(Proud Creator/Supporter of the "Pro LukaMari" tag, where the positive Lukanette content now reigns!) Hey, hi, hello, everybody! I'm the owner of the miraculouscontent and miraculous-content blogs, but I wanted a Lukanette blog as well, so here we are! You can call me "Clarity" or "MC." Lukanette is pure and good and my favorite ship in Miraculous, so of course I have AUs and stories about them! My AO3 | My FF.NET | Other Fics Prompt Sets Tag List All Current AUs: /p> non-button links for those who can't see the buttons: - Tikki-brand Boyfriend - Luka Charm - Bothered Fathers - 2 Years in 2 Seconds - Dream Team - Locker Buddies - Dread String of Fate
Sometimes, the world didn't make sense. Events that happened one way would be remembered differently, or things didn't line up as they should've. Important details would be forgotten at a rate that appeared outright convenient for the sake of drama or angst, and catastrophes that far crossed into the realm of contrivance were all centered around one person.
Marinette never gave a thought to it, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she couldn't. To her, life was normal, and the terrible things she'd experienced since putting on the earrings came down to only her own shortcomings.
It was almost funny then, how the only one who could save her from it all was herself.
Marinette's avoidance of romance (for what she considers "very valid reasons") is challenged when she's set up with a man who seems charmed by her every word.
When Marinette feels that Chat Noir's advances are becoming more of a burden than a harmless inconvenience, she tries to find the line between what he can't know and should know.
Luckily, she has someone to bounce ideas off of.
Day 10 ^ (2726 words) - {Lukanette} [No Miraculouses] [Fluff]
Marinette brings Luka along into a new project. He only has one problem with it.
Luka meets a girl who relates to his feelings of being overwhelmed.
Day 12 * (3498 words) - {Lukanette} [Silly] [Misunderstandings]
Luka contends with his newfound feelings for his best friend, but she seems to have other ideas for how to handle their relationship.
Day 13 ^ (2781 words) - {Lukanette} [post-”Captain Hardrock”] [pre-”Frozer”] [Canon Divergence] [Misunderstandings] [No Direct Salt But the Girl Squad is Being the Girl Squad and Adrien Exists]
Luka tries to make sense of what he sees from Marinette versus what he hears about her.
Marinette, Jagged, and Penny happen to stumble upon a pivotal interaction that Jagged's ex-manager is having with a teenage boy.
Day 15 * (4937 words) - {Lukanette} [Soulmate AU Subversion] [Odd One Out] [Hurt/Comfort] [Drastic Measures]
Love - whether platonic or romantic - can take all sorts of forms: physical contact, gifts, and the time spent together. They're viable methods to gauge one's love for another, certainly, but there's no better evidence to most than the permanent markings along a person's skin since birth.
Marinette only wishes she could understand that.
Day 16 ^ (1969 words) - {ViperFairy} {LukaFairy} [Fairy Marinette Dupain-Cheng] [Tiny Marinette Dupain-Cheng] [Fluff] [Dating Without Dating] [Silly] [Obnoxiously in Love]
Viperion visits his best friend and they engage in a totally platonic activity.
Without any memories of the night before, Marinette tries to piece together what had happened with the help of the handsome stranger she'd woken up next to.
Marinette slowly stirred awake, feeling oddly comfortable despite her usual mornings being so bland and monotonous. She whined, wrapping her arms tighter around the firm warmth against her body and pressing herself further into it. She didn't want to face the world yet, at least not until she felt like it. It was her day off anyway, so who cared if she slept a little longer for once in her life?
Then, the bed creaked, and she heard a low noise from what she was pretty sure was the warmth she was currently cuddling. Whether through curiosity or confusion, she opened her eyes, waited for her vision to adjust to what seemed to be midday light, and found herself staring at something that wasn't quite tan, but wasn't peachy either. She squinted, trying to determine what it was, but it was difficult when it was so close to her face.
Reluctantly pulling away, her hands had to slide back as well, and that was when she felt it. The feeling against her fingers wasn't just firm, there was an impression of something that felt harder under the surface.
Like... like bone. A spine. A ribcage. Her vision took in the broad, bare chest in front of her, then darted up to see sleepy blue eyes under messy black and blue hair taking her in. Marinette finally realized—
She had no recollection of what happened last night.
In horror, Marinette shoved herself away, moving across her side of the bed at lightning speed. She nearly fell, and the man even reacted with his arm going out as if to catch her, but she recovered in time and fumbled herself to a proper stand.
"I-I'm so sorry!" she shouted in a panic. "I'll take responsibility!"
He propped himself up with his elbow, looking just as baffled as she did. His mouth opened to say something, but then his eyes flicked downwards and all that came out was, "Ah."
Her cheeks turning bright red, Marinette brought her arms up to cover herself as best as she could, only to be met with fabric rather than pure skin. Blinking rapidly and growing more confused by the second, she dared another glance at the man in the bed.
In the motion of getting up that little bit, the blanket had slid down just enough to expose part of his waist. There, she saw the black of a pair of what were very obviously shorts or pants, not even underwear.
As for his shirt, she looked down and saw the reason why he hadn't been wearing one: it was simply because she was wearing it.
"...Ah," she uttered as well.
——-
Introductions were promptly exchanged, or maybe re-exchanged. Even the man (Luka, apparently) couldn't say for certain since he didn't remember a thing either. Marinette wasn't sure if that was good or bad: she was glad to not be the only one who forgot, but it troubled her that there was a giant blank space in their memories that neither of them could fill.
She also knew enough tropes to know that this was not how this was supposed to go. They should've woken up with hangovers after a one night stand, but one of them would already be gone. The other would have to track them down, or maybe she'd realize that she was going to have his baby and decide whether or not to keep it a secret from him.
Then it would turn out that he was actually some hotshot celebrity, or the paparazzi would find out and make a big deal out of it. Alternatively, nothing would happen at all in the outside world, but one of them would've stolen the other's virginity and fallen into despair.
Or maybe all of it at once. Sure, it was unlikely and sounded greatly exaggerated, but Marinette had lived long enough with what she swore was some petty god constantly making her life hell that it would've been par for the course at that point.
Instead, nothing seemed to happen, or at least nothing extreme. She felt relaxed, well-rested, and...
"...I think I had fun last night," she said, even though she remembered literally nothing. It was a feeling, but one she felt confident about the more she examined it.
"Me too," Luka agreed. He'd sat up fully and threw the covers off of himself, so his whole body was visible to her.
She scanned him up and down, mostly innocently. He had a really nice body, and a very cuddle-able one at that. There was nothing wrong with it and she found him incredibly attractive from the half-lidded gaze, the piercings, all the way down to the black nail polish, so why hadn't she jumped him if she'd been so drunk that her brain had thrown away her memory of last night?
Unless, of course, she was the problem. She supposed that made sense: just because she was attracted to him didn't mean he was attracted to her, so they left it at cuddling.
As she turned to pace around the room to consider it further, one of her socked feet touched something soft and movable. Looking down, Marinette spotted a shirt on the floor and picked it up.
It was her size, and she held it against her chest to compare it to Luka's own shirt. As expected, it was much smaller than his, and she heard a heavy, barely-contained breath from the bed.
Her head darted up to see Luka with a hand partly covering his mouth. His eyes raked in the sight of her like autumn leaves, and he didn't bother hiding it.
When he caught her catching him in the act, he confessed, "You look amazing in my shirt. I bet I said the same last night too."
Marinette blushed, one hand coming off of her own shirt to fiddle with the wide collar of his. There went the not attracted to her theory, and the "worst" part was that she knew somehow that he was right. She felt he'd told her the same last night, and it was still affecting him in the morning.
"That—that's good, because I like how your shirt feels on me," she replied fairly smoothly, and the sense of familiarity that followed made her wonder if that'd been her response last night too. Looking down at what she'd determined was her shirt, she laid it out on the bed and commented, "But I don't remember having a shirt like this, or putting it on yesterday."
He nodded, casting a glance at his own shirt and appearing to be in the same boat. Things were getting stranger by the minute.
As her eyes wandered aimlessly around the room in thought, Marinette noticed her phone on the nightstand near the bed. With the possibility that some hint of her nightly activities might've been recorded on it, she went over, grabbed it, and sat herself on the bed. Luka seemed to catch on and went for his phone as well.
After unlocking the screen, Marinette noticed that her phone was open to her web browser. There was a single tab, listing off details about a hotel. Catching onto the implications, she looked through the provided images and confirmed that the bedroom was similar to the one they'd woken up in.
She held out her phone to Luka so he could see, and he gave it a glance before showing his own. It featured a hotel reservation.
Pointing at the two of their phones with his free hand, Luka said approvingly, "Teamwork."
She giggled, nodding in agreement, though the fact that they'd both used their phones last night made her consider, "Do you think we took any pictures?"
His eyes took her in again, and he replied easily, "If you let me take any."
"Me too... to you," she agreed. She usually wasn't so flirtatious, but something about how Luka's compliments were so genuine and made out like they weren't a big deal - like they were stating a fact - made it more comfortable.
The two of them settled their phones down next to each other on the bed, then swiped and tapped until they were in their phone's gallery. Sure enough, they both had photos of what appeared to be them in a clothing store trying on new clothes, and they'd taken pictures of each other in front of the dressing room.
They didn't look drunk somehow, but each pose was still more dramatic than the last. Amused, Marinette wondered aloud, "Did we put on a fashion show for each other?"
"Looks like it," he replied with a grin, still swiping through his photos of her. "...Oh, there's the shirt."
She knew what he meant before looking, but a glance between the photo and the shirt on the bed confirmed that they were the same. Swiping through her own, she pointed out, "There's yours too."
With that, things had started to graduate from strange to intriguing, a puzzle they both appeared interested in solving.
"So," Luka began, "we both went out somewhere and something happened, then we went together to buy clothes and rented a hotel for the night."
"Yeah," she confirmed, figuring that it added up so far, "but do you think that's all? Why would we rent a hotel just to sleep?"
He thought for a moment, then shut off his phone and pushed himself up off the bed. Offering a hand to her, he questioned, "Should we keep investigating then?"
Investigating, as though it was super serious now. Trying not to laugh, she made a show of dropping her hands delicately onto his. "This might be our hardest case yet, detective."
His lips twitched into a smile as he helped her up off the bed. Side-by-side, they departed to explore the rest of the hotel suite.
——-
They started in the living room, where very little was out of place. The remote was resting on the television stand, which made Marinette skeptical that they'd watched anything at all.
"The chair's up," Luka observed, gesturing at the recliner near the couch. It was already in its reclined position, and she had a funny mental image of one of them fumbling their way out to do whatever else they planned on that night.
Then she noticed the couch, specifically the blanket laying perfectly over the back. She tried to imagine anyone sitting on the couch without disturbing it, but couldn't, which led to one conclusion.
"Do you think we both used the recliner?"
"Hm," Luka hummed, not rejecting it but not sure either.
He walked over, plopping himself down on it and staring up at the ceiling. He shifted, eyes narrowed in deep contemplation before he said with certainty, "It definitely feels familiar."
Marinette approached, finding the recliner more tempting than it was when it was empty, but ignored it to look at the table next to it. An open book rested upside-down there, so she figured that they must've been reading it.
She picked it up, careful to preserve the page, then turned it so she could look at the cover.
Luka, looking over the displeasure on her face, asked, "Is it that bad?"
"No? I just couldn't think of why I'd read some medieval action book," she admitted. Handing it over to him, she inquired, "What about you?"
"Not really. Maybe they didn't have that many options." He took a glance at the cover as well, mirroring her earlier expression, then flipped the book around to check its actual pages.
The sight actually made it more tempting, and Marinette suddenly had an inkling for why they might've been reading it. Biting her lower lip and lying to herself it was for the sake of discovery, she drew closer and put one leg up onto the recliner's cushion. He raised a brow initially at the move, but welcomed her with the arm that wasn't busy with the book.
Slowly, Marinette lowered herself onto the recliner with him. There wasn't enough room for both of them to lay on their backs side-by-side, but when he moved a little, she could squish herself in-between him and the arm of the recliner. It left her little other choice than to throw her arm over his torso, effectively cuddling him.
It felt familiar, though it could've just been that they held each other on the bed too. She struggled to contend with the fact that it was new, strange, and really nice all at once.
"Maybe there's a hint where we left off?" she suggested. "You could read a little."
He nodded, shifting the book slightly in his hand for comfort's sake, then began reading aloud.
The contents were about what Marinette expected, but she very quickly realized why she would've paid attention at all. She considered that maybe the book was actually funny or had some pretty pictures she could either critique or comment on, but it was obvious now that it came down to Luka.
His voice was smooth, low, and he read at a steady pace, which was already lovely on its own. However, specifically while cuddled against him, there was also the rumble of his chest whenever he spoke. She snuggled further against him, silently enjoying it, until he suddenly cut himself off.
"Huh," he uttered, then chuckled. "Yeah, that's it. That's why I kept reading."
She peeked at the book itself to see what he meant, but didn't notice anything of significance. Confused, she glanced at Luka for clarification, only to find him staring down affectionately at her.
In other words, he was talking about her cuddling, and she'd just been found out doing said cuddling.
"Oh—" She pushed herself up, unable to excuse her actions. Clearing her throat, she awkwardly ran her fingers across his ribcage like she was smoothing a shirt she'd wrinkled. "S-so did I?"
Thoroughly amused, he waved the book around and joked, "Now we know what was so good about it."
It didn't explain why they'd picked the book in the first place, but there was a selection of books on the table and she could imagine that they simply picked one at random. As for why they hadn't chosen the TV instead, well—
Luka wouldn't talk as much during a movie, and she thought idly that having the sound of a TV going on wasn't quite as intimate as the sound of each other.
Reaching out for the book, Marinette put her hand over Luka's and turned the pages towards her so she could read from where he'd stopped. There wasn't anything noteworthy thus far besides his own reading, but there had to be something that made them put the book down.
Then she found it, and what she let out could be best described as a choking snort. "I think I know where we went next, but you're going to laugh at why."
——-
Luka stood in the middle of the bathroom, eyeing her with a raised brow. "You're not serious."
The words themselves seemed mean, but his tone embraced the silliness as if he'd said instead 'please let that be the reason.'
Marinette put her hands together, then partly separated them to imitate a book opening. "Do you remember the line I pointed at?"
He rubbed his chin, trying not to smile, then recited, "After their victory in battle, the warriors returned to their village. Their armor was drenched in red, bathed in the blood of their enemies."
Putting on an exaggerated impersonation of herself, Marinette sighed and followed with, "A bath sounds really nice, actually."
Luka didn't bother hiding his laughter, all from the sheer absurdity of them being so not invested in the book they chose to read that they slipped away at the next shiny place to go to. She normally would've been embarrassed by it, but the way he reacted never gave her the idea that he was mocking her. If anything, he seemed to think she was cute.
She hoped he thought she was cute.
The bathroom contained a typical bath with a showerhead above, and surveying the outer edge revealed a container of bath bombs as well as—
Were those scented candles?
"Are these yours?" she wondered, not remembering owning such things.
He'd calmed down from his laughter by then, looking over her shoulder to peek at the box. Circling around her, he turned it and found a price tag stuck to the side facing the wall. "Maybe we went to the store for more than just clothes."
"We went out just to spoil ourselves?" She took out one of the bath bombs and shook it around for emphasis. "New fancy clothes and a fancy bath?"
He shrugged, just as clueless as her. "We must've wanted to make sure we had a lot of fun."
She pouted in mild frustration, wishing that they could just remember already. It was cruel of their past selves to have so much fun but not commit any of it to memory.
Luka surveyed the inside of the bathtub, then the various tiny bottles that were around. He reached for one, then shifted it carefully between his fingers so he could grab another one in the same hand. "These are the only ones that got used."
Marinette glanced at them, then at Luka's face. She hadn't noticed much until then, but he had a neutral scent rather than one that would be considered masculine. Leaning over, she popped the lid off of the body wash one, then gave it and one of the bath bombs a sniff.
That was it - that was his scent - and she could smell it on herself as well. As she went to put the bath bomb back, she also noticed that there was only one missing from the whole set. She tried to consider the possibility that one of their scents had just rubbed off on the other, but considering everything else they'd been doing thus far, it didn't seem as likely.
"Marinette?"
She didn't meet his gaze, but took the shower products from his hand and set them aside. "I...I'm sorry. I—I swear I don't usually do this kind of thing."
"Me neither."
She wasn't looking at his face, but could sense his eyes on her.
He continued, "It'd be my fault too if you thought we did anything odd though."
So he came to the same conclusion that she did. "I don't think it's, ah—odd, exactly. It's just something I've never done before, even with my ex."
"I've never shared a bath with any of my exes, but..." He hesitated, still thinking. "We might not've too. We could've taken turns."
"Taken..."
Her voice trailed off as she imagined it, and she wasn't sure if that was worse or better than outright sharing. She felt a strange inkling as well that neither of them would've left the bathroom until they were both clean either, so there was a mental image of her sitting on the side of the bath, one hand squeezing shampoo into the other and running it all into Luka's hair.
She took a sharp breath as her face heated, but tilted her head up to look at his hair. Almost unconsciously, she raised a hand towards his neck, him leaning down to accept her fingers lightly combing through the strands there.
Oh no, it felt familiar. Luka even moved appropriately to give her easier access, and he didn't seem entirely aware of it.
Stroking the hair of a handsome, shirtless stranger hadn't been on her bucket list, but perhaps it should've been if the stranger was him. It was difficult to put into words, but she was reminded yet again that something about Luka's presence made her feel bolder, like she didn't have to worry about how much her she was.
It didn't make her a different person - the idea that they might've bathed together still stunned her - but she'd never had someone before where she didn't worry so much about being judged. Rather than feeling ashamed, she considered that it might've been her worrying that he'd think he wasn't special if he thought she'd done it so easily with others.
——-
The last place to go was the kitchen, and the first spot they thought to check for evidence was easy: the sink. It was full of dishes, and the faint scent of berries wafted off of them. Separate blue and pink residue rested inside, so they'd probably been baking.
"I can't believe we left us to do all the clean up," Marinette joked, though secretly glad there was something left behind for them to piece together. As much as she understood the leave it as future me's problem, she nevertheless complained, "They got to do the fun shopping and baking part."
Luka chuckled, walking over to the fridge. "Do you think we left us anything?"
She caught sight of his hand on the handle, then hurried over to chide, "Ah—Luka! Let me do it!" She pouted, shooing him away. "It'll be cold, and you're not wearing a shirt."
He looked unreasonably happy for someone who'd just been scolded, but raised his hands up and stepped back as he was told.
Opening the fridge, she spotted two plates carefully wrapped in plastic wrap: pink strawberry macarons on one, blue blueberry macarons in another.
"That explains the taste in my mouth," Luka commented lightly.
Going off of the taste in her own mouth, Marinette pieced together that the pink were hers and the blue were his. She pulled both plates out, then handed the one with blue macarons to Luka with a teasing, "I guess we should try them, since we're investigating and all."
"Sounds like we're in harmony then," he replied with a grin, closing the fridge door with his hip.
Treating the treats as a gift from them to themselves, she set her plate aside so she could undo the plastic on Luka's plate first before taking care of her own. The macrons looked tasty, and she licked her lips in anticipation for the pleasant break.
Then, she paused, her tongue mid-swipe along her lower lip. While Luka had eaten the set of blueberry macarons and she'd eaten the set of strawberry ones, she caught a hint of blueberry on her lips specifically.
At that point, she almost wasn't surprised, but the frustration at having not remembered anything from the night before doubled. She wondered if it was the fruity macarons that did it, the warm scent filling the room as they tried to find "something" to occupy their time (and lips) while they waited.
Had it been soft or intense? How long did it go on for? Was it more than once?
She stopped her train of thought there, realizing that she was staring off into space. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw Luka giving her a questioning look, but she waved him off to assure him it was nothing.
Popping a macaron in her mouth, she chewed slowly to properly appreciate her past self's work. It tasted about how she would've expected, but she could tell that someone else - Luka, in this case - was involved in baking it. In addition to how they'd gone out shopping for clothes and bath bombs, they'd must've gone for groceries to pick up ingredients to make macarons.
"...Huh," she uttered as she thought about it.
"Mmm?" he half-mumbled, his mouth too full of macaron to speak. He leaned against the counter and set his plate next to him, then held out one of his macarons to offer her.
She opened her mouth, taking a bite, and grabbed one of her own macarons to do the same to him. He didn't seem to care about already being in the middle of eating one, as he still bit into hers anyway.
"Tish rheir—" She swallowed the bite before continuing. "It's weird, that's all. I didn't see any drinks in the fridge."
He tried to swallow too so he could respond, but briefly choked at the mass of macaron that was still in his mouth. Unphased, he recovered after a moment and agreed, "Yeah. We went all out: new clothes, renting a hotel, fancy baths, and baking sweets. We should've had drinks too to complete the set." He tapped rhythmically on the counter, adding contemplatively, "...Unless we had them before we found each other."
"That makes sense." She nodded. "Maybe..."
She trailed off, neither of them moving for a moment. One could've heard the sound of a pin dropping, or rather the sound of both of them dropping their macaron halves to the floor.
They exchanged glances with each other, noticing their mirroring reactions, then gasped, "I remember!"
——-
A late-night café. The particular name escaped them, and yet they both remembered so suddenly. The how and why had to wait, but they'd found a connection for where they'd met.
After stashing the macarons back in the fridge, they hurried back to their bedroom. Marinette practically threw herself onto the mattress in her haste to grab her phone, pulling open her browser as she ran through her mind to figure out where she could've been in order to locate the café. Luka was more subtle in his movements, but his fingers were just as quick in his own search.
The memory was almost unearthly in nature, but not so much that it didn't feel real. A quiet street corner where cars rarely passed by, a building sticking out amongst the rest so much that the others appeared blurred when they tried to recall them, and people inside chatting in such a way that actual words couldn't be made out.
Memories could do that sometimes, to where reflection on them was dreamlike: the important details were vivid and everything else faded away. Thus, they disregarded any oddities, seeking out potential cafés near their hotel from five, then ten, then thirty minutes away when they needed to broaden their search. They typed out streets they remembered being at the day before, making mental maps in their heads of where they could've wandered in the time they'd yet to recall specifics. Knowing that they were on the cusp of a breakthrough on the big mystery of last night gave them the energy to try anything they could think off.
Minutes passed, and before they knew it, it'd been over an hour. Their phones beeped at them to warn of a low battery, which was what made them realize just how long they'd been trying for.
There were no more crumbs to find. The trail they'd been following had hit a dead end and there was nowhere to go afterwards.
They were both hesitant to say anything, but Marinette couldn't stay quiet forever. She dropped the hand holding her phone to the bed, staring up at the ceiling as she announced, "Nothing. I've got nothing."
Luka set his phone aside on the nightstand, crisscrossing his legs and leaning against the headboard. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said as if realizing it just then, "I only remember one person working there."
She rolled onto her side and stuck her fingers in his pocket. Fidgeting with the fabric, she wondered, "Do you think one person could cover all the customers there? There were so many."
"I don't know. It was..." His brows drew together as he dug deep into his mind, trying to grasp anything from then. "I noticed, but I didn't think to say anything."
"They didn't look upset, or tired," she remembered. "They said I looked upset and tired! They even gave me—"
"—a drink, on the house," he finished, voice low and pensive.
Marinette stopped, then put her hands flat on the bed and pushed herself up to be more eye level with him. Though they hadn't found the place itself, something was coming together, and she urged on, "It was their specialty to soothe troubled customers."
Making eye contact with each other, they said in unison: "The One Night's Wish."
A chill ran through her, a hand going to her heart that had nearly stopped at the revelation. Something fantastical had happened, and they both knew it even if they couldn't explain it.
She dropped her gaze to the bed, where Luka's hand was resting. Her fingers were mere centimeters away from his, and they would've brushed if she slid her hand just slightly forward.
She didn't.
"...Me and my ex," she began, despite how unprompted it might've seemed, "we got together when we were young and stupid. I was never really normal around him, but neither was anyone else. He was the kind of teenage heartthrob that basically everyone liked on sight, and I thought I was just lucky he picked me."
Luka's hand turned towards her, but didn't go all the way. He was waiting, trying to feel out all of the emotions in her story.
She took a deep breath, held it, then released it all at once before continuing, "My feelings for him didn't last; we were both growing up, but our relationship wasn't. I didn't like the person I was around him, where I was putting myself down to build him up and freaking out over every little thing." She shut her eyes tight, pained. "But I was stubborn. Our friends went through so much to get us together, and I felt like I was failing them by not being happy with him. I thought I could fix it, that maybe things would change if we—you know."
She let the words hang there by the metaphorical noose she'd tied all by herself, her fingers curling into a loose fist. Her ex had been her first time, and it meant so much nothing in the end that her feelings on sex reflected it. Thinking about it that way, it was no wonder why she hadn't done anything sexual with Luka.
Though, it didn't explain him.
"...My little sister got lucky," he started to explain. "She met the love of her life when they were still kids. I was happy for her, really, but I didn't have anyone like that. I wanted what they had together and I tried to find it, but the song never came together. It never felt like people wanted me, they just wanted..."
Her chest tightened, and she was hesitant to look at his face. His expressions had been nothing but sweet around her and she feared what it would be like to see him distressed. She only dared to ask, "Is it because you look like a rock star? So they thought you were more...?"
He shrugged, which made her a little upset on his behalf. It wasn't fair for him to have dealt with that, but she couldn't retroactively go back in time to change or fix it.
Instead, she wondered aloud, "Do you think that's what the drink was for: giving us what we wanted? And why would it have us forget if it was?"
Luka's hand, which had been still since the middle of her story, rose up to fall upon hers. His thumb ran across her knuckles, though he didn't speak for a time.
"It left behind the feeling," he noted. "If people who drink it change their mind once the night's over, they can pretend like nothing happened since they don't remember much anyway."
Marinette couldn't imagine doing that, not now. Had she run out in a panic after waking up in Luka's arms, then she might've been able to convince himself that the lingering feeling was some worthless hope she was clinging to, but not anymore. The "potion" of sorts had run its course by the time they woke up, yet they'd stayed together anyway to solve the mystery that was them.
Didn't that mean something? It did to her.
"...It feels like a shame we forgot it all," she said, unsure of what else would be appropriate or overstepping a line.
Luka hadn't stopped caressing her knuckles, but his other hand left his lap to pick up his phone. After a few taps, he suggested, "It doesn't have to be."
Her eyes went to search his, then darted over to his phone as he presented it to her. On the screen was the confirmation page for their booked hotel suite once again.
Seeing her confusion, he carried on, "We can always extend our stay another night, and we'll do everything we did before." He smiled tenderly. "It doesn't have to end here if we don't want it to."
He was putting the ball in her court, but he'd made his own stance clear without explicitly saying it: what had started as a wish was now becoming his reality, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Marinette wasn't just relieved, she was elated.
"Yes. Please, yes!" She didn't wait another moment to tap on his phone to extend their stay, beaming at the confirmation that it'd gone through. She would've started bouncing had Luka not been holding her hand.
After turning his head just long enough to set his phone aside for the rest of the day, he proceeded to put all of his attention onto her. He shifted to face her, picked up her free hand in his, then lifted the hand he'd already been holding to his face.
It felt like a pleasant, tiny shock to her system as he kissed her knuckles, his half-lidded eyes twinkling in delight whilst checking her reaction.
"I don't care what we do, as long as we do it as a duet," he told her in a near-whisper. "So you can pick whatever you want."
Marinette took her tingling hand back, mind racing with all the sudden possibilities. His phrasing had left open not just anything they'd done the other night, but also what they hadn't done.
"Well..." she began, acting as if she was really thinking about it. "We did something in the kitchen, and I've been wondering how it felt ever since."
To make her point, she brought the hand he'd kissed up to her mouth, lining her lips with the smooched spot and giving him a hopeful smile.
The funny thing about him was that she, despite having a boyfriend before, didn't know her type until now, and said type was quickly becoming anything Luka did or was. Her type was soft, thoughtful men with gentle blue eyes and an even gentler smile; men who could make her laugh without having to try so hard, and would happily read boring books just to feel her cuddling against him.
Her type was also men who could take a hint, and he took her hint readily. With one arm looping around her as he leaned towards her, he gripped her hand and poured all of the affection she could imagine into kissing her. Her free hand gripping his bare shoulder felt familiar and right, encouraging both of them deeper into the kiss.
Despite whatever unnatural processes may have brought them together, they wouldn't end up needing them to stay together.
Mito, Claudine, and Roche had never met Marinette before, but with how much Luka gushed about her when asked, they felt like they had. The two had apparently been friends for a long time and he never had a bad story about her, but that might've had to do with Luka's non-combative nature.
It'd taken time to set up a proper introduction. Not only had she gone to a different school than they did, but she'd been nervous about making an impression on them.
Eventually, they managed to work out a meeting in front of her house, and she made an impression alright.
"Marinette, these are my friends, Mito, Claudine, and Roche," Luka introduced, pointing as he listed them off. Then, addressing said friends, he gestured to the girl next to him and stated, "Guys, this is Marinette; the Marinette."
Marinette blushed, looking up at him to scold, "Luka, you don't have to make me sound like a big deal."
He frowned disapprovingly. "How are you not a big deal?"
As the two went back and forth, the trio standing across from them exchanged glances with each other, making certain that they were all seeing the same thing. Somehow, despite all of Luka's talk about Marinette, they hadn't been prepared for his relationship with her.
They were close, and not just emotionally but literally, physically close. At the moment, that had taken the form of Marinette pressed up against Luka's side, his arm comfortably around her waist like it was normal. As if that hadn't already been enough, her hand was blatantly splayed out on his chest, up near his heart.
None of them knew how to address the snuggling elephants in the room, with Roche not sure he wanted a response and Claudine having the tact to understand that it might not be a good idea to bring it up so directly.
Mito, who both wanted to know and didn't have any tact at all, gasped audibly and hit his palm with his fist in realization. Earning the attention of the two, he said, "Oh, Luka, I get it! You meant that Marinette is your girlfriend but, when you were telling us, the girl part was silent!"
While the other two in the trio stared at him with expressions conveying, "why," Luka's was only confusion.
"What? We're not dating," he told them.
Marinette smiled shyly, insisting, "Yeah, I'm sure his girlfriend would be really lucky, but we're best friends, that's all."
They said nothing in response, but each wondered if it got worse than what was in front of them.
——-
The nice thing about lunch time at school was that they didn't have to be at school to have it. It varied which of them they decided chose their lunch spot, but it was Luka's turn and he'd picked the park as he usually did. His friends hadn't suspected anything about it until they learned that Marinette's house was right across the street from it, because of course it was. The two weren't just inseparable, they were insufferable.
Though, this time it was Claudine's own fault when she asked Luka, "Do you make your own lunch?"
"Mm?" Luka settled the container in his lap and looked at her.
"It doesn't look like food you just bought somewhere, but it's always consistent." She pointed at it with her spoon. "You told us that your mom isn't always around in the mornings, and you never said anything about your sister being able to cook, so that leaves you."
"Oh." His eyes softened in a way that told her she'd made a mistake. "Marinette makes it for me."
"Wh—?"
"She doesn't come over every day if that's what you're thinking," he said. "She makes them in advance. I have some in the freezer."
"That wasn't the question I was thinking at all..."
Before he could ask what she meant, a voice called out as if personally summoned, "Luka, hey!"
The group looked over to the park's entrance, Luka already beaming by the time Marinette came into view with her own lunch container tucked under her arm.
"Hey," he greeted as she came to a stop in front of him. "You don't usually go home to eat."
"I know, but I had to run home to grab something, so I figured I'd eat here instead." After giving his friends a smile as a greeting, she turned her attention back to Luka. "Were you guys talking about anything interesting?"
"Just my lunch," he replied with a shrug.
Marinette's face went blank momentarily, as if all thoughts in her head had evaporated. Then, she leaned forward, eyes wide and trained intensely on his food. "What's wrong with it?"
He laughed. "Nothing, Marinette. Claudine was—"
"I don't believe you. Let me try."
With the look of someone who knew that arguing would've been pointless, Luka shook his head, smiled, and stabbed at a bite with his fork. His friends all watched as, without missing a beat, Marinette's mouth opened and he fed her directly.
It was entirely natural, and neither Mito, Claudine, nor Roche knew if that meant they'd done it previously or were so comfortable around each other that they didn't even flinch at their first time trying it. They weren't sure which would've been worse either.
"Hmmm..." Marinette's face was strained in an attempt not to smile at her own cooking. "I-I guess it's okay, but what were you talking about then?"
"I was about to tell you," Luka told her, but lightly without an ounce of admonishment. "Claudine wanted to know who made my lunch and I told her that you did."
She gasped. "Why would you do that? They'll think I'm the one doing all the work or you're taking advantage of me!" Turning to the others, she held out her own lunch and declared, "He makes mine too, so don't listen to him!"
The three blinked slowly at her. It was actually kind of amazing how they were so different and yet could act like that to each other.
Throwing a pout Luka's way, Marinette glanced at his food and said as she popped the lid of her container open, "But now I ate some of yours."
He nodded, leaning forward and staring expectantly at her lunch. "So you want to even it out, right?"
"Obviously."
Apparently, it wasn't only Marinette who got fed by Luka, but the other way around as well. He sat there wholly obediently as she got some of the food on her spoon and slipped it into his mouth.
He swallowed, then scrutinized her container. "...Hang on. I think you gave me too much since we have different portions."
"Huh? Did I? Then—hm, how do we do this?"
They got into an actual, genuine discussion about evening out their lunches, meaning the two were actively feeding each other in full view of anyone around.
Claudine, once she'd gotten over the lack of shame, raised her hand to ask, "So then, you two make each other's lunches, right?"
They could only dart their gaze to her at first, each other's eating utensil firmly between their lips, but then they swallowed in unison to turn to her properly.
"That's right," Luka replied. "What about it?"
She tried to resist the urge to point out the glaringly obvious, but it was crucial to her conclusion. "And you're feeding each other right now, so you're just eating your own food."
"Ahuh," Marinette hummed, following along well enough.
Okay, so they were aware that they were doing it at least.
"Wouldn't it just be easier then—" Claudine pointed at the two of them, then their lunches. "—to make them for yourselves?"
Entirely in sync, they answered immediately, "It wouldn't be the same," then looked at each other in surprise and laughed at their unintentional harmony.
Claudine, meanwhile, threw her hands up in defeat, earning a sympathetic pat on the back from Mito and Roche.
——-
In all the times of knowing him, Roche, Claudine, and Mito had never seen Luka look guilty before. It felt like they'd been thrown into another universe, or perhaps that their friend had been replaced with a doppelganger who looked just like him apart from the facial expressions. Marinette, who'd fit in time to hang out with the four of them, unintentionally completed the idea by staring at him in suspicion.
The intent had been to go to the nearest store that sold music, allowing them all to see where their musical tastes aligned or differed from Marinette's, but actually looking for particular artists or genres had taken a backseat to whatever was going on with the two of them. Marinette either didn't notice or didn't care how bizarre it looked when her eyes scanned Luka up and down, occasionally bending over to look more closely at specific places.
Then, jumping up, she grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and went, "Ahah! Gotcha, right here!"
Luka flinched at the contact, whereas the rest of the group zeroed in on the spot with far too much investment in the mystery. There was the slightest tear in the seam around Luka's shoulder, so small that Marinette needed to shift the fabric for them to notice at all.
"I'm sorry," he told her, voice tinged with regret. "I didn't want you to worry about it when we were supposed to be having fun here."
She scoffed, reaching into her purse to pull out a few supplies. "This won't take any time at all. Hold still."
The others observed silently as Marinette patched up the little rip, Luka only able to toss them an apologetic glance.
"Is it that big of a deal?" Roche asked, waving an arm at them.
Mito nodded, hands on his hips. "You looked more torn up than the jacket was."
Luka shrugged with his free arm. "I can't help it. I try really hard to take good care of Marinette's work, so I hate when anything bad happens to it."
"Marinette's w—" Claudine made a choking noise. "You mean she made that jacket for you?"
Marinette piped up to answer instead, almost sounding offended as she explained, "I made him more than just a jacket. His whole wardrobe is full of Marinette originals."
While the others were still processing that their friend only wore clothes that his childhood friend made for him, she'd finished up the sewing job experimentally tugged at the fabric to test it. When she was satisfied, she stepped back to admire her work, but faltered as she realized, "I'm not wearing anything from you."
Luka frowned at her. "You don't have to. You have the albums I made for you on loop whenever I come over."
"But those don't wear out!" she protested, pumping her fists up. "I need to have the experience of wearing something you made and stressing out when something happens to it."
He snorted. "Is the stress really an important part of it?"
"Yes!"
Mito, eyeing the two as they debated on the possibility of making friendship bracelets, spoke with confidence that neither would listen anyway, "Love is thicker than water."
Roche rolled his eyes. "I'd say you mean love is in the air, but it is pretty thick right now. You could suffocate on it."
"Oooo," Claudine uttered, pulling out a notepad and scribbling. "I'm gonna steal that."
At the very least, they figured it couldn't get any more ridiculous.
——-
"Sorry that Marinette couldn't make it today," Luka said regretfully as he welcomed the group onto the Liberty. "She pulled an all-nighter last night for a project, so she's exhausted."
Claudine shook her head, sighing dramatically and giving him a playful smack on the arm. "What are you apologizing for? You're the one pining, not us."
"Pining?"
"Or worrying. Whatever."
As amusing as it was to see Luka concerned over something so minor, Roche adjusted his hat in a show of faux professionalism and got everyone back on topic. "What are we doing today anyway? Any ideas?"
"I got one!" Mito blurted out. He scanned the deck briefly, spotting the five chairs that Luka had likely set out the day prior, then walked over and dropped himself down on one of them. "Picture this: a miming performance... with sound!"
Claudine hummed in doubt, but nevertheless took a seat next to him. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose?"
"Talking defeats the purpose," he argued, hunching over with his arm resting on his leg. "But I have all these talented musical friends, so why shouldn't I get to use them?"
Roche sat at Mito's side opposite of Claudine. "He has a point."
Luka followed after them, sitting in one of the remaining two chairs as Mito detailed his ideas. The four of them being so different in personality meant that ping-ponging thoughts and suggestions off of each other was far better than brainstorming alone. It was just unfortunate that the fifth person who could've been involved wasn't available.
That was simply how it was, until a few minutes later when the group suddenly heard, "W-wait! I'm here! Sorry I'm late!"
Roche, Claudine, and Mito's heads darted up to look past the gangplank, but saw no sign of Marinette. The obvious next step was to follow Luka's gaze, which led their sights deeper into the Liberty.
There, they saw her emerge from behind the cabin, presumably having come up from below deck. She still appeared tired, rubbing an eye sleepily, but that wasn't what caught their attention.
She was wearing Luka's clothes, specifically shorts and a T-shirt that they'd seen on him before.
"Marinette," Luka called out, sternly but gently. "You should be asleep."
Though he said that, he lifted the guitar he'd placed on his lap just a moment ago for her, his friends' jaws collectively dropping as Marinette sat down on his lap.
"But I heard you guys talking about Mito's miming, and I promised I'd make him an outfit," she protested. "So I wanted to listen in."
"Hang on," Claudine cut in, waving at the both of them. Taking a moment to decide where to begin with her questions, she eventually settled on asking, "She was sleeping here?"
"I wasn't going to send her home to sleep," Luka replied easily, as if they were supposed to know that Marinette had done her all-nighter there and not her own house.
Claudine genuinely debated on whether to press further on that, but decided against it. "And now she's on your lap?"
"She always sits on my lap?"
Marinette wrapped her arms around Luka, snuggling closer and echoing him, "I always sit on his lap?"
"But—the other seat..."
While making direct, puzzled eye contact, he put his guitar where they'd thought Marinette would sit. They'd left the realm of "sane and reasonable friendship" a long time ago and weren't even remotely aware of it.
They were all silent for a moment until Roche let out a forced chuckle. "I guess that's one thing. You're not so close that you have her clothes here."
Mito and Claudine gasped, nodding approvingly at the deduction. They thought they might've finally won something in this challenge they'd unintentionally taken part in, but then Luka pulled the half-asleep Marinette closer and spoke up.
"I always have some of her clothes here. She just likes wearing mine."
"..."
"...What? What?"
——-
Luka's friends genuinely hadn't seen Luka run before. If he needed to get anywhere quickly, he'd bike, and at some point they jokingly assumed that he was incapable of running entirely.
They were regretting that joke now, because one text from Marinette had him rushing off to the point where it was actually hard to keep up with him. He didn't say much of anything about it, they only saw his eyes widen at the message and a hurried comment about how he had to be somewhere immediately.
"Somewhere" wound up being in front of a fancy hotel that they knew but had rarely had reason to go into. The most notable thing about it was that it was the place Jagged Stone was staying at, but they couldn't imagine why Marinette would be there.
A rich relative on vacation, perhaps?
After Luka had come to a stop, he turned around and appeared genuinely surprised that they'd followed him at all, having not noticed beforehand. "You guys didn't have to come with me."
Roche crossed his arms. "Isn't it something important?"
"Yeah, spill!" Claudine demanded, making an exaggerated gesture of throwing a full cup of liquid on the ground.
Mito narrowed his eyes at the motion. "Jerk your wrist more at the end next time."
She raised a hand at him. "Tea now, lecture later."
Just then, the doors to the hotel opened and out came Marinette, so much energy built up in her that she was shaking. Luka spun around to look at her, closing the distance between the two of them and grabbing her by the shoulders.
"So?" he asked. "What happened? How'd it go?"
"L-Luka." Her eyes widened as she grasped eagerly at his wrists. "He—he wants one! He wants me to make one for him!"
"One—no way," he gasped, squeezing her shoulders tighter. "Is it because of the—?"
"Yes! He thinks I'm talented and wanted more out of me!"
"That's—" He shook his head. "That's awesome! I know you'll make something unbelievable, Marinette, and he's going to love it!"
He dropped his hands from her shoulders to her waist, Marinette's arms going around his neck as he spun her around and she squealed. The others, meanwhile, stared on in abject puzzlement, Mito miming pounding on the wall clearly separating them from understanding anything.
Then, just as Marinette's feet were back on the ground, she took Luka's face in her hands. Getting up on her tip toes with one leg raised behind her, she suddenly kissed him right in front of them.
Luka didn't say a thing about it to them - granted, his mouth was currently occupied - but melted into it like a marshmallow over a gentle flame. He bent over and held her too, as if considerate of the strain that might've been put on her by her stretching up to meet him.
The third, fourth, and fifth wheels of the group had no words for what they were witnessing, silently wondering if Luka and Marinette had gotten together at some point and he'd just neglected to tell them. Surely, surely, they couldn't be that oblivious, right?
After what felt like an eternity, and with a 'mwah' so comically loud that it could've come right out of a cartoon, Marinette pulled back with her arms spread wide. "I'm so excited! I need to get to work right now!"
She waved at him with both hands, Luka waving back as she ran off down the sidewalk to return home. Claudine, Roche, and Mito unconsciously held their breath in trepidation, waiting for the prank that must've been pulled on them to finally be revealed.
However, Luka's waving hand as well as Marinette's run abruptly froze in place, their bodies going stiff like time had stopped altogether. A second later, Luka's hand dropped to his mouth and both of Marinette's went to hers, the two turning their heads just enough that the others could see their faces.
Something that had once lived in the pitch black darkness of the night finally appeared to dawn, but the trio currently witnessing it didn't dare to hope when the shocked gazes were turned on them. They'd consistently been tossed every excuse, every stupid reason, and every blather of "childhood friends" that made them long to be teachers in critical reasoning so they could make the two see sense.
Thus, when Luka and Marinette's lips parted to speak, the three cut them off with a firm, "Don't."
Marinette needed some sort of change, but she didn't know what it was nor how to go about doing it. Despite the close-knit nature of the village she lived in and her relatively decent life, she was only content, not happy.
Part of that issue was her role as Ladybug, the vigilante persona she'd created for herself, or more specifically the power she'd been born with. Most would say that she was lucky to have it if they knew, and doubly so since her power was luck in the first place, but that luck was limited to being used for others, never herself. She never once considered herself actually lucky, and she saw more people who expected her to be around all the time than those who were simply grateful to have her at all.
Romance had also been a complete and total bust, as anyone she had been the slightest bit interested in didn't reciprocate it. Her friends who knew her identity pointed out how many admirers Ladybug had and how she could've chosen the cream of the crop amongst them, but they must've missed the whole part where she'd told those same friends she was Ladybug and they stopped having the same starry eyes over it. It'd underwhelmed them that Ladybug was "just Marinette" underneath the mask, even if they didn't say so to her face.
The merging of the two people in their minds often dragged Ladybug down and barely brought Marinette up, so she didn't want someone who appreciated Ladybug; she wanted someone who would adore Marinette, and Ladybug would just be a nice bonus.
——-
Ladybug panted as she ran after the kidnapper in front of her, weaving around the various civilians that were watching more than actually doing anything. Honestly, they were an active detriment, the criminal using them to their advantage by bumping shoulders with, shoving, and trying to pull them behind them with the arm that wasn't carrying the toddler.
She sighed through her nose, used to it by then. It was just how her ability worked, vigilante things being difficult for her thanks to her luck not favoring her yet going well for the civilians in the end.
That was exemplified perfectly as the kidnapper was heading straight for the road, intending to cross without looking both ways to get away from her. Luckily enough, a group of six was just leaving a building nearby, so close together that it'd be too difficult to plow through them. It forced the kidnapper to take an alternate path, ducking between two buildings to make their escape.
Smirking, Ladybug hurried into the alley before that one, knowing the village like the back of her hand at that point. There was only one path the kidnapper could've taken when they went that way, and she was ready for it.
Climbing up atop the lid of a trash container and using a nearby sign to gain some extra height, she ascended to the rooftop and ran across to hop to the other one. In the brief glimpse she got between them, she caught the kidnapper panicking and taking the only route they could, with the other having been blocked off about a week ago from her memory.
Mentally calculating the kidnapper's speed and her own, she went to the edge of the rooftop and timed herself. Leaping down at the perfect moment, she fell just behind them and grabbed at their collar, choking them for the second she pulled them backwards.
She'd tried to avoid violence in her teen years, but she honestly had no patience for people who tried to swipe children. Giving the kidnapper's head a solid whack, their legs only kept them upright long enough for her to secure the child in her arms. When the criminal collapsed to the ground, she set the little kid aside so she could pull the thread from her ladybug-styled bag, turning the kidnapper onto their stomach so she could tie their wrists behind their back.
"Lay-dee-bah!" the toddler exclaimed, bouncing excitedly behind her.
Rolling her eyes fondly, Ladybug finished the job and turned to give the kid her attention. They probably had no idea how much danger they were just in, but she let it go because they were cute. "That's me! Your parents have been so scared, you know that?" Rubbing their oblivious little head, she suggested, "Let's get you back to them, okay? They were doing their best to keep up with me, so they shouldn't be too far."
They outstretched their arms to her, eyes sparkling in that familiar starstruck way that she both loved and loathed. She reached out, taking them by their waist, and was about to lift them when she heard voices from outside the alleyways.
Law enforcement, because of course it was. She suppressed the urge to groan, as she could tell that their concern lied in catching the "vigilante taking the law into her own hands" rather than the kidnapper they didn't know had just been caught.
(Whatever. They'll forget about it when they realize that they can take credit for this,) she thought, releasing the toddler and telling them, "Quick, go on out there! Mommy and Daddy are waiting for you."
She could faintly hear the parents amongst the other voices, so she wasn't concerned when the kid ran out of the alley. Shaking her head at what would probably be another thankless job, she pushed herself up and went to leave.
However, she quickly encountered a problem. There was no easy way to get onto the roof again, and she was horrified to find that she could hear those desiring to catch her from every path she could take to leave. How predictable it was for her luck to run out there of all times, except this wasn't just bad, it was disastrous.
Pacing back and forth, her anxiety spiked as she tried to determine the best way to get out of the situation. Behind the buildings she'd climbed was a fence, but she wasn't sure if they may have laid a trap for her there.
She seriously debated on just running out, mental images in her head of hopping along the shoulders of the people trying to catch her, but then she was shadowed out by a presence hovering over her. Stunned that she hadn't heard any approaching, her head darted up on alert only for fabric to be practically thrown over her head.
"A-ah, hey—!"
An unexpectedly gentle and masculine voice whispered to her, "It's alright, don't worry. Stay still."
"Huh?"
The fabric, as she quickly noticed, was a jacket, then a cloak that was promptly slipped over her head. Though she was confused, her brain processed fast enough to realize what he was doing, and she went along with it by settling herself up against the wall.
As footsteps approached, she slipped her arms through the sleeves and tried to hide herself as much as possible with that and his cloak. The guy was tall, so there was significant coverage to conceal most identifying features.
He then leaned over her, a forearm pressed against the wall behind her just as law enforcement appeared. Their weapons were brandished, but he seemed unphased by them and didn't bother hiding it.
"Do you mind?" he asked. "If you're looking for Ladybug, she's already gone, and we're kind of busy here."
She bit her tongue in an attempt to conceal her amusement, using the opportunity to complete the look by leaning against him. It allowed her to hide herself even better, and he didn't show any sign that he was against it.
Though she couldn't see what was going on from her position, she heard the flustered mutterings from her side. It was mostly about how kids these days were so shameless and had no sense of danger making out in front of a criminal, and they either weren't aware or didn't care that they could be heard.
With seemingly no Ladybug to go after, they settled for taking the kidnapper away. They were mumbling about the strike she must've dealt on their way out of the alley, but what mattered was that they were leaving.
She waited, listening until the synchronized footsteps faded away and the village returned to its usual clamor, then pulled back to smile at the man. "Thanks. I owe you one."
She hadn't been able to get a good look at his face before due to the hood, not shocked to see a pair of ocean blue eyes just as calm as his voice had been, all under intriguing black and blue hair. He didn't have the kind of look typical of someone famous or at least popular, but she would still consider him rather handsome.
"You're welcome, but you don't owe me anything." His smile was wide without being forced. "I'm just helping the woman I've heard so much about."
"Oh. That—That's sweet of you." She tugged at the fabric of his hood, almost feeling shy, then stiffened as she remembered that she was still wearing his clothes. "Ah—let me give these back!"
He laughed as she tried to find a happy middle between getting the clothes off and not causing any damage to them. "It's okay. I'm not in a hurry."
Still, she didn't want to make him wait, and it was for that same reason that she didn't question him further. While it was a pleasant surprise that a civilian helped her out, she was more puzzled by the fact that he knew who she was. Basically everyone in the village knew her, and she knew who they were in return, yet she didn't recognize this guy and could tell by the way he spoke that he wasn't from around there.
Had the word of her vigilantism reached so far?
——-
It'd been a rough week, so Marinette had allowed herself a trip to the nearest tavern. She didn't go to such places often, but it was a special exception whenever she needed a drink.
Though, she obviously never risked getting drunk else she might reveal her identity to someone. More often than not, it was just a single glass and light food, and that particular day meant wine and some bread.
The place was bustling, active without being overwhelming, and the limited food selection also meant that it wasn't loaded with so many scents that they became indistinguishable. It was nice, being in a place she wasn't usually and enjoying whatever idle gossip she overheard.
People came and went so much that she barely registered the door opening. What she caught more was the sudden silence in the tavern, heads turning to look at whoever had entered.
She initially glanced over her shoulder to look too, not overly interested in the answer, but froze when she saw who was actually standing there.
It was him. The upper half of his face was shadowed out by the hood of his teal cloak, but she'd worn that very cloak herself and recognized the pink of his lips. Her mouth dropped open in disbelief, wondering what it meant that he was there at all.
Was it a coincidence that he happened to show up when she was there? He "happened" to be around too when she needed someone, but she didn't want to overthink it.
Just as she tried not to think about it at all, his head turned in her direction and he smiled. She blinked, looking down at her hands as if she'd accidentally shown up wearing her full Ladybug costume, but she was her typical civilian self.
The man was getting more mysterious by the second, and he only diverted his gaze from her when the tavern's owner approached him to talk. The rest of the tavern started mumbling to each other, some apparently teaching the clueless ones about the guy that she was clueless about as well.
Viperion was the name he went by, and he and his lyre traveled from place to place to tell all sorts of stories he'd heard that he never seemed to run out of. Less than a handful of the whisperers had actually seen him there prior to that very moment, while others had simply hoped to get to listen to his animated, engaging tales at least once.
Like a snake charmer in a tavern full of human-shaped snakes, he had an air about him that drew everyone's attention. She could confirm as much, as none could take their eyes off of him as the owner led him to the center of the room before stepping aside to retrieve a stool that Marinette previously thought was either broken in some form or merely there for decoration.
Now she knew it was Viperion's.
He got comfortable there, no focus given to the world around him as he experimentally played a few notes on his lyre. Marinette didn't realize at first that she was leaning towards him to listen better, not until she saw everyone else doing it too.
The tavern was so quiet that it was as if it had entered another dimension entirely, so enraptured with whatever he might say that the outside didn't feel like it existed. No one ate or drank, though some held their food and drinks to their mouths in anticipation.
Finally, Viperion uttered, "Abilities." He lifted his head to survey his audience. "We all know the kind of people who are born with special powers, right? Some of them keep it a secret their whole life, others tell the world without caring about the consequences, and then..."
Though his eyes remained shadowed out by the hood, she could've sworn he made eye contact with her.
He continued, "There are heroes who try to use their gifts to help everyone else. They're rare, but I know enough about them, and the one thing you might not've thought about are what their lives are like without the mask, or where they ended up."
Slowly, he plucked at one, then two, then three strings on his lyre, letting it act as the background music whilst he told his tales.
——-
Marinette came to understand that day why Viperion was such a big deal. He was an incredible storyteller, perfectly pacing out every detail and instilling just the right amount of emotion into them. It was as though he'd been there himself, experienced it through the person's own body, and the accompanying music struck a chord in everyone's heart.
Her heart especially, in a way she wouldn't have been able to explain had her past self simply been told about it. It wasn't just that she had a power and served as the village's "resident vigilante," which already allowed the stories to resonate with her, but also that each ending he laid out was a happy one.
Serving a community willing to protect them, finding true love, and their lives ending with a smile on their face. She'd felt undervalued throughout her life, certainly, but it didn't occur to her until then how much she'd unconsciously feared her future, and the situation with law enforcement hadn't helped.
Was she going to end up happy? Did everything she did actually matter, or was she leading herself to an inevitable, sorrowful end? Would it have been better to keep her power all to herself?
Yet, Viperion had known exactly what stories to tell, when she'd barely been aware of her own issues. How'd he--
"You look like you have something to ask me," a voice spoke from above her.
She nearly squeaked from shock, jolted back to reality as she looked up and saw the man in question standing at her table. The tavern had returned to its relative normal by then, with the only thing being that customers had begun talking amongst themselves about the stories told to them rather than their previous discussions. The non-magical spell he'd had everyone under had lingered without breaking entirety, and he seemed open to her questioning him however she wanted.
Did he already know what she was going to ask? That'd be great in its own way, as she was lost for exactly what to focus on.
"...How?" was what came out in the end, and she didn't know how to clarify beyond that.
How did he know her identity? How did he know what stories she needed to hear? How did he know tales that he shouldn't have been able to know?
He grinned at her, now close enough that she could see his soft blue eyes this time. Waving a hand at the seat next to her, he asked, "May I?"
"Oh? Y-yeah, sure!" She gestured at the same spot, welcoming him eagerly.
He sat down, putting his lyre on the table to where it was an equal distance to both of them. Running his fingertips along the strings without making any noise, he explained, "I have a power too."
Marinette noticed how open he was about it, and she found herself intuitively trusting him in that no one would hear their conversation. "Really? Does it have to do with how you captured your audience like that?"
He shook his head, though his grin widened at her casual praise. "I can hear the strings of fate playing, from the past to the future. I can know anything that's destined to be or already was, as long as I'm where it happened."
She'd never heard of such an ability, but it explained why he traveled. Each place he went must've been like unlocking a treasure trove of information that no one but him could see, and he turned those into stories.
"So... you know everything, or as much as you want to listen to?"
"Something like that. Some people changed their fate, and I can hear the new song they wrote over what was supposed to play." With a shrug, he added, "It was harder when I was a kid, since I'd hear all of it without knowing how not to listen."
She nodded in understanding. Reigning in her luck was hard for her too at first, and there was one time back when she was younger where she'd accidentally given luck to her school bully, claiming sickness for the following week so she could learn to control it.
"...Wait," she uttered in realization, leaning towards him with a dramatically serious expression, "does that mean I was fated to get caught that day?"
She wasn't so naive to think that he was following fate by going to help her; she didn't have that kind of luck in her life. The only explanation was that he'd interfered intentionally, which was why he'd been there before and why he was here now.
Viperion, looking all too proud of himself, told her simply, "I think the best kind of fate is the kind that people make for themselves. I didn't want to do nothing when I heard what'd happen to you, and I've been interested in meeting you since I listened to your song."
The way he'd phrased it made her heart skip a beat. There was something incredibly romantic about someone weaving themselves into her life, sewing together holes she didn't know were there and caring for her without even meeting her. When he'd said he'd heard about her, he meant on a much deeper level than she could've imagined.
Though he knew she was Ladybug, she felt like his eyes were looking at Marinette.
"...When you say interested," she began hesitantly, wondering if she might've been misunderstanding, "I just want to make sure what you mean..."
For the first time since he'd gotten to her table, he averted his gaze from her. Eyeing her glass of wine with a hum, he pointed at it and asked, "Do you mind?"
Though tilting her head at what seemed like an irrelevant question, she answered regardless, "Go ahead."
He grabbed the stem of the glass, raising it to his face, then paused to make direct, unwavering eye contact with her. Deliberately turning the glass so that the side that had faced her prior was facing him, he took a sip from the exact spot that she'd been drinking from.
Her face heated. That had been the answer she was hoping for, but she hadn't expected him to answer in that way.
"I..." She glanced around their little table, then reached out to fidget with her little basket of bread and butter. "I'd ask if you'd wanna stay a little longer, but all I have is bread and wine."
He chuckled. "That's fine. I didn't need either to be here, did I?" Leaning towards her, he whispered in full trust of her, "It's Luka, by the way."
"Marinette," she responded in kind, unable to stop herself from beaming at him.
This was it, she thought right then and there; this was the change she'd been searching for.
Luka didn't know what it was like to wield a miraculous, but he imagined it wasn't that different from his own hero persona, Truth. His powers worked a little differently, leaning more towards heightened intuition and emotional perception, but not being as flashy didn't change the actual role in any form.
The only exception for him was Ladybug, who was absolutely necessary for every battle due to the akuma requiring purification. Inevitably, that made her feel obligated to be around for every superhero-related thing, no matter how small.
He'd been delaying mentioning it to her because it wasn't his place, but the problem had become worse with time. That, and it simply wasn't in his nature to sit around idly while someone was suffering.
Patrol just happened to give him the perfect opportunity to do something, so he grabbed his wallet thirty minutes prior and went about his plan.
——-
Besides himself and Ladybug, there were a few other heroes, but all excluding Ladybug tended to rotate in terms of who participated in patrolling. It actually wasn't supposed to be his day to join her - it was Chat's - but he didn't see any problem with having extra help. His schedule had been carefully cleared for the occasion, and he could always claim to have nothing better to do if she asked.
It wasn't wrong, technically. They might've been heroes, but he felt that they'd become close friends. Ladybug might've appeared like some untouchable celebrity to the public, but he knew her better: she was creative, intelligent, kindhearted, sensitive, and had the prettiest smile he'd ever—
Focus.
The meeting place for patrol was the same every time: near the top of the Eiffel Tower. He could already see Ladybug waiting there, her red bodysuit sticking out starkly against the dark sky and dull colors of the structure. Chat's own bodysuit would've blended in better, but as Truth went closer, he noticed that there was no Chat in sight.
He must've been busy, he thought, because it would've been out-of-character for Chat to not show up for one-on-one time with someone he called "his lady." Truth wasn't upset with him, but he did question whatever process had dropped the miraculouses into a person's hands and if someone's schedule went into consideration.
Either way, it wasn't important to the task at hand, and while he didn't like that Ladybug wouldn't have had anyone with her had he not shown up unannounced, at least it would make it easier to talk to her.
Having been used to his hero form from the months he'd spent fighting akuma, he ascended the Eiffel Tower with ease. He could've summoned Pharo to fly him up, but he much preferred the extra practice he got in by doing things himself where he was able. All he had to be careful of was the bag slung around his shoulder, afraid to jostle it too much.
Finally, he reached the top and hopped over the railing. Ladybug seemed distracted, staring out blankly at the city, but turned as he approached her.
"...Truth?" She blinked rapidly, then rubbed the side of her head and squinted. "Isn't it Monday? I thought—"
"It is Monday," he confirmed, gripping the strap of the bag he held, "but I wanted to come. Is that okay?"
Confused, but not seeing any reason to refuse him, she replied, "Uh... sure? I'm still waiting for Chat Noir though."
Even as Luka, he had an innate sort of ability to see through people, most of the time through the sounds they made, how fast they were breathing, or the tone of their voice. Upon transforming into Truth, he could detect so much more, from body language, to how people avoided his eyes, all the way down to micro-movements and micro-expressions that a normal human wouldn't be able to catch. When he really needed it, he could go so far as to be certain when someone was lying or not, meaning that deceiving him was impossible unless he chose not to use his power; such moments were reserved for those he considered friends, like Ladybug.
Yet, he never would've needed to use it with her anyway. Contrary to what everyone else seemed to believe, Ladybug was an open book with just about every emotion only display, provided that one was willing to read the words. He'd continued to be baffled by people who couldn't get her beyond her professionalism, as if the very words in the book that was Ladybug were written in another language entirely.
Or, maybe he was just good at paying attention when it came to her. Regardless, he could tell that she didn't actually believe Chat Noir would show up; there was still a few minutes before the appointed time, but Chat would've come early if he came at all as an excuse for extra time with her. She already looked mentally prepared to go out alone, though now she didn't have to.
Taking the bag off his shoulder, he settled it carefully on the ground and offered, "Why don't you let Pharo patrol by itself today?"
"Pharo? But..." She stared anxiously out to the side, head flicking in every direction like danger might appear the second she let her guard down.
"I know." His voice was gentle, and he tried to hide his concern that she couldn't imagine taking a break for one patrol. It was all the more reason to keep pressing. "It's an all-seeing eye that can catch things we couldn't, and I'll know if it sees anything suspicious. Wouldn't that be better than us going around instead?"
Pharo did join them on patrols whenever it was Truth's turn, but it was the first time he'd suggested that Pharo go solo. Really, it would've been more efficient than if he hadn't shown up at all and Ladybug went on her own.
She fumbled at first, definitely wondering why he was there, why he would bother with this at all, and most importantly—
Her gaze fell to the bag. "What did you bring?"
It was the easiest way of asking for his motives without being direct about it. He opened the bag, reached inside, and brought out a to-go container, explaining, "I bought some cake for you. Do you want some?"
The way her face contorted at such a casual thing was almost amusing, because they're heroes, they're supposed to be doing hero things, and how dare a hero encourage another hero to—
Then her stomach growled when she went to reprimand him. It was so loud that he wondered how many meals she skipped, but he felt that a steady stare was enough to communicate his thoughts.
Ladybug made a noise of discomfort in the back of her throat, then sighed. A bit of the exhaustion left her face as she dropped herself down into a sitting position, arm extended towards the box.
"I... guess I'd be a bad leader if I wasted your effort."
He grinned even though she couldn't see it, happily passing the box over to her. Her stomach had unintentionally lightened the mood, and there was a hint of shyness on her face at the kind gesture.
"Thanks. Sorry if I didn't seem grateful for a second there."
"Don't worry about it. I know how important this is to you." He turned his head, closing both of his human eyes as the third on his forehead began to glow. "Pharo."
With a flash, Pharo appeared in front of him, its single eye wide and observing. It scanned the area around them, from the cake to the location and the two heroes in front of it.
To the public, the motions looked like a drone in some fantasy story written by someone with a Halloween obsession. To Truth, it looked more like a curious child, eager to absorb anything and everything.
"Hey," he greeted, reaching out to rub Pharo's side. "We have something to do here. Can you go on patrol in our place?"
With a nod - more like an awkward bounce and tilt - Pharo agreed. It flew up to get over the railing, then went off to explore the city.
Ladybug watched until it was little more than a dot in their vision, then looked at Truth with worry. "Something we have to do?"
He shook his head to assure her that it wasn't a big deal, then popped open the box for her. "I wanted to check on you, that's all."
"What?" she asked, stopping halfway to picking up the plastic fork next to the cake. "Was I worrying you?"
He could already feel it coming on: the whole I'm supposed to be the responsible leader and I'm ruining morale if my teammates are fretting over me. As patiently as he could, he called, "Ladybug."
She quieted.
"Everyone gets stressed now and then; that's why you make sure not to ask for anyone unless you need them, right?" He gestured at her. "But it feels like you don't do the same for yourself. You're always putting everything you have into being a hero, and I don't think you can keep doing that forever. I know it won't do anything to tell you to just relax, but..."
He shrugged helplessly and gave her the chance to talk rather than carrying on, basically saying, 'if I'm wrong, tell me now.'
She studied him, perhaps not reading people as easily as he would, but he hoped that his sincerity came through. Her hand dropped into the box to pick up the fork, and she bumped her chin with the flat end in thought.
"You're..." Her lips pressed together in a tight line, hesitating.
"I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of," he added, noting her difficulty. "I just... I'd hate to be where you are right now. I feel like I've been taking all the freedom I've had for granted, when you have to be ready to drop everything as soon as there's an akuma."
Her face fell; his words had struck where he intended them to. She looked down at the cake, nudging at a cherry with her fork and asking, "Is it that noticeable?"
He put his hands on the ground, moving himself over so they were properly side-by-side. Dragging his bag to rest next to him, he looked her in the eyes to answer, "You're my friend, Ladybug, and I care about you. If you want to talk, I'll listen, and I'll be here for you even if you don't want to talk at all."
Her eyelids drooped, her cheeks turning a faint pink at the delicate words. Stabbing at the cherry she'd been playing with, she thrust it into her mouth with a bit more force than necessary, shutting her eyes tight and swallowing hard.
She held the position for a few seconds, then sighed. "There's nothing I can do about it."
He bit back a, 'Why not?' because he knew it wasn't actually that easy. Had it been up to him, she would've been allowed to lessen her workload - or outright quit - if she wanted to. He at least chose to be a hero, but she was riding off of some sort of... guilt? Obligation?
Paris would never trust him again if they knew the priorities in his head. Ladybug was great, but even if she was the best, he didn't care. It would hurt to never see her again, but if it came down to that...
"...You can still talk to people," he said instead, as only a fraction of what he was really thinking.
"I can talk to you," she corrected. She separated off a piece of the cake slice, then split that piece in two and ate one of them. "You know how the others can be."
He frowned. "I—"
"Not that it's a bad thing!" She grinned sheepishly. "I mean, I like talking to you; I was just saying that everyone else wouldn't really get it since they're having so much fun as superheroes. I wasn't trying to worry you either, Truth, I..."
She faltered, dazed just from admitting that much. He raised a hand to settle it on her shoulder, then ran it down to her back when she relaxed at the touch.
"...Talking to people usually never helped me, so I'm not used to doing it," she managed to continue. "It's easier not to; then no one gets annoyed that I'm ruining their fun or making them do more than they signed up for."
It was upsetting, but Truth couldn't say he didn't understand. He too had been guilty of that, not asking for help if he felt it "wasn't a big deal" and he could do it himself.
However, those were for unimportant tasks. Ladybug was doing it on a grand scale and seemed convinced that it was the best way to go about it. He tried to picture himself in such a position, but it was hard; he could only gauge it based on her reactions.
Like the cake: she took more dramatic bites when she was trying to get herself to say something, but otherwise nibbled at it to cherish the taste. It did well at conveying her wide, emotional range without saying it.
"The cake's good," she said suddenly in an attempt to shift the mood. She stabbed at another piece, then turned her upper body to him with the piece raised. "But I feel bad eating all by myself. You should—"
She stopped, eyes flicking down at his full face mask, then blushed in embarrassment and went back to eating on her own. Had she been about to feed him?
He took a second to recover from the thought, shaking his head. "I...I don't think heroing is supposed to be just for fun, but if you don't want to bother them, then you can bother me."
She raised a brow at him.
"I can free up my time more, so you can ask for my help whenever you need it. I can go on patrols with just me and Pharo if you need a break." It wasn't as simple as he was making it sound, but he knew he could absolutely make it work if he wanted to. Yet, he noticed that she didn't look satisfied with that. "What's wrong?"
She let out a weak, breathy chuckle, setting the box aside to rub her shoulder. "It might sound stupid - really, really stupid - but I like going on patrol in a weird way. It's a distraction from my real life, because there's not much I can do without having to plan for an akuma attack at any time."
He hesitated, wondering if he was pushing too much, but also knew she would tell him if he was. "Like what?"
She stopped her fork partway to taking a scoop of frosting. She didn't answer for a moment, then reluctantly set the box aside and put the fork into it as well. Standing up, she offered her hand to him and inclined her head towards the railing.
Truth took it without a word, not missing the little squeeze she gave as she helped him up. Together, they stepped forward, and she let his hand go so she could lean over and rest her forearms on the railing itself. Even at night, Paris was still beautiful and bright with the streetlights on, but the lights reflecting off her blue eyes was the prettiest thing to him.
"When I watch Miraculous Ladybug sweep over the city, my problems always seem so small in comparison," she said with a bittersweet smile. "So who cares about Ladybug's love life?"
His pure white eyes narrowed into slits in response, to the point where she sensed it and peeked up at him. She choked, then laughed in amusement at the expression.
"Okay, okay," she acknowledged, trying hard to suppress the giggles. "Who cares who Ladybug is actually in love with instead of who Paris wants her to be in love with?"
He grinned, physically turned his back to the city and leaned against the railing. "I care, but your opinion is the only one that should matter." He paused, fingers twitching in an awkward rhythm. "You and the person you like. So, you want to date someone?"
He did his best to sound neutral. It was really none of his business even without identities involved.
"Yeah." She pushed herself back up with a conflicted expression. "But I'm stressed and high-strung and dating me would be terrible."
"That's not true," he stated adamantly, hitting the railing with a hand. "I'd know; the truth's my specialty."
She gave him a delicate smile, but her eyes were alight in mirth and fondness. "Thanks..."
He could hear the doubt in her voice. "I mean it. Maybe it won't be in the same way as everyone else, but I think you could figure out how to make it work even if you can't tell them you're Ladybug."
The silence lingered, but he allowed it to let her process. The wind blew gently past them, shifting her bangs just slightly as they both stared back out at the city.
They caught a brief sight of Pharo off in the distance, who was still flying around looking for any danger. It peeked through the window of a store and accidentally startled an owner who was just closing up shop, which earned a snort out of both of them that they equally tried to hide.
"Hah—" Ladybug let out, avoiding eye contact with him and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "What if I'm already Ladybug, so I don't have to tell them that I am?"
"What?"
At the single word, she fully turned her head away from him. Truth was tempted to lean over to try and see her face, but he didn't have to.
Her ears were red.
Swift enough that he felt the breeze of it, Ladybug spun to speed-walk back to the box. She crouched, took off a large piece of her slice of cake using her fork, and practically inhaled the whole thing in one go. When she got back up to finally look at him again, she was still in the middle of licking frosting off her lips.
"You really think someone would date me?"
He didn't answer right away, catching himself in the act of staring at her tongue. Forcing his eyes up to hers, he answered, "I don't know why anyone wouldn't. You're the total package."
There was a shift in the atmosphere that he was distinctly, acutely aware of, but didn't say out loud. It made his face heat under his mask when his usual compliments wouldn't have done a thing to shake him. She was staring at him so intently, like he'd trespassed into a space previously untreaded by anyone else.
Someone had moved, but he wasn't sure who. He only knew that they were closer than before.
"You think anyone would want to kiss me?"
He nodded, as the words weren't forming exactly how they wanted him to. He didn't care if he was biased or not; anyone she was interested in would be lucky to get a kiss from her.
Fingers brushed his hand, the body heat transferring easily despite their bodysuits preventing skin-to-skin contact. He looked down, eyeing her fingers curling around the side of his hand as her thumb brushed his palm, but then her other hand found the back of his neck and his attention returned to her face.
He barely had time to react, freezing up when she got on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his in a short kiss. They were limited by his full face mask, but he definitely felt it, a startled breath escaping him as she pulled back.
Her face had reddened, her hands releasing him as she brought the back of one to her mouth. It muffled her voice somewhat, but he would've heard anything she said in that moment.
"Since you're wearing a full mask, we can say it doesn't count if you didn't like it."
The hand over her lips moved up to partly cover her face: that gorgeous transition from shyness to confidence and back again that he loved so dearly. She tried to swivel around and away from him, but he caught her wrist before she could.
"Ladybug," he called, soft and breathless. Knowing his actions would speak better than any reassurance he could've given, he guided her hand back towards his neck and instructed, "Right here. You can pull it up here."
While showing her, he intentionally had her fingers run over where the vein in his neck would be. She gasped, his pulse pounding hard enough that she felt it, and it wasn't even a second later when the bottom of his mask was being lifted.
His chin was exposed to the air, followed by his mouth and nose. Ladybug stopped there, seemingly unaware of her mouth hanging open in fascination as her thumb ran just underneath his lower lip.
"Pink..." she murmured, then realized that she'd blurted it out. Rather than taking it back, she looked up at him and explained, "Your lips are my favorite shade of pink."
"Really?" He beamed, utterly charmed by her and even more so by her blush at seeing his smile for the first time.
She let out a series of giddy, stuttering giggles, then dropped her hand to slide it back over his. "Well, it's my favorite shade now."
He loved her. He loved her so much. His heart was full and he felt it might burst if he didn't return the kiss she'd given him.
They both leaned towards each other, his free hand going around to her back to pull her closer. Just before they made contact, she whispered to him, "Since you offered... be my permanent patrol partner?"
"Every day," he swore to her, then shut his eyes and moved in harmony with her.
She tasted like chocolate cherry cake and the promise of more kisses in their future.
Sometimes, being with the right person meant that you didn't need to do everything together when you hung out with them. It could be enough just to have them nearby, existing in the same space and feeling comfortable with their presence alone.
That was how Luka felt about Marinette, and how she felt about him. They hadn't been officially dating for long and hadn't done many typical couple things yet, but they were happy with whatever time together they could get.
Their time that day involved the pool on the roof of the hotel Jagged was staying at, which they intended to take full advantage of when they realized that they had it to themselves for a while. Penny somehow found time in her schedule to try and make Marinette's schedule (which was overpacked if you asked Luka, a normal day's work if you asked Penny, and a complicated math problem if you asked Jagged) more free, which often meant "forced" breaks that sent them somewhere nice for their dates.
Luka didn't really care whether it was Jagged's way of looking good for Marinette or Luka himself. He got time with her and that was what mattered.
As for the "separate but together" part, that came in when Marinette asked to be the first to swim while he practiced his violin. They were both dressed up - or down - to swim, but he wasn't going to complain if he could get to serenade her, no matter how ridiculous he looked playing such a fancy instrument while in his swimsuit.
The air felt good so high up, and it was like they were the only two people in the world. He got to enjoy watching Marinette swim around, sending an occasional wink her way when she looked at him that made her blush, all while the gentle notes of his violin filled any silence.
The one oddity, however, was how she'd decided to swim. Luka'd expected her to swim back and forth along the pool, or maybe float idly in place to simply enjoy the feeling of being in the water, but she did neither. Rather, she kept dipping underwater, staying under for what seemed like as long as she could before popping back up, just to then do it all over again. He kept wondering why she'd do it, but couldn't form anything that made enough sense.
After she came up for probably the twentieth time, he stopped playing to joke, "Is it that bad?"
She took a moment to get air back into her lungs after denying herself of it for so long, then turned to him. "W-what?"
"My playing." He purposefully played an unpleasant note to go along with the teasing. "You keep ducking underwater. I'm sure that muffles it."
"You know I love your music! It's just—" She could clearly tell that he was joking, but also hadn't expected him to directly address what she'd been doing. Embarrassed, she looked away from him and insisted, "It's nothing."
Which meant it was something, and his brows rose in curiosity. Normally, he wouldn't try and push, but he knew what that face Marinette was making meant: that, whatever she was doing, it involved him somehow.
Putting his violin and bow off to the side, he approached the edge of the pool that was closest to where she was. There, he crouched down, letting his arms rest on his legs, and called out, "Marinette."
"No."
He smirked. "I didn't say anything yet."
"But you're making that face at me."
"What face?"
"The kind that makes me want to spill everything to you."
Placing his hands down on the edge, he lowered himself into the pool. The water was cool, but he became warm as he wrapped her with his arms and brought her close. "I thought you said that it was nothing."
"It is nothing! It's—" She sighed, unable to help relaxing against him. "It seems silly now that you're actually right here."
Peeking up at his neck, she pouted and reached up to rub the spot where the body of his violin had been against. The motion made him stiffen, as he'd always been weak to her touch.
"Marine—" The name was probably cut off by the tiny noise he let out at her kissing the spot she'd rubbed. "—ah. Are you trying to distract me?"
She pulled back enough that he could see her face without her leaving his arms. Shaking her head, she replied with a frown, "I was just wondering if your neck ever got sore when you have to keep your violin there." Then, with a hint of playfulness seeping into her voice, she asked, "Why? Did it really distract you?"
"Not a chance. It made me think about you more," he easily retorted, though now he wanted to start playing more violin in front of her. Taking one arm off of her so he could cup her cheek, he ran his thumb along her skin and added, "You're always surprising me. We haven't had a real kiss, but you can kiss my neck like that?"
She turned her face towards his hand, enough that he could feel her breath against the wet skin at the heel of his palm. "That's different. You're my boyfriend."
"...Yes?" He was confused at what that had to do with kissing him on the lips versus the neck.
"I mean that you're not something casual, so a first kiss is really important." She rested her hands on his shoulders, shrugging awkwardly. "And—and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to stop once I start? So I wanted to, you know... increase my lung capacity?"
Luka's lips silently parted, his eyes darting to the water that she'd been dipping in and out a moment ago. He looked back at her like she might say it was just some idle flirting, but her face only flushed pink under his observant gaze.
"I know you don't care about that either, but I still—" She blinked in shock as he suddenly let go of her. "—Luka?"
He turned around, putting his hands up on the hard edge of the pool. With a small grunt, he pushed himself up in one hasty motion, going over to where his violin was resting. Picking up his towel nearby, he dried off his hands so he could open up his instrument case and put both his violin and bow away, promptly shutting the case with no intent of opening it again for the rest of their date.
Marinette remained puzzled as he went back over to her. Managing not to slip on his own wet path he'd created in his rush, he dropped himself down into the water again and gathered her back up into his arms.
It'd already felt like too long since she'd been in them.
"You're right, I don't care about that." He paused, then squeezed her tighter and said in a low voice, "Unless we can practice together. What do you think?"
She stared at him, wide-eyed but not put off by the suggestion. Unintentionally tempting him as she bit her lower lip, her eyes went back and forth from his own lips to his face as a whole.
He was about to ask her again when her arms went around his neck, their bodies pressing together as she tugged at him. In one harmonious motion, they both went under together and kissed each other for the first time.
They could also confirm that it was much more efficient than Marinette practicing on her own, as she stayed underwater with him much longer than any of her solo attempts.
Throw your feelings into the sea: that was all Marinette could think to do whenever she simply felt, but it hadn't always been that way.
As one of the rare people in the world born with magical powers, it was inevitable that others would be wary of her. When even the faintest of emotions could cause an effect when the magic was still new and uncontrolled, no one wanted to be near the cause.
She supposed she was one of the lucky ones. Her parents cared for her, though they couldn't understand her nature as a witch: the urge to cast, craft, and create. They supported her learning more about magic within the limited knowledge available to her, but she could never say for sure if it was for her own benefit or so she didn't embarrass them. They always insisted the former, but she saw them hesitate whenever she offered to help out with anything.
School was worse. Most kids avoided her so as to not cause an emotional reaction, but that made Chloe see her as a more "worthy" target to bully. In the combination of her being the mayor's daughter and the stigma against witches, Marinette was often the one expected to feel as little as possible.
The emotion was to blame the moment she felt it.
The idea of her feelings being thrown into the ocean came on a whim. She knew already that people sent messages in a bottle, but a large part of magic culture was not wasting anything. Even parts of animals that couldn't be eaten by people could still be useful in potions and brews given the right conditions.
So, when Marinette had sipped all of her water from the glass bottle she'd been drinking out of one day, she had a thought and put it into motion. She grabbed a piece of paper, the nearest writing utensils, and wrote. She wrote down her feelings, things that had happened during the day, and anything else she could think of.
Next, she snuck down to the beach when no one else was around and took the bottle out from her little bag. She then rolled up the paper, stuffed it inside, sealed the bottle tight, and threw it out into the sea.
There wasn't any big meaning behind it, beyond the imagination-driven ideal that she could get rid of the feelings people worried so much about by throwing them away. She would watch the bottle soar through the air, plop down into the ocean, and drift out further and further away due to the spell she'd placed on it to keep it from being washed back to shore.
She never would've expected the sea to give her a response.
——-
Marinette never kept track of the amount of bottles she'd thrown. She had too many feelings and so little time to write it all down, even though she was just a child, so she didn't bother counting. It would've just been sadder, seeing how much she'd thrown away rather than expressed out loud.
At the very least, her throw that day felt particularly good. She hadn't been able to sneak out all week, so the letter seemed almost heavy with all the extra thoughts she'd written down on it. The bottle glistened from the moonlight shining off of it as it twirled, and the splash it made was a little bigger than usual.
She sighed, feeling just a little of the anxiety fade away. Plopping down onto the sand, she ran her fingertips in idle circles as she watched the bottle slowly get smaller from her perspective. The sound of the nightly waves was soothing, and it was a little fun getting to be all by herself, albeit incredibly lonely.
The bottle bobbed back and forth in the water, leaving her mesmerized by the movement, until suddenly it dipped below the surface and didn't come back up. Marinette sat up straighter with a start, leaning forward to try and get a better look.
Had it disappeared behind a wave and she'd been too zoned out to notice? It didn't seem like it.
Just as she shifted, prepared to push herself up to a stand and go near the water, she saw bubbles rising to the top where her bottle had been. She froze, waiting in a mixture of curiosity and trepidation, then gasped as someone actually came up from the sea: a boy, even, with long flowing black hair that turned blue at the ends.
She shrieked, sand getting awkwardly kicked about as she scrambled to her feet. Shutting her eyes and mentally preparing to be yelled at, she cried out, "I-I'm sorry! I didn't know anyone else was here! I—"
"It's okay," the boy cut in, voice soft but loud enough to be heard over her shouting. "I'm here because you are."
"...H-huh?" She slowly opened one eye at a time, her body releasing its tension from confusion more than anything else.
The boy swam closer to shore, surprising fast and without much movement from his arms like one might've expected. Now that she was actually, really looking at him, she noticed something - some things - peeking out from where his ears should've been.
They looked like fins.
Mouth agape, the fear she'd felt just a moment ago was swept away, carried out to sea in exchange for excitement. There wasn't a single care about how much sand she got in her shoes as she ran to meet him halfway, exclaiming, "You're a merboy!"
It occurred to her rather late that he must've been, unless he had such insane lungs that he could've been underwater the entire time she'd been there. She'd simply never seen one before and almost wondered if they were only in fairy tales.
He stopped swimming a small distance away, to where she suspected the depth of the water would make it difficult to go further without him dragging himself. Tilting his head to the side with his bangs nearly obscuring his eyes, he asked, "Merboy?"
"Yeah?" She pointed at the fin-like appendages. "Like a merman or a mermaid? Isn't that what you're called?"
She suddenly felt bad, wondering if she'd been calling them wrong all this time. Would she have to put out a statement to the public and send letters to all the children's books she's ever read to change the term they used? Was "merperson" offensive, or—
"No," the boy said with a shake of his head, then casually declared, "I'm a sea god."
"Oh," she uttered, surprised and awed for a second time. Taking it just as casually as him, she insisted, "Then—then I have to bow to you!"
She dropped down onto her backside, her knees slipping slightly into the wet sand, but she didn't notice much. She put her hands between her legs for support and tried to bow appropriately, but it was difficult to get herself to a level lower than him.
He waved a hand at her to assure her that she could stop. "It's okay. I'm still training. My mom's the sea goddess right now and thinks I'm not ready yet."
She perked up, absorbing all that information readily. Not only could gods have parents, but they could go through training? She would've thought they were eternal, so perhaps he was some sort of baby god who was still allowed to be considered a god amongst other gods.
Her lips pursed at all the questions she wanted to ask him, but she knew she had to settle on one to start. "How do you get to be a god? Did your mom tell you that?"
He hummed as he thought about it. "...No? But she says that we're not like anything else in the sea. We can talk to the land people and use magic."
It didn't click with Marinette that "sea god" might've been a self-appointed title to these very obviously merfolk. She was more focused on, "You use magic?"
'Like me...?' she didn't add.
"Yeah. Ah—" He stopped and looked down at the water and shore, seemingly lost for how to comfortably get closer to her.
Practically jumping up, she assured, "I'll help you! Here, give me your hands."
Her shoes made a weird squelching noise when she stepped into the water, but she ignored it as well as the sensation of water seeping into them. The tide was cold and lapped at her lower legs, but she went closer anyway and extended both arms to him.
The sea god in training peered up at her, moving his bangs aside with a hand to see her better, then nodded. She'd offered both hands with the expectation that he'd put his in hers, but he only gave her the single one that was out of the water. Though puzzled, she rolled with it, grabbed his hand and bent down to snag his waist with her other arm.
There was something she felt around his midsection, but she just tried not to accidentally undo it. Carefully, she backed up to get him out of the water, doing her best not to make him uncomfortable.
As she went, it also became apparent why he'd only given her the one hand instead of both: his other hand held the bottle she'd thrown.
She almost dropped him in surprise, but focused until they were both firmly on land. Setting him down, she eyed the bottle and recalled, "You said you were here 'cause of me?"
She'd genuinely forgotten that he'd said so after the whole merfolk-to-sea-god reveal.
"Mm." He nodded. The thing she'd felt around his waist was a string, and he fiddled with it to turn it accordingly. Stuffing the bottle he'd retrieved before into the sand to keep it in place, there was another one just like it tied to the string. He removed it and held it out to her, explaining, "Mom told me that people put this in the ocean when they need help. I'm sorry I took so long to find out where yours were coming from."
She closed her mouth before she could correct him, because his words resonated with her. She'd been throwing those bottles without a thought, yet she couldn't deny that it was a cry for help in a way; just one that she expected to remain quiet.
"H...how many did you find?" she asked as she popped the cap off the bottle, her body feeling warm despite the cold water from earlier.
"I dunno," he admitted. "I lost count, but I swear I read all of 'em. They're back at home."
So he'd been collecting them, reading them, and came who knew how long of a distance just to find her? Surely he knew it wasn't a dire emergency where she was dying and in urgent need of help if he'd read all of her messages?
The gesture touched her somewhere deep, a place she once considered numb and unfeeling, but ended up so sensitive at his kindness. She couldn't even look at him as she took out the old letter from the bottle and unfurled it.
Chloe was mean to me again today. No one did anything. They don't, ever. Papa and Maman get sad when I'm sad, so I cried in my room. If I had a friend, they'd listen. A friend would do something when I cried. I wish I had one. I wish they'd take me away. I don't want to be here. We'd get to play all day long and love each other. Maybe I could make them happy. I've been practicing just in case.
She vividly remembered writing it and all the pain came back full-force, but the tears that formed in her eyes weren't sad ones. The boy's hand reached around her face to the cheek furthest from him, and he turned her head so they could look at each other.
"I'll be your friend," he whispered tenderly, "so don't cry."
That made her want to cry harder. She sniffled, trying to stop, but felt the watery trails going down her face.
"U-uh, sorry—" A little flustered at her obvious struggle, he stammered out, "I-I didn't mean you can't cry."
"Why?" she sobbed, then clarified, "W-why do you wanna be my friend?"
Offering a fond smile, he reminded her, "I read your letters and you seemed cool. I made sure I didn't make any other friends, so you're the only one who can get my time."
He brought his other hand up to help wipe her tears away, but she grabbed his arm before he could. Her other hand threw the letter she was holding off to the side, and the way he reached for it like it was important to him only made her more emotional. Pulling him in, she squeezed him tight in a hug like she'd always wanted to do with someone she befriended.
As she'd written in her letters, she'd practiced before, and that practice included hugs. Still, pillows weren't the same as the real deal; they didn't have their own warmth and didn't actually care for her.
The boy did though, and he even hugged her back.
——-
Marinette cried until she'd had her fill of crying, and the boy didn't let go until she did first. She started to wipe her own tears away, but he brushed them off to finish the job he'd started before she'd hugged him. She let him, just happy to have someone to do so at all.
It was nice, she thought, that he was a person of the sea. She hadn't had to worry about getting him wet with tears, though she had the feeling that he wouldn't have minded anyway.
"I'm a witch." she said next, figuring that she should address the obvious. "It doesn't bug you?"
"I'm magic too," he countered. "We can be magic together."
The sentiment was nice, but she wasn't sure he understood. "But... mine's not the same. When I feel stuff, my magic goes off."
He frowned. "It didn't now when you were crying?"
"Well—" She pouted, dropping her gaze and shrugging. He was technically right, but she argued, "That's just because I cry a lot, so I got to train a lot too."
"Can you use it without feeling too?" At her nod, he leaned forward eagerly and asked, "Can I see—?"
His bangs fell into his face from the slight motion. He let out a small huff, pushing them aside with a hand.
Marinette reached out to hold his bangs aside for him so he didn't have to, which then gave her an idea. "Do you like your hair?"
"Not really," he admitted. "My mom likes hers, and mine doesn't get in the way that much when I'm swimming, but..."
She pointed at the strands sticking to his cheek with her free hand. "Can I use magic on it? Is that okay?"
His expression brightening gave her the answer before his mouth did. "Yeah. Go ahead."
His blue eyes sparkled like moonlight reflecting off the ocean, and it made her more determined to get it right. It felt like a shame to hide such prettiness under his long hair.
Steeling herself up, she forced away her nerves so she could focus. It was the first time properly doing magic in front of someone and she wanted to impress him.
Separating his hair out so the back fell behind him while the rest was only his bangs, Marinette held up two fingers with one hand and gripped the strands with the other, just below where she intended to cut. Making a snipping gesture in preparation, she raised her free hand and lined it up just right so it was perfectly horizontal.
Then, she touched her fingers together, a light forming between them that shot out in a straight line through his bangs. The hair she held went slack as it sliced through, the boy recoiling with a gasp from the suddenness.
"Sorry!" She dropped the cut hair and fretted, "Was it too bright? Did it hurt?"
He didn't answer right away, lips parted and staring up at his shortened hair. He touched it, his thumb and index finger rubbing the strands that appeared to slowly regain the blue tips. Marinette stared down at the hair he lost and could confirm that the blue had faded away, as if it was never there.
When she looked back up at the boy, he was struggling slightly with his movements, but managed to turn himself around so his back was facing her. He made certain that the rest of his long hair was still behind him, then glanced over his shoulder with an expectant look. She beamed, recognizing the excitement there and shuffling closer so she could cut the rest as well.
Just as before, the majority of it came off clean in her hand and fell to the sand underneath them. The pride of having done her first important task as a friend overcame her, and she had the sudden urge to boast, "This is easy, so tell me when it gets too long again. I'll do it whenever you need it since you're my friend now."
He turned back around, grinning at her. "It'll be easier once we're living together. I'll do stuff too and play music for you every day."
The mental image that brought made her happy, but equally perplexed. "Living together?"
He recited easily, "I don't want to be here; that's what your letter said."
"You'll really take me away?" she asked. Her first instinct was to be delighted - getting out this terrible place with her new sea god friend! - but then reality crashed down on her. Reluctantly, she lamented, "...I can't."
He held her hand, looking as disappointed as she felt. "Why not? I know you can't breathe under the water, but we—"
"No." She shook her head. "My parents said I can only move out once I'm an adult, so I can't run away until I turn eighteen."
"Oh." He seemed glad at least that the reason didn't involve not wanting him, but the frown didn't leave his face. "Then... I'll come visit? Whenever you want."
"How?" she urged him on, hopeful and curious as she gripped the hand holding hers.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, then stopped completely when his gaze flickered down at the bottle he'd pressed into the sand earlier. Grabbing it, he plucked it out and held it out between them. "Throw a bottle into the water when you want to see me. I'll come no matter what."
It sounded too good to be true, yet his steady gaze assured her that he was entirely serious. She reached for the bottle and he let her have it, but not before opening it to retrieve the letter inside. He stretched past her to grab the one she'd thrown too, apparently still determined to collect them.
She giggled affectionately. "Will your mom be okay with me going with you one day?"
He nodded resolutely. "You can be the new sea goddess when she gets bored doing it. My sister doesn't want to be called that anyway 'cause she like sea demon better."
"Okay!" she exclaimed, happily going along with all of it. Sea goddess sounded so much better than witch, and she'd be his sea goddess to boot!
Now that they'd agree upon a way to meet again, it wasn't that sad that they had to part; she needed to return home and it couldn't have been easy for him "sitting" too long. After he'd safely tucked both letters into the bottle he'd brought with him, she helped him return to the water and watched him swim out to more comfortable depths.
He poked his head back out to look at her, eyes darting down to her wet shoes as she retreated back to dryer sand. Raising a hand, his magic flowed like waves from it to her, visibly different from hers but with the same harmless intents. It tickled her a little, circling around her feet until the water that had soaked into her shoes had completely dried.
She shifted her feet back and forth to test them, then confirmed that it'd worked with two approving thumb's up. He smiled and gave her a thumb's up back, then waved before disappearing back under the water.
Marinette went to wave despite him unable to see it, but just before the "bye" could leave her lips, something important struck her; something she couldn't believe she'd forgotten about. She looked left and right in a mini-panic, then remembered the remaining bottle near her feet and hurried to grab it.
"Wait! Wait!" she shouted, throwing it out to the sea as he'd instructed.
It landed with an awkward 'plonk', not anywhere near as good as her prior throw, yet it worked. Not even a second later, the boy came up to the surface for her, asking in concern, "What's wrong?"
"Who are you?" she asked, because somehow his name hadn't been a priority during their entire discussion.
Confused, he replied, "I'm your best friend?" A moment passed, at which point he hit the same realization that she did and gasped. "Uh, Luka! My name's Luka."
Luka. She grinned. "I'm Marinette, your best friend too!" She threw both arms out to wave at him now that he was looking. "Bye, Luka! Promise you'll play some music for me next time!"
Next time, her mind buzzed eagerly. There'd be a next time!
He nodded and mirrored her raised hands, not as animated as her yet just as happy. "See you then, Marinette."
Rather than simply dipping underwater again, it was move of a dive. When his tail was about to go along with the rest of him, it purposefully smacked the bottle she'd thrown and sent it flying up in the air.
Her arms were already outstretched from the wave anyway, so she adjusted and easily caught it in both hands. All the bottles she'd ever thrown in the ocean before were the same, yet this one felt special somehow. She'd have to find a way to display it without anyone knowing about her secret future-runaway best friend.
She really, finally, truly had a friend. He read her letters - her deepest, most depressing thoughts - yet he came all the way to meet her and wanted to see her again. She could see him whenever she wanted, and one day it wouldn't matter how much everyone else was put off by her, because they'd escape together.
She was so happy, which was such a foreign feeling that she barely knew what to do with herself. She hugged the bottle to her chest, shaking at the warmth in her core like a bouquet of flowers that had all bloomed at once. Something was building and she wanted to dance, or jump for joy, or do anything, but—but—
Marinette's eyes opened wide as she felt her magic burst, shooting upwards into the sky with a high-pitched whoosh. Her legs gave out and she sat there in a brief state of shock, but then she heard what sounded like an explosion overhead and tipped her head skywards.
She'd always been taught by the world around her that magic was something to fear and, for that split second, she thought that was about to be proven right. Instead, she saw her magic glowing bright and beautiful as it flew out in all directions, sparkling even as it dissipated in the seconds that followed.
She was unaware that she'd just created the world's first fireworks. All she could think of was that it was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen, and that it'd been completely harmless. She hoped that she might feel happy enough again so she could show Luka one day.
With a fleeting but meaningful glance at the sea, Marinette turned to head back home and, for the first time ever, it was with a smile on her face.
Luka hadn't even waited ten seconds before the door flung open, Marinette standing on the other side of the doorway with a grateful grin.
"Hey! Thanks so much for coming." She threw the door open further, wincing as it hit the wall but not deterred from welcoming him anyway. "I know it was really sudden. I've just been thinking about this for a long time."
"It's okay. Thanks for having me," he said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
She beckoned him to follow with a hand and led him towards the dining room. He admired her as they went, newly awed every time they met at how beautiful she kept getting as they got older. When they were teenagers, some of the crushes amongst their friend group faded with time, but his had only gotten stronger.
It made him all the more curious of why she'd call him out to her house to talk, just the two of them, for something that "didn't feel right" to ask over the phone.
He noted that she'd set up the dining room table with two chairs, one on the far side for her and one on the other for him. He could tell which was for him because she'd put a pillow on it. Also, oddly enough, she'd angled it to the side rather than facing the table itself.
He raised a brow at her, gesturing at it, to which she explained, "It's so you have an escape route."
"A what?"
She pointed from the chair to the way they'd come from. "If you don't like where things are going, you can leave before I can catch you."
While he did get a little giggle at the mental image of her chasing him out the door, he reassured, "That won't happen."
"Still." She waved her hands at the seat. "Just in case."
He shrugged, accepting whatever concerns she had. Figuring that it'd be better to show rather than tell, he sat down and visibly got comfortable, turned slightly towards the table with his legs spread out. It made Marinette snort in amusement, which was worth it to him almost as much as proving that he wasn't going anywhere.
With a hesitant smile, she walked over to the other side of the table to sit down. The distance was notable, as she could've easily gotten them side by side, but she really seemed to want to stress the "giving him every out" thing, even visually.
"So, I—" She stopped, taking a breath, then started over. "Okay. Okay."
She tapped erratically on the table, unable to look at him. They didn't have any food in front of them but, if they did, he could picture her eating or fidgeting with it as the silence stretched on.
The longer it took for her to say anything, the more apparent it became to him of how big this was to her. It touched him somewhere deep, seeing how much she trusted and wanted to rely on him for them to be there in the first place.
"Luka, I..." she eventually began, then hit the table as she rushed to get out, "I want to have a baby."
His brows soared. While Marinette wanting to have kids wasn't a surprise - he'd known since they were teenagers that she wanted them - it was a shock to hear her say it when she wasn't even dating, much less married to anyone. He granted that her dreams might've changed, though he couldn't really see that himself.
He wasn't sure how to react, nor why she would single him out as someone to tell. His best guess was that she wanted him to help out if the future baby needed anything. After all, with him having been raised by a single mom until he was in his teens, the topic was something he held close to his chest. Kids didn't necessarily need a second parent to grow up happy and healthy, but parenting was far more difficult alone.
"Thanks for telling me. You'll be an amazing mom, and I'll do whatever I can to help," he replied, honored to be thought of so highly. Then, with a smile and tilt of his head, he admitted, "I don't know why you thought I'd run away over this. If it has something to do with the kind of assistance you'd need to have a kid, it's just a different way to play the same song to me."
He had a decent chunk of knowledge on the subject as well, mostly due to Juleka and Rose having floated the idea of them doing it themselves. They'd wanted a third opinion on if it was a good idea or not, and while it was a little different in Marinette's case, his conclusion was the same: science had made incredible strides in the past decades, and it was inspiring how that had allowed people to do things that were once thought impossible.
His reassurance, however, didn't seem to reach the crux of whatever issue Marinette was dealing with. Her head was bowed in embarrassment, fingers curling into fists on the table.
"That's just it. I was pretty sure that's how you felt about it; you've always tried so hard to understand everyone's situations, but--ah..."
She shook out of nerves, and he wished they were sitting closer to each other so he could at least hold her hand to try and comfort her. He almost got up to do just that, but then her head darted up to meet his gaze.
"What if... what if you're the one playing the song?" she questioned meekly. "What if I want you to be the—you know, the donor?"
Luka stiffened, though there was still zero need for concern of him going anywhere when he was too stunned to move his legs, or much of anything for that matter. It felt like he was having an out-of-body experience, as if his soul had been ejected from the sudden burst of emotion her question had given him.
"You—you want—" He cleared his throat, noting that his voice had gone up an octave. "You want me to...?"
"It has to be you if it's going to be anyone," she insisted, as if that was going to calm his heart down at all. "I don't want it to be someone random that I don't know, and I'm closer to you than any of the other guys. We're basically best friends, right?"
He nodded unconsciously. "Right..."
Initially, he'd just imagined Marinette's baby as a mini version of Marinette, because he obviously couldn't know what the donor might look like. Now all he could picture is a baby that had both of their features, and it was doing things to him.
Figuring it was only right to at least mention that, he pointed out, "It might look like me. Are you okay with that?"
"H-huh?" Her anxiety transitioned to confusion. "Why wouldn't I? Honestly, I was kind of hoping it would?"
She'd called him either handsome, pretty, cute, or all three, and his face heated regardless of which it was. He could understand then why she saw it as a big conversation, though his reaction definitely wasn't what she'd expected.
"This is a lot," he admitted. He was about to explain that he just needed a moment and wasn't rejecting her, but she shot up from her chair and spoke before he could.
"I get it! Donating isn't for everyone!" Pressing her hands to the table, she leaned forward and assured, "If you don't like that idea, we can do it the traditional way!"
Luka couldn't remember the last time he'd felt embarrassed, but her outburst made his face flush bright red. Visions of Marinette underneath him, above him, and moaning his name into his ear swam through his mind like the the fastest sea animal, which he would be able to name if he could focus on anything else. He clapped his hand over his mouth, hunching over and gripping his thigh with his other hand purposefully tightly, hoping the pain might help drag him back to reality.
He needed to do something, or he was going to lose it.
"Luka?" Marinette called out worriedly. The sound of hurried footsteps followed as she came to a stand next to him, panicking. "If that's not good either, I'll understand! Just say so, and while you're doing that, tell me, are you okay?"
He had no idea, if he was honest. His blood was accumulating in every wrong place, meaning none of it was going to his brain.
"Hah—" He breathed, looking up at her and parting his fingers so he could speak. What'd caught him most off-guard was how casually she'd brought up the topic, so he asked, "You'd actually do that with me? Have you done it before?"
"Done what—?" She blushed, then waved at him with both hands and shook her head. "No, no! You'd be my first time!"
That puzzled him further. He'd put immense effort thus far into trying to figure out where her mind was at so he wouldn't have to delve into personal territory that she didn't want him prying into, but he simply couldn't see a possibility where she considered sex to be something that she just did with someone. Nothing was lining up, not her having a baby without a spouse nor her offering him sex like it was no big deal.
"...Is that the problem?" she wondered solemnly, tugging the hem of her shirt down. "I don't have any experience—"
"No. Never." He ran his hands up his face, through his bangs, then dropped them back down. He still felt hot, lost in the sauna of Marinette's words. "I haven't done it with anyone either, and it wouldn't matter to me if you did or not. It doesn't make it any less special to me, but I..."
His own voice escaped him momentarily as he tried to grasp for the right emotions to say out loud. It couldn't have been easy for her calling him into her home and proposing—asking such things of him, and he wanted to respond in kind as best as he could.
Yet, all he could ask was, "Why? Why me?"
"What do you mean?"
He put a hand to his chest. "You're okay having sex with someone you're not dating, and that someone's me. Why?"
Somehow, she didn't seem to comprehend why he would ask. Smiling tenderly, she mirrored him and put her own hand to her heart, replying as though it was obvious, "Because I know you'd take good care of me. You're the only one I could ever trust being that close, and the only one I'd ever want to..." She trailed off abruptly, lips twitching in an attempt to speak but saying nothing. A moment later, she let out a half-hearted laugh, her hand falling down to her side again. "I didn't think I'd get this far. I was kind of hoping you'd run away so I wouldn't have to say it, but it wouldn't be right if I didn't now."
"Marinette?"
Turning away from him to face where she'd been sitting, her hand fell upon the table as she lamented, "I know how terrible it sounds. You saw the girls always teasing me when we were younger. They knew I wanted romance, to get married and be a happy little family with someone, but life got away from me." Slowly, she made her way back to her chair, her fingertips gliding along the table's surface while she explained, "I was so busy trying to make something of myself. Everyone else was dating around, but I wanted to be someone that the guy I liked could be proud of - that I could be proud of - first. I had to make the best fashion I could, then I had to make the best website to promote myself, then I told myself that I was too busy to try going after him properly. Before I knew it—"
She plopped down into her seat, throwing her arms out at the room around them and giving him a bittersweet look.
"I missed my chance. Our friends had already been dating for years, so I became the one who was 'old and still single' in my twenties." She leaned back in her chair, putting a foot up and hugging her leg to her chest. "I couldn't just go and find someone else either."
The guy she liked. Someone else. Luka had always been watching her, listening to her, ever since the moment they met and her every movement, every word became an instrument playing a gorgeous symphony in his head. In other words, if she'd been interested in anyone, he would've noticed, would've helped her in any way he could no matter how much it might've hurt.
Yet, he couldn't think of anyone, unless...
Meeting his eyes with her own, Marinette shrugged sheepishly and confirmed to him, "How could I, when the guy I love is already right in front of me?"
His heart thudded in his chest, as if hitting him from the inside. His breathing picked up, barely processing anything except the woman sitting across from him.
"But..." She sighed, looking away and continuing, "He confessed to me a long time ago, and I made him wait. I still got frazzled so easily, and I was doing all these projects by then. I wanted to give him all the time in the world, but stuff kept coming and—that just sounds like an excuse, doesn't it?"
He stood up so quickly that his chair squeaked against the floor behind him. His body automatically moved towards her, which just ended with him bumping up against the edge of the table. She seemed entirely unaware of it, lost in her regrets, and he stepped around to approach her properly.
"He always told me how happy he was for me when I got any opportunity ever, and I didn't want him to feel like I was sacrificing anything to be with him. I never thought that I would be, but I didn't know how to tell him that, and then we both got older, and we weren't kids anymore, and why would he like me after all that?" Hunching over, resting her chin upon her knee, her brows furrowed in what was either frustration or defeat. "It's selfish, but I wanted to get even a fraction of the future I dreamed of. If he's disgusted by that, then I didn't deserve to have him—you here anyway."
Her gaze darted to the other end of the table where he'd been sitting, obviously not seeing him there. She stared, eyes widening in horror, then looked towards where the front door was. When that failed as well, she finally sensed the presence next to her and her head shot up to him.
He took that as his chance. He leaned over, one hand on the table and the other on the back of her chair for support as his face came down to meet hers. At a speed unusual for his typical nature, his lips locked with hers with the unending passion he'd had for her since they were teens.
She made a noise that was probably his name, no less pretty despite being muffled in the kiss. Though his eyes were closed, he was hyper aware of her, swearing that he could hear her eyelids flutter shut as she reciprocated his affection. It was exponentially more thrilling than he'd dreamed about, to the point where the one thing keeping him from outright passing out was that he wouldn't be able to kiss her anymore if he did.
For a split second, he'd attempted to break it to allow Marinette to get more comfortable, but she didn't let him. She grabbed his shirt in a tight fist, the other at the back of his head whilst she pulled him in. He felt a wetness against his lips and opened them to give her tongue full access to his mouth, his hands shaking yet refusing to waver in their hold.
Had she not said anything about wanting him for years (YEARS!), he would've known by the kiss alone. She kept tugging at him, her body tilted backward off the side of the chair and dragging him with her. It left him bent over her, her arms going around his neck while he kept both of them from falling.
Besides, of course, having fallen for each other.
When it ended, she remained clinging to him as he pulled back to help steady them, her face buried in the crook of his neck. He noted that she was breathing as fast as he was, given how she panted against him.
"Marinette," he whispered, waiting for her affirmative hum so he knew he was heard. "I wasn't waiting. You were always here with me, weren't you? Why would I ever stop loving you when you're all I've ever wanted?"
She raised her head to look at him, eyes watering without outright crying. Supported enough with one arm, he used the other to wipe an imaginary trail of tears from her face, finding that he loved her even more than a few seconds ago.
Her voice heavy with affection that made him want to kiss her again, she muttered, "I-I was so sure I'd have to settle. You were already my best friend, and it always felt like I was asking so much of you, but—"
She quieted when he touched his forehead to hers. He sighed softly, requesting, "Ask me for everything. That means we can have as many babies as you want."
With a small whine, she took his face and kissed him again. He had to shift as she moved off of her chair to stand up, lips remaining against his the whole while. One of her hands went up and down along his back in a soothing motion, considerate of how long he'd been bent over her.
Not that he minded, especially when he felt his shirt lifted so she could roam the skin underneath directly.
Once she'd pulled away, she said a sharp, blunt, "Forget about the babies."
"Mm?" Eyes half-lidded from his Marinette-induced daze, he stroked under her lips with a thumb. "But that's what you called me here to ask about."
"When I thought I couldn't have you," she huffed. Stepping as close as she could to snuggle against his chest, she added, "Weren't you listening? I don't want anything else taking my attention away from you right now. We can have them eventually, just... not now."
He nodded, then lowered himself so his hand was behind her upper legs. In one controlled motion, his other arm around went around her back and he lifted her up, enjoying the delighted squeak she let out in response.
"Luka!" She laughed. Unable to reach under his shirt for his lower back anymore, she grew content in toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. "I love you."
"I love you too." He adjusted her enough to kiss her again, noting to himself that he was getting rather greedy for them. "Do you want to keep going?"
"Yeah," she answered breathlessly. Slipping a finger under his collar, she teasingly slid it as far around as she could. "And I know what I said about the babies, but we can... practice for one whenever you want."
Swallowing at her touch against his collarbone, he warned in a low tone, "That's a dangerous offer."
"Is it?" She brought herself closer, pressing a long yet delicate kiss to his neck. "Do you know how long I've been jealous of your instruments?"
He stood stiffly in place, blinking rapidly, then turned so fast that she squealed and hung onto him for dear life. More than familiar with her house to where he could navigate it with his eyes closed, he took her into the living room and hovered over the couch, allowing her to drop herself onto it. She dragged him down with her, their mouths drawn together as if magnetic.
The hardest part was separating long enough to get each other's shirts off.
Marinette was almost sweating as she sat on the couch in the living room, hugging one of the pillows anxiously as she waited for Luka to arrive.
She was in so, so much trouble. It didn't matter how many excuses she came up with to try and explain what she'd been up to; he would inevitably see through it, and then she'd never hold another miraculous again!
He was the guardian after all, at least in name, so he called the shots on such things.
Just as she was contemplating the logistics of jumping out the window to make an escape, she heard the sound of footsteps and tensed. Someone was coming up the stairs, and that was soon followed by the click of the opening door.
She felt his presence rather than turning to see him, squeezing the pillow tighter from nerves. Luka entered from the side of her vision, mouth opening until he paused to take her in.
He didn't seem upset, but she wouldn't be fooled. The possibility that he was just luring her into a false sense of security was very real.
Then, he looked her up, down, and shook his head with a smile on his face. "You're not in trouble, Marinette."
"Eh?" Her grip on the thoroughly suffocated pillow loosened. "I'm not?"
"No. I just wanted to talk to you about all your transformations."
She blinked, noting that he genuinely didn't seem angry or even confused. Did he really not guess or suspect anything in that case?
Putting down the pillow and awkwardly trying to fluff it back out, she replied, "O-okay? Take a seat."
There was plenty of room on the couch for at least six or so Luka, but he instead walked right in front of her and sat down on the table so he was facing her directly. She glanced down at the hard surface, face scrunching up in concern.
"Aren't you uncomfortable?"
"I'm fine. This is important to me." The smile on his face disappeared, showing that he was serious. "First, I think you're an incredible hero. No matter what miraculous I give you, you pull it off every time, and I think we work really well together."
She blushed despite not understanding where he was going with it. "Thanks. I think we work really well together too."
There were inevitably times where they needed an extra set of hands, but she did notice that Luka clearly favored her. He'd pick one miraculous, give her another, and that was typically all that they needed to accomplish whatever task was at hand. Sometimes she suspected that he picked her even when he could've easily done something alone, but that was probably just wishful thinking, right?
"But..." He leaned forward, hands clasped together on his lap. "It feels like you're always transforming into different people instead of yourself. I wanted to know why."
She avoided eye contact with him, chewing on her lower lip as she thought about how best to answer. It was objectively true and obvious that she had different personas: a bubbly blond when he gave her the pig miraculous, a blunt stoic when he gave her the dragon miraculous, and even a gentle giant sort of guy when he gave her the ox miraculous. She had enough fun coming up with the different people and personalities she'd used, but that wasn't really why she was doing it.
"Isn't it useful?" she questioned in an attempt to evade actually answering. "This way, no one could even guess that you keep picking the same person."
"I know, and I think it's a great idea if that's all it is. I just want to make sure there's nothing else."
She felt a touch at the back of her hand, looking down to see Luka's fingertips barely on top of it. They slid to the side, then around and under her hand until he could hold it properly. She met his tender gaze, seeing a caution that was odd on him after they'd known each other for as long as they did.
"You used to doubt yourself a lot," he said, sounding pained at the mere memory of it, "so I don't mind what you're doing, as long as it's not because your doubt came back and you think you're not a hero without being someone else."
"...Oh."
She swallowed, guilt settling in her stomach at what was somehow a worse outcome than she'd been imagining. He wasn't suspicious nor upset with her, he was worried. That'd never been her intention, it'd just got out of hand when she hadn't gotten any of the results or answers she'd expected.
"Marinette?" He leaned in, head tilted to the side as he frowned at her.
"No, I—" She sighed, shifting her hand in his like she was uncomfortable. The motion made him let go enough that she could be the one grabbing his hand instead, using both of her hands to get a solid grip on it. "I haven't felt that way for a long time, not with you around. I just... I just wanted..."
She ducked her head, shifting her shoulders in discomfort as she tried to will herself to come out and say it, if for nothing else than to reassure him. With a little squeak, she uttered in a half-whisper, "I wanted to know what kind of people you like?"
Luka's face went entirely still. Had she not been so embarrassed, she might've found it cute how he hunched over further to try and look closer at her face. The hand she was holding twitched, but there was barely any sign of life otherwise.
"...The kind of people I like?"
"That's what I said," she whined, her tone silently pleading that he not ask her to clarify again. It was bad enough to have admitted it once. "I thought I was gonna get in trouble if I said anything, so I didn't."
"Huh." He breathed, and said breath brought him back to life.
Slowly, he eased forward off the table, kneeling down in front of her and putting his hand over hers. Their eyes met, and she noticed then that his face lit up with what - to her surprise - looked like amusement.
"And?" He grinned knowingly. "What did you find out?"
A strangled noise escaped her. She curled in on herself, her bangs falling onto their joined hands as she wished to actually be another person for a minute.
"It...it just seems like you like me?"
He chuckled, and she could feel the shake of his mirth all the way through to his hands. "I could've told you that."
Her head darted up as he pulled away from her, the back of his hand going to cover his widening smile. Baffled, she gasped, "L-Luka! You—you're supposed to be upset?!"
"How could I be upset?" he asked genuinely. "I was so worried, but it turns out that you just wanted to know something like that."
"N-no? It's worse!" Throwing her arms and legs out - accidentally kicking the table in the process - she shouted, "Because I was only doing it so I'd know if I could ask you out on a date!"
He paused, his jaw dropping along with his hand from his face. "R...really?"
She nodded, not taking back what she said despite the red spreading to her ears. Turning away, half-tempted to jump over the couch and flee, she couldn't even start before Luka shot up like a rocket and got his arms around her.
Over the sound of the squeak she made, he whispered dangerously close to her ear, "Saturday?"
"U-uh?" She turned her head to face the intense stare he had on. "Is that when you're going to officially revoke my miraculous privileges from me?"
"No. I'm asking you out," he stated firmly.
"After that?!" she cried out, gesturing behind them to the spot where she felt she'd thoroughly humiliated herself.
"Especially after that." He pulled away only enough to get her back into a normal sitting position on the couch. "Even if you broke some sort of miraculous rule, I won't tell anyone if you won't."
He was being wholly sincere about it too. She couldn't believe it, or perhaps it was better to say that she couldn't believe it until she remembered why she'd fallen in love with him in the first place: no matter what happened or what she did, he never dismissed or felt ashamed of her. He always embraced what was pure 100% Marinette, and now she knew that meant that he liked her too.
She perked up, and he responded by holding both of her hands and asking again, "So, Saturday? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?"
Still a bit overwhelmed, she admitted, "I-I don't know if I can pick just one yet?"
"Oh, I wasn't asking you to," he replied easily. "I figured we could go out every day of the week."
"Wh—Luka!"
Marinette learned that day what pure 100% Luka loving her was like, and she looked forward to getting used to it regardless of her heart's inability to handle it.
Jagged's hotel room was already chaotic, but it was the best kind whenever Marinette showed up. Penny didn't have to be on the phone for once, so she, Jagged, and Marinette were in a conversation so animated that they could've been mistaken for cartoon characters.
Luka, meanwhile, had sat himself on the couch, an elbow on the armrest as he held the neck of the guitar in his lap despite not playing anything. It wasn't his role to be involved with the topic, so he stayed out of it.
Rather, he was the topic.
"Luka isn't like you," Penny reminded Jagged. "He doesn't need some grand event just for this."
"Just for—" Jagged staggered back in true dramatic fashion, clutching his chest. "We're revealing my son to the world! How's that not the grandest?!"
Marinette looked at the two, then at Penny specifically. "He has a point."
Penny sighed. "Not you too—"
Gesturing to Fang, who was in the middle of chewing on a toy, Marinette argued, "Don't you remember how big it was when Jagged showed Fang off?"
Penny opened her mouth, but at Marinette's narrowed eyes, she sighed and pressed a finger to her temple. "It was a week long, and Jagged used every day to play a new song dedicated to Fang."
"Exactly." Crossing her arms, Marinette asked, "So what are they going to think if we just reveal Luka like he's no big deal?"
She gestured wildly at Luka and all of his apparent "big deal"-ness. He covered his mouth with his free hand to hide a chuckle.
"See? My frock star gets me," Jagged stated proudly, dropping his hand upon Marinette's shoulder. "She knows how rockin' this has to be."
She turned her head to Jagged next, squinting further. "But you don't know Luka. I've been in his life more than you have. It's just as important to make sure he's comfortable and everything is how he wants it, not how you want it."
Jagged pouted at that, but couldn't counter her good point.
Luka tried not to be obvious in admiring her. Marinette was one of the only two people who could treat Jagged Stone like a child and get away with it, while simultaneously being profoundly adorable.
"So!" Marinette shouted with a single clap, appointing herself as the Luka Expert for the purpose of the conversation. "First thing's first, I'm thinking snacks."
"Snacks..." Penny mumbled, not disagreeing but taking notes, both mentally and on her clipboard.
Jagged rubbed his chin, contemplative. "But they can't be just snacks."
"Obviously not," Marinette agreed. "We should do Luka-themed snacks, and I've already got ideas. See, I had a happy little accident the other day while I was baking and—"
She continued rambling and Luka's practiced, casual smile was serving him well. He wondered how difficult it must've been to be the cutest freaking thing in existence. Did she feel prettier than everyone else? Because she should—
The conversation was cut short by a sudden crunching sound, loud enough that Marinette, Jagged, and Penny all jumped. Initially, the trio looked towards Fang as the culprit, but the crocodile was resting obediently with his little toy unharmed besides its typical chew marks.
When they instead turned to the couch, they saw Luka sitting as he was before, yet the section of the guitar's neck he'd been gripping had been thoroughly crushed by his clenched fist. As he opened his hand, the crushed guitar pieces fell out like wooden confetti.
——-
Luka let out an exhausted breath as he stepped onto the Liberty. Juleka, either having heard or saw him, popped out from the greenhouse area to see him.
She also saw the busted guitar he was carrying.
"Again?" she asked in shock.
"Yeah." He supposed it'd be good practice to fix later, but for the time being, he let it rest on the deck. He had more anyway.
"Is it getting worse?" she wondered aloud, staring down at his poor victim.
"Not worse," he assured. "I just don't have a handle on it."
Of course, no one but him knew all the details. He'd gone to a doctor after putting a dent in what was supposed to be a heavy-duty instrument case, and was promptly diagnosed with cuteness aggression. He hadn't heard about it before, but the explanation made sense: a condition that caused a person to gain spontaneous, uncontrollable strength and durability for a brief period of time after seeing something adorable. It wasn't dangerous to one's life or anything, thankfully, and how inconvenient it was depended on the person's tolerance for cute things.
Luka was extremely tolerant. He could acknowledge when something was cute, like a kitten or a dessert shaped like a teddy bear, but he wasn't really affected by them.
That wasn't to say he didn't have his limits, or rather one limit: Marinette.
Who could blame him? He was shocked that no one else had a "problem" with her. He merely had the sense to acknowledge that she was absolutely, utterly cute, and if no one could figure it out then that was their fault for not seeing the obvious.
That went double for what happened in the hotel room, which he got out of with a bizarre amount of ease, barring a skeptical look from Penny. It was probably easy to assume that a guy who carried heavy cases and instruments around his houseboat had more muscle than one might expect.
He didn't like lying by omission to Marinette, but he couldn't imagine things going well if he told her that his condition was because of her. It was probably better that she—
"Luka!"
As if summoned by his own thoughts, Marinette came running up to the Liberty, out of breath and stumbling somewhat in her attempts to get across the gangplank.
"I—" She gasped for air. "I-I heard... you have... cuteness aggression?"
Luka stared, not moving an inch, then slowly turned his head to look at Juleka, who looked away in such a way as to obscure her whole face with her sideswept bangs. He hoped the betrayal he felt was conveyed even if she couldn't see it.
He met Marinette's gaze again, trying to smile reassuringly. Raising his hands, he began, "Marinette—"
"You should've told me!" she insisted, fists tight at her side. "How serious is it?"
He shook his head. "I'm fine, Marinette. That's why I didn't say anything. I didn't want to worry you over nothing."
"I'm going to worry no matter what. It's in my blood," she said flatly. "So just be honest next time."
"Alright. I'm sorry."
He meant it, mostly. He didn't like to distress her, so it was difficult to say that he would've ever told her had she not found out, but he also didn't like that she was distressed right then.
Marinette glanced at the guitar laying on the deck, then at the other little bits of damage that were likely caused by him. Tipping her head up to him, she pressed, "Not serious, huh?"
He nodded, firm in his stance. "I don't have that many things that trigger it."
Granted, he would've classified all the ways Marinette could be adorable as "many," but she was technically one "thing."
She frowned, considering that. "But it must've been boring listening to our conversation. That's why you were imagining something cute, right?"
"N...no, I—" He hesitated, evading eye contact as he tried to find a way out of the discussion. "I... don't know."
"You—don't know?" she questioned, baffled and shaking her head.
"I wasn't bored at all, and..." He trailed off.
He knew full well the contradiction of now trying to convince himself that it wasn't technically a lie because there were too many things about Marinette that were cute. He couldn't pinpoint just one that he was thinking about at the time.
Staring back at her, hoping she wouldn't press further, he caught something in her expression that he couldn't quite place.
——-
Another day meant another akuma. Luka was barely phased by it anymore, but still ran with the necessary urgency into the nearest alley to hide. It may have been smarter to duck into a shop or restaurant, but so many places were more likely to lock their doors and close up in order to give the impression of no one being there.
In other words, he had to make due with what was available to him at the time.
The light from his phone could've drawn attention, so he thought it best not to idle on it. He searched the duffle bag hanging off his shoulder, hoping to come up with a new tune or two while he waited for the akuma to be defeated, when—
"Luka!" came a whispered scolding, along with the sound of someone dropping down next to him.
He knew right away that it was Ladybug's (Marinette's) voice, especially since it sounded all too similar to how he was shouted at by her before, so he stopped what he was doing to look at her.
He immediately regretted it.
Marinette was cute no matter what, but he was never prepared whenever she was doing something new. "New" in this case appeared to be another miraculous - a gray and pink necklace - and whatever it did gave her double buns instead of her usual pigtails. It made them resemble mouse ears, and it was dangerously cute in a very literal way.
His fingers twitched.
"What are you doing here?" she huffed, gesturing at the alley around them. "I know there's no real safe place to be when there's an akuma, and sometimes you just don't have a choice in where you go, but there have to be cleaner places to hide at least!"
Luka couldn't remember when Marinette had started doting on him. They'd spent more and more time with each other ever since Marinette unintentionally brought father and son back together, and at some point he felt he'd become someone precious enough to dote on.
Normally, he wouldn't complain, but he couldn't afford the property damage he was about to cause if she kept being adorable.
Just then, he felt an ominous presence behind him, Ladybug's gaze darting over to it in alarm. He saw in the reflection of her eyes that it wasn't a civilian, and had never been more thankful to be interrupted during a conversation with her.
Turning swiftly, Luka didn't think, just drove his fist directly into the akuma's chest. In a showdown between magical abilities bestowed by ancient artifacts and a condition that made him stronger based only on how cute Marinette was, he was not the least bit surprised to see the latter win out.
The akuma went flying from the force, soaring across the street, through a car's windows, then into the wall where they promptly collapsed in a heap. Shadow Moth's symbol flickered on their face like a glitching laptop screen.
Considering the nature of the damage, Luka wasn't concerned that Miraculous Ladybug wouldn't fix things.
Sighing in relief, he rubbed the knuckles of the hand he'd punched with and straightened himself back up. On some level, he feared the potential power he could have if he'd been Viperion at the time.
Remembering Ladybug behind him, Luka looked over his shoulder to see her staring at him, mouth agape. She glanced at where the akuma had gone, then her eyes darted around in what he considered the "Lucky Vision" sign that she was thinking something over.
Slowly, the visible part of her cheeks turned as red as her mask.
——-
Luka could barely make it back to his room before his phone started ringing with the tune he'd set for Marinette. Naturally, he picked it up immediately.
"Hello?"
"Oh! Luka—"
He blinked, wondering if she'd called him by accident. "Marinette?"
"Sorry! I didn't think you'd pick up so quickly."
"Why wouldn't I?" he genuinely wondered, smiling to himself. "I saw your name on my phone."
She squeaked, sounding embarrassed. "R-right, right, of course. I just had no idea you—but it makes sense."
He tried not to give away any indication that he knew what this was probably about. Marinette had definitely figured out what - who - caused his condition to act up, but she couldn't say it since the realization happened when she was Ladybug and she didn't know that he knew her identity.
Not for lack of trying. He was worried about her getting into trouble with any "Miraculous higher-ups" if there were any, so he needed to ensure that she wouldn't be punished or negatively impacted first.
"So?" he prompted. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Talk, yeah. That's what I called to do, obviously. What else are phones for?" She cleared her throat. "I was just thinking..."
"Mhm?" he hummed, assuring her he was listening.
"Well, you have a problem with this... cute thing, but you don't know what is is, right?"
He paused, suddenly lost for where the conversation was going. She knew, yet she was asking if he didn't know almost like she hoped that he would confirm as much.
Deciding to play along. He confirmed, "Yeah, I don't know."
"Good—right." She faked a cough before continuing, "Anyway, I was looking up cuteness aggression, and apparently one of the things that can help is therapeutic exposure."
...Wait—
"And since you don't know what causes it, and two heads are better than one - especially our heads - what if I hung around while we figure out what it is? I'm not a quitter either, so we can hang out as much as we need to until we find the answer!"
Luka's mind spun, realizing what she was asking and why she'd be asking in such a way. He tried his best to relax his grip on his phone, maintaining a careful poker face.
"...Luka?"
"Yeah." He forced himself to take a breath. "If you're okay with that, we can."
"Yes!" There was a clatter on the other end, followed by some awkward fumbling. "Er—that's perfect! Now I've gotta go, my—um... my fish knocked over my art project in my excitement! I'll pick you up at 4 tomorrow, bye!"
He didn't even get to say "bye" himself from how fast she hung up, leaving Luka to stare at her contact image on the call ended screen. He was lucky that enough sense kicked in for him to toss it at his bed before anything happened.
Marinette knew he had cuteness aggression for her and, rather than feeling bad about it, she was using it to her advantage as an excuse to hang out with him. Those hang outs also sounded an awful lot like dates, as of yet unscheduled but no doubt there. She was even so happy about him accepting that she knocked over her art project, made up a fish that didn't exist to cover it up, and forgot to not give away that she was excited in the process.
Oh. Oh no.
Right on time, his mother happened to be passing by the lounge room and spotted him. Eyeing his current state up and down, she brightened and gestured at the wooden table in front of the couch.
"Have at this one," she suggested. "Adds character."
Luka obeyed, turning swiftly and walking over to her. Raising his arms and bringing them back down with inhuman force, he proceeded to smash half the table.
At first, Luka hadn't any real thoughts towards becoming a teenager. Nagas growing up weren't that much different than humans in terms of the basics, and he felt that Juleka could cover whatever he couldn't if Marinette was struggling. He was content enough that they were friends and would get to experience their awkward teen years together.
However, the longer time went on, the more he'd started to hate it for one simple reason: Marinette stopped letting him into her room. It was something he took pride in when they were younger as, despite him sharing a room with his sister, he understood that someone's room was a very personal space. Interspecies relationships, at least strictly platonic ones, were becoming more commonplace, but it didn't make it any less special to him whenever she was willing to let him into her little world for a while.
Now that had stopped, and the only conclusion he could draw was that he was a guy and she wasn't. She still let Juleka in and hadn't shown any sign of being interested in girls, so he imagined that it was just awkward for her around him. He had asked if he'd done anything wrong, to which she insisted he hadn't and to just "give her time," but he didn't know what that entailed.
Juleka specifically told him with an amused grin that he was worrying about the "wrong thing," and he had no idea what that meant. He knew that some humans practiced meditation to relax when something was bothering them, but he didn't have legs to cross and that seemed important for whatever reason.
Nevertheless, he hated the idea of pushing Marinette when she wasn't ready for something, so he let it be and tried to enjoy whatever time they had not in her room.
It was... a little difficult, if he was honest. The reason Marinette's room was the best place in either of their houses was that it was the most private. His home didn't have many places to simply hide away in, and whenever they spent time in her living room, the possibility was always there for her parents to interrupt.
That day was one of those days. They'd been on her couch, playing a board game, when Sabine suddenly opened the door to go into the kitchen.
"Don't mind me." She waved off the stares she was getting. "I'm on my break and just came to grab something."
"Okay, Maman," she drawled. Turning to Luka, she whispered, "I'm sorry. Like she said, she'll be gone soon."
Before he could tell her it was fine, Sabine sighed and raised her voice at her. "Honestly. If you don't want your parents ruining your fun, you should get your room organized instead."
Marinette's face turned red in shame. "M-Maman!"
Luka, perking up all of a sudden, said, "You know I don't mind if your room's a little messy, Marinette. You've seen how mine can get."
Having known each other for a few years by then, he'd had to deal with his fair share of embarrassments whenever Marinette caught him in the middle of some sort of creative spiral: papers everywhere, his guitars all over his side of the room because this and that one didn't sound quite right, and his bed unmade because he didn't have time when he was busy creating. She had never once judged him for it, only laughed and told him that it was relatable.
He hadn't considered such a possibility to be the cause for that exact reason - why be embarrassed when she knew he was just as bad? - but if that really was the answer, he'd be glad that was all it was. It was far better than the alternative that Marinette might've grown uncomfortable having a guy—him in her room.
"It's not—" Marinette gasped at him, then turned back to her mother. "And it is not a mess! Y-you wouldn't understand... ugh! Just—give me a minute!"
She whined and shot up from the couch, her typical energy taking her all the way to her room with an impressive amount of speed. Sabine watched her go, then eyed Luka apologetically. "It's hard for a girl growing up. Tom and I hope she hasn't been giving you a rough time."
"Never," he insisted. "Marinette's still my best friend, and that's not going to change. She's the nicest girl I know."
"You're sweet to say that," she said. At Luka's near-offended expression, almost asking 'You don't think so?' with his face alone, she chuckled and told him, "You reminded me of something is all."
He watched her with curiosity as she approached and smiled at him.
"You're just so considerate of each other." She put a hand under her mouth, giggling silently. "Did you know she asked us once if we could move into a single-story house because 'stairs must be uncomfortable for nagas'?"
"She did?" His tail swished happily, accidentally bumping the table in the process. He hurried to steady it and fix the jostled board game.
She was so precious. He could imagine a younger Marinette, eyes big, blue, and pleading as she asked what she must've thought was an innocent and totally reasonable question.
"Speaking of Marinette..." Sabine paused, then turned around and called out, "Marinette! You shouldn't leave a guest wait—"
There was a familiar yelp, followed by the sound of something - and someone - hitting the floor. The two gasped, and Sabine couldn't even take a step to go check before Luka moved first.
When his tail smacked the table again as he practically threw himself over the couch, he didn't hear it, nor whatever pieces he must've sent flying in the process. He easily rivaled and then outmatched Marinette's usual, excitable pace as he slithered over and into her room without a thought.
Marinette was indeed on the floor, somewhat dazed, and there was a tall stool lying near her socked feet. Luka was by her side in an instant and knocked the offending stool aside in the process, practically coiling himself around the both of them as he helped her up.
"Are you okay?" he asked, already looking her over for any injuries.
"Y-yeah." She automatically leaned against him. Pouting, she complained, "Maman just surprised me."
"She felt bad about it," he vaguely recalled in the hazy memories of his haste to get to her.
Crossing her arms with a huff, Marinette argued, "She should know I wouldn't abandon you like that unless it was for something important!"
Grinning with mirth at the little attitude she was putting on, he offered, "I'll help you. I'm bigger, so you won't need the stool, and it'll get done faster with the both of us." His head unconsciously went up to search the room. "What were you... d...doing...?"
His slitted pupils shrunk.
Not noticing his state right away, Marinette began, "Oh, I was just..." She looked up at him to finish talking, then stopped, her own eyes widening as she uttered, "a-ah—!"
She, and possibly Luka somewhere in the midst of his shock, realized at that moment that he was not where he was supposed to be. Marinette's hands flew up in front of his eyes, trying desperately to save the situation even though it was too late.
"N-no looking!"
"...M-Marinette—"
"No Marinette-ing either!"
Had his mind been in a place where he could actually think, he might've teased, 'But I love Marinette-ing,' yet his mouth was barely working after having taken in what he'd seen.
Scarves. Her room was absolutely littered with scarves. It was as if a scarf shop had been planned for her room but had yet to be sorted out.
There were scarves on her desk, covering her chaise lounge, thrown over her vanity like a curtain, and more. The only place they weren't was the floor where they would've gotten dirty.
Most humans wouldn't have thought a thing about it; they're scarves, so what? The most notable thing about them was that they were all Marinette-themed, such as having her flowers or signature pink, but all those same humans would assume that she'd become obsessed making a scarf for herself.
Luka knew better. Marinette, much to his displeasure, didn't put that much effort into things she made for herself, so there was only one other thing he could think about.
Scarves were a form of courtship for nagas specifically. The custom was that one naga would bestow the other with a scarf, designed after the pattern on their tail as a confession. The other naga, if they accepted, would then wear it around their neck to signify trusting the other with the most vulnerable parts of themselves. It was a tradition so old that no one knew if the origin was real or some imagined tale: a naga assassin is sent out to get close to and then kill another naga, but when her tail finally wraps around his throat, she's fallen too deeply in love with him to do it, and he trusts her too much to believe that she'd go through with it.
Luka had dreamed, even when they were younger and barely grasping the concept of actual love, of gifting Marinette one, but had never thought of doing it for real. He didn't think that it would mean as much to a human, and by the time he could've taken action towards courting her as a human would, he'd been "banned" from her room.
He tried not to presuppose what those scarves meant. He tried to tell himself that she could've learned about the custom in passing and thought that friends could do it too, but the evidence was stacking.
She'd introduced him to all her friends, and the only nagas in her friend group were himself and Juleka, the latter of whom had been in Marinette's room while he was shut out. Juleka had also teased him so much for his worries, which was starting to make all too much sense.
"And no b—! ...B...blushing?" Marinette lowered her hands from his face, confused.
His arm had remained around her, but he still had a free hand to grab her wrist with. She let out a tiny squeak, her own face heating at however he was looking at her, as if her cheeks were reflecting his.
"I'm not upset," he told her on the off-chance she might've thought so, "not even a little, so you can be honest with me."
He tore his gaze from her only long enough to see the scarves again, just to make sure this was all real. When he looked back at her, his voice lowered to a tender whisper, not daring to believe the reality he might've been blessed with but unable to help hoping.
"Were you trying to make me a scarf?" he asked, and added just to make absolutely sure there were no misunderstandings, "Do you know what it means to give a naga a scarf like those?"
Her blush spread to her ears, her lips pursing as a whine-like noise came from the back of her throat. He stroked along her wrist with a thumb, willing to drop it if she asked but wanting so badly to hear the truth.
Finally, she shut her eyes and admitted sheepishly, "Yes," then burst out in a shout, "Yeah, I was trying to make you a love scarf, but—b-but—!"
In frustration not directed at him, she squirmed and wiggled until she could stand up, stepping over his tail so she was at the center of the room.
Pointing around at all the various scarves with both hands, as if she was imitating an overly-enthusiastic music conductor, she vented, "But I didn't know how! I-I'm—I'm not a naga, I don't have a tail, so how do you make a scarf that looks like the tail you don't have? I kept trying to make ones with the flowers or colors I liked, or something that represented me, or what I thought my tail would look like if I was a naga too, but nothing worked! Before I knew it..."
She stormed over to a heavy chest near the wall; a chest large enough that it could easily fit an entire person. Undoing the latches, she threw the lid upwards with a grunt and—
More scarves. There were even more scarves in what Luka was, starting now, mentally calling a treasure chest. It was so full that he could see the scarves stacked high above the edge.
"I ran out of places to hide them!" Glaring briefly up at her wardrobe, where it was now apparent she'd been trying to hide a few scarves atop of before she'd fallen, she then turned to continue, "And I know that there are usually naga people who'll do it for you, and I could've asked them for their expertise, but I thought they'd think it was weird or wrong. I wanted to make it myself, because you're not just a naga to me, you're Luk—aAAHH!"
He couldn't take it anymore; he took his adorable, sweet, thoughtful best friend in his arms and spun her around. He wasn't used to doing such a thing and - due to either excitement or inexperience - he fell onto the floor, but he managed to land on his back so she was safely on top of him.
Laughter burst from his chest, because that was simply how he was with her. To so many people, he could come off as overly calm, neutral, or even outright unfeeling, but it wasn't like that around her. Everything he already felt became more when they were together, as if she could reach deep inside of him to nurture and grow those feelings like a garden being carefully tended to.
"L-Luka? Luka, are you okay?!" Marinette cried out, hovering over him with her brows knitted in worry. "Oh no, I've lost you! I said too much and now you've totally—"
Grinning up at her, he cut in, "You never needed a tail, Marinette. You already have you."
The moment he put a hand up to the side of her face, she quieted instantly. He didn't have to say anything else from there, letting her eyes roam his face and see how he genuinely felt about all of this.
Slowly, he saw her breathing steady, though her parted lips almost appeared to be asking, 'Seriously? You too?'
"I love the scarves," he confirmed. "I don't see what you're so worried about; I'll just take all of them."
"Wh—uh?" She blinked. Reaching behind his head to check for an injury, she questioned, "You didn't just say all of them, did you?"
He sat up and took her with him, hunching over to press their foreheads together. "I did."
"You can't!" she argued, horrified. "You can't just stuff your closet full of scarves you'll never wear!"
"Who said I'll never wear them?" He frowned. "I'll wear a different one every week, or every day if you made me enough for the whole year."
While she sat there, baffled, his eyes darted up to the treasure chest of scarves. With a smirk, he let go of her so he could get up and slither over to it, admiring her work from every angle; he would've worn them all at once if he could.
Then, after staring just long enough to get down an attack plan, he dove inside, effectively burying himself in her love-stitched scarves. Marinette breathed out a sound somewhere between his name and a laugh of disbelief, to which he popped his head back out to look at her.
He made himself comfortable, propping his arms up along the sides of the chest, tipping his head back as if enjoying a warm bath. Watching with an amused swish of his tail as she approached him, he said, "I'm sorry I don't have a scarf for you too. Will you teach me how to sew?"
She shook her head, but he could tell it wasn't in rejection of the idea. Covering her red face with a hand, she peeked at him from in-between her fingers in silent contemplation.
Eventually, she relented to his onslaught of love (which had only been fair; she'd done it first) and put her hands on the edge of the chest. Much to his delight, she climbed inside with him, moving the scarves around in an effort to keep them both buried as much as possible. It was a tight fit, but they were nevertheless comfortable.
"...R-really?" She traced an imaginary circle near his collarbone. "You're not going to make me a bunch too, are you?"
He chuckled, failing to see the big deal. "Not if you don't want me to. What do you want?"
She'd already masterfully taken his heart, after all. What were a few scarves, or even many scarves?
Red was starting to become his favorite color to see on her, her blush reaching her ears as she hid herself against him. She squealed against his chest for long enough that he thought she might run out of air, then popped her head back up to make eye contact.
Her finger came up to press against his lips, which might as well have been her pushing his smile button. He snaked his arms around her, watching the confidence start to make its way onto her face as they both absorbed that this was genuinely happening.
While quite literally surrounded by her love, they had their first kiss together, and Luka made a mental note that he will have failed her if anyone remembers what his neck looks like by the end of the month.
Luka had a problem, and it was entirely self-inflicted. It haunted him every time a friend's wedding came around, when Marinette would inevitably be asked to make a custom wedding dress for the bride.
Or brides, in this particular case, as his sister's wedding with Rose was on the horizon. Marinette, naturally, was more than happy to serve double duty to make two dresses rather than one, which only made it worse for him.
He was dating her, and had been dating her for long enough that it would've been reasonable for him to pop the question at just about any time. In fact, with every marriage that passed, he was reminded how much he had not done it, fantasies of Marinette in the dress she'd make playing in his mind as wedding bells chimed in the background.
He wanted so badly to be hers. He wanted to slip the engagement ring onto her finger and gush about how much he loved her. He wanted to put into words what he could once only put into music.
The ring had already been purchased, and his knee was ready to drop at a moment's notice. He could've done it whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted, as Marinette was well-known for being excited to get married since her teenage years.
Yet, in all of the infinite wisdom people so often saw in him, he hadn't foreseen the impatience he'd feel over the plan he'd had, a plan that required him to wait what were still months to ask her to marry him.
Even more painful was Rose's dress, which was close enough to Marinette's size that she decided to try it on in order to test its comfort. Oblivious to her boyfriend's suffering from seeing her dressed up without any fantasies involved, she'd handed him her phone to take pictures while parading around the room to show it off.
"Mm. The feel is good," she muttered, flapping around the skirt experimentally. Purposefully skipping around in an imitation of his soon-to-be sister-in-law, she observed, "It's got a good bounce too."
She looked over at him, his hands automatically snapping another photo to capture the warmth on her face at the sight of him. He'd gotten down on both knees to take a nice upward shot of the dress, but now had to suppress another urge to blurt out a proposal to her.
"What do you think?" she asked him, as if the answer wasn't written all over his face. "Do you think Rose'll like it?"
"She'll love it." He lowered the phone to appreciate her properly. "But she'll be disappointed when she puts it on and can't pull it off as well as you can."
Her face flushed pink, then she burst into delighted laughter whilst waving rapidly at him. "Don't tell Juleka that, or you'll be put on a list for insulting her fiance."
Walking over to the full-view mirror next, Marinette turned left and right to examine herself. Her long hair rested tauntingly over her shoulders as his hands always liked to do, and she bunched it up to hold it in a bun as a test.
She stuck her tongue out to the right as she looked herself over again, her head tilting up, down, and side to side. Then, she let her hair and sighed, lamenting, "I love making dresses and all, but geez, it really feels like everyone planned to get married this year. This is... what? The fifth one?"
(Do you want to be the sixth?) he kept himself from asking out loud. Nevertheless, he felt a pang of guilt in his stomach at the thought of what she might've been going through, her having sat through so many weddings while being unmarried herself.
That seemed too direct to ask though, so he went for something less obvious. The possibility of her being overworked seemed very real, so he inquired, "Is it too much?"
"Mm?" She turned her head to him, puzzled. "No. I just think it's so fast. It's not like the world is ending, so why's everyone in such a rush?"
He couldn't even respond to her words, his hands that held her phone dropping down onto his lap in his shock. Marinette turned her full body to him at the reaction, eyeing his bafflement.
Instead of being confused, she smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck in a show of embarrassment. "Is it that weird?"
(Yes?!) "No, I--"
"It's okay. I know it's weird for me. Just..." The hand rubbing her neck moved down, feeling around the waist area of the dress. "Life moves so fast, doesn't it? Especially for both of us."
He didn't have to ask her what that meant; they each had their fair share of times that had made it impossible to simply live in the moment. When he thought back, some years blurred together from how much had happened in them.
Marinette nodded approvingly at him, seeing that he was catching on, and continued, "But now it's all over. We can do things for ourselves, so there's no pressure or time limit or anything."
Reaching behind herself, she unzipped the back of the dress. She was wearing shorts and a tank top underneath, so she was still decent as she slipped out of the dress and put it aside. Then, going over to him, she pocketed her phone so she could run a hand along his thigh unimpeded.
"I want a wedding someday, but I want to get as much as I can out of this first. I'm definitely not tired of calling you my boyfriend, so we can just do a little bit of everything now and see if it's any different after we get married."
She spoke like he'd already proposed, like them being engaged was set in stone and she'd deemed him husband material long ago. It wasn't for that long after they'd met that he thought his feelings would remain unrequited, yet he was always awed that evidence for the opposite was right there in front of him.
He hadn't considered it her way either, and he felt a little bit like a hypocrite. There was a time in the past when Juleka had lamented to him that she and Rose were - at the time - nothing more than friends, and he'd gently critiqued the idea that she was viewing their friendship as little more than a means to an end. It was when he'd realized how serious his own romantic relationship was getting that his mind got caught up in marriage, always looking forward to a next step instead of staying within the here and now.
She was right; it was wonderful getting to call her his girlfriend, and he would miss that even though "wife" would be considered an improvement. He wanted to call her everything at once, really, but that wasn't the world they lived in.
Marinette smiled at him, slowly getting herself further down, and he shifted to cross his legs so she could welcome herself into the opening that created. Pressing a small, affectionate kiss to his face, she added, "It's not like I don't have plans for the wedding - I definitely want to start a new trend where my husband is the first to see me in my wedding dress - but I love where we are now too." With a tilt of her head, she wondered, "What about you?"
He hummed, hunching over to nuzzle the crook of her neck. In a whisper, which elicited a soft gasp from her at his breath against her neck, he replied, "I think so too."
When thought of it as she did, maybe he could wait a little longer after all. Why fall into rhythm with everyone else when they had their own?
Life could get complicated, but Luka considered his heart to be the exact opposite. He loved those close to him unconditionally, and he was willing to give just about anyone a second chance if they were genuine enough. It was just the kind of guy he was, always focused on the present and never letting himself get too into his own head.
That was all until Marinette lost her memories, and he didn't know what to do with himself or the chaos of his undefinable emotions.
It'd all started about a month ago, and he'd yet to get over it. It wasn't any sort of mystery, as he knew enough about the magic-induced memory loss that guardians went through to know that's what'd happened to her. Rather, it was the why of it, of which Marinette obviously didn't know.
Also, just to make things even more confusing, there was the additional matter of what was she doing in Brazil?
Of course Luka was happy to have her there, even if she didn't remember him, and of course he was just glad that she seemed to be living happily too, but he had so many questions. From the limited information he could gather, he was fairly sure that she wasn't forced to pass down being guardian, but he also couldn't say whether it was a decision that she made on her own or not. His stomach was in knots whenever he thought about it, wondering how she must've felt when it happened.
Had she been scared? Accepting? Reluctant? Why was he so far away when it'd happened when he could've been there to support her?
Why hadn't she told him?
She hadn't been obligated to rely on him - he knew that - and he wasn't bitter about it either. It was difficult, because she was there with him when she could've gone to any other country if her intent was simply getting out of Paris.
Yet she'd gone to him for some reason, not that trying to figure her out had ever gone well. Marinette was wild, unpredictable, and that had been one of the things he loved about her. She was friendly too, which he saw whenever they happened to see each other and she smiled like he was someone she hadn't completely forgotten about.
His face still couldn't figure out what expression he should give her in response.
——-
"How are you adjusting to Brazil, Marinette?" Penny asked over their meal.
"Oh, it's great so far!" Marinette exclaimed. Though, she fidgeted sheepishly with her cutlery as she added, "You guys make it so easy, honestly. I feel bad for not remembering you."
Jagged hit the table with both hands, briefly making everyone's tableware rattle. "Come on, we're happy to do it! You were the designer for us! What would we do without you?"
"You're still doing good work too," Penny pointed out, reaching out briefly to steady his glass. "That's impressive, considering you're recovering."
Marinette beamed at the praise, shy but openly accepting the compliment. "That reminds me. You said it was me who made those Eiffel Tower glasses, right?"
Jagged pulled them out with a flourish. "You mean these?" She nodded, to which he grinned and explained, "You did. That was how we met."
"Do you think I could make you new ones? Since we're not in France anymore?" She lowered her voice, as if trying to share a secret. "I've got a few ideas."
The two across the table perked up, wordlessly giving Marinette the go-ahead to start detailing the new glasses she'd been thinking about. Luka, who had largely been quiet for the majority of their time together, continued to do so as he eyed her.
The first thing he'd noticed when she arrived was that she wasn't wearing clothes that she'd designed herself. It made sense from an outsider's perspective, since she was going to a new place where people dressed differently, but he was pretty sure she should've had at least something that she could've thrown on without raising any eyebrows.
Naturally, it hadn't taken her long to design an outfit for herself, but it wasn't quite what he'd expected. The signature dots he was used to seeing in her casual attire were missing, and so was the flower pattern. He had caught her sketching flowers before in a similar arrangement to the original, but they weren't the same kind. Even her hair was tied into a chignon at the nape of her neck - a hairstyle he'd never seen her with - instead of a high bun or pigtails.
Was it her distancing herself from herself, and was it intentional or subconscious? He'd never dared to ask about her thoughts on what she knew of the old Marinette - a topic that seemed wholly inappropriate for a "stranger" to press her on - but he really wanted to.
A hand on his arm snapped him out of his thoughts, a concerned, "Luka?" directing his attention to the one he'd been thinking about in the first place.
"Sorry," he said instinctively, realizing that he must've been zoning out.
"No, it's okay." Marinette glanced at his plate. "You haven't been eating, that's all."
He looked down, confirming with his own eyes that he'd barely touched his food. Not wanting to worry anyone or give away anything potentially negative, he took a bite and made a show of chewing and swallowing so he could assure her, "I've just got a lot on my mind."
Her gaze was strangely scrutinizing for someone who forgot him all the way down to his name, but then Penny tinked her silverware against her glass, making the both of them jump.
"Speaking of food," she began, "Marinette, how have you been liking the desserts over here? If you're not used to them, we could get something more familiar for you later, like a strawberry—"
Marinette waved both hands at her rapidly, rushing to say, "No no! The food here's already great, so you don't have to do that! Besides, ah..." She hesitated, staring down at her lap and toying with the fabric of her shorts. "I don't really like strawberries that much. Do they have anything with peaches here?"
Penny nodded along as if there was nothing weird about that, listing off various desserts she knew like Luka hadn't told her last week that Marinette loved strawberries.
——-
"She's different, Sass," Luka told his kwami friend once he was alone in his room. He collapsed onto his bed, laying on his back and staring up at nothing.
Sass hovered closer, tail flicking in curiosity. "What do you mean by different?"
Luka didn't have an answer for him, at least not a coherent one. Music was so close to his heart that it was like a second language to him, yet he couldn't come up with a metaphor for how the situation made him feel.
Through whatever method or reason, Marinette's tastes had changed, and it wasn't just about the hair or the desserts or the outfits either. She'd leaned away from fighting games too, starting to play puzzle or real-time strategy games instead, but most notable of all...
Adrien was her ex, and she hadn't mentioned his name since the memory loss. Luka felt terrible, because he knew that she wasn't defined by it - it definitely wasn't "all she was" - yet it was bizarre not to see on her.
Was it a remix? The same song with different lyrics? A person covering their own song after having not played it for so long? All of the above?
Sass continued talking as if he hadn't asked him a question, or maybe said question had been rhetorical, "I've had holders who have lost their memories in other ways. Sometimes they experienced something traumatic, or they became injured in an accident."
Luka finally made eye contact with him, wondering where this was going. "Were they like Marinette?"
"Sometimes." Sass smiled in what seemed like amusement, probably from Luka's dissatisfaction from the lack of a clear answer. "Humans aren't born with their likes and personality set in stone; it can be shaped by their experiences."
That was something that Luka could agree on without any gray areas. In the same way people liked certain foods out of nostalgia, the way they acted or treated others came from what they'd been through.
Perhaps that was a factor then: without the key memories that drove her to like certain things or people, she simply couldn't, at least not in the same way.
"If you'd lost your memories right now," Sass began, "do you think we'd still become friends?"
Luka pushed himself up, almost offended by the question. "We would, obviously. I'd just have to get to know you again."
There was never a magic moment that changed everything for him when it came to people, he was just someone who grew attached to those that clicked well with him. Perhaps it'd been the opposite for Marinette, and she was working from scratch for the majority of people.
Except him, even in some undefinable way.
Sass nodded approvingly at the answer. "I agree. You don't think that these new changes in Marinette are bad either, do you?"
"No," Luka answered immediately, shaking his head. "I'd never."
Honestly, it felt like a betrayal to the old Marinette, but he had to admit that the differences weren't negative. Some were neutral, as it really didn't matter what games she liked or how she liked to style herself, but it occasionally felt as though he was getting a Marinette unfiltered by the harshness of reality. No trauma, nothing weighing her down, just Marinette, and it was nice albeit strange.
Yet, he couldn't get his thoughts to come together on how he felt about it. Was he upset somehow that she forgot him, like he was actually considering the possibility that she wanted to?
Sass, flying over to Luka's shoulder, settled himself down on it and wrapped his tail around his holder's neck. "It's unusual for you to be like this."
"I know," Luka acknowledged, sighing and rubbing his head. "I'm... I don't know."
With a hum, Sass nestled himself closer. "Perhaps it's normal to be afraid in your situation."
"...Afraid?" The word felt weird coming out of his mouth, as he'd never considered it before. "Is that what it looks like? Why would I be afraid?"
Sitting up to press an arm to Luka's pulse, Sass replied, "I think your heart is softer than you realize. When people have what they desire right in front of them, they can be scared to accept it."
"What I—?" Luka started to say, but stopped when he felt the weight leave his shoulder. "Sass?"
The kwami phased into a nearby drawer, and the only answer Luka got was in the form of a knock at his bedroom door. He startled, but pushed himself up and walked over to it, not wanting to make whoever was on the other side wait.
He usually would've known by the knocking itself, but had been too lost to notice it. Thus, he wasn't expecting to see Marinette when he opened the door, her hands behind her back and her expression unsure.
"Marinette?" He gave her a small smile. "Hey, what are you—"
"Luka, do you hate me?"
He froze, mouth dropping open from the sudden question. She shifted on her feet nervously at that reaction, but met his gaze with resolve.
"I just wanted to make sure. I know you said you were okay with me coming here, but you also seem like a really sweet guy? So I thought maybe you said it but didn't really mean it, and I don't want to cause any problems by being here." She leaned forward without crossing the boundary into his room. "I thought we could talk about it? Because if I did something to you that you didn't like and I don't remember it, I still want to make it better, or maybe the me right now did something—"
"Wait," Luka pleaded, holding up one hand to her and covering the lower half of his face with the other. "Wait."
His eyes turned towards the general direction of the drawer Sass was in, and he swallowed as all the thoughts over the course of his time with the "new Marinette" coalesced into a cold realization.
He'd been so obsessed with trying to figure out motives he'd never know - circumstances that he'd never know - from a Marinette that couldn't answer and he'd never get back, and in the process had been neglecting the Marinette right in front of him. He thought he was so subtle, yet she was there shoving all the evidence that he wasn't right in his face.
Regardless of intentionality, regardless of if it was the "old" or "new" Marinette, she was presenting herself to him with the implicit trust that they could work things out. She wasn't running away, but he was by not engaging with the situation at hand.
Could he really hold her "responsible" for something that the "old" Marinette had done, when she was caring so much about how she made him feel? He couldn't, or at least it felt wrong to.
His hand falling from his face, he stepped forward to leave his room. Marinette backed up the necessary spaces and he closed the door behind himself.
Taking a deep breath, his voice was heavy with regret as he said, "I'm so sorry. I don't hate you, Marinette, how could I?" He smiled, and it was genuine this time. "You didn't do anything to me. Honestly, I'm happy you're here at all, and it's my fault for not telling you that."
"Really..." She trailed off, then perked up with a tiny bounce. "Really? You're happy?"
He nodded. "Really. It just took me this long to realize that you're not going anywhere. It didn't feel real."
"Oh." She exhaled in relief, putting a hand to her chest while the other remained behind her back. "Thank goodness. I was hoping we could get closer, so I didn't know what I'd do if you didn't like me anymore."
Finally, it clicked for him what metaphor fit with where she was in his life: it was the same song, but played with notes that he'd long thought impossible. It was more beautiful than anything he'd ever heard before, and he'd been risking throwing it all away.
Determined not to do so again, he stated so there was no chance of misunderstanding, "We can get as close as you want; whatever you're comfortable with, I am too." Then, tilting slightly to the side without being invasive of the secret she was keeping, he asked, "Now, does getting close have anything to do with what you have behind your back?"
Grinning with tentative excitement, she swayed her hips back and forth. "Weeeeeell, I was trying to do a little research on everyone here to see if it might spark any memories. It didn't, but I got a hold of this." She brought it out from behind her back and presented it to him. "I thought we could watch it together?"
Luka had to control his reaction so as to give away less shock than he was actually feeling, because in Marinette's hands was Crocodile Heart, the Jagged Stone movie they'd intended to see together all that time ago. His eyes scanned her face, looking for any sign that she might've recalled what'd happened, but there was only pure want and innocence.
Was it a coincidence, or a remnant from the past that had lingered somewhere inside her without being in her memories? He knew now why things had gone bad back then, but those were no longer a factor.
A second chance, his mind supplied as he stroked his disguised bangle with a thumb. He blinked rapidly at the emotions piling onto him, each one desperate to break out.
"...Y-yeah," he managed, hoping that his wavering tone wouldn't be cause for concern to her. "That'd be great. Do you need me to set it up for us?"
She brightened like a sunrise, like the lights coming on in the TV studio when he'd confessed to the version of herself she'd left behind. Apparently making due on his word that she could get "as close as she wanted," she strolled right to his side and linked their arms together.
"No need! I already have it ready!" She tugged him along to lead him to the living room. "I didn't know if you'd have anything to do, so I didn't want you to waste your time if you said 'yes'! I made popcorn too!"
"It wouldn't have been a waste," he countered, but now was curious. "What would you have done if I told you I hated you?"
She faltered at that, giving an awkward one-armed shrug. "Cry into the popcorn? Maybe it could use more salt."
He snorted, partly because of what she said but also because the mere idea that he would've rejected her was laughable. "You never had to worry about that."
"That reminds me—" she began as they walked together, eyes wide and focused on him. "I don't know what kind of popcorn you like - maybe I forgot? - so I made a bunch of different ones! I tried to be careful too, because I know when I get that powdery or buttery feeling on my hands, sometimes you still feel the phantom sensation of that even after you wash your hands, you know? It wouldn't be fun touching your guitar after that, so there are a bunch of options if you want to avoid it."
Just like that, Luka started to fall in love with Marinette all over again, and thoughts of the past drifted off to make way for the present and future.
Luka could reset time as a miraculous user. That information wouldn't be a surprise for anyone who knew he was Viperion, but that wasn't the whole story.
All miraculous users - to his knowledge - had abilities even outside of transforming. It was to be expected as a natural effect of wearing magical jewelry around, with the only downside being that one had to be careful about using it or risk being outed.
Granted, almost the whole of Paris had a habit of being... oblivious. Without a bodysuit and sparkly lights when an ability was used, they were far more likely to pass off just about anything, which was the metaphorical safety net there.
As for Luka himself, the time he could reset was limited to a few seconds at best. He could activate it at any moment and tended to use it mostly for minor things, like the time he saved a kid from getting smacked in the face with a ball. It'd never caused him any problems, as even his friends tended to see him as some sort of extra mature, ultra sensitive guy with super intuition, whatever that meant.
It was convenient for him, so he wasn't going to complain.
Above all else, he found himself using his power for Marinette. It had nothing to do with his bias (mostly), but one reason was that she was unlucky. Another person might insist that she was a klutz, but he'd prefer to say that "her instrument wasn't designed to play the notes she came up with."
The other reason was that she was his girlfriend, the guardian of the miraculouses, so he saw her often. He wasn't trying to score any extra points with her by "abusing" his power, but she had enough burdens and stressors to where he preferred her time with him to be as nice as possible. He caught her waist when she tripped, played missed notes properly whenever he was distracted by her very presence, and focused even down to icing cookies.
The last one had been his current role for their time together. They were at her house in the kitchen, the cookies having just cooled down from the oven so they could ice them. Marinette was watching him and had carefully instructed him on how to do it, but listening and absorbing weren't the same as putting it into action.
Go outside of where he intended? Reset. Accidentally put a little too much in one spot? Reset. Lose a bit of icing when he was adjusting his grip? Reset.
He normally wouldn't have gone to such extremes, but Marinette wanted to try the cookies he'd iced. He recalled her telling him before that presentation could play an important role in taste depending on circumstances, and he would've hated for her to have a subpar cookie after all the work they put into making them.
Perhaps it was his own fault. He'd grown so used to rewinding that he became reliant on it, but he did genuinely want to make good cookies for her.
Then, on what was probably his tenth reset, he heard a giggle from Marinette at his side. It jarred him so much that he drew his icing right off the cookie, which meant resetting again to undo it.
The giggling increased, though this time with her covering her mouth to suppress it. That simply wasn't normal, as everyone had always behaved exactly as they did before upon resets, at least until he did something different. She was reacting the moment the reset occurred.
Luka tried to make sense of it, eyeing her out of the corner of his vision as she tried so hard to suppress her giggles. Whenever he reset, their positions did too, so they were in the same pose at the time he'd reset to; she'd called it "going back to a savestate," which was apparently a gaming thing.
However, her actions weren't like an NPC in-game who got wrapped up in a reset and were going through the same motions for a hundredth time; she was like his player two who sat by his side and had watched him load that savestate.
"...Marinette," he began, pulling back from his designated task to look at her. "Do you know when I reset?"
She was still trying to suppress her giggling, but her eyes widened at the question and made her try harder. She forced out a cough, cleared her throat, and blushed noticeably as she hesitantly made eye contact with him.
"...Yeah," she admitted from behind her hand. "Sorry. It's a guardian thing; I still can't tell the difference when you use Second Chance as Viperion, but I go through the resets like you do when you're not transformed."
That was a step up from what he'd expected. He thought she was only vaguely aware whenever he reset, but she was actually just as conscious as he was.
"I—" His jaw dropped in horror, imagining her in the middle of working whenever he reset and her having to redo little bits of it over and over. "I'm sorry."
"W-what?" She blinked rapidly, shaking her head at him. "No, Luka, you didn't know! I'm the one who's sorry for not telling you!"
He frowned, acknowledging her point but not understanding why she'd do that, or rather not do that. It sounded like an inconvenience no matter how he looked at it.
Blushing in embarrassment, she went closer to him, one hand on his arm while the other rested on the hand he was holding the bag of icing with. Meekly, she explained, "I'm usually the one always trying to make everything perfect for everybody else. You're the first guy - the first anyone - who's tried so hard to make things perfect for me. I was worried you'd stop if you knew that I knew, and you were just so... cute?" She ducked her head. "I know guys don't usually like being called that."
Luka honestly hadn't had an opinion on being called "cute" until that day, but if it was Marinette doing it, then it was absolutely delightful. On the other hand, he wasn't sure how to feel about the idea that she would've kept such a secret from him.
Her eyes scanned his face, picking apart the various emotions there, then she frowned. "I'm really sorry for not telling you. I would've loved your cookies no matter what, and I wasn't trying to deceive you or anything."
"It's not that. I'm not mad or anything." He put down the icing bag so he could hold her hand. "I'll never stop wanting to make things as perfect for you as possible. I'm just a little sad."
"Sad?" she echoed, seeming torn between being happy that he wasn't going to stop doting on her and regretful that she'd made her own boyfriend upset in some way.
"If I knew before that you went through my resets too, I would've done things differently, that's all." He glanced at the oven's clock to check the time. "Like... how long do we have until our date's over? You said that your parents wanted to take you out to eat since it's been a while?"
"Uh?" She didn't catch onto why he was asking, but stared at the clock anyway and replied, "Ten minutes? That's still enough to eat the cookies we made after we ice them."
With a chuckle, he bent over and cupped her cheek with his free hand, running his thumb over her lips. "We have a lot more time than that now."
"What...? Oh!"
The last thing he saw was the sparkle of realization in her gaze before the two of them closed their eyes and abandoned their cookies, all so they could get lost in kissing each other. What was barely a second to everyone else was a countless amounts of well used resets to them.
After all the dates interrupted by bad luck or akuma, it was the first time they had each other thoroughly, completely smooched to their own satisfaction. The ten minutes that remained afterwards to finish and enjoy the treats they'd made were just the icing on the cookie.
“I need someone,” Marinette told Juleka over the phone as she sighed and plopped down on the couch, ”but I've already made outfits for all of my close friends. I want to do something new, but I don't want it to be a stranger either. I feel like a contradiction took human form and started making demands at everyone.”
One would think that having fashion as her job would be enough for her, but that was just how she was. Occasionally, the motivation to simply create struck and there was nothing she could do but let it run its course.
“Huh~” Juleka's tone lightened in a way that made Marinette squint, despite the fact that they couldn't see each other. “You know, you could always ask Adr—”
“Don't,” Marinette stressed. “I don't want to see another guy's 'perfect' model face for the rest of my life. They all look the same, Juleka, it's like a cult!”
Juleka cackled at that. “You just made it sound way cooler than it really is. I'd totally watch a horror movie where all the male models were in a cult.”
“I missed it when you mumbled and didn't make terrible suggestions,” Marinette countered jokingly, trying to sound as dramatically serious as possible.
“It's fine.” After calming down from her amusement, Juleka suggested, “If you need someone so bad, how about my brother?”
“Your—your... brother?” Marinette gaped. “You have a brother? Since when?!”
“...Since I was born?“ came the reply, complete with a snort. “Never came up before and he's kind of lowkey, but that sounds like what you want, right? He's not a close friend and he's not really a stranger, since you'd know him through me.”
“Yes,” she uttered, in awe of the fact that her request was even slightly feasible. Jumping up from the couch, she exclaimed, “Yes! Do you really think he'll agree?”
“He's never been able to say 'no' to me,” Juleka assured. Before any fretting could start over that, she added, “Relax. Luka will think it's cool, I swear.”
“Luka.” Marinette tested the name on her tongue and smiled. “Okay! Text me when he has some free time.”
“Mhm. I'll try to make sure it's not too late, so your creativity doesn't kill you by the time he gets there.”
——-
Marinette paced around the room, checking her phone once more to see the time. Luka was expected to arrive any minute now, and first impressions were important. She didn't want his friend's brother to think she was weird, or for him to tell Juleka about the absolute mess he might endure and that she shouldn't be friends with her anymore.
Thus, she was incredibly careful. She dressed nicely but casually, determined that she should wait a few seconds to answer the door so as to not look desperate, and practiced her friendly-without-being-too-friendly smile in the mirror. It was better to be over prepared than under, after all.
She was ready.
Right on time, a melodic knock sounded from the other side of the door. Marinette spun around, nearly rushing to answer, then remembered what she'd gone over with herself literal seconds ago and forced herself to take a breath.
“On my way!” she called out, then strolled over at an easy pace. Visions of what to expect flashed through her mind of what he might look like as she grabbed the doorknob, thoughts of long hair with purple highlights like his sister or that bit of goth aesthetic or even just red eyes—
Then she opened the door, and those expectations were shattered.
As opposed to Juleka, who looked like she could kill but was entirely harmless, Luka had a distinct softness that contrasted his punk look. He was slightly shorter than his model of a sister, but still noticeably taller than Marinette herself, the gentle blue eyes half-lidded at her under his blue-tipped bangs.
She didn't speak at first and neither did he. She hadn't even noticed how long they were both quiet, simply staring at each other, until Luka spoke up.
“...Hey. You're Marinette, right?” he asked. “I'm Juleka's brother, Luka, but I guess she already told you my name.”
“L-Luka. Yeah, right.” She nodded fervently. “I'm Marinette, but—well, you know that too. Come on in!”
She opened the door wide and moved to the side with it so he could come in. She watched as he moved past her, her eyes taking in his black fingernails, his bracelets, and his piercings with intense focus.
While she told herself it was to get a grasp of his preferred style, she couldn't deny that she was checking him out. Perfection had become a dirty word to her after years of thinking she could never make mistakes if she just tried harder and did better, which eventually extended to people who had a 'perfect' appearance like some god decided to play favorites. It stopped feeling like something to admire a long time ago.
Luka didn't have the perfect look, but he was undeniably him. She'd learned to read people for her work to avoid conflict with the more fussy types, and he had an energy she liked.
His footsteps were polite without being shy. He gave off confidence without being smug. When he turned to smile at her, it seemed naturally lopsided yet somehow cute at the same time.
Cute was not a word she thought she'd associated with a man around her age, especially not one she considered handsome. Perhaps it was the slight fluff of his hair and the way it framed the sides of his face that made her want to ruffle it.
She snapped herself out of it, realizing that being taken by someone's looks had never gone over well for her. She could appreciate the guy's appearance without getting swept up in him, then they'd get this done and wouldn't have to see each other again.
Closing the door, she apologized, ”Sorry that this is such short notice, by the way. I don't know if Juleka told you, but...”
“Oh, don't worry.” He leaned to the side and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I get it. The creativity bug needs fed, and it's a picky customer.”
She blinked, then pointed at him up and down. “You mean... you too?”
“I'm not a fashion designer,” he told her, “but music is my life. I've been doing it since I was little.”
“Me too! Just—not music, but fashion!” She practically bounced over to get closer to him. “That's amazing! What do you play?”
“Guitar.” He mimed holding one. “But I've tried a little bit of everything. String instruments are just my favorite.”
“I've never learned,” she admitted, a little sad that she wouldn't be able to fully understand him on that front. “I'm so unlucky; if I touch a guitar, I feel like one of the strings will snap off and hit me in the face.”
“Playing isn't for everyone,” he sympathized. “What about you? Are there any kinds of clothes you like making the most?”
She gasped, almost offended. “You can't expect me to choose! It'd be like choosing between my children!” Then, pausing, she shrugged and added lightly, “I might not have kids yet, but good fashion should live longer than them anyway.”
Chuckling, he gestured vaguely at the rest of the house, to which she nodded and began leading him. “What's good fashion? I wouldn't know, I just wear what I like.”
Pumping her fists up, she argued, “That's good fashion in its own way. If it's in style but you hate wearing it, does it even matter? I know that there are a lot of things that are trendy these days, but if you ask me...”
She carried on as they walked, not caring if she sounded fifty years older than she was as she lamented fashion from a decade ago that'd so sadly died out. She hadn't even registered that they'd slid comfortably into conversation without intending to.
It was the first time she felt like someone could empathize with her creative process, even though she did have creative friends. She'd heard once that there were different types of creative people and they all handled creativity differently, so she supposed it was like that.
Of course, just because she was attracted to Luka and they could relate didn't mean anything, right?
——-
"This might be uncomfortable,” Marinette warned, stretching out her trusty measuring tape, “especially if you've never done it before.”
“I'll live,” Luka promised, standing in the center of the room as she circled him. He outstretched his arms as if daring her to challenge his personal space.
Grinning, she stepped in front of him and wrapped the tape around his neck. “You've really never had someone take your measurements before?”
“Never. I just buy clothes at the store.“ His tone suddenly carried an extra bit of mirth as he eyed her. He waved a hand at the top of his head and said, "I know Jule was the one who set this up, but she'd probably joke that there's nothing to measure.”
"Ha." She mumbled the measurement to herself, then stepped aside to write it down. “If you're short, what does that make me?”
He was only able to shrug as a response. “I can't really complain. You should've seen her face when she realized that she outgrew me. I've never seen her confidence shoot up so fast.”
"Is it—oh, arm," she briefly requested when she returned to his side, then continued their conversation once she began measuring. “Is it because you're older than her? I don't have siblings, so I can't relate.”
“She's always looked up to me since we were kids. Now that we're grown up, I guess she likes getting to look down on me for once.” His voice sounded proud rather than sad. “It's great.”
She smiled, imagining that transition between the metaphorical looking up to the literal looking down. Departing to her desk again to write, she stated, “I didn't know her as long as you, but I remember back when she used to be so shy. It's crazy to think about.”
He nodded. "She never would've asked me to do this back when we were teenagers." Pausing as he watched her stand in front of him with her eyes directed at his chest, he asked, “Do you need me to take my shirt off?”
With a dismissive wave, she replied, “You can just lift it up.”
Though, the mention of Juleka's asking reminded Marinette of the near-paranoia she'd felt when the suggestion had been brought up to ask Luka in the first place, back when she hadn't known what he'd think about it. She debated on if it was worth mentioning, but mentally chided herself for the "ultimately do nothing" loop from her teenage years that she could still get stuck in.
Knowing it would bother her if she said nothing, she recalled aloud, "Juleka told me that you can't say 'no' to her. I was worried you might not've actually wanted to be here."
As he grabbed the bottom of his shirt and raised it just above chest level, he reassured her, “That's not it. She is my little... younger sister, and I want to make her happy, but she stopped putting up with how I am once we got older.”
Forcing herself to be normal for a minute at the sight of a semi-bare torso that she thought she'd gotten used to long ago, she wrapped the measuring tape around his chest. Her eyes flicked up questioningly to his face as she arched a brow at him. “How you are?”
“She feels like I never look out for myself. We only had one parent around the house, so I probably tried to cover for whatever anything Mom couldn't. Now she tries to spoil me like she's getting revenge or something.” He added with a hint of exasperation, “I let her because she wants to, but it never bothered me. I—”
“—just liked doing things for people?”
He blinked at her, and the sudden embarrassment that washed over her made her promptly forget the number she'd read off on the measuring tape. She fumbled meekly, hoping that she hadn't made things weird.
“I can relate, that's all. I burned myself out because I was so bad at knowing my limits and turning people down.” After checking the number again, she used going to the desk as an excuse to not look at him. “It made it easy for people to take advantage of me, so I had to get more careful about who my friends were. I still like making gifts and everything, but... I think it's better if two people can spoil each other, so they're equal.”
He hummed, mulling that over. “Maybe you're right. I like the sound of that: it's a duet instead of a solo.”
Despite her back turned to him, she swore she could sense his eyes on her and blushed.
Luka continued casually as if she hadn't been affected, “Anyway, I bet that's one of the reasons Jule asked me, but I really do want to be here. I never had a good excuse to meet the Marinette before.”
She turned to him warily. “The Marinette? I'm that infamous?”
“You're famous,” he corrected with a grin. “Jule loved modeling for you, and you broke her photo curse.”
“I didn't do anything special? That 'curse' was probably a lot of bad coincidences.” She started walking back to him, then briefly turned around to retrieve a water bottle. “Now I feel like I disappointed you or something.”
“Oh, I'm not disappointed,” he insisted, his soft admiring eyes never leaving hers. “Not even a little. Like I said, I'm happy to be here.”
He was really sweet, but she told herself that she had to calm down about it. There was no way he was being affected in the way she was - the stars simply never aligned for her like that - so he was probably the type of guy who was kind to everyone. She was the only one swooning, all over a handsome, caring guy who happened to understand her really well.
"T-thanks! Ah—here." She held out the water to him. "Getting measurements done is a thirsty job."
He eyed the bottle curiously and looked like he was about to reject it, but as if an invisible Juleka on his shoulder was chiding him right in his ear, he ended up accepting it instead. "You're sweet, Marinette. Thank you."
She deliberately ignored that he said what she'd thought about him a second ago and merely nodded. With her hand freed, she could retake the measuring tape and circle it around his waist.
Luka had been actively holding his shirt up the whole time, so he awkwardly adjusted it in an attempt to keep it from slipping while he opened the water bottle. He only stopped as a noise escaped him at his waist being measured, body stiffening.
"Sorry," he said. "It tickles a little."
Cute.
She assured, "Don't worry. It makes sense if you're not used to it. I'll be done in a second."
Despite her intense focus on the measurement for the admittedly nice waist, she caught sight from above of his shirt slipping downwards, as his hands were preoccupied with the water bottle and cap. All too used to moments like these, she pinched the measuring tape easily with one hand while her other shot up to keep the shirt in place. Her palm was pressed firmly against his chest in the process, but she maintained professionalism and went to check the number.
All the while, her heart was pounding against her palm, illogically affected by—wait, that wasn't her heart.
Marinette glanced up at her hand, which had ended right up against where Luka's heart was. It'd been easy for her desperately-denying brain to write it off for her own, which was beating just as much, but it was hard to deny what she was so physically aware of.
...Then, she denied it anyway, thinking that it must be dehydration.
——-
Luka excused himself after the measurements were done, "I'll be right back. I've gotta make a minor call."
Giving him an understanding nod, Marinette joked lightly, "A minor call? Or an A Minor call?"
His body visibly jerked forward as he choked, muffling a strangled laugh behind his hand. It took a good few seconds to compose himself enough to shoot her a bright smile, then he headed off to leave the room.
She waited until he was out of earshot to bury her red face in her hands, embarrassed. "An A Minor call? Seriously, Marinette?!"
At least he laughed, but that was almost worse, because she now had to contend with the fact that even his laugh was charming. She wanted to hear it more, preferably while right up against his chest so she could enjoy the rumble of it.
This was dangerous. Juleka had innocently suggested Luka out of the kindness of her heart, but Marinette was currently throwing that back in her face by being attracted to him. Juleka would probably think it was stupid, or wouldn't be comfortable letting it continue if she knew. The responsible thing to do would be to call her and say as much, then let whatever might happen afterwards happen.
Sighing and trudging over to her phone on the desk, Marinette mentally prepared herself for the upcoming call. She had Juleka on speed dial, but purposefully went to her contacts to stall for just a little longer.
She'd also been hoping for it to ring as long as possible, but it was answered so quickly that she jumped.
"Hey," Juleka greeted, but didn't wait for a response. "In a call right now. Go see Luka."
She promptly hung up.
Marinette blinked, pulling the phone away from her ear to stare at the screen. The call, if it could even be called that, was so short that she almost thought she'd imagined it, but the numbers blinking at her to indicate the literal seconds it lasted proved her wrong. She would've felt bad about interrupting Juleka's own call too, but weirdly enough, the voice she heard hadn't sounded annoyed at all.
It sounded... amused. How did Juleka know that Luka wasn't in the room anyway?
Acknowledging that she wouldn't get any answers by standing there, Marinette set about following Juleka's order. Luka had said that he was taking a minor call, which implied that it would be short and not something sensitive if she happened to overhear a bit of it. She wasn't planning on eavesdropping regardless, and figured that she could use any time left to come up with some sort of excuse for why the whole making him clothes thing might not be the best idea after all.
As she traversed her house, her ears managed to pick up Luka's voice saying her name, but the tone of it was entirely unlike the one he used with her. Anxious, Marinette followed the sound, wondering if he'd gotten sick of her after all.
"...That's different from what you did," Luka said to the person on the other line. "You set this up as a jam session, not a serious concert. I'm just supposed to be here as some guy that Marinette barely knows."
It was clear then who Luka was talking to. Marinette stopped walking as she saw him in the kitchen, his back facing her as he talked animatedly at his sister.
"Because I know you, and you know me, so there's no way you're innocent here." He paused to listen to the voice on the other line. "...My fault? Jule, I barely knew anything about her before today. Without hearing her song in person, how was I supposed to figure out that she was my—"
At that moment, he happened to turn around. Their eyes met and Marinette froze, belatedly realizing that she might've been about to hear something personal.
She pointed at the phone and weakly flapped her other arm up into the air, trying to convey, 'Juleka called me and told me to come see you, but I heard you talking about me and freaked out,' all in one gesture. She then waved meekly off to the side, asking without words if she should leave or not.
He stared at her, perhaps processing her presence, then shook his head to indicate that she could stay. When he aimed his gaze back towards the phone at his ear, it was still sharp, yet had noticeably softened now that he was aware who was nearby.
Rubbing the back of his neck in an awkwardness that seemed so unlike him, he took a breath and continued, "That she's exactly my type."
Marinette's heart, which felt like it'd dropped into her stomach a minute ago, jumped right back up to its rightful place with a flip. Her mouth dropped open in shock, her hand finding the other one as she stroked the palm that Luka's own heart had so strongly beat against.
He was attracted to her too. He wasn't just being nice, he'd been reacting to her with all the same feelings behind it. Whether she hadn't been able to tell due to denial or a difference in how they juggled attraction to someone, she couldn't bring herself to care which it was.
"It'd be one thing if you only did it to me, but Marinette clearly didn't know either. You left both of us in the dark," Luka scolded. Gripping the phone tighter as his brows came down in his exasperation, he stated, "That's why I'm going to talk to her about this; she deserves to know what you did and why. If she decides that she's uncomfortable or doesn't want to be around me after that, I'll leave—"
"You don't have to do that!" Marinette blurted out before she could stop herself.
He'd startled at her shout, having not expected her to give any input yet, but she'd already spoken up and carried on thusly.
"I'm not uncomfortable at all, so you don't have to go anywhere! Even if I already knew I was your—your type, I would've still wanted to meet you, and it wouldn't matter anyway because you're mine!" Her face flushed red at the slip up, and she hurriedly stepped forward and amended, "You're my type too!"
He didn't say anything, but slowly lowered the phone from his ear, his once-tight grip on it loosening enough to where it almost fell right out of his hand. Though she would've imagined that such an outburst would be a turn off, his gaze on her was unwavering.
What ultimately broke the silence then was not him, but Juleka from his phone. She laughed so loud that Marinette could hear it, reminded vaguely of a villain's laughter when their plan had finally come together.
At the very least, the sound inadvertently snapped Luka out of his trance. He glared at his phone, then ended the call and shoved it back into his pocket, a move that was hard to gauge in terms of where his emotions were.
Marinette momentarily considered leaving her own home to avoid the awkwardness she'd created, but then she caught sight of a faint blush on Luka's face as he cleared his throat, looking incredibly pleased.
"So," he began, chuckling lightly. "Yours, huh?"
She groaned, clapping a hand over her face. "Please forget about that."
"I don't know. I like it."
He approached, and she hadn't noticed how far away he'd felt until he was standing right in front of her. Offering a hand to her, he gave her an encouraging gaze that wasn't even slightly dissuaded by everything that just went down.
She wasn't used to this, especially not from someone she dated. The people who knew her when she was "more Marinette than usual" knew full well that it was a part of her, though put up with it like it was a bug to a good game that never got patched out. Those she dated treated it as a bug that would get patched eventually if they just waited long enough.
Luka didn't appear to be in either boat, seeing it as a feature rather than a bug, and it was a feature that he welcomed. She didn't understand it, because even if they clicked so easily, he seemed like the polar opposite of her in terms of personality.
Yet, she wanted to understand it, and her hand slowly slid into his. Their fingers intertwined, neither moving from their utterly bizarre place at the entrance of the kitchen.
"...What do we do now?" Marinette eventually asked, gesturing at their joined hands with her free one.
"We don't have to do anything," he supposed. "This is new for me."
"Me too." She let out half of a giggle, noting that they had another thing in common.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. After thinking it over for a moment, he suggested, "How about we just focus on the clothes for now? I still want an outfit from you."
"And then?" she prompted, wanting very much for there to be a then after the fact.
"Then..." He leaned down to her level temptingly. "I still won't like what Jule did to us, but I guess I'll have to thank her."
Marinette generally avoided hoping for things, but couldn't stop the smile on her face and the feeling that she was allowed to look forward to the future this time.
Viperion ducked into an alley, taking a quick look around to ensure no one was watching before heading deeper inside. He faced the left wall, then knocked on it with the rhythm of Marinette's song.
There was a pause, followed by the familiar pink glow that he only associated with her. The portal opened up, and he stepped inside to enter the back room of her boutique.
Knowing that it was only a matter of time until she showed up, he went over to the mini refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of soda. He unscrewed the cap, took a sip, then looked down regrettably at his bodysuit.
There was a small tear under his rib cage and near his side. It'd only gone through the first layer and it was inevitable that the magic would've worn down eventually, but he felt guilty whenever anything bad happened to Marinette's precious work on him.
He could've viewed it as a good excuse to see her, but he'd never needed one in the first place.
“Luka?” A tiny head poked out from the archway leading into the room, blue eyes brightening at the sight of him. “Luka!”
Her fairy wings flapping and sparkling behind her, Marinette flew out and directly towards him. He put his drink aside and held his hands out excitedly, having never gotten over how cute it was how easily his best friend settled herself onto his palms. They'd been doing it ever since they were kids, and he'd yet to tire of it.
On the contrary, it energized him, and most energizing of all was when she raised her arms up to him expectantly. Grinning, he brought her closer to his face, tiny hands pressing up against the sides of his lips as they closed their eyes.
The connection a fairy and human could have was their own accidental discovery. The two races were typically separate in society, but Marinette was his secret, with him having lived close enough out in the middle of nowhere that they could've met. They grew up together, and it was in their teenage years when they figured “it” out.
An innocent question from Marinette when they were younger about “human couples” had led to a kiss, and suddenly she had so much more power than before. According to history, there were tales implying that fairies and humans were once one and the same, which led to the common belief that humans had traded their magic for larger, stronger forms.
After enough thought, they speculated otherwise. Humans did have magic, yet it was locked away somewhere deep where they couldn't access it, but fairies could with the right contact. Perhaps other fairy-human pairs had found it out before, and they'd kept it a secret too.
That was how he ended up there. Fairies normally could only use glamour to masquerade as a human, but he had the real human-sized human-looking fairy in his arms after just a little kiss. He had her arms around his neck, her giggles against his ear, and he was dressed in the very magic they'd shared that allowed him to be Viperion in the first place.
“I missed you,” she said affectionately, squeezing him tighter. “What are you doing here?”
“I missed you too.” He frowned, unable to be happy that she missed him (after what was barely a day of not seeing each other) when he was reminded of his secondary reason for showing up. “The magic's starting to wear off. I got a rip.”
Her smile disappeared. “What?” She squirmed in his arms as she tried to look for the rip in question. “Where? How much did it hurt?“
He let her down and directed her to the right spot. While she crouched down and examined it, he assured, “I'm fine, but—”
“Oh.” The tenseness she had vanished in an instant at his reassurance. Straightening back up, she cupped his face and grinned in amusement. “Is that all? You look like the world is ending.”
“It's your magic,” he pointed out solemnly.
“Our magic.” She waved at the tear. “Besides, I thought you would've liked having rips in your clothes; it's very you.”
His lips twitched as he struggled to hold back his smile, but he couldn't resist. “Then everyone would know it was me right away.”
“That's true,” she conceded jokingly. With a hum, she ran a thumb over the spot and added, “You told me as soon as you saw it, so that's the important part. I can fix it, no problem.”
He shuddered, sucking in a breath at the touch. It wasn't skin-to-skin contact, yet he could feel it and knew that she knew he could. They both did it to each other, so he couldn't say anything about it either.
“...Here." He reached for the bangle on his wrist. "I'll hand it over so you can work on it."
"Nooo, don't do that!" Marinette huffed, grabbing his wrist with both hands before he could do anything. Pouting at him, she protested, "You know I like repairing it when it's still on you. I just need a little more magic."
As her self-appointed magic battery, he smirked and playfully raised a brow at her. Bringing up the forearm she was holding, he noted, "I thought you said it was a little fix."
She released him, grabbing the skirt of her pink minidress and swishing it from side to side. Batting her eyelashes at him in faux innocence, she claimed, "You only gave me enough to turn human like always. Aren't we friends?"
All too used to this wonderful song and dance, he put his hands on her waist to bring her closer. "Come on. You know you can have as much as you want, whenever you want."
Smiling affectionately at him, she took him by the shoulders and backed away. She led him over to the nearby table, a move that he read easily as he lifted her up to sit her down on top of it; picking her up was easy for Luka, but it was even easier for Viperion.
"This is your work table," he pointed out, glancing at a few sewing supplies not too far off.
Arms outstretched, she suggested, "Then work on me."
He didn't need to be told twice. Their lips mingled with the scents of cherries and vanilla, both of their hands blindly finding each other so their fingers could intertwine. The table was suspiciously the perfect height that he could bend over and press her against its surface, but he was a little too busy to tease her about it.
Rather, it was when he let go of one of her hands, searching for something else he felt important to touch but hitting the table instead, that he felt a need to complain. Brows furrowed, he raised his head just enough to look at her greedily-seeking expression and whisper, "Bring out your wings. You don't have to hide anything from me."
She tugged him back down before he could see his words have any effect, but he knew from the warmth of the emerging wings that they were there. Mid-kiss, he ran the back of his hand over the thin, smooth surface, followed by his fingertips to be more precise about it. Marinette shivered underneath him, her legs going around his waist and involuntarily squeezing his sides in her excitement.
Massaging fairy wings was an act reserved for a fairy's closest people, crucial to ensure an even distribution of magic across the length of them, and he knew by then that the pleasurable sparks he got from the contact were in reaction to him, not her own magic in his bodysuit.
Speaking of which, Marinette let out a tiny whine of frustration as her free hand roamed his chest, her previous insistence that he not transform thoroughly backfiring on her when she couldn't find skin to touch. Viperion breathed out a single laugh that was promptly captured within another kiss, then willed his transformation away to turn himself back into her Luka.
They weren't dating; the initial kiss she'd given him had overridden any official talks of what now in favor of continuing said kiss, and they hadn't thought to discuss it during any of the following years. He'd never bothered counting each time their lips slotted against each other's, but each was better than the last and he didn't plan on stopping any time soon.
Marinette's hand slipped all the way under his collar, fabric bunching up over her wrist as she massaged his shoulder. Determined to return the favor, he let go of her other hand to press his against her leg.
He slid his hand further along, moving it down her thigh and under her skirt, all so he could hear—
Just then, they heard the ding of the boutique's front door opening. They both flinched, Luka pushing himself up to look in the direction of the archway. The movement unintentionally made Marinette slide slightly across the table from her legs still firmly around him.
With a dramatic sigh, Marinette relented and said, "I'll get it."
He turned his head back to her just in time for her to cup his face and kiss him one last time. The moan that came out of him was challenged in volume by the happy flutter of her wings, reminiscent of a hummingbird's. It was fast enough that she hovered off the desk and pushed up against him momentarily before settling herself back down on her feet.
"I'll finish up as quick as I can," she promised, her hand brushing his arm as she went past him. "Will you be here when I get back?"
He answered with a smile and the question, "Why would I want to be anywhere else?"
There might not've been a name for whatever was going on between them yet, but it was uniquely them and he loved it.
Soulmarkings: a phenomenon spread throughout the entire world consisting of patterns, colors, and symbols on a person's skin that represents those they'll be close to in life. It wasn't limited to strictly romantic relationships, so familial ones and friendships applied just as well.
Because of that, it wasn't uncommon to see someone with markings all over them to signify how loved they either were or would be. Romance movies often featured the leads hoping silently that their marks meant they were connected as lovers, and dramas had people in denial that the marks meant anything at all because they argued and pretended to hate each other. People in real life found it convenient, because they knew the people who would stick with them through thick and thin. One would still have to feel out what the mark might mean depending on the person who matched it, but that was the hardest part of it.
The concept, however, was foreign to Marinette, because she didn't have any markings at all.
Having a baby born without soulmarkings was so rare that it had left both the doctors and her parents stunned, as they'd never seen it before. The latter still had markings they'd yet to determine the match to, so they'd naturally assumed it to be their own daughter, only to then find that wasn't the case at all.
They raised her just the same, but Marinette knew she was different. When they greeted each other, she saw them touch the other's matching mark, the literal symbol of their bond together. She had no such thing, so affection tended to be generic, like a pat on the head or a simple smile. She still felt like they saw her as a daughter with or without the mark, but she couldn't deny the meaning of not having soulmarkings herself.
Either she had some sort of once-in-a-generation condition that affected not just her skin but other people who could've shared marks with her, or...
She was unlovable, and would never be truly close to anyone.
As a child, she was in denial about it. She took markers and drew on her skin to try and create her own soulmarkings. She would have to wash it off afterwards, but in a sad, twisted way, it was her first step into art.
Bullying was almost inevitable, as it was all too easy to prey on her insecurities over her lack of soulmarkings. Schools were never good at stopping bullying to begin with, but Marinette always wondered if they were bad with her specifically because of what the bullying focused on.
They couldn't deny that she had no soulmarkings, and she felt treated like an "other," separate from the rest of society.
As she got older, she didn't stop worrying about it exactly, but she became numb to the harsh words that others had for her. Her friend group was also limited, as few were willing to befriend someone they didn't have the reassurance of marking with. Being talented only served as a double-edged sword for her, as she never knew who wanted to be her friend for genuine reasons and who just wanted something out of it.
Stepping into the role of Paris's superheroine, Ladybug, was... strange, to say the least. Suddenly, the vast majority of her skin was hidden away by her bodysuit, and no one cared about her soulmarkings. They still assumed that she had them, but there was no evidence that she didn't.
She couldn't say a thing, having to hear people speculate how "loved" she must be - especially by her flirtatious partner - while knowing that she would out her identity if she dared speak up. She was numb to the comments, yes, but bitter to the people who took their soulmarkings for granted.
The rich model boy in her class was one of those people. She didn't hate him, she wasn't jealous, but he was oblivious to social cues and didn't have much of a filter when it came to the obvious. The act of giving her an umbrella apparently made them friends, with his logic appearing to be that, since she had no soulmarkings, that meant she was "available" to everyone as someone to be close to.
It was an odd similarity between her and her superhero partner who "couldn't see her soulmarkings" and therefore concluded that they could match.
That was her life for a while: saving Paris, dealing with bullies and the occasional curious stranger who couldn't keep their thoughts in their own head, and making friends only after making certain they didn't have any ulterior motives.
Luka was one of those friends, genuine in everything he did and nice to everyone for no other reason than to be nice. Having to be so careful with people meant that Marinette was fairly good at reading people, and there wasn't a hint of ill intent in his eyes.
"We don't have to be friends," she'd told him regretfully, rubbing her bare arm and looking at the various markings he had on his body. "I mean, we don't... match. I don't match with anybody."
"Do you have to?" Luka asked with a shrug. "You don't for me."
Her nose scrunched up as she squinted at him, hopeful but wary.
"You don't have to see something to know it's there, right?" He picked up his guitar, playing a few notes with a smile on his face. "I've been surrounded by music for as long as I can remember. I can't see the notes, but I know how songs can make me feel. Isn't that how it is for you and other people?"
She didn't answer at first, but slid closer to look at his guitar. Their arms brushed, but he remained still and calm despite the way the outer corner of his eyelids creased up at the contact.
"...Technically," she began, not quite sure if she was making a joke or not, "you can see the notes on the paper."
He chuckled, but turned his head to her so he could counter with, "You're the paper then, Marinette. I see the notes, I have enough experience to know what they sound like, and I think I'm going to like it. Isn't that enough?"
Her heart skipped a beat, her gaze dropping briefly to where some of his bare skin was as if a soulmark would magically appear there. It didn't, and he was right: she had to judge everyone without her own soulmarkings to reference, but it was rare to find someone who did the same for her.
"...Yeah," she answered softly. "It's enough."
She was happy with that. There was a simplicity in them simply being without any thought or concern about soulmarkings. For a little bit, it was like soulmarkings didn't even exist, and she didn't care why or how she didn't have them.
She'd hoped it could've stayed that way.
——-
The week that Feast was defeated was one of the worst in Marinette's life. Truthfully, though she hadn't wanted to assume it as the case, there was a single person she'd met who she'd never seen a soulmark on: Master Fu. It was considered impolite to ask about a person's unseen soulmarks, though public perception was generally against hiding them.
Marinette had just thought he covered his for personal reasons. She never would've guessed that he too didn't have any, nor would she have thought of the reason.
When the Order of the Guardians returned thanks to Miraculous Ladybug, Master Fu told her the truth: that all people destined to be guardians didn't have soulmarkings. It wasn't because of some magical inclination they had, nor because their soulmarkings were for creatures who couldn't have them themselves.
No. It was because guardians were never meant to have attachments. They were made and raised to be loners dedicated to their job.
Master Fu tried to assure her that he wouldn't implement the "less appealing" teachings that he was given whilst training her, but Marinette could barely follow any of it. She'd become content with the handful of friends she felt she could have without soulmarkings, and that she may never know why she had such a "condition" in the first place. The worst case scenarios she'd always considered was that she was unlovable, or that something was wrong with her in such a way that she could never be able to properly love someone.
The truth was worse. It wasn't that she couldn't be loved, nor love people back; it was that she wasn't meant for either. She was destined to not have love nor give it.
She didn't remember how the conversation ended, nor the trip back to her house, nor how her parents greeted her upon her return, if they even greeted her at all. She remembered stories where the main character was given powers or told they were part of some prophecy, and it was treated as some special, nice, grand thing, yet she felt overwhelmed and confused all the way back to her room.
She hid under the covers to hide from the world, hide from the weight of the revelation, and from what appeared like the inevitable future she would have to face. She sobbed, but quietly so as to not alert her parents that anything was wrong. She didn't want them to worry, and Ladybug - the apparent next Guardian of the Miraculouses - wasn't supposed to have people that close to her anyway.
She'd never wanted a soulmarking more badly than that day.
——-
Marinette remained lost for what to do during the weeks that followed. She didn't want to do nothing about it, but she'd been rolling with the punches since she was born: the judgment, the bullying, and her terrible, almost spiteful-seeming luck. This felt like the same thing, a metaphorical shrug of here we go again where she had little other choice than to go along with it.
However, it was different when she actually pictured it. She imagined her life already being laid out for her, of having to live with the pressure of protecting the Miracle Box from anyone who might seek them, of never being able to make mistakes without dire consequences, and of needing to find a protégé to drop that very same fate onto.
Then, eventually, forgetting all of it, essentially throwing all of her work away and having to wonder where her life went.
She couldn't do it. She couldn't. She had to get herself out of the rut she'd been put into, somehow, anyhow.
Even if that meant taking drastic measures.
——-
Leaving her note on the kitchen counter, Marinette adjusted the bags hanging off her shoulders and the hood over her head before heading out the living room door. She went down the stairs, took a fleeting glance at the bakery, then resisted the urge to hear the signature bell one last time as she pushed the door open.
Her eyes were rimmed red and tired, but she forged on. It was a little cold and it was hard to tell if it was from nerves or not.
She winced briefly at the wind hitting her face and shook it off. She steeled herself up, about to take her first step into the night when—
"Marinette."
Marinette jumped up in surprise with a yelp. Spinning around, she clutched her chest to see the source of the familiar voice.
"L-Luka?!" she cried out in alarm.
He stood with his back against the wall, then pushed off of it to approach her. Her heart pounded, but she couldn't place her own feelings on him being there.
On one hand, she felt like a toddler who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but on the other, it was so nice just to see him.
"W—" It took a second to bring herself down from the shock to talk to him. "What are you doing here...?"
He frowned. "You haven't been yourself lately. I didn't want to make you talk about it if you didn't want to, but today... you looked like you wanted to cry. I was worried, and—" His eyes flicked up towards her balcony. "I went for a walk and saw that your light was still on, even though there's school tomorrow. I didn't know what was going on, but... I thought I should stick around just in case."
In other words, he was so concerned about her that he couldn't sleep. She felt terrible about it and, upon a closer look, noticed the way that very concern had worn his face out. She'd been thinking so hard about what to do that it hadn't occurred to her that anyone might worry about her.
"Sorry," she murmured, gripping and twisting one of her bag's straps.
His gaze zeroed in on her fidgeting hands, then to the bags at her sides. "...You're leaving."
She couldn't deny the observation when he'd read her so well. Looking away, she confirmed, "I'm leaving."
She'd avoided telling anyone because of this. She didn't want to involve anyone in her Ladybug-related business, and the time it would've taken to explain combined with the risk of crying all over again were just too much.
Yet, Luka was there, and this was her last chance to get anything out. She already stopped trusting destiny, and she wouldn't have counted on it to bring him when she silently wanted to see him.
In that case, maybe it was okay.
Taking a deep breath, Marinette dared to ask, "Do you want to listen?"
She suspected that her body relaxed on some level, given the relieved look on his face. Even Luka must've struggled with not pushing people at times; he'd still hoped she wouldn't keep her burdens to herself.
He walked back to the wall he'd been leaning against, shrugged off his jacket, and laid it down on the sidewalk. Sitting down next to it, he gestured to the jacket for her to sit on. She didn't comment on getting his jacket dirty, merely accepting the thoughtfulness as she walked over.
She let the very literal weight of her bags fall off of her, as well as the metaphorical weight as she took her position next to him. She didn't even know where to start, but eventually, she let her mouth open with whatever might spill out with it.
She told him about growing up without a soulmarking, about stumbling her way into being Ladybug, and about having to handle a world that she'd felt so long like she didn't belong in.
At one point, she shook at the vulnerability she was letting out after so long, and her gaze unconsciously dropped to the area between them. Luka's hand was resting there, his palm facing upwards in a silent offer, and it'd probably been there for a while; it was a place she wouldn't have seen it from unless she sought out the comfort herself.
Her hand sliding against his, they gripped tightly at each other. Though Luka's face was careful in the way it expressed itself during her story, she could tell how he felt by how much he held her hand and the microexpressions from his brows or lips twitching. He didn't want to distract her and she appreciated it.
She carried on with the story, finally getting into the more important details. There was Master Fu, Feast, the Order of the Guardians, and finally the reason for her lack of any soulmarkings. She thought she might cry again, but she must've run out of tears by then.
It was hard to tell if their shaking joined hands were due to her or him though. At the very least, when she leaned against him, he leaned back, so she knew he wasn't put off by her for whatever reason.
"...So the Order of the Guardians know where I am right now," she finished, "and since this is my destiny, they wouldn't accept it if I just quit. They'll try to find me and force me to be guardian."
"That's why you're running away," Luka noted, gaze dropped to the ground. "If they don't know where you are, they can't come after you."
"Right. It's not the best plan ever, but at least I'm taking something of mine back." She smiled sadly, aware of how depressing it was that she had to take such drastic measures. "It doesn't have to be forever either, I'll hide until I know they'll leave me alone. If they never do, then I can still do all my dreams, just... quietly, under a different name. It's not like I'm crazy about the spotlight anyway."
She clutched his hand tighter and was a little worried that it'd hurt, but Luka didn't say anything about it. He let her continue.
I'm planning on talking to Jagged Stone and Penny first. I was already in the middle of doing some work for them, so even if they can't help hide me, they deserve to know how hard things are going to be to stay in touch."
She paused, noting Luka's face. He'd tried not to react much, but he suddenly looked troubled.
He turned his head to make eye contact with her, pointing out, "And you're doing this on your own. Aren't you worried about how miserable that's going to be?"
She faltered. Of course she considered that, but him saying it out loud felt like he was scolding her.
"...It's better than staying here," was all she could argue with. "What else am I supposed to do?"
"Take me with you."
The response was so instant and unexpected that she almost didn't properly grasp it. She could only conclude that she must've heard wrong. "What? T-take who? With who?"
"I want to come with you." He adjusted his legs so he could comfortably turn to face her. Still gripping her hand, he reached over her lap to grab the other one as well. "You're my friend, Marinette, and you don't have to be alone in this."
Her heart stuttered, both horrified and touched by the thought. She shook her head, her fingers twitching as she considered pulling away but didn't. "Luka, I can't. You can't. You already have a whole life here, and maybe soulmarkings don't mean anything to you, but you still..."
Her eyes drifted down to his forearms. Though he held her hands so firmly, the soulmarkings across his arms were those he shared with his sister and mother.
That was why it further puzzled her when he chuckled at her implication. Staring wide-eyed at him, she wordlessly asked for clarification.
"You've already marked my soul yourself," he told her, bringing one of her hands closer. Positioning it against his neck, he moved her thumb so she could feel his pulse.
It was fast, and she couldn't fully determine why. Was he anxious for what they were about to do? Was he scared that she'd reject his offer? Or...
"Luka..."
A question lingered in her mind, but she didn't voice it. Their emotions were both running high and it didn't feel right to ask it in the heat of the moment.
"...Okay," she said instead. She unconsciously stroked his neck in a grateful gesture and felt his pulse pick up again, but pretended not to notice. "Come with me, please."
He nodded, smiling softly as he lowered the hand on his neck down to her lap. "I'll go get my stuff. Is Penny going to be up soon?"
"Yeah. That's what I've been waiting for, but first..."
She didn't finish, but opened her purse to reveal the tiny miraculous box.
Luka didn't comment on it, but understood. "We can meet up in front of the hotel."
"Yeah. I'll call you if anything happens."
"Me too."
The discussion ended there, and Luka pushed himself up with his free hand. His other still held Marinette's until he began walking, distance forcing them to let go of each other.
She watched him go and was about to get up herself, but remembered as her fingers touched denim, "Oh, Luka! Your jacket!"
He glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'll get it when we see each other again."
He could've easily turned around to retrieve it, but something in Marinette felt that it was like an unspoken promise: his way of confirming that he'd be with her soon. She stood up fully and hugged it to her chest, staring at Luka's back until he disappeared around a corner.
Her grip on the fabric tightened. Suddenly, she felt a little better about what they were doing.
It'll be okay, Luka's voice told her in her head, and she believed it.
——-
When the bar was already underground when it came to how Marinette felt about her luck, she supposed anything that didn't involve them dying in the streets could've passed, but things nevertheless went better than she'd expected.
Jagged and Penny had been open to keeping the two of them hidden away., thankfully. They'd owed Marinette for her work as Ladybug and Jagged was not going to let the talent he cherished be left on the streets. She could also continue to do commission work for them if she stayed close.
Also, no one would believe that someone like Jagged would be willing to deal with hiding two kids at all times. Penny did joke about actually having a "third" kid to look after, but it was obvious how she really felt about him. Jagged had also been all too eager to let Luka aboard when Marinette teased that Luka was a better guitarist than even him.
It took time to figure out the finer details, like letting them continue their education and how to ensure that Marinette's work wasn't so obviously hers, but they slowly fell into something comfortable.
Initially, Marinette had wondered if she'd made a mistake. The grass is always greener and the devil you know, and all; it was easy to wonder if the life she'd led before, hellish as it may have been, would be better than diving into something unknown.
She didn't wonder anymore. She still wasn't a normal girl with a normal life, but she got to focus on herself. It was almost strange having free time again, to the point where she had to stop herself from trying to fill it with extra work that she didn't have to do.
It made her all the more thankful for Luka being there, as he kept her from getting too lost in her own head. When her thoughts went to dark places, he'd suddenly have a new tune for her to listen to, or want to talk about anything and everything.
The worst cases were when she was doom scrolling. She'd try to seek out information on the new ladybug hero, how they were doing, and if she may have just unnecessarily burdened someone else with a job she was meant to have. Jagged, Penny, and Luka had all plucked the phone from her hands at least once because of it, and Luka in particular seemed to catch the warning signs.
Whenever she fell into a slump and couldn't find her phone, she suspected he was behind it. After all, it always conveniently reappeared again once she was feeling better, in spots she swore she'd checked multiple times.
Not once did he show any sign that he had regrets about going with her either. She knew he could still call his family whenever he wanted, but she'd waited months for him to get homesick and it never happened. Rather, he seemed happy to be there.
With every brush of their hands as they passed each other in a room, the glances to check the other's taste during meals, and the morning greetings that quickly became habit, Marinette started to understand the depth of his feelings. The modest thing to say was that she didn't know what she was doing, but he never hid what made him happiest when it came to her.
She showed genuine investment in his music, including the way he integrated it into his speech in what most saw as "odd." She contrasted his calm, quiet personality with something excitable and loud. She made him laugh in a way people wouldn't have expected out of him.
After settling into her new life, she could admit to herself that she liked him too. She'd always been aware of the big something she felt for him, but hadn't jumped to act with the whole everything she had to deal with.
Maybe it was time to change that.
——-
"Luka!" Marinette called out from the couch, legs crossed up on the cushion and her sketchbook on her lap. Her face was pink, but she simply reminded herself to breathe and kept as much cool as she could.
Footsteps sounded from behind her, light but faster than usual, and Luka popped into her view. His guitar was around his back, but he swung it to his front as he sat down next to her with a smile.
Playing a happy tune, he then asked, "What is it, Marinette?"
She'd mulled it over for days, weeks, a full month over what grand gesture she was going to pull in order to say everything she wanted to him. She got stuck on every idea, not satisfied and throwing one out after the next whilst being confused on why there was such a roadblock in the first place. It was Luka, it wasn't supposed to be complicated.
Except that was just it: they'd never needed the over-the-top or blatant to say anything to each other. Once she remembered that, it was obvious what to do.
"I'm working on a new design," she explained, her nerves making her hesitate for just a moment before showing him her sketchbook. "What do you think?"
The design itself was simple in concept, but detailed in its execution: vines snaking left and right with flowers and music notes fitting perfectly against them. It was like the flowers were growing out of the vines at the music's command.
"It's beautiful. I love the way the vines are weaving with the notes," he praised, not even taking his eyes off of it. The fact that it clearly represented them both wasn't lost on him, but the depth of its purpose escaped him. "What's it for? Are you making a new shirt?"
"No." She breathed up, mustering her courage. "It's... for a tattoo."
Luka continued staring at the design as though he hadn't heard her, but then his widening eyes found hers in a delayed reaction. What truly gave his emotions away was a startled 'twang' he accidentally plucked from his guitar, his gaze only leaving hers so he could settle his palm against the vibrating string.
He could be unexpectedly cute for such a mature guy. In the time they spent basically living together, Marinette saw so many more sides of him: his tired self with messy hair in the morning, his shyness when Jagged complimented him, and his pink cheeks whenever she caught him off guard. She loved all of it, and it only furthered her resolve in what she was doing.
She raised the sketchbook, its upper edge against her chin. Confirming what he was already putting together, she clarified, "I want to get a matching tattoo with you."
It would never be a soulmarking, and they both knew that. Soulmarkings had a magic-like vibrancy to their appearance, and thus looked noticeably different from tattoos. It wasn't about impressing anyone or making a statement to the world: it was about them, and what he said to her that day they ran away.
Luka's gaping mouth finally closed shut, and he lifted the guitar from his lap. He didn't break eye contact with her, making for a semi-clumsy attempt to set his instrument aside to free himself of it.
It was the most careless she'd ever see him be with it.
Sliding closer to her, close enough that she could notice the unsteady rise and fall of his chest, he wondered aloud, "Does it mean what I think it does?"
She beamed at him, nodding confidently. "You marked me too. Right here."
She offered her hand to him, and he almost automatically dropped his hand onto it. His other hand took the sketchbook from her, only not putting it down right away so he could look at the design again.
Once he'd properly set the sketchbook on the table, Marinette guided his hand to her neck, imitating the motion he did to her outside of the bakery. She slid his thumb into place against her pulse, making sure to look at him as she said, "I'm just sorry I made you wait."
"No," he countered immediately. His voice was breathless, still awed by her sneaky little plan, but he managed to get out, "I was never waiting. I don't care what part of our duet we're in; it's all perfect to me."
It was such a Luka response and she loved him all the more for it. She gave him her free hand in a wordless offer, and he repeated putting it against his neck.
"Are you really going to be okay with a big tattoo all over your neck?" she asked softly as they leaned towards each other.
Truthfully, it wasn't a genuine question. She had no need to doubt his feelings for her, so it was rhetorical and entirely playful.
Luka, already seeing that, had no reason not to answer her with a kiss, and the rest of the "conversation" continued without another word.
