more arguments as of recently. And the time that she had spent apart from Adrien on a mission had simply driven them further apart from each other. She thought back to the times she had complained to Adrien about how Lila was always so touchy with him during photoshoots, he said that it was all business that he couldn’t avoid because of his father. That she was overreacting and being too clingy. That there was nothing between him and Lila.

But those pictures existed. They were in broad daylight, and both Adrien Agreste and Lila Rossi seemed to have no shame, acting in public spaces. She sent one text to Adrien.

We're over.

The message was read, and there was no reply.

That was a month ago. Marinette was getting better, very slowly. Plagg and Tikki stuck with her and supported her, but Marinette still had some nights where she refused to talk to anyone and cried alone. She had set up an arrangement with her parents so she could stay in Gotham, as she needed time away from the city of love. She could never have been more thankful.

Especially when she saw the viral video of someone throwing a bag of flour at Adrien Agreste and Lila Rossi during a photoshoot. Marinette had burst out laughing when she saw the video, and she had a feeling her parents were behind it and had gotten away with it.

But still, sometimes there were days where she couldn’t shrug off the tears. They flowed freely as she swung her spotted legs from her seat on the edge of a random rooftop. She had finished patrol, and she had begun to think back to all the nights she used to spend patrolling Paris with Adrien. She felt her heart seize as she gazed out into the grey landscape of Gotham.

Well, I will call you darlin' and everything will be okay

Suddenly, she heard a throat clear behind her and a cough.

Turning around, she found herself staring at the Red Hood. She quickly wiped at her eyes in an attempt to hide that she had been crying. She had heard rumors of the Red Hood, especially of how he often murdered criminals and at some point in the past had been the leader of a criminal empire.

But, Batman trusted him. And she trusted Batman, so she should be able to trust him and this was a completely safe situation. At least, that’s what she told herself.

She heard him clear his throat again, and she realized she must have gotten lost in her thoughts. She focused back on him, albeit it was somewhat warily.

“Hello darlin’, shit wait, that was too cringey. Damn, I’m sorry.”

She felt her lips quirk upwards in a smile.

The Red Hood coughed, before holding out a steaming cup of coffee to her, and in a questioning tone asked, “Let me try again. You’re Ladybug, right? I saw you having a moment here earlier while I was on patrol, so I just wanted to give you this and offer an ear to listen to you rant if you want?”

Marinette felt her heartbeat quicken, and she felt herself blush under her mask as she replied, “Thank you so much. You’re the Red Hood, right? It’s nice to meet you. And yeah, I would like to rant, that would be super nice.”

So he sat down next to her. She doesn’t know what made her do so, but she told him almost everything. How her former boyfriend had cheated on her while she was on a mission, and how she felt so betrayed when she found out. She told him all about the loneliness and the bitter homesickness she constantly felt.

And he listened, without pity. He listened to every word she spoke, nodding at the right moments of her story, reassuring her she was right, and cussing out Adrien Agreste with her.

That was the first time she met Jason Todd, the man underneath the helmet of the Red Hood.

'Cause I know that I am yours and you are mine

Several months passed, and their relationship progressed from there. The two fell into comfortable friendship and eventually revealed their identities.

But, Marinette couldn’t deny that she had caught herself blushing as she stared at Jason during training or patrol, admiring him.

It was a similar situation for Jason. He still curses himself for the time that Marinette had smiled at him as she swung by during patrol, and he had been so caught up with staring at her dazzling smile that he didn’t notice himself walk right off a building. He was fine, his pride bruised more than anything else.

The point was, they fit well together. They bantered and seemed to constantly toe the line between friendship and something more, to the point where others began to take notice. Jason’s siblings teased him, while Alya and Nino would give Marinette suggestive looks over facetime whenever she mentioned Jason.

They got along so well, and everyone could see it. Marinette and Jason were also starting to believe it themselves. Marinette felt that she was his, and Jason knew that he was hers. They had each other wrapped around their fingers, without even realizing.

Doesn't matter anyway

Marinette was on patrol with Jason when she checked her phone and tears of anger welled up in her eyes. It was a message from Adrien.

Lila and I are over now. We should get back together now, I miss what we had.

Jason saw Marinette’s face change, and he felt angry too when Marinette showed him the text. Adrien Agreste was fucking pathetic.

“Who does he think he is? He thinks he can cheat on me and get back together? He doesn’t even have a place in my life anymore. He doesn’t even matter to me anymore.”

“You don’t need that fucker, Marinette, like how dare he act like you guys can get back together after what he did? Honestly, he’s fucking pathetic. I bet he’s sitting all fucking alone in his apartment after breaking up with Lila, thinking he matters to you. What a pretentious shit stain.”

Marinette felt herself move before she could properly think about what she was doing. Jason hadn’t anticipated her action, and he felt himself let out a small laugh of surprise when he felt Marinette hug him, her face pressed into his leather jacket.

He couldn’t help but softly smile when he heard a muffled, “Thank you, Jason, for being here for me.”

In the night, we'll take a walk, it's nothing funny

Marinette heard a knock on her apartment window. She walked over and opened it to find Jason standing on her fire escape, giving her a sheepish smile.

“Jason, it's 2:00 a.m. and it isn’t even a patrol night? God damn it, Jason, I know that I don’t sleep at night, but what could you want right now?”

Jason’s smile grew brighter, “Want to get waffles and coffee?”

Marinette’s mood quickly changed, and she felt her lips quirk, “You want me to go out in the dark, all alone with you, to get waffles and coffee?”

“No funny business, just waffles and coffee.”

Marinette laughed before she quickly threw on a jacket and joined Jason on the fire escape, before descending down with him and beginning their moderate walk to a nearby café.

Just to talk

On the way, they talked about anything and everything. Books, fashion, superhero business, you name it. They were at peace.

Put your hand in mine

As they walked into the café, Jason noticed another man, who looked like he was in his early twenties, eyeing Marinette. He felt jealousy crawl up his spine, and he knew his eyes were flashing green at the moment.

Marinette had noticed, though she pretended not to. She also tried to pretend not to notice when Jason casually slipped his hand into her own, though she knew she was furiously blushing. Jason was flustered too, and she heard him stutter as he gave his order to a waitress.

For the rest of the night, their hands remained clasped. Tikki was giggling quietly from the inside of Marinette's purse.

You know that I want to be with you all the time

Though they never directly spoke about the hand holding, the two of them definitely gradually spent more time with each other.

They frequented various cafes and libraries and stores, in and out of costume. Someone once swore they saw the Red Hood and Ladybug at a movie theater throwing popcorn at each other. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before they got together, and several bets were made.

You know that I won't stop until I make you mine

Flash forward a week, and Marinette has asked Jason out on a date. He says yes. They’re both bright red when they enter the café, and this time their hands are clasped from the moment they enter.

The same waitress recognizes them, and she asks who asked the other out. She quickly finds out that Marinette made the first move. When she goes back to her place behind the counter, Marinette and Jason see a coworker slide her twenty bucks. They laugh, and enjoy the rest of their date, content with each other’s serene presence.

Until I make you mine

After they leave the café, a strong gust of wind blows. Marinette slightly shivers under the bite of the wind, before she feels a large warmth envelope her. Jason’s leather jacket is draped over her shoulders, and the man in question is gazing at her lovingly.

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said before she reached up and pressed a warm kiss to his lips.

The End!

TAG LIST: @theatreandcomicfreak @18-fandoms-unite-08 @mochegato @princessanimeangel11 @maribatlife

If you would like to be tagged in other works in the future, please let me know!

#jasonette #marinette x jason #jason todd x marinette dupain cheng #maribat au #maribat #ml x dc au #ml x dc #ladybug x red hood #jasonette fluff #slight angst

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bugsy-maria · 3 years

Text

Chat Noir x Reader Part 1

Superhero Name: Togo

Kwamii Name: Balto

Miraculous power: Creation of nature

Miraculous: Bracelet with wolf tooth

Costume: High pony with big poofy hair that goes to the back of your knees to represent a tail, faux wolf fur tube top, black skirt, and thigh-high boots.

Part 1 Part 2

I pushed myself back up from the ground upon which I fell upon. I looked back to the scene and saw the fight it had knocked me down. thus was the third time this week that this baby got akumatized, it gets tiring fighting the same person over and over you know.

Ladybug got the last hit with a ladle somehow and caught the Akuma. I dusted myself off and ran to Cat. ladybug was already on her way to feed her Akuma and meet us back at the top of an old flower shop downtown.

"Ready to go Togo?" he smiled his signature smile, one arm was held out for me and the other was holding onto his rod.

"Of course." I laughed, letting him wrap his arm around my waist and we were on our way. it didn't take long for us to get the to top of the roof.

"You did well out there today you know." Chat spoke, sitting on the edge letting his leg dangle beneath him and the other was bent letting his armrest on it.

"I know but it sucks to run in these darn boots all the time." I sat next to him

"I bet." not long after what was spoken, Ladybug swung her way to the roof and landed gracefully as always. we just talked, and by we I mean they. I might have said two maybe four things during that whole conversation.

"Well I better get going." ladybug stood up.

"Must you go so, early baby?" I looked over at Chat with a questionable look in my eyes.

"What happened to bugaboo?" Ladybug looked at him with the same look I had.

"I just thought we should take this relationship of ours to the next level is all," he smirked

"In your dreams chat," she smiled, "bye-bye," she said over her shoulder before yo-yoing off into the night.

"Why do you even try?" I smiled, though I was hurt on the inside. every time he called her one of the pet names he gave her I felt a pang all over my body.

"I have to, she's the only girl I ever felt this way for." he gently clawed at the spot of his chest that was over his heart.

"Really?" my eyebrow cocked

"Yup, I never really ever was around people so I never felt this kind of feeling."

"Not even to your own parents?"

"It's different."

"Well I know how you feel, the only people I knew growing up were the ones I had to model or act with that day. I hated it. but I met someone who makes me feel like that too."

"Really?" he seemed surprised

"What? you think I can't like anyone like that?"

"No, I don't think that at all, it's just you don't really show much affection to anyone."

"Trust me I do, just not when I'm Togo, I can't. if hawkmoth found out that I actually cared for you and Ladybug then he could use that against me."

"I guess you're right." he looked at the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

"Welp, I gotta go." I stood up, walking to the fire escape in the back.

"See you tomorrow?" I heard him ask from the ledge behind me.

"We'll see!" I shouted over my shoulder, before jumping down the fire escape. I ran down the alley and all the way over to the alley behind Marienette's family's bakery.

"Balto, stop running," I mumbled under my breath, making sure no one is to hear me. once I'm back to my civilian self, I walk out of the alley and make my way into the bakery. I walk to the back and up the stairs to the actual living quarters.

it seems like Mari's parents are here right now because they aren't at their usual spot on the couch. I walk up to Mari's room, ready to help her. I push open the door.

"Ready for Plan-Get-Adrien-To-Like-You-Back?" I wasted no time in asking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Just think about Adrien," I begged, walking out of the ice cream shop we went to on Saturdays.

"I already told you (Y/N), Marinette and I are just friends. besides she doesn't like me like that."

"You don't know anything!" I shouted at him playfully.

"You're acting like a child." he laughed.

"Because you don't want to go out with mommy!" I cried in a child-like voice

"Does that make me your daddy then?" he smirked at me, making me laugh my ass off.

"Of course not, that title is only for Marienette to call you." I licked my ice cream, taking a seat on a park bench, hearing him choke on air.

(THIS IS A KIDS SHOW AND I'M RUINING IT WITH MY DADDY KINK!!!!)

"Besides, look at these pictures I photoshopped of you two together," I showed him my phone that was filled with pictures of him and Marinette.

"(Y/N), she's just a friend." his voice sterner than it was before.

"If you say so," I continued to scroll through my phone until I landed on a picture of Adrien and Marinette dancing at Chloe's party held earlier in the year. "But tell me, is this you?" the picture was of Adrien looking into Marinette's eyes with love. you cannot make that up!

"That's nothing, friends dance all the time." Every time he said friends I got madder and madder, they were made for each other and he was choosing not to see it!

"This isn't because you're still in love with Ladybug right?"

"Of course not! I-I'm over her!" he shouted, clearly caught off guard.

"Fine." I sighed.

"Why are you trying to get me to go on a date, but you cant even ask your crush out?" he jokingly smirked at me.

"Don't switch this up on me!" I smacked his shoulder playfully, "Besides, he likes someone else but they don't like them."

"Well still be there for them, show them that you are interested so when they finally realize that the other person isn't right for them, then they will turn to you because you would have always been there for them."

~~~~~~~~~~

"That was amazing work," I smiled at chat, "I think it deserves a kiss." I smiled wider.

"I don't think so," chat hopped up on a nearby building as Ladybug shouted,

"Miraculous!" which cause a swarm of ladybugs to fix all messes in downtown Paris.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Adrien, he still doesn't like me! I don't know what I'm doing wrong." I groaned, my neck bent off the side of his bed.

"He's just blind (Y/N), I mean how could he not like you back? just look at yourself." he crouched down to my eye level.

"Well, the girl he loves is much better in a lot of areas." I flung myself to sit upon his bed, minding not to hit him with my face.

"Well don't give up on him, I'm sure he'll come around." he smiled taking a seat next to me.

"But what if he doesn't?" I leaned my head on his shoulder.

"What happened to you? you have never been one to give up so easily." he wrapped his arm around me, stroking my hair. "You must really love him, huh?" I nodded. "Then don't give up so easy, if you love him as much as you say, then keep trying. who knows when this might happen again?" he looked at me in the eyes.

"I'll try."

~~~~~~~~~~

once again, like every day that has long since passed, ladybug rejected the rose the Chat tried to give her.

"I love roses y'know," I spoke next to his ear. my head hovering over his shoulder.

"Why do you keep trying?" he looked at me, a hint of annoyance in his stare.

"The same reason you go after Ladybug even though she rejects you every time." I stared into his eyes. it hurt to see that I was the one causing the annoyance he holds. "You can't give up on the person you hold so much love for. it's special and you never know when it's going to happen next."

~~~~~~~~

"What do you think our kids would look like?" I questioned Chat out of nowhere, as we stood at the top of a building, watching the ladybugs fix everything. "I mean it's not like cats and wolves mesh well together."

"Will you ever stop?"

"Nope." I popped out.

"Look I couldn't ever love you. I don't even know who you are."

"You don't know who Ladybug is either, but you sure do love her." the response was quick and not thought of fully when it came out.

"It doesn't matter who ladybug actually is, because I know that I will love her no matter what."

"Ok, but what if Ladybug was actually your best friend in real life. what if you found out that your best friend, who you never thought of as anything more than a friend, was Ladybug. would you love them as for who they are in real life outside of all of this or would you only love them because they are Ladybug." and as soon as I finished and Chat's face was that of utter confusion, Ladybug plopped down next to us.

"What are you two arguing about now?" she said jokingly.

"Just about how one day he's going to fall for me." I grinned.

"Oh please, you wish." Chat pulled a rose out and stretched it out to Ladybug, causing her to roll her eyes at him and my heart to break a little bit more.

~~~~~~~~

"I told you to stop trying!" I heard chat shout.

"I can't give up on my love for you so easily!" I shouted back

"You don't love me! It's ladybug and me against the world! we are made for each other! she will love me one day." the rain around us intensified.

"You've created a world that you and ladybug live happily, I made one too. which is why I can't just give up, just like how you don't."

"Yeah see the only difference is that Ladybug will love me one day. I could never love you!"

"You could you just don't want to let Ladybug go!" my wet hair felt 1000x heavier when pulled back in a high pony.

"I love her too much to let her go!" his eyes were full of anger at this point. I knew that I was the one to cause this, I just don't know how to fix any of this.

"And I love you too much to let you go!" my powers started to get a tad bit out of hand when it started to hail, the streets started to resemble that of a river.

"Then stop it, I could never love you. I hate you Togo!" he screamed, causing my heart to shatter and the hail to fall harder if possible.

he ran off the roof. the roof that I had chosen to tell him all of my feeling for him at. a roof that had a great view of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. now the view was ruined as it was too dark to see beyond street lights. Thunder was heard in the distance as my heart broke more and more. my heart was heavy and my tears mixed with the heavy rainfall. I screamed in pain till my throat bled, the screaming barely audible as it blended with the thunder. I fell to my knees as my hands gripped and pulled at the hair flat against my scalp causing the high pony to loosen. words couldn't describe the pain I felt, the best way to describe it is like in those romance movies where the man falls to the ground after running after the train that the love of his life took back home for a new job. I was that man, and the girl on the train was Chat except Chat is taking a train to the love of his life so all I could do is suffer and long for a hug from him like what he used to give me when I felt down.

I felt weak, I felt tired, but most importantly I felt unable to move or even make a sound anymore. I felt broken. hell, I didn't even panic nor did I even try to fight off the Akuma that made its way to me.

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flightfoot · 3 years

Text

Marinette (unknowingly) attempts to use some of the same coping mechanisms Adrien does, she’s just not very good at it - and that allows her to get the support she needs.

In Gang of Secrets, Marinette’s breaking down underneath the strain of the secrets she must keep, on the ways that they interfere with her regular civilian life, as well as just having to keep secrets and lie to the people she cares about in general. Add in a breakup, and well... she’s not in good shape.

So what does she do?

She pretends to be fine.

She doesn’t tell anyone about the breakup.

When Alya catches her crying in the bathroom, she pulls out a pair of Groucho Marx glasses and twirls out of the stall, talking about how happy she is.

After defeating an akuma, she still seems to be looking around, trying to find some excuse to keep being Ladybug. However, her mannerisms are different enough from usual that Chat picks up on it, prompting him to ask her what’s wrong - but she’s still pretending (badly) that everything’s fine, and just wants to not talk.

She can’t stop from blowing up during the movie Chat takes her to though, ranting in a way that makes it obvious that she’s not talking about the movie, but her own circumstances. Chat tries to talk to her again, but she blows him off, pretending to be happy and just engaging in a distraction by going to the pool.

Even while at home afterwards, she... well, she’s obviously NOT fine, but she keeps on stating that she is, even while she’s laying depressed on her bed.

Trying to spend more time as a superhero in order to escape her civilian struggles, deflecting from her problems when asked, and pretending that everything’s fine, to the point that it’s not clear who she’s trying to convince, the people around her, or herself?

Now who else does that sound like?

Adrien’s smoother at it, better at downplaying his issues. He’s better at compartmentalizing and fooling not only himself, but others as well.

Adrien constantly escapes as Chat Noir when his civilian life isn’t going well. Glaciator for instance, where he eagerly sets up that dinner with Ladybug after his father made him cancel his previous plans with his friends and STILL stood him up. Or in The Collector, when he was just lectured by his father, pulled out from school, forbidden from seeing his friends, and his only hope of getting out of that situation is to find the Grimoire - and he doesn’t know where or how he lost it. And while the emotional toll from that is visible with Adrien, as Chat Noir, you would never know how sucky his day had been - he just joked around like normal.

But that also meant he didn’t get any emotional support for the situation, beyond what Plagg could give him. Ladybug certainly couldn’t try, since she had no idea there was a problem in the first place.

Heck, he’s good enough at hiding when something’s wrong that Marinette was really surprised in Glaciator, partly because he was sensitive, but also seeing him down like that. And in Chat Blanc... well, even the summary said that Chat Noir was the last person she thought could be akumatized.

And when she DOES inquire about his issues, when she does pick up on something being wrong, he tends to deflect. In Sandboy, after seeing Chat Noir’s nightmare version of her, one who screamed about how she didn’t need him, how she’d always wanted to get rid of him, Ladybug asks Chat Noir whether he really thinks she’s as evil as his nightmares. Chat Noir says of course he doesn’t, she’s the lady of his dreams.

But he doesn’t open up about why he had that nightmare. Technically he answers the question she asked, but not the unspoken, implied question - why was his nightmare like that? And in doing so, so smoothly, so assuredly, Ladybug never thinks to question further.

Which means it doesn’t get resolved either. Not until around the New York Special, when Chat Noir actually DOES have a breakdown, and Ladybug gets an idea of exactly how much her approval means to him - and how much it devastates him when he thinks she doesn’t want him anymore.

And even more recently, Adrien ALSO went through a bad breakup - arguably worse than Marinette’s, since Kagami was one of the few people he could consistently spend time with, and they not only broke up, but he lost her as a friend as well. But you couldn’t tell that from his attitude during Gang of Secrets, when he appeared mostly okay - as Chat Noir, anyway. Though he DID talk about knowing what heartbreak felt like.

He’s not breaking down. But he’s not getting support either. He can’t, because no one knows that anything’s wrong in the first place.

Of course, it makes sense why he has these coping mechanisms - he hasn’t been able to rely on getting outside support when he looks like he’s breaking down, unlike Marinette. It’s unknown how Emilie responded when Adrien was troubled or upset about something, but Gabriel isn’t exactly supportive when Adrien expresses negative emotions, and it’s not like a squad of friends can come over to the Agreste mansion at the drop of a hat to provide support - he HAS to be able to cope mostly by himself.

He does, notably, open up to Plagg - the one person who’s aware of all sides of him, who he never has to hide anything from. But there’s a limit to how much Plagg can help.

Ultimately, as good at Adrien is at using his coping mechanisms and as successful as they’ve been at keeping him functional and at maintaining his emotional wellbeing, even in terrible circumstances, I hope that he gets to have a breakdown eventually, like Marinette had - and get relief like she did as well.

#ml analysis #gang of secrets #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #miraculous ladybug #ml spoilers

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emsylcatac · 3 years

Text

What the future holds, we'll never know

Summary

Marinette didn't know what the future was made of—but the glimpse of the one featuring her akumatised partner she had seen taught her one thing: she and Chat Noir should never be together.

Which currently wasn't really a problem considering that she was in love with Adrien, and that they had been getting closer lately.

Read it on AO3

Hiiii @ladynoirist Lisa gemini bro ♥♥♥ I was soooo happy to be your totally secret (yes pretend you never guessed it was me okay I was so subtle) santaaaa for the @mlsecretsanta !!! (also pretend we're totally in December and not in May ho ho ho! Reindeers are still roaming!)

I'm so sorry for how late I am, but I hope you'll enjoy this fic 😄

───※ ·❆· ※───

21st of January, 1h after the reveal

Marinette stood in front of the bistro door, pacing. Pretending to look at the menu, pretending to think of what to choose, pretending that everything was absolutely normal and fine and this was just a perfectly normal day.

It was, however, not normal nor fine inside her head.

She had to push that door. She was already a good half an hour late and it wouldn’t do good to make her friends wait longer—excuses were harder and harder to explain the more she shied away.

Please, don’t be here. She never thought she would hope for that. Please have your bodyguard bring you home. Your father forcing you to go home.

Please, go home by yourself and find some stupid excuse.

She would feel bad for having all these unfair hopes if she hadn't been feeling completely panicked inside.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Gulping, she chanced a glance at it.

Alya girl where are u?? we’re waiting to order!

Well. She couldn’t delay for much longer. Taking a deep breath, Marinette pushed the door open and scanned the room.

Please, please don’t be inside.

She wasn’t being fair, she knew that—it wasn’t his fault if she didn’t feel like facing him.

“Marinette!”

She turned in the direction of her name where Alya was waving at her, hand held up high, while Nino was grinning and—he was there.

Swallowing—though her mouth had been dry for a while now—Marinette headed towards them despite her legs screaming at her to turn around and run as fast as possible away from here.

“H-hey,” she stuttered, “sorry for...for being late.”

She sat next to Adrien (because of course she had to be seated next to him). Their eyes met for a split second and he gave her a timid smile that she couldn’t return.

“It’s fine,” Alya waved off, “the most important thing is that you’re here now! But quick, choose what you want to eat, I’m staaarving!”

She, for one, clearly wasn’t.

Adrien was giving her quick glances and she tried her best to ignore him.

It was him, it was him, it was him.

And it was oh so unfair. She picked up her menu to hide her face as tears threatened to escape the corners of her eyes.

───※ ·❆· ※───

5th of October, 108 days before the reveal

“Try that.”

Marinette turned around, abandoning the search for her size amongst the many red skirts on the clothes rail.

Adrien was holding a tacky glittery dress, reflecting the light of a multitude of disharmonious colours, supporting two red fabric-flowers on each shoulder straps. It was positively horrendous, the kind of clothes you wonder who would ever buy when passing in front of it in the store.

She looked up to Adrien’s innocent smile and had to bite down the disgusted expression she suspected she must have shown for a split second. She hoped he hadn’t noticed—the last thing she wanted was to offend him. Growing-up in the fashion industry didn’t make him a good judge in the field, it seemed.

“I… You want me to...to try that on?” she stammered.

He gave her a nod, humming enthusiastically.

Maybe it was the kind of dress Adrien saw on girls at fashion shows, and she just hadn't seen it before. Maybe he liked it on them.

Maybe he would find her pretty in it.

Against her better judgement (because her judgement was always lost when it came to him, wasn’t it?), Marinette stretched a hand towards the piece of clothing, gulping. She raised her eyes to his, offering a tight smile.

Adrien’s mouth twitched, and his eyes held a new mischievous glint that hadn’t been there a few seconds ago.

“You...you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” she said, deflating.

He burst out laughing, a genuine, happy laugh that reminded her of a certain day in the rain, and she couldn’t help but smile despite herself.

“You should have seen your face!”

He hadn't made fun of her in a while—in fact, he hadn’t laughed at her since that day, in the rain. The thought of him being comfortable enough with her to allow himself to do it again made her cheeks heat up.

“I could...I could call your bodyguard or...or your dad! Yes! I could call your dad and out you, you know!” she threatened, fighting back the nerves that always messed up her words when she spoke to him.

She wouldn’t mess up today.

It stopped Adrien momentarily and suddenly he was pleading her, begging with joined hands.

“Marinette,” he said, and he did sound serious—she would have been convinced had his eyes not looked a tad too much like a kicked puppy’s, “please, you can’t do that. Please please please please, I’m sorry for ruining your shopping day and running into you and insisting to tag along and—”

Marinette giggled. “I’ll wear it,” she said, snatching the terrible (terrible!!) dress from his hands, careful to not brush his fingers and make it awkward. “Because unlike you who’s trying to hide, I’m no coward.”

Adrien straightened up. “I’m no coward either!”

She could feel her heart beating erratically in her chest. She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t gonna be nervous when talking to Adrien. Not again. Not this time. She could banter with him—this was known territory. Not with him though, never with him, but…

“Okay,” she crossed her arms. Her eyes scanned the different clothing items before landing on a pink plastic fur dress on a mannequin. “Prove it.”

He choked on a laugh before grinning at her. “Oh, you’re so on.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

16th of November, 66 days before the reveal

Adrien opened his diary, ready to write down the homework of the day Mrs Bustier was dictating.

The sound of ruffling papers and rummaging in bags filled the classroom, but he tried to focus on one sound in particular, resisting the urge to smile.

Any moment now.

Just a little longer before—

A loud groan resonated from behind him, and this time he let the grin slip onto his face, thankful that she couldn’t see it.

“What’s wrong?” Alya’s whisper made its way to his ears.

“Someone drew me with a towel on the head, swimming glasses and an ugly party dress!”

Adrien couldn’t help the snort that escaped him.

Teasing Marinette, he found, was very entertaining. He didn’t know exactly when he started to feel comfortable enough to do it. Didn’t know what exactly it was that was making it deliciously familiar yet all so new—and above all, warm.

Her reaction had been worth the wait. He silently delighted in the way she battled between raging against him and finding him hilarious (because with the way she giggled, or stammered, or even bit her lips the few times he had joked with her, before getting ahold of herself and teasing back, she had to find him hilarious, right?).

He guessed he deserved the ruler slap he received on the head.

Yes, Adrien liked her reactions, he thought while rubbing his head. He liked that new, teasing dynamic he’d been having with her for a couple of weeks now. He liked it.

But above all, he loved—

Adrien let a soft fond smile pull at his lips when he opened his diary that evening, once seated at his desk. A drawing quickly scribbled in the margin lit up by his many computer screens welcomed him of what he assumed was a new Gabriel ad featuring him in an atrocious fur dress coloured in fluro pink highlighter.

Above all, he loved her witty and sneaky comebacks.

───※ ·❆· ※───

8th of December, 44 days before the reveal

“What are you thinking about?”

Ladybug saw a smile stretch across her partner’s lips. He let out a fond chuckle, throwing his head up towards the sky. His eyes were closed, but she could tell that he was seeing more stars that way than if they had been opened looking up at the Parisian sky. She envied him a little.

“I’m thinking,” he simply said.

And didn’t say anything after that.

She waited a little, just in case, but he remained silent. His feet dangled above the edge of the roof and he started gently swinging his legs one after the other. He let out a breathless giggle, as if he couldn’t control it, and hummed a song her ears caught only because of the wind blowing towards her.

Her heart did a somersault in her chest at the sight. She felt a weird mix of emotions, not unpleasant but not entirely enjoyable either, bittersweetness and happiness mingling together.

He did look happy—but tonight it felt like she wasn’t a part of it. That he was in his own bubble of joy, a bubble she once had complete control over but, in that instant, was slipping through her fingers. If she was being honest, it had been slowly and subtly escaping her for a while now.

He was in love, she realised. Her gaze on him softened, before she turned away from him to look towards the sky, too, and exhaled a puff of hot air that dissipated in the cold and continued to grow as she joined him in his humming, closing her eyes.

If she wasn’t the one he was shining for tonight, she would still share that moment of exhilaration with him.

Besides, she had reasons to feel giddy herself too.

───※ ·❆· ※───

29th of December, 23 days before the reveal

“Hey.” Plagg’s voice wasn’t loud enough to pull Adrien out of his reverie completely, but enough to bring the cloud he was on a little bit back down to Earth. “You’ve been staring at the ceiling for the past twenty minutes now. What’s up?”

Adrien let the thread of his lucky charm pass through his fingers, feeling the beads between them rolling from one to another. “I have?”

Plagg stayed silent for a few seconds. “Yes. Are you alright?”

Adrien chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.” I have been for a little while now, he didn’t say.

Suddenly, he got up, walked towards his computer, picked up his phone from his desk and opened Instagram. His fingers quickly found Marinette’s name and pressed her icon to see her latest story. He smiled as a selfie of her and Alya appeared, and played it again once it was over.

“Ah. I see.” Adrien hadn’t noticed Plagg flying above his shoulder but he couldn’t care less. “You like her?”

“I love her,” he simply corrected.

“Really?! Planning on asking her out? Sweeping her off her feet?”

Adrien shook his head, chuckling. He put his phone back on his desk and let himself fall further in his seat, pushing his feet against the desk leg to propel himself back.

Marinette, Marinette, Marinette.

“We’ll see,” he stretched his arms above his head. “We’ll see what happens and when I feel that the time is right. I don’t want to mess it up. Not this time.”

Not with her.

───※ ·❆· ※───

11th of January, 10 days before the reveal

When she found Adrien waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs that morning, blushing, a hand rubbing the back of his neck, the other holding a yellow rose with red tips on the petals and stammering a simple yet powerful “I think I love you”, Marinette was glad she had been on time for school for once.

───※ ·❆· ※───

21st of January, 1h before the reveal

“I can’t believe you made me wake up at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning,” Marinette shook her head.

Adrien laughed and held her hand tighter as he pulled her along with him, striding alongside the Seine. “But you have to admit that it was worth it.”

Spending time with you is worth the world, she thought. I could wake up at five if that’s what you wanted. She didn’t say any of that out loud. They had only barely started dating, after all. It could scare him off.

Instead, she let half a smile pull at her lips. “I suppose.”

Adrien stopped in his tracks and turned to her. “It was worth it! It just snowed during the night—for once! It’s so rare, we have to enjoy it! And the sunrise was beautiful!”

She crossed her arms, pretending to think about it and evaluate her morning.

“It was,” Adrien insisted, pleaded for her to agree.

“Fine,” she conceded, giggling. “It was beautiful. I’m glad you forced me out of bed.”

She was rewarded by a brilliant smile, that melted her heart despite the cold January air on her cheeks, and a kiss on her forehead (that melted her whole).

A giddy laugh escaped her and she couldn’t help but kiss his nose, making him giggle, the sound sweeter than the glockenspiel a busker was playing a few meters away.

Adrien’s cheeks were red when she pulled away—from the cold or from her kiss, she didn’t know, but she hoped for the latter. She decided to grab his winter hat, leaving his hair all messy on top and wide eyes of outraged shock on his face. Adrien, she had realised, really liked when she was messing with him and she berated herself for never having dared to do such a thing before.

In retaliation, he grabbed her own hat and put it on his head. “Jokes on you,” he said, “now I have a pink pompom while you have a lame black one!”

She laughed as she put his hat on her own head. He likes me, she chanted in her head. He loves me even. He loves me, he loves me, and I love him. All was well that day. All was perfect.

“When are we meeting up with Alya and Nino for lunch, again?”

“I think we still have an hour,” Adrien replied.

It felt like nothing could disrupt their date, their day, them, really.

───※ ·❆· ※───

21st of January, the reveal

Accidents were stupid, most of the time. One second of miscalculation, one careless mistake and every neatly protected secret could be disrupted forever.

Detransforming in the same alleway was probably the stupidest, lamest and most careless way to reveal their identities, Marinette and Adrien thought, as they faced each other with wide eyes and heart beating too fast in their rib cages with their kwamis hanging incriminatingly at their side.

Marinette didn’t think. She ran.

───※ ·❆· ※───

21st of January, 1h30 after the reveal

To say the atmosphere was awkward was an understatement. They were barely glancing at each other, passing each other the salt without brushing a finger or looking where they handed it.

Marinette overfilled Adrien’s glass when pouring him some water; Adrien startled when Marinette’s hand accidentally brushed his arm while trying to clean his table up.

They were a mess.

In a way, Marinette was glad that Alya and Nino were here to provide distraction.

She just hoped they wouldn’t notice the tension between her and Adrien.

“So, how have you two lovebirds been doing? Still in the chummy-chummy phase?”

So much for that. There was an awkward silence, none of them knowing what to really say.

“Sure,” she decided to take the plunge and ate a mouthful of fries so she wouldn’t have to explain further.

Alya and Nino said nothing, looking between the two of them.

“We’ve been, uh…we went walking around the Seine this morning,” Adrien mumbled. “To see the snow and, uh…”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Marinette cut. She couldn’t believe she was managing to talk to him. “Y-your...your winter hat.”

She handed it to him and Adrien looked at it for a few seconds before taking it back, his face crumbling and disheartened.

“...Thanks. Um, here is yours, I suppose.”

Marinette closed her eyes tight as she snatched her hat from his hands, feeling nauseous all of a sudden.

Where did they stand, now? They had barely even started dating. Could they brush off the massive new developments that were their identities? Could superheroes even date?

White flashed before her eyes. Her heart did a somersault, and the nausea intensified, making her head spin.

Stupid. Idiot, superheroes couldn’t date, least of all her and Adrien.

It was unfair that she was having these thoughts now, when she still didn’t know what was going on in her head—Adrien, Chat Noir, her partner. The same… so similar yet so different.

He had given her a rose when he had confessed. It was such a Chat Noir thing to do...she should have known.

They were the same person and it was awkward and she needed time she didn’t get the luxury to have. The second she thought she had acknowledged this information, it would all come back the next with the panic accompanying it.

The silence following must have been long and heavy because Alya took in a sharp breath. “Okay. What’s going on between you two? You’ve been acting awkward since we’ve got here.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

23rd of January, 2 days after the reveal

“So, this is it?”

Adrien felt the knot in his throat tighten a little more and more as Marinette kept looking to the side, silent, avoiding his gaze. He didn’t know why he asked; he knew the answer. And he knew that hearing it would cut like a knife, but maybe that’s what he needed instead of foolishly pretending there was hope.

“This...this is it,” she finally said in a breath.

He swallowed. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated.

“I… okay.” Okay. Because what could he say? It wasn’t like he could decide for her.

If it was only on him, of course he wouldn’t want anything to end. Of course he would fight for them, and try and see where they’d go, identities be damned because...well, it was still them, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

“I’m sorry. I...I really am. It’s just… It’s…” Marinette sighed. “It’s just that it’s a lot to take in, you know?”

She had finally raised her eyes to his, and Adrien had to fight back tears; maybe it would have been better if she had continued to avoid him.

So he was the one to turn his eyes away this time.

“I guess,” he couldn’t help the bitterness in his voice to show through. “I just...I didn’t know it would be so bad.”

“It’s not! It’s not that! It’s just that… we still...we still need to get used to this,” she gestured between them, “and… superheroes ca—”

“—can’t date, I know. I understand. I mean—not completely, but... I get it.”

And he did; really, he did get it.

It was selfish of him, probably, to not want things to stop. He found that it was also maybe a little selfish of her to want them to.

None of them had decided to be heroes—and yet they had to bear the consequences of such a responsibility.

Looking back at her, she had now dropped down her eyes and wasn’t watching him anymore. A strong gust of wind blew on the balcony, making Marinette’s hair wave with it.

“It’s getting late,” Adrien spoke. “And you’re freezing out here. I should get going. We’ll see each other tomorrow at school.”

He extended his baton.

“Adri—Chat Noir! Wait!”

She grabbed his tail, stopping him in his tracks. He turned around. She was fidgeting, and looked tentatively into his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I hope it’s not...I hope it’s not too hard but…”

He sighed. “I’m not gonna lie and pretend it doesn’t hurt. It...it does. A lot. It’s like…” he sighed. “It’s like we had everything, and then…” He paused. “But I guess… none of us can control the way we feel, right?”

She nodded numbly. He attempted to give a smile, but he knew he wasn’t doing a good job at it.

“I just wished I knew what’s wrong with me, “ he murmured, voice barely above a whisper.

“I… it’s not… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you,” Marinette tried. He could hear her voice trembling. I don’t think there’s anything right with me either, he didn’t say—and she didn’t say either, he noted with a bitter smile. “We’re just a mess right now.”

She bit her lip and he had to force to keep his eyes on hers. He felt terrible. Worse than all those times she had rejected him, because—well, because now he knew just how much he was losing.

“That we are.”

“We’re still...we’re still friends, right?” she asked after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“It’s you and me against the world, so… of course.” He shrugged.

And with that, he left, finally letting the tears blur his vision on his way home.

Tonight, their old promise sounded more bitter than comforting. Them against the world, the heroes fighting for the city, forced together by their duty and pulled apart at the same time.

───※ ·❆· ※───

23rd of January, 2 days after the reveal

Marinette rushed back inside her bedroom as soon as Adrien had left and threw her head in her pillow, crying her heart out. Screaming to Tikki how unfair it was to have to be responsible, at Master Fu for choosing this life for her, at herself for following it, at Adrien and Chat Noir for being the same people.

Shouting at Adrien again, at another Adrien she hadn’t even really known that it was all his fault. His fault, his fault, his fault, all his fault. She knew it was unfair of her—but she needed to put the blame on someone, and Chat Blanc, who didn’t exist anymore, seemed like a good candidate, no matter how wrong she knew it was.

───※ ·❆· ※───

24th of January, 3 days after the reveal

“...My father wanted us to break up.”

Marinette shrunk on herself. She wished she had been able to come up with a better excuse on the spot. Anything that would have avoided Adrien’s cold and numb tone when he repeated her flimsily excuse.

But nothing sounded plausible enough; nothing else could explain this sudden change in their dynamic.

“It...it was a surprise, really, we weren’t expecting it,” she tried, hoping he would follow her lead.

Adrien clicked his tongue. “A surprise, indeed.”

“Aaaand you didn’t think of dating in secret becaaause…?” Alya drawled, the cease in her brow increasing the longer she looked between the two of them.

“Because… well… because…” Marinette fumbled, trying to think of a way out because Alya wasn’t wrong and it was a flaw in her carelessly crafted plan.

“Because Marinette didn’t want to,” Adrien supplied curtly.

Alya and Nino’s heads snapped towards her with incredulous looks in their eyes, making her involuntarily shrink on herself even more.

“She said it wasn’t worth a try,” he shrugged and sat down, his back now to her.

Alya looked between the two with a mix of worry, incomprehension and a hint of pity. Marinette didn’t dare look at Nino to see what emotions would flicker in his eyes.

“That’s not it, it’s…” she struggled, took a deep breath, and tried again. She had to roll with what he came up with. “If he were to find out we...we’d be in trouble. You’d be in trouble… and I don’t want that,” she whispered the last words.

“Like I said,” Adrien said coolly, half turning towards them. “Not even worth a try.”

Her heart crumpled.

───※ ·❆· ※───

26th of january, 5 days after the reveal

“Chat Noir, you’re here!” Marinette exclaimed, relieved.

He twirled his baton, deflecting a spurt of gooey green liquid she could only dread to know the composition of—some akumas truly were more disgusting than others to deal with. “As for every akuma.” He raised a brow. “Don’t act so surprised.”

She startled. In the midst of all the action, in the hope and wait for his arrival—because she always felt bolder and stronger once her partner was by her side—she had forgotten.

This was Adrien, her ex-boyfriend with whom she had broken up and had upsetted. And who still wasn’t talking to her much. Thinking about him as ‘ex’ suddenly hurt as she realised it was the first time she was referring to him as such in her head.

Marinette blinked back remorseful tears and tried ignoring the tightness in her chest to focus on the akuma again. She still needed to find where the akumatised object was, and she couldn’t let her emotions get in the way of her job.

She decided to pretend things were fine. “His name is Snowtty, we don’t know the victim but it’s a kid who was made fun of for having a runny nose after receiving a snowball in his face. Try to avoid his green spurts, they would freeze you on the spot!”

Adrien barely nodded before jumping into action, without so much as a word of acknowledgement like he would usually do. It hurt more than she would care to admit.

She knew they hadn’t talked since that evening on her balcony, but she had hoped he just needed time to process and that it wasn’t deeper than that. He had said they were still friends, hadn’t he?

Trying to ignore the sting in her eyes, she jumped after him into the fight.

“Ladybug! I see your pet has arrived to the scene as well,” Snowtty sneered. “All the better for me, I need both your miraculous after all!”

“I’m my own person, thank you very much,” Chat Noir said, none of his usual teasing in his voice. “And you won’t be getting any miraculous. Why don’t you give us your akuma instead and save everyone’s time? You’re just gonna lose like the others do, anyway.”

The akuma let out a growl of frustration and double-fired in their direction. Marinette ran for cover using her yoyo as a deflecting shield, Adrien using his baton.

He didn’t take cover with her.

She called him and was almost relieved when he picked up.

“Okay, he’s angrier than I thought he was. Any idea where the akuma could be?”

“You’re telling me you don’t?” he raised a brow. “He’s throwing his substance from that bracelet he has on his left wrist, and there aren’t any other objects.”

It seemed obvious now. But she wasn’t at the top of her game and was far too focused on her relationship with her partner than she was on the fight at hand, and she realised how detrimental it could be—not letting her personal life interfere with her duties as Ladybug was one of the rules she had promised herself to never break, yet here she was.

“Right,” she said, voice wavering. “I… Right. You’re right. Good job, Kitty.”

She regretted the nickname as soon as it left her mouth.

“‘tis nothing, Ladybug,” he shrugged. “Guess you cast your lucky charm and I distract him as usual.”

“Not yet, I need to first figure ou—” She let out a sigh as he ended the call, and turned to see him heading back straight for the akuma.

Well. The message was clear.

Throwing her yoyo angrily in the air, she called on her lucky charm. And was rewarded for her effort with an umbrella.

She wanted to scream.

She glanced up and closed her eyes, temporarily blinded by the brightness of the sun. “And it’s not even raining,” she grumbled.

She stomped away from her hiding place, only to be thrown on the ground a second after.

“Wha—”

Adrien was hovering over her and spared a glance behind towards Snowtty before standing and helping her up.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

But he ran back towards the akuma without so much as a glance in her direction. The momentary relief she felt when he saved her evaporated right away. She ran after him.

She hated how he could be upset with her in the middle of an akuma fight but still be able to focus on the task at hand. Because he was paying great care to the akuma and his surroundings and was trying to actively find a solution to put an end to the fight—something she had a harder time doing when her personal feelings were getting overwhelming. She couldn’t reproach him for that. It was just incredibly infuriating.

“Adri—Chat Noir, will you please talk to me and stop ignoring me?” Marinette exploded, frustrated. “It’s been two days and now is not the time!”

“Bold words from someone who ran away and avoided me for two days after discovering my identity,” Adrien snapped back, avoiding another blast of green.

Her heart stuttered painfully. He was right, but it made it no less hurtful to hear. She and Chat Noir had argued in the past, and while it had never been pleasant, it was something they knew how to navigate through — how to come out stronger from. She and Adrien, however? Never. She hadn’t even fathom the possibility of it ever coming up one day. Any comebacks she could have had died on her tongue, and Ladybug found herself speechless.

They both ran for cover once again behind the safety of a rooftop chimney, leaving Snowtty growling at having lost their track.

She swallowed painfully. “Listen. I know you’re hurt, I understand and you have every right to be. But we need to work together right now.”

He kicked some of the remaining snow from the roof, fidgeting with his hands. “I don’t know. I don’t think my father would approve of that.”

She frowned. “Of what?”

“Us working togeth—” he sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Sorry. Forget I said anything, that was rude. Let’s...let’s just get back to the fight. I’ll behave.”

She grabbed his hand before he could vault away. “Wait.”

“Ladybug, I don’t think we have the time to talk or—”

“And I think it’s important that we talk now,” she said, giving him a pleading look. “Please.”

He kept eye contact with her for a few seconds before glancing hesitantly towards the city, nibbling at his lower lip. “Okay,” he finally murmured.

She involuntarily squeezed his hand in relief. He didn’t squeeze back, but he didn’t take it away either.

She hadn’t taken the time to focus on her feelings for him in the midst of her freakout about his identity; the warmth of his hand and the tips of his claws barely grazing hers and enhancing its delicacy made her realise that if anything, they had only gotten stronger.

It was painfully heartwarming.

“Are you...are you still… upset, about us, um… about me… you know…” she gestured between them.

“Breaking up with me?” He shook his head. “No. I’m hurt, yes. But that’s your right. That’s not what I’m angry about.”

“Then what…” she trailed off.

He sighed. “I thought I had made it clear, but I guess not.” He paused and kicked some more snow. “I didn’t like you telling everyone that my father forced us to break up,” he mumbled, and she had to listen carefully to pick up every word.

She blinked. “That’s… it?” She threw her hands in front of her at the glare he sent her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong… I agree it wasn’t my best excuse, but we had to find one that sounded plausible and…”

“That’s the thing, Marinette,” he said. “You decided to use my father as your excuse without asking me first.” He wrapped his arms around himself and looked to the ground. “I know my father isn’t… isn’t the best and that he can be… a little strict, but… He wouldn’t do that.”

There was a beat of silence.

“He wouldn’t do that,” he repeated more quietly.

She didn’t know if he was trying to convince himself or her; but she didn’t know Gabriel Agreste much and thus couldn’t confirm nor refute his words.

He shook his head. “But the thing is… How would you have felt if I had told everyone that...that your parents had forced us to break up?” He lifted his gaze towards her, green eyes piercing through her.

“Oh,” she said, understanding dawning on her. “Oh. I see.”

“Yeah.”

“I hadn;t...I hadn’t thought about that,” Marinette admitted.

“Well.”He sniffed, angrily wiping at his eyes. “You should have.”

She hadn’t noticed that he was on the verge of crying, but she instantly felt shame coursing through her.

He kicked the snow harder. “And the worst part is… the worst part is that… it workedI he almost spat. “They...they believed your excuse. They didn’t even doubt it, they just….” He gestured with his hands .“...Bought it as if it was obvious and that...that hurt.”

She stayed quiet for a few seconds, taking it in. She didn’t want to start the conversation now as to why it had been that easy for their friends to believe his father would do such a thing—it was something that they would have to discuss another day. A day on which he’d be more ready.

“I’m sorry,” she finally whispered. “I panicked because I...I realised I hadn’t thought of a reason for our breakup. My mind was busy with something else.” She chuckled dryly with a hand gesture in the air. “But you’re right, I crossed a line and that’s not an excuse. I probably would have killed you if you had told them my parents were the reason for our breakup.”

A timid smile appeared on his lips. “Good thing it was just me, then.”

She giggled tearily. “Yeah, good thing. But still. I hope you can forgive me. I promise I’ll be more careful.”

He sighed. “You know I can’t stay mad at you for very long, Marinette. Thank you. And I apologise too. I… I probably overreacted. And I should have known better than to snap during a fight.”

She smiled. “It’s okay. But maybe now, don’t wait until there’s an akuma to talk to me. Now that we know each other’s identities, you don’t need to.”

“I think I needed time to… digest that. But you’re right, will do.”

They looked at each other, smiling shyly as an awkward silence settled between them.

“So, Ladybug,” Adrien spoke with a wobbly smile, glancing towards the lucky charm in her hands, “shall we go back to the fight so you can play Mary Poppins?”

It still wasn’t a ‘my Lady’ or a ‘Buguinette’, and there was no wink to accompany his teasing, but he was back to joking. She would take it.

“Of course.” She smiled. “But let me recharge first.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

15th of February, 25 days after the reveal

“Psssst, come here, kitty kitty! I just want to be your frien—”

Marinette groaned as the ginger cat ran away, joining a tabby cat further up the alleway.

A chuckle from behind her startled her. “Looks like you’re having cat troubles.”

She turned around to meet her partner’s cat-like eyes, and yes, she was having cat troubles, indeed.

“They don’t like me,” she just said.

Adrien seemed to search her eyes for a second or two, his expression unreadable. “You know that’s not true.”

She didn’t know if the conversation was about the cats in the street anymore, and she wasn’t sure whose fault it was. But soon after, Adrien shook his head, blond hair softly sweeping against his cheeks, and let a smile pull at his lips.

He crouched down, grabbed his belt tail and slowly moved it around.

“You need to let them come to you.”

Marinette watched the tail slither, half hypnotised by the movement, until she heard the soft tapping of his claws on the ground. His fingers drummed in a steady rhythm, and she couldn’t help but marvel at how delicate the motion was.

It seemed that some cats around agreed because, soon enough, one advanced towards him, while another had laid down and began wiggling his butt and tail, ready to pounce.

She looked back at Adrien and he was smiling widely at them, anticipating their every move and excited to see their reactions. He looked so happy, so carefree and her heart did a somersault at the sight — she knew that she shouldn’t think like this, but she wished she had been the one he was looking at. She wished she could be one of these kittens, ready to tackle him to the ground, so they could fall in a heap of laughter together. So they could suddenly stop, and gaze into each other’s eyes, getting lost in each other, and maybe, just maybe, lean a little bit closer and ki—

“Wow.” Adrien’s loud laughter shook her out of her reverie. “No need to bite me, little one!”

While a small grey cat had attacked his tail and was nibbling at it, rolling on the floor, another one was more focused on his hand.

The white one with blue eyes.

“Careful,” she told him, “that one’s nasty.”

Adrien continued to play with the cat, moving a finger around and hovering it above his nose that the kitten tried to take a mouthful of.

“What? Why do you say that?”

“Well, he bit you. And earlier, he scratched me. Good thing my suit could protect me or my arms would have been covered in blood,” she informed.

Adrien smiled. “That doesn’t make him nasty.”

She spluttered. “Wha—? How—of course it does! He’s a mean cat, trust me on this! All white cats with blue eyes are!”

He chuckled, giving him a fond look the kitten didn’t deserve. “Good thing I’m a black cat, then.”

She shuddered.

“And he’s not mean,” he went on, “he’s broken.”

Marinette frowned. “What do you mean, ‘broken’?”

Somehow, Adrien had managed to pet the cat on the head, making him let out a contented meow. “Cats who have been abandoned or rejected by their mother too young tend to be more aggressive,” he explained, a pained smile she wasn’t quite sure how to interpret. “They scratch and bite a lot because in a way, they’re kind of lost.”

He took him in his arms and kissed his nose, to which the cat answered with a small ‘meow’. Staying close to his face, he scratched under his chin that the cat was exposing happily to him as a sign of complete trust. Adrien’s smile melted when a purr rumbled out of the kitten, and Marinette hung on it with both fascination and envy.

He let out a breathy chuckle. “See? He just needs someone to show him they care.”

“Show him they care,” she repeated dumbly. She could do that. She coul— “What if...what if it still doesn’t change anything?”

Adrien’s gaze left the kitten to turn to her. “What do you mean?”

“What if...What if even if someone cares about him, and cares about him so much they would sacrifice their own happiness for him if it came to it, and shows him everyday and tells him everyday but he still…” She stopped, fumbling with her words for a second. “...He still keeps biting and scratching and feeling lost and alone a-and no one can save him?” She lifted her eyes to his, only to find her vision blurry.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about?” Adrien breathed.

“M-maybe, this cat is doomed from the start. Maybe he’ll be like that forever, no matter what and maybe they’ll all be like that and—”

“My Lady,” a hand landed on her shoulder, stopping her from spiralling further—and here it was, the ‘my Lady ‘she’d been craving for so much, at the most unexpected time. “That’s stupid. I’m not sure if it’s about cats anymore,” he chuckled, “but I’ll pretend it is.”

She blinked back tears. He kept on, “Yes, some of these hurt cats never change. But not all of them! You can never really know what will happen, how they’ll evolve, because they’re all different, and they’ll all live different lives.”

He smiled at her, his delicate hand never leaving her shoulder, while the other continued petting the purring white kitten. “We can’t guess what will happen to them. All we can do is try, and take the risk. And maybe the owners of this lovely kitty will be lucky and have a loving ball of fur”— he bopped the cat’s nose who in turn let out a small ‘meow’— “or they’ll be less lucky and have a little monster that—ouch,” he said, as the cat chased his bopping finger to bite it, “bite them from time to time but still would be worth caring for.” He sighed a chuckle.

Marinette swallowed, taking it in. “So you mean that… the future of this cat isn’t… set in stone?” she asked carefully.

“Of course not! No one can know what he’ll grow into now, it will depend on a lot of factors.” He took his hand off her shoulder to lift the cat off his lap and nuzzle his nose with his. “Isn’t that right, little one? You’ll be a good kitty, won’t you?”

She let a smile pull at her lips at the sight. Adrien turned to face her with a big goofy grin on his face.

“If our future was written in our DNA, we’d have known all about our futures a long time ago,” he chuckled.

She let his words sink in, closing her eyes. What if...what if.

What if their love wouldn’t destroy the world, this time.

But what if it did again.

...But what if it didn’t?

She heaved a sigh, releasing some of the tension that had been weighing down on her. When she opened her eyes, it was to see that Adrien was back to playing with the kitten.

“And what are we gonna call you, hm? Ooooh, I know! See, I’m Chat Noir, so that would make you Chat Bla—”

“—FLOCON!” Marinette interrupted him.

He blinked at her. “Chat Flocon?”

“No, just...just Flocon. He’s white as snow, and fluffy like a snowflake, so it makes sense. And,” she added after a beat, “it’s cute.”

And it reminded her of that date they shared, just before revealing their identities, strolling through a snowy Paris. It was a memory she cherished, even if it didn’t end quite well.

Adrien grinned. “Okay. Flocon it is.” He scratched the cat’s chin, who purred in turn and tried to bite his finger again. “No,” he told him, “I said no biting, you thickhead.”

She could watch him bicker with a kitten for hours, she thought.

“Hey, Buguinette,” he called out to her, pulling her out of her momentary reverie, “you wanna hold Flocon?”

She blinked. “Errr… I don’t know if that's a good idea or…”

He laughed. “He’s not that aggressive. It’s up to you; but if you want to try befriending him again…” He held a half-wiggling and meowing Flocon in the air towards her.

Marinette bit her lip, and took a deep breath. Maybe it was a bad idea to cave, but... “Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll give him a try.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

26th of April, 95 days after the reveal

“Adrien, aren’t you gonna snap her in half?” Alya asked with incredulous eyes.

It made both him and Marinette giggle. “It’s like she doesn’t know that you’re usually the one snapping me in half between the two of us,” Adrien whispered in her ear, which made her laugh harder. “She said she wanted to!” he told Alya louder.

“Yes, Alya,” Marinette added, “I’m a strong girl and I can carry him! Right, Adrien?”

“Right!” he replied enthusiastically, clinging harder on her back.

He wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he was too busy feeling lighthearted and free on this spring afternoon. It was the first warm day of the year, with only a slightly chilly breeze coming to ruffle his hair at times that only contributed in increasing his giddiness. For the fifth time this day, he thanked the star that made his father allow him to go out to the temporary funfair with his friends—though he thought they were studiously working on a school project.

“It’s not because you can carry him that you should,” Nino said, shaking his head fondly.

“You’re just jealous because Alya isn’t carrying you.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Let’s ride to the moon and back!”

“To the moon and back!” Adrien repeated, one hand raised in the air.

Marinette let out a warrior cry before attempting to run, albeit slowly because of his weight, and he could tell they wouldn’t go far as he already felt himself slide down and her grip on his legs slacken.

He should have known they’d fall face first before she got too exhausted. If he had, maybe he’d have had the time to react and avoid it.

As it was, he just found himself on top of Marinette on the ground. He lifted himself up and sat down, Marinette soon doing the same.

Distantly, he heard Alya and Nino running towards them shouting “are you okay”s and “are you hurt”s at profusion, but he didn’t pay them any mind as Marinette looked up at him with eyes glinting with mirth and they both fell in a heap of laughters.

Some passersby looked at them funnily while others whispered some “that must hurt”s or “everything alright?”s to them.

“It’s okay,” Adrien told them. “We’ve had it worse!”

“Yes,” Marinette chimed in. “One time we were thrown by an akuma—”

“—A big tuna," he quickly corrected.

“—a big tuna, he’s right,” she repeated, “and we both fell right into a moving bus, and we survived!”

“And you find that funny,” Nino deadpanned, putting his hands on his hips as Adrien helped Marinette up.

Adrien just grinned at him. “Yup! We’re the survivors.”

“And we’re gonna make it!” Marinette sang.

“You’re insufferable,” Alya chuckled. “The both of you. I don’t know how you two can be more unhinged than me with Marinette, but—”

“—That’s because we’re exes besties,” Adrien chirped. Despite the months that had passed, it always hurt a little to call each other “exes”. But he had long since learned that laughing at his suffering was better than crying over it. He just wondered when and if he’ll ever be over her one day. He probably never really would.

“Hey,” Nino said indignantly. “But you’re my best friend!”

“Maybe, but are you also exes, hm?” Marinette asked him. “Because we are, and it makes us the unstoppable exes besties! And now, our next stop will be…” She jumped on Adrien’s back without warning and he caught her with a ‘oof’. “...to that splashing boat attraction over there!”

“Dudes, you already fell once, what are you doing?”

“We’re getting back up, Nino, and we try again,” she announced proudly, raising her fist up. “Let’s go to the boat, Adrien, and may our ship sail! Go, go, go!”

Adrien faintly heard a ‘they’re beyond help’ from Alya as he ran towards the attraction, both his and Marinette’s laughters echoing in the wind.

───※ ·❆· ※───

28th of May, 127 days after the reveal

Adrien landed with a grunt on the pavement. The suit was a good protector, but it didn’t stop his back from hurting from the impact with the ground. This akuma — Firebender as he called himself — truly was more violent than usual.

“Wow,” he managed to breath between two gasps, “you’re on fire today!”

He tried to push himself up with an arm, and raised his head towards Firebender with a half-closed eye. The fireball he saw coming towards him arrived so fast that he didn’t even have the time to do so much as widening his eyes. An anguish cry was the last thing he heard before it faded and he saw nothing at all.

───※ ·❆· ※───

28th of May, 127 days after the reveal

Marinette realised she was screaming when she felt her lungs were empty.

Usually, when an akuma took lives, the victims just disappeared into thin air, as if they had never been. They weren’t lying there, unmoving on the pavement like Adrien was. Somehow, seeing was worse than not.

She felt dizzy, as if everything around her was moving in slow motion. She staggered, trying to turn her head away from the sight of her unresponsive partner who was becoming blurrier and blurrier the longer she looked at him. She needed to breathe, she needed to—

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,” she screeched instead, the sound reverberating into the street, bouncing from building to building.

She took a ragged breath, and another, closing her eyes as she took in the dead silence that greeted her scream.

She swallowed her first sob and squeezed her eyes tight shut, taking yet another heavy breath. She turned towards the akuma before opening her eyes, otherwise she knew she wouldn’t be able to tear her gaze away from Adrien’s dead form. She gritted her teeth as soon as the thought of him being gone entered her mind again.

“You’re a monster,” she spat, low and cold, the last word echoing through the silence and carrying her voice to Firebender’s ears — to Hawkmoth’s.

All these days worrying over the possibility of a devastating future she had seen, all this time doing everything she could to avoid it no matter how little she knew of it, and she hadn’t considered the possibilities she hadn’t been a witness of. All these days flirting with the line between caving and resisting only for her regretful indecision to hit her in the most cruel way.

“Give up, Ladybug,” Hawkmoth spoke through Firebender, “you no longer have your pet. All you have to do is surrender your miracu—”

“And what?” she spat. “Let my partner die? Listen to me, Hawkmoth. I have a chance to save him, and for that I need to defeat you. You think I’m stupid? I’m not giving up on Paris. I’m not giving up on him!”

And I’m not giving up on us, she told herself.

“Lucky charm!” she roared, rage and determination coursing through her veins.

She knew nothing about how Chat Blanc had really happened, she realised, catching the spotted chain falling from above. Nothing about her current future, as she scanned her surroundings for a solution. Nothing but the crushing weight of the present and her fear of the unknown, as she opened her yoyo to retrieve the dragon miraculous and put it around her neck.

“Tikki, Longg, unify!”

As she surrounded herself with water and ran towards Firebender with only one goal in mind, she promised herself to never let the gifts the present gives her slide in favour of hypothetical futuristic tragedies. She was finally done running away and sacrificing her life to her fears.

───※ ·❆· ※───

28th of May, 127 days after the reveal

Light suddenly flooded Adrien’s vision as he took a sharp and deep intake of breath. His lungs were burning with the sudden air filling them up, and he squinted his eyes, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He groggily lifted himself up on his elbows when—

“Chaton!”

—a red blur threw herself at him. He caught her, her hair in his nose and her warm breath and hot tears in his neck.

He let her sob and squeeze him as understanding washed over him. He gently threaded his clawed fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp, noticing absent-mindedly that she was also wearing the dragon miraculous.

She slowly detangled herself from him but stayed close, looking into his eyes through her wet ones and caressing his cheek with her thumb.

“Kitty,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, “my Kitty.”

He didn’t have the time to react before her lips were on his and she took her time to savour him before ever so slowly pulling away. He let her do.

She didn’t stop there. Gently cradling his face in her trembling hands, she kissed his cheek. And his other cheek. And his forehead. His nose. His jaw. Puncturing each of her kisses with whispers of “mon Chaton”, or “Kitty”, or “my love”, to which his heart made a somersault at, before diving for his neck.

Each time he kept on letting her do, keeping her close to him as she sobbed through her kisses and yet another nickname for him.

He could feel her breathing him in; so, with his nose in her hair, he inhaled her scent too. Her hot breath left his neck once again, and she came back for his lips.

This time, he kissed her back, and as soon as his lips moved against hers, she choked on a sobbed whine and pushed her mouth closer to his, if that was even possible

He hadn’t forgotten the taste of her lips on his, even after all these months; but he also knew their kisses had never burnt so intensely, driven by despair, the need to memorise the present and the aroma of being alive.

───※ ·❆· ※───

1st of June, 131 days after the reveal

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

Marinette smiled sadly. “Oh, I don’t know. Hurting you. Putting us through this mess. Not telling you about Chat Blanc. Take your pick.”

She let her arms rest on the railing of the bridge, looking across the Seine. The clouds were getting darker and darker, though a sunray pierced through one of them, lighting up a few buildings on the shore in a powerful atmosphere. Her eyes followed a barge floating further and further away, waiting for the moment it would cross the ray of light.

“You’ve been hurting too,” Adrien said after a few seconds. “You’ve been shouldering it all on your own. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

His hand slid into hers and she welcomed it, intertwining her fingers timidly with his. She glanced at him with a tentative smile and he smiled back, looking at her with soft eyes. She looked back towards the Seine just in time to see the barge slicing through the sunbeam.

“Still. Maybe, if I had told you… if I hadn’t let my fears get the best of me…” She trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

“And maybe,” Adrien spoke when it was clear she wouldn’t add something more, squeezing her hand once, “if you had told me earlier, I would have given up Chat Noir.”

She gasped and turned to him, but he was looking at the Seine with saddened eyes.

“What do you mean?” she breathed.

“I’m not sure I’d have been able to handle hearing that I could destroy the world as an akuma,” he whispered, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb as if to reassure her. “It’s… really hard already, but I feel like it would’ve been worse before.”

He turned his head towards her again and she held his gaze, gripping his hand harder as if to dare him to leave.

“You said it yourself,” he went on, “just like we have no idea about what the future can really hold, we can’t know how things would have played out if we had done things differently. What really matters right now is what you want us to be from now on.”

She searched his expectant eyes for a few seconds before looking back at the Seine. A tourist boat coming towards them had replaced the barge in the sunspot before the window of clouds closed on the light, leaving only a dark atmosphere in its place. The clouds grew darker and a warm gust had picked up, making their hair fly in every direction and their clothes ruffling in a frenzy. Marinette felt her emotions growing with the wind, begging to be said and to explode.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and feeling the wind coursing through her as she gathered her thoughts, and opened them again.

“I love you, Adrien,” she spoke, her declaration followed by a distant rumble in the sky. “I love you so, so much. Discovering that you were Chat Noir, once I took it all in… it was the best thing in the world, but also the worst.”

She faced away from the Seine to face him instead and take both his hands in hers, gripping them as tight as she could to ground herself as she felt a flow of tears coming in.

“It made me fall in love with you so much more it hurt, but I knew I couldn’t be with you or I knew I shouldn’t because…” She paused, taking ragged breaths. “...Because it wouldn’t be responsible. Because we’re superheroes and because I had this warning with Chat Blanc, and as the guardian it’s my role to keep us grounded and to do the right thing.”

A lighting bolt pierced through the sky, accompanied by a loud thunderstrike a few seconds later. Adrien was looking at her with a pain in his eyes that she knew meant he was hurting for her and not him.

“But I don’t want to do the right thing this time,” she murmured, as she felt a first drop of water slide down her cheek. “I’m tired of doing what’s supposedly right. Not when...not when we’re both hurting so much that it feels like it’s more dangerous to stay this way instead of just… giving in.”

At this point, she didn’t know who out of her and Adrien were gripping the other’s hands the tightest. She felt more and more raindrops falling on her face and clothes. She didn’t know if the water in his eyes were because he was tearing up or not.

“So maybe our love destroyed the world, once,” she continued, “but I think there’s enough far more damaging hate in this world; and ever since these akuma attacks started, what saved it is our love — for Paris, for our family and friends… and for each other.”

Adrien’s eyes now held a glint of adoration. His now damped hair was sticking to his face while some strands curled with the water. She supposed hers wasn’t faring much better.

“So to answer your question,” she swallowed a sob, “I want us to be together… if you’ll have me.”

Lightning ripped through the sky accompanied by deafening thunder as Adrien pulled her into a crushing hug. She put her arms around his neck to pull him even closer to her and let the flow of her tears finally mix with the rain on her cheeks.

“Marinette,” he whispered, voice wavering and lips barely touching her ear, “I love you, of course I’ll have you. I’ll always have you.”

The rain fell even harder as they hugged closer and cried, soaking them, yet they couldn’t care less. Their clothes were sticking to their bodies, growing more and more uncomfortable, which was worsened by them being in each other’s arms, but Marinette hadn’t felt so good in a long time.

She suddenly pulled away from the hug and cradled his head between her hands. He took her face in his and they stayed closed, forehead against forehead, breathing each other in. Another rumbled resounded and Marinette’s last resolve snapped with it—she brought her lips to his and kissed him.

He responded in kind, and she drank him in and pressed her mouth closer as she felt him doing the same. She should care about the rain falling and the thunder rumbling, but the battering of the elements were just making her feel freer, finally allowing her to get away from all her self restraints.

She sighed against Adrien’s lips as they kept coming back for more. They kissed their reunion, the relief of finding each other again, at last—unlike when he had come back from the dead earlier, these kisses tasted of the promise of more to come, because they knew they would stay together this time.

───※ ·❆· ※───

21st of January, 1h45 after the reveal

“Okay. What’s going on between you two? You’ve been acting awkward since we’ve got here.”

What was going on. What was going on.

“We’re fine,” the lie rolled out of her tongue easily. “Really.”

Alya raised a brow. “Adrien?”

She saw him smiling from the corner of her eyes. He was a much better actor than her—always had been.

“It’s nothing. It’s… we just… we’re working on it.”

...And much more honest than she was, be it with his feelings or with his heart. Always had been.

“Well,” Nino said, “I hope it’s not too big of a deal and that you’ll get over it soon. You guys are the cutest out there.”

Marinette smiled painfully. She glanced at Adrien who was looking at her with soft eyes that she didn’t deserve considering her reaction, and she felt his warm hand timidly covering hers.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I have hopes we will. We always do.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

21st of January, one year after the reveal

“You’re heavy,” Adrien gasped.

“That’s a rude thing to say to a lady,” Marinette commented from atop him, head resting on the arms she had folded on his chest. “And even more so to your girlfriend.”

He groaned and attempted to lift himself up. Fail. She was grinning at him and he pouted in fake-annoyance. “Not when said girlfriend is purposefully putting all her weight on you! I can’t breath!”

Marinette giggled and pressed herself further on him to which he let out a choked whimper, before pushing away from him after a few seconds, ending his suffocation.

“I could report you for attempting murder, you know,” he threatened with a finger. “‘Ladybug slips into teenage model Adrien Agreste’s room and proceeds to suffocate him’, now that would make the newspapers talk for months.”

She laughed and came back to hover over him. “‘And Adrien asked her to do it again’,” she smirked, and she bent down to peck his lips.

He couldn’t even argue with that.

He discreetly brought his hand close to where his head was lying to grab a pillow. When she pushed herself up and sat next to him, he quickly hit her head with it.

She gasped, betrayed and that sent him into a fit of laughter. She glared at him playfully, grabbed his other pillow, and swatted him way harder than he had.

“You’re dead, Kitty! You hear me?” she said, trying and failing not to laugh. “You’ve just signed your death contract!”

“No, my Lady, please I’m just a defenseless citizen!”

“I’ll knock you out with my yo-yo!” she threatened.

They fought again for a few minutes before stopping, Adrien breathless but Marinette only slightly out of breath due to being transformed.

“I hope your father won’t come in,” Marinette said.

“Don’t worry, if he or Nathalie come, you’ll just say you’re investigating here because, uh...because you suspect me of being Hawkmoth!”

She laughed. “Kitty, that’s such a stupid idea.”

“Why not?” Adrien wiggled his eyebrows. “After all, I do disappear during every akuma attack.”

Marinette smiled and crawled into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck as he steadied her with his hands on her hips. They lost themselves into each other’s eyes, faces close but not close enough to exactly touch.

“Then,” she murmured against his lips, and he felt his cheeks heating up. “I’ve come to seduce my enemy. Is it working?”

“I’d rather be your partner if that’s okay,” he whispered.

“Yes, but is it working Adrien?”

He chuckled—she didn’t even need to try, he’d always been too far gone when it came to her. “A bit too much.”

He kissed the proud and satisfied giggle from her lips.

#ml fanfic #miraculous #adrinette #ladynoir #identity reveal #pre-reveal post-relationship #but then #post-reveal pre-relationship #yes I made it both okay #breakup & getting back together #angst & fluff #happy ending #mention of chat blanc #hurt/comfort #temporary character death #but like it doesn't last long okay it's just an Akuma thing #myshitwriting

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hauntedbythefanficsofmypast · 4 years

Text

Spiderbug Siblings

Peter sighed to himself struggling not to pout as he sat through the meeting. He was continuously reminding himself that he was the one that begged his father to bring him along, but he didn't think it was going to be this boring. Usually he was more than happy to take over different things at SI to give his father a break, such as paper work and meetings his dad really-really didn't want to go to. However this meeting had sucked his soul out ten minutes in. He missed the glances he was getting from said father, who had noticed his son's complete and utter boredom.

Tony struggled not to smirk as his son deflated. He had warned him that this meeting was the worst one he'd ever been to. Tony discreetly moved his hands under the table, flicking his right wrist causing a holographic keyboard to appear on his forearm. He quickly typed out a message before sending it to Peter.

Peter's wristwatch vibrated softly, alerting him to the message. He moved his left arm under the table before flicking it allowing the message to appear across his arm.

'Kiddo, go ahead and stand up saying this in french. "Ladies, Gentlemen, I hate to cut this short but unfortunately I have another meeting to get to. My father however will be remaining behind, I sincerely hope our business deal goes through." Then go have some fun, I know you're dying inside right now so go.'

Peter closed his eyes smiling softly before giving his father a barely noticeable nod, standing up and apologizing in French. He shook a few people's hands before giving them a bright smile and a nod to his dad, turning and leaving the room.

"Je me suis demandé quand il allait enfin s'ennuyer.(1)" One of the women said, turning to Tony with a teasing smile, causing him to burst into laughter.

Peter was more than happy to strip out of the suit and into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt with a silly science meme, his black converse and a green hoodie. He had planned to go check out the young man that applied to MIT and the Stark Industries Internship Program after the meeting, however he thought now would be better than ever. Peter knew that after a quick talk with the Principal he'd be allowed to sit in on the class in the back unannounced to see Max Kanté in action. He ran a hand through his hair before checking his phone's battery life, satisfied that it was at seventy-eight percent. His Stark watch was at sixty-five percent as well, so he knew that he'd only have to charge them once he got back to Le Grand Paris. Pulling out the file on Max, he decided that walking to Lycée Françoise Dupont would be rather relaxing and give him the time to stretch his legs. Plus if his calculations were right, which they usually always were, he'd be there by lunch time. Giving him enough time to talk with the Principal and the man's teacher, then find a place to sit in the back. While leaving the luxury hotel he put on his Edith sunglasses watching as directions to the school popped up, then pulled his hood up, and placed his Stark buds in. He left giving little more than a glance to the paparazzi planted firm outside, he knew they'd be waiting to get pictures of his father or him, after all their pictures sold for big bucks. He fidgeted nervously with his sunglasses until he was finally out of the paparazzi's sight. Letting out a breath he took out his phone hitting play on his album filled with Ella Fitzgerald music. He relaxed listening to it allowing the glasses to guide him through Paris. 'I really need to convince dad to market these. After the failure that Google created people would be skeptical, but having the Stark logo on it would cause many to trust them.' Peter thought about it drawing up blueprints in his head as he walked not paying attention to the outside world. Definitely not noticing the car heading towards him as he crossed the street heading to the school, until his senses started screaming at him.

"Monsieur, soyez prudent!(2)" Marinette cried out as she ran towards Peter tackling him back onto the sidewalk, his hood dropping and his sunglasses flying off his face. The car honked loudly as it skidded to a stop. Both teens turned to it wide eyed and apologizing profusely, in near panic attack states which ended up with the driver worried for them. They waved him on both stating that they were fine and just in a little bit of shock as they sat side by side on the sidewalk.

"Thank you." Peter said after a few moments of them just taking deep breaths together. Marinette looked up at him, blue-grey eyes meeting toffee brown eyes, before she glanced away. She picked up his sunglasses holding them out to him with a tired smile.

"English, yes? You're quite far from home are you not Mister? After all your accent is clearly not British so I'm assuming the States, not the south though I'm thinking from the north maybe the east?" Peter blinked in surprise, finally taking in the young woman that had saved him. Marinette was side sitting leaning against the light pole next to her. Midnight black hair was pulled into a long fishtail braid that went past her waist, Peter knew that once out of the braid her hair would be even longer. Her clothes were designer, M.D. specifically, something that would cause his dad slight annoyance since the designer still hadn't gotten back to him. She wore a soft pink cold shoulder tunic sweater, with black jeans that were loose enough for full mobility but tight enough not to sag or get caught on anything. She had a black and pink backpack on and a small matching purse, both clearly made by M.D. as well. He smiled politely, taking his sunglasses back and carefully sliding them into his pocket.

"Yes I'm from the States. New York to be specific but I've traveled all over. You speak English?" He asked before adjusting his position sitting criss-cross in front of her. Marinette laughed softly nodding.

"I have learned a few languages, French is obviously my first, English was my fourth and hardest to learn!" She exclaimed, rolling her eyes and throwing her arms up in exasperation. Peter laughed loudly nodding his head with a slight smirk.

"Ah yes, English is hard and weird. For instance read and lead rhyme, and read and lead rhyme. But read and lead don't rhyme, and neither do read and lead!" Peter said his smirk grew when Marinette groaned glaring at him before punching him softly in the arm. "Sorry, sorry I had to do it." Peter said rubbing his arm as they settled down. Marinette simply rolled her eyes shaking her head. "But seriously thank you, not many people would risk themselves to save another. You're amazing Miss." Marinette gave him a sad smile not meeting his eyes anymore.

"Well, I'm afraid not many people think that about me. Besides it was the right thing to do, I couldn't just let you get hit when I could do something." Suddenly her purse shifted slightly almost like something inside was moving to press closer to the girl. Peter just barely noticed it, but could tell the girl took note of it right away. She stood up brushing the dirt off her pants, and Peter followed her up. "I'm afraid I must go, we've already spent quite a bit of time sitting here and if I want something to eat before my next class I must go. Au revoir Monsieur." Marinette turned heading down the street to a cafe, Peter turned watching her go but not moving.

"Wait!" He called out quickly shocking himself and the girl as she turned around curiously. "What's your name?" He asked, blinking when a mischievous smile covered the girls face.

"My name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and I'll see you around." Peter's eyes widened and a burst of laughter left him causing the girls eyes to alight with mischief. "I'll see you around Monsieur." She said before continuing on, Peter watching her as she leaves. He resisted jumping when Karen talked to him over his Stark buds.

"That was a meme was it not? Searching the web for it, oh. I understand that, that was very funny, yes? After all I believe this is what one would call a 'crack' fic." Peter held back his laughter as he crossed the street continuing to the school. He really hoped he'd see the girl again, he knew his dad would love her. He himself already felt a connection to the girl that had saved his life. He walked into the school heading to the office. He greeted the office secretary explaining why he was there and asking to talk with the Principal Damocles and Mr. Kanté's teacher Ms. Bustier. The secretary was quick to let him in and summon Bustier to the office. Peter took the time to explain to Principal Damocles that he simply wished to sit in the back of the class and observe the young man. Damocles was quick to please Peter, and it didn't escape his notice causing his opinion of the Principal to drop. He was quick to introduce himself when Bustier arrived, but allowed Damocles to explain what was going on. Ms. Bustier quickly agreed before escorting Peter back to her class room, telling him all about her class. He barely paid attention however once he realized that she was attempting to take complete credit for her students accomplishments. That was until she mentioned her 'bad egg' at least in her opinion.

"I just don't know what happened, Marinette used to be such a good student. She was the class role model, and everyone would go to her when they needed help. Then out of nowhere she just started bullying this girl that joined my class! She told me the girl was faking everything no matter how much I told her that the girl's condition was no excuse to treat her like that. I kept trying to get her on the right path but couldn't. Now she just sits in the back of the class and no one will talk to her. I've even had to exclude her from class outings because she still won't leave the girl alone! Honestly I always told her that no one will get better if you don't give them chances. Lila won't become a better person if Marinette continues to target and try to expose her. I'm just glad that Adrien is on my side and agrees." Peter frowned, giving the teacher's back a dirty look as he took in what she said, piecing a few things together. 'So this student is a pathological liar, but they're covering for her with some lying condition. Marinette, who was the designated role model, caught on and tried to expose her. However, Bustier and Adrien don't agree so they allow her to be excluded. Wow, I really hope Mr. Kanté does not fall for the lies. I'd hate for his intelligence to go to waste. After all not everyone can create a highly-functional robot, that manages to develop emotions on its own. Falling for lies is something that would hurt him incredibly in the eyes of SI.' Peter smiled politely when the teacher turned to him once they arrived at the door.

"Would you like a seat at the front Mr. Stark?" Bustier asked as she opened the door walking in with him behind her, Peter shook his head as he took in the room. "We only have two seats open one in the front and one in the back." Bustier finished turning and watching Peter look around the room.

"No," he said, not missing as she tensed up slightly. "I need to be able to observe Mr. Kanté. If I sit in the front everyone will notice me turned to look at him. I'll take the back seat, where does he sit now?" Bustier glanced at the spot at the front where Chloe Bourgeois used to sit, and then the one in back by Marinette.

"Are you sure Mr. Stark? Unfortunately the one in the back is by my problem student and I'd rather you not get a bad impression of the class because of her." Peter gave her a tight smile as she rambled on about why it would be better for him to sit in the front. He let out a sigh as she continued on, and wished his father was with him. Knowing Tony wouldn't care about being rude to the women, where Peter himself couldn't pull the courage up.

"Yes Ms. Bustier I am positive. I will take the seat in the back, now please tell me where Mr. Kanté sits and then where my seat will be." Bustier sighed knowing that she wouldn't win this one, she had hoped she could convince him to sit there. That way he could see the entirety of the class and they would see him, the class would also know to behave themselves. They won't pay much attention to him when they walk in and he is sitting in the back.

"Very well, Max sits on the left side, third row and closest to the window. Your seat will be on the right side, last row and next to the wall. Peter nodded before thanking her and walking up to his temporary seat, sitting down and pulling out his phone. "Lunch ends in twenty minutes so the classroom will slowly start filling up." He gave her a smile showing that he heard her before returning to his phone. He pulled up his group chat with Shuri, MJ, and Ned, knowing that it was almost seven am in New York, and that Shuri only slept when forced to. He smiled reading the argument between Ned and MJ.

Guy in the Chair- I don't want to eat at Veselka after school today! I want to eat at Lil' Frankie's!

MJ- I can almost hear you whining through my phone screen. Send me a picture of the face you're making, I want to add it to my sketch book.

Guy in the Chair- Seriously MJ?

Guy in the Chair- I'm not sending you a picture of my face.

Princess Memes a lot- You Americans are so silly. Here MJ.

Image.pn

Guy in the Chair-...

Guy in the Chair- Seriously?

Guy in the Chair- Did you seriously hack my phone to send her a picture of me?

Princess Memes a lot- Hack is such a strong word, I simply introduced my computer to your phone's systems.

Guy in the Chair- I hate this. I can't do anything in retaliation, chemistry is what I'm good at not technology. I can't get revenge. Peter help me bro!

Peter-man- Sorry Ned, I'm not going up against Shuri. She is scary smart, and I'd rather live to see Captain America and his group of runaways finally realize all the changes we've made to the Accords.

Princess Memes a lot- Listen to my favorite colonizer Nedy-boy.

Peter-man- Awe, I'm your favorite colonizer? I thought for sure it would be my Dad.

Princess Memes a lot- Oh no, I do love you father. You and him are some of the only people that can give me a challenge. On top of that he got so excited when he discovered I was smarter than him, I thought for sure he'd want to adopt me.

Peter-man- Oh dad did, however you're a Princess and dad knows his money would get him nowhere in Wakanda. Instead he has settled for us being friends, that way he can subtly drop hints to invite you over for some science time.

Peter-man- I'll talk with you all later have a good day in classes MJ, Ned. And Shuri please get some sleep, I'd rather your brother not blame us for keeping you up again.

Guy in the Chair- Bye Peter!

MJ-middle finger emoji*

Princess Memes a lot- He can't force me to sleep if he can't find me!!

Peter- Love you too MJ and good luck with that Shuri.

Peter placed his phone down as people slowly made their way into the classroom. It was obvious to him that none even noticed him as they talked together excitedly. The volume of the class got louder until four people walked in, everyone was zeroing in on the girl hanging off the blonde's arm. Peter grimaced at her terrible hair style and decided that MJ would love to draw this girl, so he held up his phone taking a picture of her. He noticed a girl slip in behind them but his attention was stolen by the girl once again as she continued her story.

"Oh Alya! You would absolutely love New York city!! I'll have to see if Tony will allow you to come with me next time!" The girl said fairly loud her smile was bright but Peter could spot a fake smile from miles away. He'd learned that skill rather fast as he grew up, after all he needed to when his father was in one of his spirals. "Oh! I suppose I should let you know since I trust you so much! By Tony I mean Tony Stark!" She said giggling behind her hand as everyone gasped in surprise. "You see he is like a father to me! Him and his son Parker love me! We're like this!" She crossed her fingers winking at her classmates. Peter tensed fisting his hands trying to control his anger as he looked at Ms. Bustier who wouldn't not even turn around when the lie left her students lips. He watched as the students all sat down in their seats but they were all turned to the liar listening intensely.

"Wow you're that close to Tony Stark? I just applied for his internship program a few weeks ago, I haven't heard anything yet though." Max said excitedly as he pulled out his things for class. Lila immediately zeroed in on him, her eyes gleaming.

"Oh Max! I'll send Parker a message right away and tell him all about you! You know he runs the Internship Program there! Tony asked me to but I told him I just couldn't leave Paris for good until after school! I also told him he really needs to give Parker a chance!" She glanced around worriedly before turning to Alya. "You can post this if you want, but you didn't hear it from me okay? You see guys Parker had a rough time these past couple years. He fell into the wrong group of people and started bullying, drinking, and doing drugs! It was terrible and Tony was just heartbroken! I could barely console him, he almost kicked Parker out! I convinced him to give Parker a second chance though, and he is getting better, unlike someone we know...but Tony still doesn't trust him fully, so I thought Parker would be able to prove himself if he did good with the program. Unfortunately he does struggle so I have to help him a lot, but Tony cannot know that! Their relationship is finally fixing!" Peter's anger grew even more and it took all his control not to stand up and fight the girl right there. That is when he noticed Marinette sitting besides him tense as well but glaring at the desk and not Lila. "Well hello there Ebony." He said softly startling her slightly, Marinette looked up at him in slight shock as he smiled mischievously at her. "I must say, you look very different from the Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way that I've read about." Marinette blushed embarrassed before she let out a soft giggle covering her face with her hands.

"Oh my gooood," she said, dragging out the word. "I said that thinking I would probably never see you again, and now you're sitting next to me. God I don't know if you're there, but please kill me." Peter snorted softly but both of their eyes were on Lila again as she began talking about Tony and his son 'Parker' once again.

"Lying little squirrel." Peter mumbled glaring at the girl. "Parker Stark? Really did she even do her research? It's Peter Stark and the fact that Kanté is falling for her lies and trying to get in the easy way. This makes my decision easier." He opened the folder turning to Marinette holding out a hand. "May I borrow a pen Ms. Ebony." Marinette snorted, shaking her head and handing him a pen. He wrote denied across the paper and took a picture with his phone sending it to his dad before closing the folder and returning her pen.

"My name isn't Ebony obviously, I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng." She said politely holding her hand out to shake, he shook it gently as she spoke again. "Are you a new student?" Peter chuckled smiling a little awkwardly as he shook his head.

"No I was here to observe Mr. Kanté in the classroom, ah let me introduce myself. Peter Stark, or from what the liar is calling me, Parker Stark." He rolled his eyes in exasperation, his smile still awkward. Marinette's eyes widened in slight shock as she started rambling to herself about how she tackled Tony Stark's son to the ground. Peter watched for a moment slightly amused at the woman's ramblings before squeezing her hand gently. "Listen, don't worry about it. If anything my dad would be thanking you profusely for saving me there. He wouldn't be upset, however once he hears about that little squirrel's lies. He will be more than pissed." Marinette snorted softly at his nickname for Lila; shel smirked, shaking her head. "Which by the way, can I get her full name? I want to have my lawyers here and ready with paperwork before I return to the states in five days." Her smirk grew as she pulled out a notebook and quickly wrote Lila's full name down before pausing and thinking a sadistic gleam in her eyes. Marinette turned to Peter tilting her head to the side innocently. "Tell me Parker Stark," she said using Lila's mess up causing him to laugh under his breath. "Do you happen to know Bruce Wayne or his kids?" Peter quirked an eyebrow before nodding and telling her that he was very close with Bruce's eldest son. "Well you see the little squirrel, as you call her has also lied about him and a few others." She turned back to the paper steadily making a list of all the people.

Tony and Peter Stark

The Wayne family

Lois Lane and Clark Kent

Jagged Stone

Clara Nightingale

The Justice League

The Avengers

M.D. Clothing

The sadistic glint didn't leave her eyes as a plan formed in her head. "You see, I can get in contact with Jagged, Clara, and M.D. if you can get a hold of the others. We could sue her all at once for slander and defamation of character. If you do this I'll convince M.D. to finally take your dad on as clientele." Peter grinned at her and held out his hand, shaking hers once she grabbed his.

"Well, my father would strangle me if I passed on an opportunity for him to finally get a M.D. suit and dress combo for him and mom. So you've got yourself a deal Miss Dupain-Cheng. If you can get Jagged, Clara, and M.D. on video chat, I can get the others. Do you think you could meet dad and me at Le Grand Paris tonight?" Marinette smirked a twinkle in her eye as Bustier called for the class's attention. Marinette rolled her, before turning to the front of the class.

"Since I am currently living at Le Grand Paris I can definitely meet you. Oh, Jagged and M.D. will be there in person. They live in Paris, Clara however is currently in Africa helping build houses, so we may be able to get her on a phone call but not video chat." Peter slumped in the chair and leaned over towards her slightly. "How about I give you a ride back then since we'll be going to the same place?" Marinette quirked an eyebrow before smiling and leaning against him getting comfortable in her seat.

"Very well Parker, I'll tell my driver I have a ride. Now don't move, you're quite comfortable." Peter snorted softly nodding before turning his eyes back on Max.

'It's a shame I was rather hopeful about him. I thought he'd be a great addition, if only he hadn't fallen for the squirrel.' He turned his gaze away and zeroed in on Bustier who was looking up at them. He could already tell that she wanted to reprimand Marinette for leaning against him. As she opened her mouth Peter sent her a sharp glare, staring her down until she looked away nervously. He sighed looking out the window in annoyance.

'Great, now I'm stuck here. At least I have Mari to keep me entertained judging by her eyes she is clearly zoned out. Something tells me she already knows what this sham of a teacher is going to be teaching today. She is smart, that is obvious, perhaps not as smart as Dad and me. Definitely not as smart as Shuri, but I'm pretty sure no one has her intelligence. She has connections too which is surprising at her age while being relatively unknown.' Peter wiggled slightly before settling down leaning against Marinette as well before closing his eyes.

Marinette waited until everyone had filed out of the class before waking Peter up. She gently shook him snorting as he looked around in confusion. His eyes finally landed on Marinette and a warm smile covered his face. She snorted again, as she packed up her stuff.

"Maybe you should call up your driver that way we won't wait for long." Marinette said, pulling her backpack on as Peter sent out a quick message.

"Mr. Stark, before you go! I'd like to talk with you about what my student Lila said." Bustier said at the front of the classroom, flinching when Peter glared at her.

"Oh, you mean how she decided to lie about my father and me. Or maybe about how she didn't even know my name, but decided to tell everyone that I was a bullying, drunk, drug addict? Is that what you want to talk about? Or do you want to talk about how throughout her entire speech you said nothing knowing damn well that I was sitting in the back." Peter walked down the stairs, Marinette following behind him. When Bustier stepped in front of Peter stopping him from leaving Marinette grabbed his upper arm squeezing it gently.

"Mr. Stark Lila has a condition that causes her to lie. The Principal and I decided not to inform the class because she'd never have friends if we did." Peter shook his head stepping to the side and walking around her Marinette following.

"That is no excuse Bustier. If that Alya woman posts anything that she said today. Well, lets just say it will not be pretty. Come on Marinette, as my dad says often, this person isn't worth our time." Marinette held back a laugh before nodding and walking out the door still holding his arm. She pulled out her phone with her left hand and typed out a few quick texts. Smiling gently when she got responses, she leaned her head on his shoulder before slipping her phone into her purse. Waiting until Tikki tugged it gently signaling that Marinette could safely release her phone. They stood together at the entrance to the school until a Mercedes Benz pulled up and the driver got out opening the door for them. Peter helped Marinette in before climbing in himself, he laughed grinning at her shocked face. She glared slightly before turning her attention back on to the tablets built into the driver and passenger seats.

"Did you buy them like this?" She asked curiously, slipping her backpack off and putting it down by her feet, buckling up afterwards. Peter shook his head, grin not leaving his face as he buckled up.

"Nope, Dad and I tore it apart and built it together. It's fun bonding time ya know." Marinette smiled sadly glancing out the window looking at the now closed bakery. Her thoughts drifted to before everything happened, when her parents were happy and in love, and still wanted her. Her gaze left the building as the driver pulled into traffic.

"I used to bake with my parents all the time. We ran a bakery, Maman would spend time cooking with me, and Papa and I always played video games together. Every night until, we played every night." Peter's eyes widened and he reached out taking her hand and squeezing it. Marinette blinked looking down at his hand before turning hers and squeezing his hand back. They just sat silently for a while enjoying being together with the other. Neither teen knew why they were inexplicably drawn to each other. In the span of a few hours they were closer than normal, and barely knew each other. This didn't scare either of them though, it felt so natural for them to seek slight comfort with the other. To just be able to sit together and feel like nothing could go wrong. Marinette leaned against him resting her head on his shoulder closing her eyes.

"What happened to your parents?" Peter asked after a while moving to rest his head on top of hers when she tensed up. "You don't have to talk about it? I've just found that it's better to get things off your chest and out instead of letting it linger." Marinette huffed a slight smile taking over her face before disappearing.

"My parents got a divorce two months ago. They had been acting for so long that they were still in love, but had grown to hate each other. In turn that meant they started to hate me, I reminded them too much of the other. So neither of them wanted me, my mother left Paris returning to China. My father decided to go to Italy to stay with his extended family. I was left behind, my honorary Uncle took me in till I turned seventeen." Marinette used her free hand to gently wipe her tears away. She squeezed his hand taking a deep breath. "They left me with nothing but 'good luck'. I stayed with my Godmother for a while but I couldn't sleep on the couch. Then my Uncle offered to stay in Paris with me until my seventeenth birthday. After that I'm technically on my own, I have some money saved up so I could get a small apartment, not in Paris though." Peter brushed his thumb against her knuckles thinking to himself.

"So you're only sixteen? I'm seventeen." He said attempting to change the conversation, and from the giggle Marinette let out, she knew what he was trying to do. "What do you want to do when you graduate? I mean I'm just curious is all you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Like most people like talking about it but I know some don't, but uh, I'm going to be working at SI. Oh and I am already taking college classes online from MIT!" Peter rambled on causing Marinette to laugh and his driver to cough in an attempt to hide his own chuckles.

"I want to go into fashion. I've always been in love with it, and want to have it in my future." Marinette smiled, patting his arm to calm him down. "I've even won a few design competitions, although thanks to Gabriel being unmasked as a supervillain my most distinguished one is gonna be crossed off." Peter raised an eyebrow before connecting the dots with Hawkmoth and the Agreste companies fall.

"I have to ask this after sitting through that god awful class. Do you even like that school?" Marinette groaned, shaking her head slightly. "Because I did notice you zone out in the class." Marinette snorted before nodding.

"See I finished everything online and my plan was to graduate early. However Bustier and Damocles wouldn't allow it, they told me I need my parents signature not my temporary guardian's. So I am stuck there until the end of the year. Especially since I don't have parents, so no one can sign. Child Services won't let my uncle adopt me, apparently he isn't a good role model. Which is kind of funny since he took me in when my parents just abandoned me." She was silent for a while thinking about her situation and Peter did not like silence on the girl.

"Is that how you know M.D. through design competitions?" Peter asked, causing Marinette to laugh softly, wondering how to tell him that she was M.D. "I mean I just noticed that your entire outfit, plus backpack and purse are both M.D. and obviously exclusives." Marinette shook her head as they pulled up outside the luxury hotel, both unbuckling and getting out when the driver opened the door. Marinette adjusted her back back walking up the steps.

"No actually, I've known M.D. my entire life. Now what's your hotel room? Jagged needs to know to meet us there, come on Parker don't leave me hanging." Peter glared playfully at Marinette before telling her their room number. She texted it to Jagged, nodding to the receptionist that greeted her, welcoming her back. "Mister Franco is always so nice, he has worked here for years now. To be honest I'm pretty sure he never takes a day off, he really loves his job." Peter nodded smiling at Franco, before stepping into the elevator with Marinette pressing the button to his floor. "Have you alerted the others to the video chat?" She asked looking up from her phone, meeting Peter's amused eyes. He nodded watching as she slipped her phone into her purse, he noted her pause before letting it drop completely. At first he chalked it up to her making sure the phone was actually in the purse, but then he remembered watching it move earlier in the afternoon. 'Is she keeping a pet in her purse?' He pondered silently as they stepped off the elevator onto his floor. He pulled out his card and opened the door, to be greeted with the amusing sight of his father and Jagged opposite ends of the couch. Tony had his feet pulled up and he stared down at the crocodile lazing on the floor in front of Jagged.

"Ah, Petey, Peter, my son, my first born, my rock when your mothers not around, please-please, explain why we are having a video conference with Bruce Wayne, our favorite reporters Lois and Clark, a Justice League representative, Carol as an Avengers representative, and Jagged Stone and his 'rock 'n roll' crocodile pet?" Tony said, not looking away from Fang for a second. Marinette snorted and walked in further dropping her bag on the floor by the couch, then kneeling down and starting to scratch Fang in his favorite places. Making him roll onto his back, tail waving like an excited puppy. Tony blinked, watching Marinette turn Fang into a cuddly puppy in seconds before turning to look at Peter with a raised eyebrow. "Alright, tell me what this is about." Peter rolled his eyes, slipping off his jacket and kicking his shoes off walking over to stand behind Marinette. Looking down at the crocodile in puzzlement.

"I can do you one better. Karen please play the audio from the class today, starting when Miss Rossi entered the classroom. Oh and Friday can you drag up as much dirt on Lila Rossi as possible." Both AI gave confirmation causing Peter to smile as he stepped around Marinette and Fang sitting down on the couch. He introduced himself to Jagged briefly before turning back to Marinette. "Think you can type up every little lie, while I get incontact with my lawyers." Marinette nodded, the gleam back in her eyes as she pulled her laptop out of her backpack. She waited till Fang rolled back onto his stomach before leaning against him and placing her laptop on her bent legs. The next couple minutes were filled with Tony raging over what the girl said. While Peter clung to his back in an attempt to stop him from suiting up and hunting the girl down. Jagged watched the scene amused sipping on a juice box he pulled from Marinette's bag. Fang was also greatly amused and wanted to join in with the two newcomers to his family but he knew his girl was busy, so moving wasn't an option for him. Marinette ignored them the entire time up until she finished. Then she starred, amused at Tony laying on his side, a grumpy pout on his face as Peter was still wrapped around him.

"Calm now?" She asked, her lips quirking up into a smirk as he leveled a grumpy glare at her. "Because I told Clara to call at five and it's almost time." Tony continued to be grumpy for a while before letting out a loud sigh and nodding.

"Let's get this show on the road, pinky." Marinette sent him a dry look raising an eyebrow before looking at Peter who grinned.

"That's his way of saying he likes you!" Marinette snorted before pulling out her phone before glancing back at Jagged, her eyes narrowing.

"Jagged, is that my juice box?" She asked already knowing that he was drinking the juice box from her backpack. Jagged glanced down at the juice in his hand before grinning at her.

"Well you see, I was thirsty and our hosts were obviously having a moment, and I'll buy you two more twelve packs of the juice boxes." Marinette nodded before turning her gaze off him, giving Tony her signature sunshine smile.

"Hello Mr. Stark, I'm Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I am unfortunately part of Lila Rossi's class, though at this point I'm the only one that seems to see through lies." She held her laptop out to Peter, who took it with a smile plopping down on the couch. He scrolled through the long list, Marinette had composed. "I'll be the one helping compile all the lies, you may want to make sure everything on the Ladyblog is documented. It used to be a reliable source about Paris's heros, but the reporter, um, correction tabloid writer now fell for Lila's lies." Tony nodded before telling Friday to look into the Ladyblog. A few minutes later Marinette received Clara's call, the two talked together in French until Tony had video connection with Bruce, Lois, Clark, Wonder Woman, and Carol. Everyone wondered what was going on until Peter sent them all the list of lies. Marinette placed Clara on speaker before speaking up to everyone. "A few years ago when I was still in college-ah, middle school for you American's. A girl named Lila Rossi transferred to my school, she spread lies throughout the class about famous people. I was able to see through her lies because she decided to lie about Jagged Stone. " She gestured to Jagged who waved at everyone from his spot. "She claimed that she saved his cat from getting hit by a plane and developed tinnitus from it. She also stated that Jagged Stone wrote a song about her, at the time she was thirteen. Then she claimed to be best friends with Parisian superhero, Ladybug. The hero in question shot those claims down very fast, however the girl twisted it telling everyone Ladybug was only saying that to protect her. The creator of Bugout did not believe the girl, and that is why Ladybug heavily backs her. The list Parker here sent you is every lie she has told about you, Clara I texted you the list." Peter gave Marinette a playful dirty look as Clara took over the conversation.

"Oh my, all these lies I can't believe my eyes!" Everyone looked confused at Clara's rhyming. "I can't believe her claims, all the people she is trying to deceive, and all the names." Clara gasped on her side causing many to wish they could see here. "Oh dear! She could have ruined your careers!" Marinette smiled softly when Clara said that. "She even mentioned your alternate ID, and this simply can't go unmentioned." Everyone looked at Marinette in slight confusion causing Marinette to give them an awkward smile.

"I'm sure all of you can see that she has mentioned that she knows M.D. the new famous designer who has kept out of the public eye. Well you all are lucky enough to meet M.D. before everyone else. It's a pleasure to meet you all, I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng and I run M.D. Clothing." Everyone stared at her in shock for a bit before the Stark lawyers joined the video chat. At the time they began making plans to take Lila down, and Marinette was at the center of the plans. "Tony and Peter leave in five days. His lawyers will be delivering her chargers, I want this to happen all at once." Everyone noted the determined glean in Marinette's eye, it reminded Tony of Pepper and he found himself about what his wife would think of this young woman. "If everyone has at least one of their lawyers to deliver them at the same time it will destroy her. That is why I suggest we do this during the school day, right before we are set to get out." Everyone agreed with doing it in front of the entire class. It was decided that Tony's lawyers wouldn't enter first, then Bruce's, followed by the Justice League's and the Avenger's, Jagged and Clara's would enter soon after, and then Marinette's lawyer would hand Lila her final lawsuit. After the video chats Marinette gave Peter a big hug smiling brightly as Jagged picked up her backpack and Fang's leash. "Thank you for all the help Peter!" She let go before shaking Tony's hand, her smile not slipping. "As promised, get me yours and Mrs. Stark's measurements and I will make you a M.D. suit and dress combo. I think royal blue with ivory accents will suit you both. Peter has my number, so that you can get me the information." She walked to the door Jagged and Fang following her. "Goodnight you two!" Marinette said as they stepped outside. Peter and Tony stood at the door wishing them goodnight before closing it. Tony immediately turned to Peter once it was closed, wanting an explanation for everything. Peter sat down explaining what all had happened after he left the meeting. Tony listened intently while also thinking to himself about Marinette.

"So Max Kanté is rejected for the Internship program, damn. At least we caught this girl before more lies could be spread. I can't believe she dared to claim that I would give up on my own son." Peter nodded before picking the remote on and turning on Star Wars, he placed his legs across Tony’s lap and leaned again his side for comfort.

“Ya, she is pretty stupid. Did she think no one would ever hear her lives now she has multiple people coming down on her in less than 5 days.”

“Also that Marinette girl, think I can adopt her? Like joint custody? Pep would love her, seriously together they could rule the world.”

“Well with a little money you might be able to. Her parents gave up custody of her and the government refused to let Jagged adopt her.”

Tony looked at Peter silent for a moment before nodding to himself.

“Friday-“

“Already drawing up adoption papers Boss. Pepper has been informed and she had this to say, ‘I give up, let him adopt the girl, I’ll have her registered for online schooling.’ Shall I bribe the person that receives the papers.”

“Yes but remember, I never said yes.”

That caused Peter to burst into laughter as he pulled out his phone, sending a text to his group chat.

Peter-man- New sister on the way guys. You’re gonna love her, dad just has to bride Child services.

Princess Memes a lot- Another science genius??

Peter-man- Nope, ever heard of M.D. Clothing?

Guy in the Chair- You’re joking.

MJ- Why am I not surprised by this.

Princess Memes a lot- You met M.D. and your Father is adopting her.

Princess Memes a lot- That’s it I’m taking a vacation to Paris, I’ll be there by tomorrow Peter. Ayo will be with me, and you will introduce the two of us to your new sister.

Peter-man- Understood Princess, although don’t mention the adoption to her just yet. I think I’m going to ease her into the family dynamic with us.

Princess Memes a lot- Very well Ayo and I will not mention a thing. I will make sure we are both dressed discreetly as well. That way we don’t have to explain why the Princess of Wakanda is in Paris.

Peter chuckled resting his head on Tony’s shoulder curling into his dad's side. Tony smiled, his eyes never wavering from the tv screen as he rubbed his son’s leg gently.

Marinette let out a content sigh as she dried her hair with a towel. She sat on a plush chair in front of a grand dollhouse that was opened so all the rooms could be seen. The Kwami say inside all talking happily, making sure that Duusu and Nooroo were comfortable. Marinette smiled down at them wrapping his hair in her towel before leaning back and looking out the window. Tikki and Plagg flew up to her causing the young woman to laugh softly. She held her hand out allowing them to sit down. “In a few days Lila will be drowning in lawsuits. I really can’t find it in myself to feel bad for her.” Plagg snorted leaning back against her fingers, while Tikki gave him a disapproving look.

“Honestly kid, all you had to do was say the word and I would’ve taken care of the brat.”

“Plagg!” Tikki said, glaring at him, causing the other Kwami to laugh softly with Marinette.

“What?! I didn’t mean kill her! I meant that I’d cut her hair into something that doesn’t look awful! Always jumping to conclusions aren’t you Sugarcube.” Tikki swatted the back of his head causing the cat goddess to fly away laughing hysterically.

“Oh leave him be Tikki. He wouldn’t dare do anything in fear of repercussions from you.” Marinette said softly, bringing Tikki closer to her face. “A few days left Tikki, I am so excited.” Tikki smiled, rubbing her thumb gently as she looked up at her chosen human, her creation soul. Tikki felt her power rise a few days ago and now she knew why. Instead of having just one and a half creation souls around her, she had three. Marinette will always be the soul that resonates with her the most but Peter is a pure creation soul. Then Jagged and Tony combined made the third, it was their pasts that caused half their souls to be that of destruction. Yet it was the fact that they still held half a creation soul that got her, yes they had a reason to be bad, yet they wouldn’t allow it. She was happy that they still held that half tightly, the only for once a human’s, that was not meant to hold Plagg, soul becomes full destruction they become the worst of the worse. Which is why Tikki was happy Lila was going down, her soul was so close to destruction it sickened Tikki. She knew that once that little bit of creation left, there would only be a monster, because she was definitely not suited to be a cat. Tikki looked over at her other half with a gentle smile knowing that they’d find Plagg’s true destruction soul soon as well.

“Princess, why are we going to Paris?” Ayo asked as she followed Shuri onto the jet. The servants following with their bags, placing them onto the plane.

“Stark is adopting a young woman.” Shuri said trying on her phone. She looked up meeting Ayo’s eyes with a slight smirk. “The girl is the M.D. herself, I simply must meet her. According to Peter they only just met her and Tony is already adopting her. Peter also seems to have formed a connection with the woman. So I must meet her, and out of all the Dora Milaje you are able to be perfectly discrete. Anyone seeing us will believe you are simply my older sister, which is what I need. Miss Marinette does not know about the adoption yet and Peter wishes to edge her in. So I will simply be seen as Peter’s friend that decided to visit, and this will keep us out of the news.” Ayo nodded moving to sit down and relax knowing that they had an hour before reaching Paris.

“Very well, I shall enjoy meeting the new Stark child.” She said, causing Shuri to grin at her with a twinkle in her eyes. “I will not enjoy keeping you and Peter out of trouble however.” She finished teasingly causing Shuri to burst into laughter, Ayo only let a slight grin cover her face.

“Oh no oh no oh no.” Marinette muttered as she ran around her room getting ready. “I can’t believe I forgot this! Oh Miss Mendeleiev is going to be so upset! She went out of her way to have me come to her class’s party instead and I’m going to be late! Tikki, Plagg! Grab the pastries please!” The two Kwami lifted one try floating it over to the table by the door before taking the other over as well.

“My bug you must calm down. You have ten minutes before the party starts, yes, but Mendeleiev said to show up at any time.” Tikki flew up with Pollen the two gently fixing the French braid Marinette had begun putting her hair into. “There is no set time you need to be there so you are fine.” A knock on the door startled the human and Kwami slightly, Marinette ushered them into hiding spots before answering the door.

“Hello? Oh Peter! Do you need something?” Peter smiled brightly fidgeting with his sunglasses, he held up two bags filled with snacks.

“I was hoping we could hang out? Dad is in a really boring meeting and if I go it’ll suck my soul out.” He said dramatics causing Marinette to laugh.

“Normally I’d love to, but I have a class party today.” She gestured to the two large trays of pastries.

“Oh, that’s fine! I’ll just help you carry the trays then go find something to do.” Peter said, picking up one of the plates. “And before you say anything, shut up, I want to help.” Marinette glared at him before picking up her purse and folding her jacket over her arm. She picked up the other tray before checking her purse making sure Tikki and Plagg were in it. “Soooo,” Peter said, dragging out the word as he waited for Marinette to lock the door. “Where am I escorting you today fair Goddess?” Peter teased causing Marinette to quirk an eyebrow as they walked toward the elevator.

“Goddess? That's a new one. Care to explain?” She asked, stepping into the elevator pressing the button for the lobby. She reached over pulling his hood up gently with one hand before grabbing his sunglasses and slipping them onto his face. “There you go Mr.Famous.” She teased softly before fixing the strap of her purse. Peter smiled shifting the bag in his hand.

“Well my first thought was princess, but it just doesn’t suit you. Queen had popped in too but that didn’t feel right either. Trust me I know princesses and Queens, and they’d definitely love you but you have an air of difference compared to them. Something that makes you stand out something kind of magical-as silly as it sounds.” Marinette shifted slightly at the mention of magical glancing down at the purse that contained the most powerful beings in existence. Something that did not go unnoticed by Peter. “So when I settled on Goddess it just felt right, of course I tried other names but none compared to Goddess. So that is your new Stark patented nickname! Property of Stark & Co., nobody else can use it without express consent from Stark CEO, Head of R&D, and CEO in training!” Marinette snorted softly stepping out of the elevator Peter followed behind her as she began to giggle.

“Alright I suppose I shall let it slip this time! Besides it is definitely better than Princess, I hate that stupid nickname.” She turned to look at him, eyes twinkling slightly. “Now make sure to stay close, don’t want to have to save you from a car accident again.” Peter laughed rolling his eyes before calling out that it only happened once. Causing Marinette to laugh again as they started the walk to Marinette’s school.

“Oh Marinette! You’re here!!” Aurore called out as she, Mireille, and Jean hurried to meet both her and Peter as they entered the school courtyard. “And you brought a friend!” She said hugging Marinette once Jean took the tray from her. Marinette chuckled nervously hugging the girl back before hugging Mireille as well. “Pleasure to meet you I’m Aurore, that is Mireille, the man that took Marinette’s tray is Jean. Oh and of course you’ll meet the rest of our little family in a bit!” Peter smiled at the girl pushing his sunglasses up.

“I’m Peter, it’s nice to meet you. I am not staying though I was only helping Marinette carry the trays.” He said as Claude bounced over taking the tray from him and passing it off to his sister Allegra. He grabbed Peter’s shoulder directing him towards the rest of their class, smiling goofily. Marinette rolled her eyes smiling as Allan wrapped an arm around her shoulder following behind the two. He was telling her about his most recent audition calmly but excitement was clear in his voice.

“Nonsense! My new friend!!” Claude said smiling brightly leading him to the snack table. “If you’re a friend of Marinette’s then you are more than welcome to our party! I’m Claude Renou, the blonde that took the tray is my sister Allegra Dimont! You already saw Jean, Aurore, and Mireille. Kagami is over there teaching Ondine how to hold a saber, Kagami is wearing the red and black Cheongsam,” He paused turning to Marinette with a hopeful look. “Did I say it correctly?” He beamed when Marinette nodded before turning back to Peter. “And Ondine is the young woman who is completely out of her element on land!” He teased causing Ondine to glare at him playfully before waving politely to Peter. Over there controlling the music is Marc-pretty sure his mom, like runs France’s known yet unknown mafia but he won’t tell us.” Marc shot them a playful look before turning to and beginning to eat Marinette’s cookies. “And behind us is Allan Duval! Better known as Coté Spanghero, a rising actor! Then there is our teacher the wonderful and sometimes cruel Ms. Mendeleiev.” Anne-Claire Mendeleiev turned and stared down Claude who simply grinned at her. She sighed, shaking her head before looking over at Peter.

“Ignore him, of course you are more than welcome to join us. This is our little graduation party, these kids have been my students since middle school, except for Marinette unfortunately. Though I tried to get her multiple times.” She gave him a polite smile before patting his shoulder. “Oh and please call me Anne-Claire, all my students do when they remember they are almost out of school.” Marinette pulled away from Allan with a soft smile before linking arms with Peter. Peter grinned at her leaning closer to her.

“Looks like you don’t need to find something to do.” She said laughing with him. “Now come on, Jean knows some pretty cool magic tricks!” She pulled him over and they stood watching Jean perform different card tricks. They stood together, arms still locked while Peter watched Jean and Marinette talked with Allegra both women laughing together. Peter’s attention was stolen a few minutes later by his phone going off.

Princess Memes a lot- Stark where are you and your new sister?

Princess Memes a lot-Hello? Spiderboy?

Princess Memes a lot- Very well I have already found your location, Ayo and ai are on our way.

“Ah? Will Anne-Claire be upset if my friend and her older sister crash this party?” Anne-Claire raised an eyebrow as she took a sip from her cup looking over.

“Depends Mister Stark, are the delinquents?” Peter was surprised that she knew him and even more surprised when he noticed none of her students were surprised.

“Ah, no not at all. Since you know who I am I’ll be honest. One is royalty and the other her bodyguard acting as sister.” Anne-Claire looked slightly excited at the prospect score nodding.

“As long as they don’t cause trouble they’re welcome here.” Peter nodded smiling brightly before responding to Shuri that they were more than welcome to join.

“My friend will be here soon, they may be a little stand off-ish at first.” Claude laughed, shaking his head, giving Kagami a teasing smile causing the woman to raise her eyebrow, faking an unimpressed look.

“Worry not Peter! We managed to break through Kagami’s Ice Queen persona!” Allan smirked rolling his eyes before handing his drink to Allegra. He stood behind Claude mining all of his actions. This caused them all to burst into laughter while Claude simply grinned looking at them. “Well besides that! Peter I have to ask, are you following in your Dad’s footsteps as head of R&D, or will you be taking up CEO. Oh perhaps I should start with my plans. I want to work in Public Relations, I actually have an internship with Wayne Enterprises. Cool right? Everyone here is going on to amazing things actually!” Peter smiled looking at them.”Why don’t we tell him? I’m sure Marinette has already told you her plans. We might as well tell him the rest!” Allegra shook her head smiling softly.

“I’ll tell him, obviously Allan is continuing his acting career, I am going to Harvard to study Law. Kagami is taking over her family business, Ondine is already an Olympic swimmer. Aurore and Mireille are continuing their weather girl careers, Marc is on his way to becoming a famous author and Jean is continuing his figure skating career.” Peter nodded looking at all of them., rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well I am actually already working at Stark Industries, I run the Internship program. Paid and Unpaid, I decide if you are given a chance in our company. I am however in training for both CEO and head of R&D, my parents told me that it is my choice. Although neither plan to retire for quite some time!” The class plus two continued to talk happily never noticing the girl glaring at them from Ms. Bustier’s classroom. Lila knew something was up, ever since she had laid eyes on the man sitting next to Marinette. It was something about him, something that made him stand out. She looked over at her sheep all of who were too engrossed with final plans for the last class trip. These were her sheep, the people that fell in line just to stop her crocodile tears. She sat high and powerful atop her kingdom and Marinette was in her rightful place, alone and ostracized. Something told her though, that the man out there with Mendeleiev’s class was going to ruin her. She sniffed looking away again giving her sheep a fake smile. She’d simply have to destroy him first.

“This is the place.” Shuri said looking up from her phone as Ayo and her walked through the school. “Peter said the teacher they were with is fine with us being here. Apparently they are having a party. Which sounds like a lot of fun!” They finally walked into the courtyard spotting Peter and the class before walking over when Peter waved excitedly. He introduced them to the class, smiling brightly when Marinette and Shuri hit it off right away.

Over the next couple days Marinette grew closer with Peter, Tony and Shuri. Marinette showed the three around Paris with the help of her friends in Mendeleviev’s class. Tony had even promised them visits to Stark tower the summer after their graduation. Of course it wasn’t known to Marinette that she’d soon be living there. In fact they still had to break it to her that Tony’s adoption request went through. It finally came out during a move night that Tony and Peter were holding with Marinette, Shuri, Ayo, her friends, and Jagged.

“Ya know, I’m going to miss you guys.” She said softly leaning against Peter’s side holding his right hand and carefully painting his nails a navy blue. Peter tensed slightly, sharing a look with Tony. Marinette noticed immediately when Peter tensed looking up at him sharply. “What?” She asked, turning to look at the father and son duo. Peter looked at Tony knowing that his father had to tell her.

“Ah, well you see Pinky, I decided that I didn’t want to lose you. So you’re mine now.” He said not looking her in the face, attempting to hide his nervousness.

“I’m yours now?”

“Yes. Our if you want to be specific and bring Pep into this considering she’s my wife, but mine either way.”

“You do know I’m not something to be owned, correct?”

“Well yes, but you’re still mine. End of story. You’re my daughter now, which means you’re Peter’s sister.”

“You know, I should be upset about this but honestly I really didn’t want you guys to leave. I’ve grown attached and I think Uncle has too.”

Peter smiled brightly wrapping his arms around Marinette, careful not to mess up his nails.

“We just have one last thing to do.”

“Oh?”

“Change your last name to Stark.”

Tony said, smirking as he ruffled his now daughter’s hair. It wasn’t until after the movie finished that they announced the news to the rest of their group, and the celebration was anything but quiet. The night ended with a big sleepover in the Stark’s current living room and all went to bed knowing that tomorrow was the day they took Lila off her fake throne.

Lila smirked looking at herself in the mirror taking in her makeup. Nasty fake bruises covered her face and lower neck. She looked down at her clothes to make sure they were properly ripped. She nodded before heading out, stopping before she made it to the school before starting to cry. She rushed to the school bursting into Ms. Bustier’s class immediately having attention on her. She hid a smirk before spouting her sob story. Not knowing that Peter and his father were about to walk through that door with multiple lawyers Shuri and Ayo also tagging along. The moment Peter stepped through the door Kim charged at him fire in his eyes. Ayo was quick to move, taking Kim down flawlessly in seconds. “What do you think you’re doing! Get off my student!” Ms. Bustier said standing quickly but not moving towards Ayo and Kim.

“Shut it you banshee.”Ayo growled out standing up but keeping her foot in the middle of Kim’s back. “I shall act as guard for you all.” She said after Shuri gave her a subtle nod of permission. Tony and Peter’s lawyer Ryan was the first to step forward.

“Thank you warrior.” He said nodding in respect to Ayo before turning to the class. “I am Ryan Wilson and I am Tony and PETER Stark’s lawyer. I am looking for one Lila Rossi.” Lila sat stock still not wanting to draw any attention to her. That failed when Ayla was quick to point her out.

“She is right here! You’re here to help her after that monster attacked her earlier aren’t you? Wow! Stark works fast! Oh can I record this for my blog?” Ryan galred at both girls before walking over and placing papers on the table.

“No, you may not! Lila Rossi you’ve been served! The Stark family is suing you for slander and defamation of character as well as claiming to others that you work with them. I suggest you find a lawyer and soon.” He turned away from them and walked to Bustier’s desk placing papers on her desk. “This is for allowing and even helping your student to lie.” He stepped back ignoring the class crying out in outrage. Lila just sat staring down at the paper in horror. The horror mounting as more and more papers were added to the pile until Marinette’s delicate and manicured hand placed her own papers down. She looked up at Marinette’s blank face, tears streaming down her face as anger slowly built.

“Lila I have let you get away with a lot, all because I was supposed to be the ‘better person’. Well I am done with that flawed idea, it’s time you learned that lies have consequences.” She turned heading back over to Peter smiling brightly until she saw Tony and Peter’s eyes widened as they moved forward. LIla let out a blood curdling scream launching herself at Marinette. Marinette turned quickly but Ayo was faster than both girls and slammed Lila into the ground. She calmly turned to look at Ryan not releasing her grip from Lila. “It may be smart to call for the police.” Officer Raincomprix walked in soon after sending the teacher a disappointed look as he pulled out handcuffs.

“We are already here. Lila Rossi evidence has been discovered proving that you willingly worked with Gabriel Agreste, also known as Hawkmoth. Anything you say can and will be held against you.” He cuffed her ignoring her screams and holding the young women still as she thrashed trying to get to Marinette. Tony wrapped an arm around her shoulder as Peter linked their arms together causing Marinette to smile.

“Ready to head home, daughter of mine?” Tony said with a smirk as Marinette leaned her head against his arm.

“Ya know, I can’t wait to see my new home. Lets go.”

I wondered when he was finally going to be bored.

Sir, be careful!

#peter parker #tony stark #peter stark #irondad #Avengers #team iron man #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous fanfic #miraculous fandom #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #marinette dupain cheng #lila bashing #lila salt #class salt #quantic kids #DC Universe

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miraculousluvbug · 3 years

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WINGLESS | Ch. 2

***WARNING: Season 4 Spoilers Ahead

***New to Wingless? Start at Chapter 1!

CH. SUMMARY: Of all the people Rena could let slip that she knows Ladybug's identity in front of . . . it had to be Chat Noir.

< < < THREE MONTHS AGO < < <

Ladybug swung from building to building, the exhilaration of a job well done fueling the fire in her veins. Traffic it would seem had resumed immediately, the sounds of wheels on pavement and cars obnoxiously honking ricocheting throughout the city’s architecture. This didn’t surprise Ladybug, seeing as the city had grown quite accustomed to akumas blocking the roads. Once the tips of her toes touched a rooftop, it wasn’t long before she was joined by another pair of boots.

“That went well,” commented Ladybug as she swiveled to face her teammate.

Rena Rouge folded her arms across her chest and popped a hip, lips puckered in a frown. “Are you kidding, girl?”

Ladybug’s face fell. No, she wasn’t kidding. She honestly had felt it went well. Was she missing something? Did a disaster strike while she was focused on her lucky charm? Had her Miraculous ladybugs not corrected all of the damage? Were there civilians hurt somewhere--

Abruptly, Rena clapped her hands on Ladybug’s shoulders and squealed, putting a halt to Ladybug’s internal meltdown. “That went amazing! We’re like a well-oiled machine, you and me. I still can’t believe I get to do superhero stuff!” At the sound of Alya’s impromptu shrieking, some pigeons nearby took flight, cooing what Ladybug imagined was a bird version of crotchety old people grumbling. Not even the least bit deterred, Rena leaned forward into Ladybug’s personal bubble, eyes wide with excitement. “But what I really can’t believe is that I’m doing it all with my best friend!”

Ladybug relaxed her posture and let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. But she quickly regretted it when she got a nice, big whiff of crepes, urine, and cigarette smoke. Ah, Paris. Home, sweet home. However, noticing her thoughts were veering dangerously offtrack, Ladybug shook herself mentally.

So nothing had gone wrong. Rena was just being Rena and drawing out the suspense. Ladybug patted her friend’s right hand--which was still firmly squeezing her shoulder--and smiled sweetly.

“It sure is convenient that I don’t have to hide from you anymore,” the spotted-heroine remarked. “I think half the time I took so long to get to a battle because I always had to come up with excuses.”

Rena grinned with a knowing glint in her eye. “I might be impressed if your excuses were actually good.”

Rolling her eyes, Ladybug turned away from Rena, causing Rena’s hands to fall to her sides. “Hey, you try having to come up with five hundred different reasons you have to flake on your friends and see if you fare any better.”

Rena was about to sass her best friend some more, but the words caught in her throat at the sight of Ladybug hugging herself. She recognized this stance. Ladybug’s head was in what Rena deemed the “Guilt Grotto.”

Rena stepped forward to wrap Ladybug in a warm, girl-you-better-get-your-head-out-of-the-guilt-grotto-or-I’ll-tickle-you embrace when there was movement across the rooftops in her periphery. She craned her head to the right to find the familiar silhouette of Chat Noir vaulting his way over, a goofy grin clearly plastered across his face the closer he got.

In a matter of seconds, he landed squarely beside Ladybug, startling her. Ladybug, the epitome of grace that she was, did a series of awkward hand gestures before falling back on her bum, shrieking.

Chat Noir didn’t even look a teeny bit remorseful.

“Looks like I got here just in time!” he quipped, bowing and sliding his baton back into place on his suit.

Rena held out a hand for her friend as Ladybug voiced her question: “In time for what?”

Chat bounced on the balls of his feet. “Well, for the akuma, of course! You guys were having a quick team meeting, right?”

Rena and Ladybug shared a look. So that’s what he was so happy about. Ladybug opened her mouth to reply, but Rena beat her to it.

“Actually, we already took care of the akuma.”

Chat Noir visibly deflated. His ears drooped and his belt tail started to swish back and forth. “Oh.” He turned to the edge of the rooftop and hunkered down, letting his legs kick to and fro in an attempt to get rid of some of the adrenaline.

Ladybug winced. Chat did not sound happy. Hesitantly, she sat next to him. Rena then took a seat beside her, making her the middle. “Sorry, Chat. I know you like battling akumas more than I do.”

Chat nodded before murmuring, “Thirteen.”

“Hm?” Ladybug scooted closer to him to hear him better, their legs nearly touching. She leaned to her right to get a better look at his face and tilted her head innocently. If she were Marinette then, she might have fallen off the rooftop altogether, but she was Ladybug, and Ladybug had way more poise.

Chat didn’t answer immediately. Whatever it was that he was about to say, Ladybug knew it must be something important if he, the guy who was always upfront about his feelings, found it difficult to say. The guy who told her . . .

It’s precisely when something is important that it’s important to say it.

No matter what.

Ladybug gingerly rested a hand on his arm, hoping he understood what the gesture meant. It’s okay. Take your time. I’m ready to listen.

After a few more moments of staring at his feet, Chat Noir lifted his head so his eyes bore into Ladybug’s. They creased with . . . Was that worry? Sadness? Fear?

“Thirteen,” he repeated, a bit louder. “That makes it thirteen times you and Rena have battled an akuma without me. Since Montparnasse Tower.”

Ladybug was speechless. As she stared ahead, eyes unfocused, she tried her hardest to recall all the akuma battles. It was challenging as her memory loved to fail her when she needed it most. Had he really not been in any of those battles? Had it really been thirteen times?

Had he . . . had he really been keeping count?

Ladybug didn’t know what to say, but she knew she had to say something, anything. But what could she say? Was she sorry?

No, she couldn’t be sorry that the akumas had been defeated, that the victims had been rescued, that she had been able to do so quickly because Alya had been spending a record amount of hours by her side.

She couldn’t be sorry about any of that. She was only sad that he felt sidelined.

That was not her intention.

But she knew what the solution to that was.

And she would rather die before she let Chat Blanc see the light of day.

Somehow, knowing her identity had led to him being akumatized. Somehow, whether it was in an alternate timeline or when their memories had been wiped by Oblivio, she knew that what he said at Montparnasse Tower--that to know him was to love him--was truth. And Chat Blanc had told her what their love did.

Their love destroyed the world.

Their love had killed her.

Their love broke the moon, for crying out loud.

But, most importantly, their love hurt him.

Chat Noir had told her he loved her, many times, and she had even been considering giving his pun-spurting, jokes-at-the-worst-times self a chance. But being forced into combat with her akumatized partner had violently squashed any hope she had for them, for LadyNoir as Alya coined it on her blog. Ladybug would be damned if she allowed that to happen again. And if that meant encouraging him to move on even though it broke her heart . . .

Well, it wasn’t supposed to be easy being a hero.

Ladybug had this entire conversation with herself in a matter of seconds. She was careful not to let her face expose any of her innermost feelings, instead sporting an expression of neutrality. What she ultimately decided to do was tell him the only truth she had to offer. He hated secrets and she hated lying. What a pair they made.

“I wish it could be different,” she whispered.

And oh, how she did. She desperately yearned to tell him who she was, to know who he was, to tell him about Alya and Nino and all the other people she had entrusted with a Miraculous.

She wanted him to know how she grew up, what kinds of things she did at school, how she was utterly ridiculous when it came to her rotten luck (and she tried very hard to push a certain blue-eyed blonde out of her head the moment that phrase came to mind). She was sure he would snicker at all the times she made a fool of herself in front of Adrien, of all the ways she made her own life a living hell with her clumsiness.

Or perhaps he wouldn’t laugh. Perhaps he would pat her shoulder and uplift her with words of encouragement. She didn’t know. After the stunt he pulled with the balcony of candle-lit roses, the boy was a wild card, an enigma. He was complex.

And it thrilled her.

But no matter how she felt about him, they couldn’t know each other that way.

Sighing quietly, Ladybug brought her knees up to her chest and turned away from Chat Noir. If she had been watching him when she responded, she might have seen him look longingly at her, but she didn’t.

Rena Rouge did, though.

Wanting to make her friends feel better, Rena added, “Don’t you worry your pretty kitty head about it. I’m sure all those battles would have taken way longer if we weren’t already together.”

Ladybug and Chat Noir both stiffened. Chat’s gaze flicked from Rena to his partner over and over before they finally rested on Ladybug. “Uh, what does she mean by that?”

Ladybug shot a glare in Rena’s direction, but her eyes softened when she saw that Rena genuinely appeared surprised.

He didn’t know? Rena’s eyes asked Ladybug.

He didn’t know, Ladybug’s affirmed.

One would think Rena was Lady Luck because her pendant had decided that that moment was the best time to beep, and she couldn’t agree more. Now she had an escape route from this conversation. “Welp,” she clapped her hands together, “I’m gonna go chill in that fine-lookin’ alley over there.”

Before Ladybug could agree, Rena sprang from her spot and promptly disappeared. She was a regular magician, and her latest trick was leaving Ladybug with a rabbit to put back in the hat.

Or, er--a cat back in the bag. Whatever.

“What she meant by that . . . ” Ladybug began slowly, like she was addressing a wounded animal. Which, maybe she was but just, you know, emotionally wounded.

“Yeah . . . ” prompted Chat, signalling that he was not going to drop this.

Ladybug quickly jumped to her feet and began her ritual of frantic pacing. “Look, I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a while, but I didn’t know how to because I knew it would raise questions that I couldn’t answer--”

A blonde boy in white leather with somber blue eyes appeared in front of her and she dug her heels into the cement, skidding to a stop.

Chat Noir was behind Ladybug now, his voice soft and curious. “Bug?”

Ladybug was frozen in place for a few more seconds before she shook her head hard enough to give herself shaken-baby syndrome and nodded, satisfied that the aggressive head-shaking had rid her of he who shall not be named. She whipped around and started.

Chat Noir was incredibly close.

She didn’t know he had gotten this close.

Geez, his eyes were really cat-like.

He also had a really cute nose--

Ladybug, FOCUS!

Ladybug took a step back. She made it her mission to ogle his bell instead of looking into his dumb kitten eyes. “You--” she began, but Ladybug’s throat was suddenly dry. She gulped. “You know how much I hate secrets and lying. And I know how much you hate secrets and lying. So I’m not going to lie to you. But I may not be able to answer the questions I’m sure you’ll have, so please . . . ”

Ladybug grabbed one of his hands then and held it firmly between her own, pleading with every fiber of her being that this would communicate how much he meant to her even though she knew what she was about to tell him would make it seem like he didn’t mean anything.

Please forgive me, Ladybug’s heart supplied.

When he didn’t immediately take his hand back, she looked up at him. She looked into those dumb kitten eyes and knew without a shadow of a doubt--

She was a masochist.

This was going to hurt. He didn’t like when she was the only one to know Rena’s identity. He definitely wasn’t going to like that Rena knew hers. This would be so much easier if she wasn’t ogling those big, emerald green, beautiful, brazenly dumb kitten eyes.

But she was a masochist. And she needed to see them while they still held love for her.

“I told Rena Rouge who I am.”

There. She ripped off the band-aid. Straight to the point. Zero room for interpretation. After all, her worst arguments started because of her clumsy miscommunication.

Ladybug braced herself for an explosion. She had played this moment in her head a couple hundred times since exposing herself to Alya.

Yelling. There was always yelling.

Sometimes, he stomped away while doing that weird T pose where his fists didn’t connect to his hips . . . a pose she herself was guilty of, too.

Others, he chastised her about her thoughtlessness--to which she responded that she definitely thought about it long and hard that day.

Ladybug braced herself for an explosion because she was sure there was going to be one, especially after seeing him upset about her always running off to Master Fu. He hadn’t even known there was a Guardian for a while.

What she hadn’t braced herself for was the expression on his face.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

His head was bowed.

His eyes were closed.

A lone tear slid down his cheek.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Her heart thudded against her ribcage, screaming at her to run because he wanted her Miracul--!

No! She refused to finish that thought.

Her head yelled back that he wasn’t akumatized right now, that she wasn’t back there, that she wasn’t with him. She desperately tried to shove the image from her mind. This was more than she could bear. She just--she couldn’t take it! She couldn’t take it because . . .

Because . . .

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Because he looked just like him.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

He looked like Chat Blanc.

-----

Heya! Thanks for reading. ❤ Check out my Instagram for Wingless updates. I'm also posting pieces of a Wingless cover with each chapter update!

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starshine583 · 3 years

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New Girl on the Block (13)

(Happy Valentine’s Day everybody!!! I’d say that this is a gift for the day, but this is my usual update time lol please enjoy the new chapter anyway! There’s also a mini series connected to this called Journal Entries :D)

Ch.1 / Ch.12 / Ch.14 (ao3)

Chapter 13: I’ll Make You a Deal

Lila stalked the halls of Dupont, doing her best to hide her scowl as she massaged her temples. When she offered to take Marinette’s job as Class President, she hadn’t realized how much extra work she was dumping onto herself. She thought that the title was just that: a title. Nothing more. Nothing less. Sure, she would have to verify a few things, acknowledge her classmates’ opinions towards the school system, and speak out about it as a representative towards them, but that was all. She didn’t expect it to rearrange her entire schedule towards life! Her head was pounding from the late nights of filing student complaints, her back ached from carrying this stupid binder around, and her wrist still twinged with pain from signing too many papers at once. It was ridiculous!

Lying to Bustier about those forms didn’t make it any easier either. Instead of getting to make minor additions to the papers Marinette had already written, she now had to rewrite all of the forms herself. The entire process was a nightmare, and Lila couldn’t escape. If she lied again and said that Marinette gave the forms back, that would be glorifying the girl, and she refused to do that. However, if she lied and said that she simply found the forms again, it would not only make her look suspicious, but also incompetent. She couldn’t have either of those descriptions attached to her person.

So, that left her with the agonizing option of filling them out again herself. She tried to push it onto Alya, and for the most part, she succeeded. The red-head filled out a good half before handing them back, but that still left Lila with the other half. Thus, she’s spent the last three nights in a row doing nothing but signing form after form after form. The fact that she had to use Marinette’s forms as reference only made it worse. She could practically hear the ravenette laughing at her every time she glanced over the original paperwork. It was utterly humiliating.

And don’t get her started on the amount of requests or complaints that she had to file. Everyday her classmates came to her asking for this or that or “could you change this about our classroom?”. Sometimes they would talk about the seats being too hard or the fact that they didn’t have enough recess or how the stairs were too far apart and someone could trip. Then- oh, then -there were the class trips. One request was a literal trip to Greece. Greece! Did they think she or the school was just made of money? How can they possibly be this greedy or entitled? How was Marinette able to handle it all so easily? She made it look like it was nothing!

Lila clenched her fists at her side, her nails digging into her skin. Even after running from the school with her tail between her legs, Marinette was still acting as a sharp, irritating thorn in Lila’s side.

Sparkling laughter interrupted her thoughts, and Lila turned to the two boys standing outside of the library entrance. Adrien Agreste, the golden child of the school, and Nino, his little sidekick- as far as Lila was concerned -appeared to be chatting mindlessly on their way back to class, which was typical. Adrien was always talking with somebody now-a-days. That was another problem of hers.

When Marinette first left, Adrien became distraught and distant. He began muttering to himself and not listening in class, dismissing everyone with a hum and a nod. The other students berated him for the behavior, wonderfully captured in Lila’s beautifully crafted web of words, but he hardly heard them. Or if he did, he didn’t care. He continued to write things in his notebook that certainly weren’t lesson notes and run his hand through his hair with frustration when he hit some sort of wall.

It was irritating, of course, but nothing Lila hadn’t expected. Marinette was supposed to be his “very good friend”, after all. She would have been surprised if he hadn’t mourned the loss. What she didn’t anticipate, though, was the way he bounced back.

It had to have happened a little over two weeks after Marinette left, because Lila remembered finally starting to feel comfortable in her new role of being able to lie unchallenged. She was spewing some crap about Marinette sending her mean messages, making sure her tears looked real enough and her sobs were believable, when Adrien decided to jump into the conversation. He flashed her a bright smile and, in the kindest voice she’d ever heard, asked her for the texts that Marinette had sent.

The question alone had surprised her, considering the fact that he hadn’t really spoken to anyone in a while, but that smile he held was really the thing to set her on edge. It was simply too sweet-looking for someone who had just indirectly asked for proof of her story, especially when they both knew that she was lying.

She couldn’t understand the change. He’d been cowering in the corner for the last two weeks, and yet that day, he was out for blood on her account. Why? What was the difference between the last two weeks and that day? She still doesn’t know.

Adrien’s determination towards outing her cranked up to eleven after that . He went from barely talking to one person throughout the day to talking with everyone on a constant basis, and anytime Lila so much as uttered a sentence, he was there asking questions. When did she do this, who helped her with that, how did she manage to get from one place to the other so quickly- from a naïve onlooker’s point of view, Adrien would simply appear to be interested in Lila’s stories, but she knew better. He was finding holes in her stories and using them to rip apart her words piece by piece, all while using an innocent yet confused expression to make it seem like he was trying to help her. The strategy was completely different from Marinette’s, and it ticked Lila off to no end. How was she supposed to turn crowds against him and regain her throne if he kept acting like some pure-hearted angel?

She couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t, and he knew that she couldn’t, because that’s the exact same tactic that eventually got Marinette to leave the school.

A part of her had hoped that this newfound passive-aggression would fade after a few days, but now that three weeks of constant badgering on Adrien’s account has passed, that hope has been thoroughly and relentlessly crushed. He hasn’t done much over those weeks, thankfully, but she’s had to reinforce her lies ten times the normal amount to keep it that way. That’s a tad hard to do when all of your stories are on the grand scale of things.

Even with her meticulous planning and words choices, though, one can’t escape subtle confrontation forever. She could tell that people were slowly starting to become suspicious of her stories. They were either wanting Adrien to be around during their discussions with her or were looking for holes themselves.

Watching them exchange glances during her stories made her blood boil. Why did they have to be so nosy? So picky? Can’t she have a reprieve for once in her entire life? Can’t she just lie and manipulate others without the fear of getting caught? Why did that feel like such a big request from the universe?

Adrien and Nino waved to each other, and Lila perked up. It looked like they were separating. Were they separating? Oh, please be separating. That would be the most convenient thing to happen to her all month.

Adrien split off from Nino, to her delight, and Lila beelined after the blond. His meddling had gone on long enough, and she thought it was high time someone put an end to it. That someone being her.

“Adrien!” Lila cooed, looping her arm with his and flashing a bright smile. “It’s been forever since we’ve talked just one on one, don’t you think?”

Adrien’s steps faltered, and for the briefest of moments, she saw his eyes darken. Nobody else would have noticed, especially not with the friendly smile he gave her right after, but Lila caught it. She was the only one who realized how truly despicable the model could be.

“Oh, hey Lila.” He replied with an easy, clearly fake smile. “I guess we haven’t talked alone in a while. You normally like to be at the center of the crowd.”

Lila tried not to grit her teeth and instead elected to flip her hair over her shoulder. “Well, I wouldn’t say the center. I’m just being myself, and the others seem to follow.”

Adrien hummed. “Yes, I’m sure you're a wonderful role model for all of us. It isn’t everyday we get the courtesy of having an honest and kind friend like you.”

His sarcasm was palpable, but his shining smile remained. A part of her wondered why he even bothered acting at this point. They both knew they were at war now. Niceties were only necessary when someone was clueless towards hidden motives. Adrien wasn’t, and neither was she, yet here they were. Smiling and trading snide remarks in the privacy of the empty locker room.

Lila put on a bashful expression. “Oh, please-”

“Of course,” Adrien interrupted her, “there was also Marinette. She was always ready to help someone. It’s a shame she had to transfer schools.”

Lila bit the inside of her cheek to avoid sneering. There he goes again, mentioning that ridiculous baker girl. It’s so infuriating.

“Even though she was a bully? I’m sorry, Adrien, but I don’t think you should forgive someone so easily. They’ll walk all over you if you give them too much leeway.”

Adrien slipped- or rather jerked -his arm out of Lila’s grasp as he exchanged some of his books. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Ah, there it is. That might have been the first genuine comment he’s made during this discussion.

“What was that?” She asked with feigned politeness.

Adrien straightened and gave her another innocent smile. “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if this could all be a big misunderstanding? The phone number that was terrorizing you wasn’t Marinette’s, after all. If you were.. mistaken.. on that story, perhaps you missed something in your other stories. Don’t you think so?”

Lila forced a smile so wide that her cheeks started to hurt. Was this his way of giving her an out? A last chance of mercy? Because if it was, she refused to take it. She’s built this kingdom with nothing but her bare hands, and she’d be darned if she decided to lie down and let him take it away just as quickly.

“I can’t say I do.”

Adrien closed his locker, a certain glint coming to his eyes when he looked at her. “Well.. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what I find. Won’t we?”

Rage crackled through Lila’s bones as Adrien walked past her, but she caught herself before doing anything rash. If she was going to counter Adrien’s sudden attacks, she needed to make a deal with him and get him off of her back just long enough to plan. And to do that, she needed to promise him what he apparently wanted most.

“What if it wasn’t her?”

Adrien stopped in the doorway, and Lila held her breath.

“..Because it wasn’t her,” he corrected, “I’ll be hoping that she comes back.”

Lila drew in a deep breath, if only to avoid screaming. Marinette, Marinette, Marinette- Why did he have to have to be so infatuated with Marinette? What could she possibly have that made Adrien want to fight against the whole school to get her back?

“Alright..” She said, completely calm. “Say you were right. If it happened to turn out that Marinette wasn’t the one responsible and I convince her to come back, will we all be able to get along?”

Bile rose to her mouth as she spoke. The very thought of running back to Marinette and asking her to come back to Dupont made Lila’s stomach churn, but this was fine. She was only promising to bring Marinette back. Promises can easily be broken.

Adrien smiled, but not like the fake, warm smiles he’d been giving her throughout their conversation. No, this one was sharp, predatory, as though he could see right through her words.

“See you in class, Lila.”

The “golden child” left the locker room then, and Lila finally gave in to her frustration and let out a growl. This was supposed to be her victory, her turf, and yet she can’t even enjoy it anymore because Adrien freaking Agreste decided to meddle in business that wasn’t his. He knew that the only reason she was willing to compromise was because he was getting to her, and that burned her up inside.

She drew in another deep breath and smoothed out her miniature ponytails. This was fine. Everything was fine. Adrien might be deciding to join the squabble a tad later than usual, but Lila invented this game. If he wanted to try his hand at her tactics and strategies, fine. He would soon realize why she was able to climb to the top in the first place.

~~~~~~~

Marinette stared out the car window with awe as they drove up the street towards Allegra’s estate. In the week that led to the group sleepover, Marinette had racked her brain day and night trying to decide what the mansion would be like. How tall would it be? How wide? Would it take up an entire street or a small square of Paris like Gabriel’s? Would there be butlers running around like in the movies or would there be a simple maid or two to keep things moving? Perhaps there wouldn’t be any hired hand at all? The excitement and anticipation made her buzz and bounce through the last few school days at Rosemary, but she refused to ask any questions during the wait for winter break. Marinette wanted the mansion to be a complete surprise. And now that she was finally here, sitting in the backseat of Allegra’s miniature limo and practically pressing her face against the window, she couldn’t be happier with that decision.

Mansions of all kinds lined the sidewalks, bigger and more elegant than she could have ever imagined. Some had marvelous fountains, while others had incredible gardens. Some had amazing walls with ingrained art that lined the premises, and one mansion even had horses grazing on their front lawn! It made her wonder why Gabriel would build his mansion in the middle of the city, or if any of these mansions might belong to Claude, Allan, or Felix.

Near the end of the street rested a long brick wall that had elaborate, white statues decorating the major corners. Marinette guessed immediately that that was Allegra’s mansion, because the wall wrapped around an enormous white house that had silver railings for the balconies and blue-ish grey tiles for the rooftops, quite contrary to the golds and dark browns that came with the other mansions. It was beautiful in its simplicity, and that seemed like something Allegra would enjoy, even if the house belonged directly to her parents.

Sure enough, the car rolled to a stop in front of the black metal gate that the brick walls led to, and the driver told Marinette to stay put as he hopped out of the vehicle. She watched quietly as he unlocked the gate by hand using a personal key and quickly found herself wiggling in her seat when he started pushing the gates open. They were so close! Allegra’s mansion was right there! If they didn’t start moving again in two seconds, Marinette might just jump out and start running.

The driver got back into the car with a small apology for the inconvenience- to which she assured him that it was fine through barely contained squeals -and they continued through the gate at a leisure pace, which killed Marinette inside. She wanted to get into the mansion now!

In an effort to remain still, her eyes flicked around the front lawn of the estate. The driveway they had pulled into appeared to be a full circle, looping around an intricate water fountain that spouted bursts of water in such a way that made the water look as though it were dancing. Diamonds of dark green grass cut through the concrete in the driveway, leading to the rest of the vibrant grass on the lawn, and a delightful mix of bushes and flowers lined the inside of the brick wall as well the outside of the mansion. It struck Marinette as quaint and refined at the same time, and her respects went out to the person- or persons -responsible for designing and maintaining the look.

Finally, the limo parked in front of these wide, marble steps that led to the front door, and the driver barely had time to open Marinette’s back door before she leapt out with her bags in her arms. If the outside was this luxurious, she couldn’t wait to see how breathtaking the inside would be.

“Thanks for the ride, sir!” She called over her shoulder as she hopped up the steps two-by-two.

“Oh, miss-!” The man yelled after her. “May I take your bags?”

Marinette skidded to a halt and turned around, ready to politely decline his offer, when another voice spoke up behind her.

“No need, Louis! I’ve got them.”

Marinette whirled back around, coming face to face with Allegra, who was now standing in the doorway with a bright smile.

The blonde reached forward to take the bags with one hand, while giving Marinette a side hug with the other. “I’m so happy you’re here! This is going to be great.”

“I know! I’ve been waiting for this all week! Your house looks amazing.”

A grin spread across Allegra’s lips, and she pulled back from the hug in favor of grabbing Marinette’s hand. “If you like it now, just wait till you see the inside.”

The two girls waltzed inside together, but as soon as she entered, Marinette couldn’t help gasping and breaking away from Allegra to run further into the house. Tiled, marble floors stretched out before her, seemingly farther than the street she had just driven down, and on the other side of the bigger-than-life foyer was a set of large, open windows that touched from the floor of the first level to the ceiling of the second level. They overlooked the backyard, which was equally as enchanting as the front yard, and a part of her had the urge to sit down and stare at them wistfully for a good hour or two.

To her left and right were a pair of long, curved stairs that led to the second floor. They matched the marble tiles on the first floor and had beautiful, metal railings that curled and twisted into different types of flowers and leaves. The railing also trailed off to the open hallways above, where Marinette could see different types of doors lined up. Her restless brain wanted to skip up the stairs, brush her hand across the smooth, black railing, and explore each and every room possible.

Her gaze dragged up to the ceiling, and her jaw fell slack yet again as she realized exactly how high the building was. The circular sunroof that signified the center of the ceiling felt higher than the Eiffel Tower itself, and Marinette was certain that if she called out, it would take at least five seconds to hear her voice echoing back to her.

“Well?” Allegra asked next to her. “What do you think?”

“What do I think?” Marinette blanched. “Allegra, this is incredible! Do you really live here?”

A musical laugh came from the blonde, and she nodded. “Yep. Ever since I was five. Come on, I’ll give you a tour!”

They made their way to the stairs, and Marinette eagerly ran her hand across the cool railings as she continued to look around. She couldn’t believe how astonishing everything looked. It was as though they’d taken the finest jewels and rocks on earth and merged them together to create this mansion. How did they even afford all of this?

“What did you say your mom did again?”

Allegra glanced over at her. “My mom? She’s a-”

“Hey!”

The two girls paused mid step and looked up at the open hallway. Claude stood just above them, leaning over the railing and waving with a wide grin. Allan stood behind him, also offering the girls a friendly smile as a greeting.

“Is that Marinette?” Claude called.

“Yep! She just got here.”

“Sweet!” The brunette cheered. He dashed from his place upstairs and, once he got a good enough momentum, jumped to a stop, using his socks to slide the rest of the way to the stairwell. “We’ve been waiting forever for you to show up!”

Marinette giggled and ran up the rest of the stairway to give Claude a hug. “I got my clothes together as fast as I could.”

“Oh, you’re good.” Allan assured as he came to join them. “You’re technically early anyway.”

“I thought I was.” Marinette remarked, pulling away from Claude to give Allan a small hug as well. “Is Felix here too?”

“Nope, it’s just us right now.” Claude answered with a smile. “We already had clothes here from previous sleepovers.”

“They practically have their own personal closets at this point.” Allegra snorted. Then, she gave Marinette a playful nudge. “And soon, so will you.”

Marinette smiled. She wasn’t sure that she even had enough clothes to fill another closet, but it didn’t stop her from feeling giddy towards receiving one. Having a personal closet at Allegra’s meant she would be coming over much more often, and that was something she desperately wanted to do at this point.

“Have you shown her around yet?” Claude asked.

“Nope. I was gonna show her my room first, though, so I can put her bags down in there.”

“Oh, good idea.” The brunette remarked, taking the opportunity to snag Marinette’s bags from Allegra’s hands. “Let’s go! You’re gonna love it, Mari.”

With everyone together- save for Felix -the group eagerly clambered down the hallway that Claude and Allan had previously been in. The black railway from the staircase continued to twist down the hall next to Marinette, and when it finally stopped at a wall, Claude stopped at a doorway to his right. Glittering stickers arched across the door, spelling out the word “Allegra”.

“Those are from when I was, like, nine.” Allegra commented, a hint of a blush on her cheeks as she opened her bedroom door.

Marinette was about to say that it was fine- she actually found the lettering to be endearing -but any form of words or replies were lost on her when she saw the bedroom for the first time.

Everything was covered in light purples and white, with occasional bits of gold and light blue to accent the room. An enormous, deep purple bed with swirling, golden patterns sat in the center, holding pillows that were bigger than Marinette’s bed alone and a comfort that looked fluffier than her warmest ear-muffs. A pair of blue, see-through curtains wrapped around the bed as well, reminding her of something a princess might own.

Across the room- which was twice the size of her little attic bedroom -were two white shelves that stretched from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. They held various things such as books, notebooks, miniature glass statues, and plenty of other trinkets that struck Marinette as charming. She wondered how long it must have taken Allegra to collect such things, or if she bought them all in one go as she decorated her room. There were even a few crystal wind-chimes hanging around the room.

“This is..” Marinette wasn’t sure what it was as she walked inside, star-struck. The girl even had her own chandelier, for Pete’s sake! Then there was the massive vanity with a million different types of eyeshadow- all aligned perfectly in an orderly fashion -and the massive desk on the other side of the room that had a fancy paperweight and a nice, little trinket to hold all of Allegra’s pencils and such for school. Don’t get her started on the chair hanging from the ceiling that looked equally fancy and comfortable.

“Do I really get to sleep in here?” She eventually asked instead. Words couldn’t describe her thoughts on the room or how it looked like something out of a daydream.

Allegra laughed. “Yep! We’re actually going to be spending most of the night here.”

“After we go swimming, of course.” Claude added as he set Marinette’s bags down in the walk-in closet.

Marinette’s eyes widened at the remark. She’d almost forgotten why she came here in the first place. “Where is the swimming pool?”

“It’s downstairs.” Allegra answered. “I can’t wait for you to see it. We have a water slide and everything.”

Marinette would have gasped, but after what she’s seen so far, she wouldn’t be surprised if they had their own personal zoo. “Can we go see it?”

“Absolutely!” The blonde smiled, looping her arm with Marinette’s. “But first, we need to finish our tour.”

The group made their way out of Allegra’s room and started exploring each door they passed. Claude, Allan, and Allegra took turns explaining each room’s purpose to Marinette, and she absorbed their words as best she could. Most of the time, though, she was lost in her thoughts, completely awed by the structure of the household.

Each room appeared to be bigger than the last, and some of them had Marinette nearly falling over from the amount of money that had to have gone into the décor. There were offices and dining halls and bigger bedrooms for Allegra’s parents. Then there were game rooms with pool tables and living rooms with couches that stretched around the entire room so everyone could see each other. Vases and sculptures lined the hallways and hid in the corners while extensive family portraits littered walls and held personal places on overly huge fireplaces.

In a word, the entire mansion was extravagant, especially for a three-person family, but despite the overwhelming amount of space, Marinette could feel the warmth and familial love of each room. A multitude of memories resided in the walls, and she couldn’t wait to hear all of them.

One room in particular caught her attention the most.

“What is this place?” Marinette asked as she walked into another wide-spread room. Musical instruments of all kinds littered the area- harps, violins, cellos, pianos, guitars, mandolins, and other things she couldn’t even name. They all appeared to be in mint condition, so clean that she could see her reflection in them, and the little kid in Marinette wanted to run around and try each one of them.

“This,” Allegra said next to her, “is our music room.”

“Music room..” Marinette whispered as her hand ran over a pair of literal bongos. “Can you actually play all of these?”

Claude snorted behind them. “She definitely wishes she could.”

Allegra scoffed and smacked his arm with a playful glare.

“No, I can’t play all of them.. But I’m working on it.”

“Wow.” Marinette muttered. That had to be time consuming. Where did she find the drive to keep practicing all of these?

“..Can I touch them?”

“Oh, yeah! Touch them all. Go crazy. I can even teach you how to play a little tune for some of them if you want.”

Marinette lit up. “Can you really?”

Allegra chuckled. “Of course. We have all night, don’t we?”

Marinette had to bite her tongue to avoid squealing again, and she promptly darted off to try everything she could. Any strings and keys would be briefly plucked and pressed before being cast away for the next instrument. She would thump on the drums and blow on the tubas and, occasionally, she would stop to try a few simple tunes on an instrument that sounded especially enchanting to her.

After about thirty minutes of this heaven- there were a lot of instruments -someone knocked on the doorframe at the front of the room, gathering the group’s attention.

A man with light brown hair stood in the doorway, offering an easy, yet apologetic smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Allegra, who had been teaching Marinette how to play the Panda Drum, hopped up from her position on the floor to greet him with a hug. “Not at all! I was just showing Marinette around the house. Mari, this is my dad, Arthur. Dad, this is Marinette, my friend from school that I’ve been telling you about.”

Marinette set the drum aside and stood up as well. “It’s nice to meet you, M. Chanson.”

“Oh, please.” M. Chanson held up a dismissive hand. “Just call me Arthur. Or even Uncle Arthur, if you like.”

A soft smile spread across Marinette’s lips, and she nodded. He sounded exactly like Maman when someone new came to their house.

“Anyway, I just came by to drop off the last bit of your group. He found me in the kitchen while looking for you.” Arthur said. He then stepped to the side to reveal none other than Felix, who had apparently been standing behind him the whole time.

Marinette perked up at the sight of the blond. “Oh, Felix! You’re here!”

“Here late.” Claude added with a smirk.

Felix shot him a look. “I’m not late. I told you all that I wouldn’t quite be here at the same time as everyone else.”

“Telling us that you’re going to be late doesn’t mean that you weren’t late.” Allegra pointed out. “It just means that you were considerate about your tardiness.”

Felix narrowed his eyes at her, knowing she was correct, and Marinette pursed her lips to avoid laughing, because she also knew that Allegra was correct.

“So I see you’ve been showing her my instruments?” Arthur cut in, redirecting the conversation.

Marinette’s eyes widened. “These are your instruments?”

Arthur chuckled. “Yep. In fact, I taught Allegra everything she knows.”

“You mean you can actually play all of them?”

“Well, some better than others,” The man responded with a half shrug, “but yeah. I’m honestly a little disappointed that A didn’t come get me when she showed you the room.”

Allegra winced. “Oh, sorry, Dad. I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“That’s amazing..” Marinette remarked, dumbfounded. She couldn’t imagine having enough memory to know how each individual instrument was played.

Arthur tilted his head back and forth with a hum. “I wouldn’t say amazing. A lot of these instruments are extremely similar to how they’re played, and at some point, once you’ve learned enough, you start to realize that a lot of music has a certain order to it. When you know that order, it makes playing a lot easier.”

“Oh, don’t be modest.” Allegra scolded. “Who else can play almost all of the instruments of the world and memorize any new instruments within a week?”

Before Arthur could respond, Allegra turned to Marinette with a proud smile and continued.

“Dad’s able to combine these instruments like no one I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. It’s like he’s memorized every string, key, or chord possible! He’s even written songs for us too. Some of them are just funny little melodies to go with Claude’s acts, but others are full songs that he performs for me and Mom. Sometimes, when Mom’s stressed, he’ll sing or play for her to help her relax. I personally think that the songs he writes then are the best ones.”

The more she talked, the more bashful Arthur became, and Marinette couldn’t help cooing at the man. The thought of someone writing songs for the person they loved and singing them when that person felt down brought a wonderful warmth to her chest. It actually reminded her of another sweet boy she knew, one with blue-tipped hair and a smile that could melt the arctic.

“I have a friend like that.” She decided to say. Why not tell the others about him too? “He has a passion for the guitar and plays songs for me when I feel down too. It’s so calming.”

Something in her tone or expression must have caught their interest, because the group’s attention shifted from Allegra to Marinette in an instant. Before she could ask about the sudden change, Claude slipped an arm around her shoulders, flashing her a sly grin.

“Oh? A friend, you say?” He drawled. “You sound pretty fond of him. What’s his name?”

An involuntary blush crept across Marinette’s cheeks, more so at the implication in Claude’s voice than anything else. After two years of hanging around Alya, with her raised eyebrows and coy smiles, she could tell when someone was trying to accuse her of certain feelings towards another.

“O-Oh. uhm.. His name is Luka.”

“Luka..” Allegra hummed. “I’ve never heard you mention his name before.”

“And I’ve never seen her blush like that before, either.” Claude teased. “You’re not being very subtle, Nette.”

Marinette felt her blush deepen, even though they both knew she was easily flustered. She’s probably blushed a million times in the month that she’s known them, and most of those blushes were definitely darker than the one she was wearing even now.

Her gaze flicked to Felix, curious as to what he thought on the matter. His expression remained neutral, though she spotted a bit of intrigue in his eyes. It didn’t help with her guilt towards the comments.

Then again, why should she feel guilty? Even if she did like Luka, that wouldn’t affect anyone here. There was no reason to be ashamed.

Nevertheless, she still wanted to slip her way out of getting teased, so she jokingly rolled her eyes and said, “You guys said we were going to go swimming, right? Felix is here, and it’s getting dark so we should probably change before it gets too late.”

“The pool is indoors.” Claude helpfully reminded. “It doesn’t matter how late it gets.”

“But that was a good try at dodging, though.” Allegra smirked.

A squeak flew from Marinette’s lips before she could stop it, and the trio shared a laugh.

“Come on, guys.” Allan lightly scolded. “If you keep messing with her like this, she might spontaneously combust.”

Another laugh tumbled from Claude’s lips before he let out a dramatic sigh. “Alright, fine. I guess we can go swimming now.”

“Marinette has to cool off, anyway.” Allegra added with a wink.

Marinette groaned and put her head in her hands, if only to hide her ever-growing blush.

Mental note: Never mention a boy to the group again, because they will probably see right through you when it’s actually serious.

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#felinette #Marinette #Felix Culpa #Quantic Kids #Rosemary AU #New Girl on the Block

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