Wishing a miraculous Christmas to @inkdrohp; surprise! I’m your @mlsecretsanta writer!
I’m working on a multi-part fic for you, and here is the first chapter. I may have veered just ever so slightly off the Ghibli AU path, but I hope this is a reference you’ll enjoy :)
Marinette’s plan worked like a charm. In just another minute, she and her partner, Nathaniel, would be out the door and on their way to fulfill their wildest dreams. Well, all the dreams after being ridiculously wealthy. That was being accomplished right. now.
She checked her watch, a habit which forced her to set down not one but two of the several very large bags of cash she was dragging behind her.
“C’mon, Mar. We’ll have time for watches later,” her redhaired accomplice groaned from behind.
“Don’t want to miss the rush hour traffic,” Marinette quipped back. Nathaniel rolled his eyes, just slightly, as he threw open the trunk of their small yellow escape vehicle and began shoving in parcel after parcel of cool, green cash.
Marinette stepped around him and lifted her bags over her head. With the steady hands of a master thief, she slid open the Fiat’s sunroof and made a rather large deposit: money poured into the car in waves. Soon the back seat was filled to the brim, and Nathaniel was slamming the trunk closed.
He grabbed the keys from Marinette, whose last bag of cash was still emptying into the car through the roof. Another eye roll, then he started the car.
“Let’s go. This alarm is giving me a headache,” Nathaniel called.
“Just another… there,” Marinette said with satisfaction. She reached for the passenger door handle — then looked through the window and thought better of it. The bills had flooded the floorboard and would likely fall out. In an impressive show of acrobatics, Marinette dived through the still-open sun roof and Nathaniel, not waiting for her any longer, peeled out of the casino and onto those famous Monte Carlo streets.
Any space not filled by the sea of green soon overflowed with laughter, hearty and melodic in turns, as Marinette and Nathaniel celebrated their victory in alternating chants of “We’re rich!” and “We did it!”
Marinette had secured the roof, sealing away their loot as Nathaniel focused on the road ahead, swerving skillfully around cramped traffic on the busy highway, darting towards the Monaco border. It had been his idea to time their escape with rush hour, to ensure a more difficult pursuit for any law enforcement that found them, but so far, there was no chase. Their plan had really been flawless.
Marinette peeled off her gloves to better celebrate their heist. She picked up large handfuls of cash and tossed them about. Nathaniel chuckled.
“That’s enough, Scrooge. It’s not a swimming pool.”
Marinette was silent. Nathaniel glanced over to see a thin frown formed on Marinette’s lips.
“They’re goat bills,” she said.
“They’re fake. We ripped off funny money from the casino.”
The car was silent for a moment.
“Nathaniel, I’ve found our next job,” Marinette announced finally.
“Then I guess we should celebrate,” he said, and with a smirk, Nathaniel opened the sun roof and windows and began shoveling the fake bills out of the car.
Marinette joined in, and green clouds billowed out behind them into traffic as their Fiat sped towards their next target.
If Nathaniel questioned Marinette’s plan, he was certainly silent on it. It’s one of the things she loved about working with him.
What she didn’t love was how unnaturally good he was at Rock, Paper, Scissors. Their main method of deciding who did the, uh — whatever it was at the time neither wanted to do — seemed unfairly slanted in his favor, and Marinette nearly always found herself on the losing end of the match. Last week, Marinette had to fish a dropped gem out of a public bathroom toilet, last cleaned never. Today, Marinette was begrudgingly changing a flat tire.
As she tightened the last bolt on the spare, and swore to find a new method of tie-breaking for next time, the peaceful quiet — Nathaniel’s words, not hers — of the Duchy of Cagliostro countryside was interrupted by screeching tires. Both criminals leapt to their feet.
A maroon car was squealing down the road towards them, guided by a nervous-looking blonde man dressed to the nines. Marinette and Nathaniel had little time to stare at the elaborately dressed man, because a second car was not far behind — this one filled with huge, angry men, clearly in pursuit.
“What the hell?” Nathaniel murmured, but Marinette was already on the move.
“Get in!” she yelled before vaulting through the sunroof into the driver’s seat. The car roared to life and was already moving before Nathaniel could clamber inside. He managed to pull in the rest of their gear before the speed of Marinette’s driving forced Nathaniel down in his seat.
Leaving the fields behind, Marinette followed the other two cars onto a narrow mountain passage. They gained on the others, who were now driving side by side, or rather, side on side. The car full of men was scraping against the other car, forcing tuxedo-man’s vehicle into the left guardrail.
“Which one are we chasing?” Nathaniel asked his partner.
Nathaniel’s sarcastic look was interrupted by the front bumper of tuxedo-man’s car, which bounced onto the road in front of them before flying up to hit the Fiat’s hood. Marinette and Nathaniel yelled in surprise.
They quickly recovered, however, and Nathaniel stood up in his seat to lean out the sunroof with a handgun. He took aim for the large car’s back tire. No luck; both vehicles split to reveal an oncoming bus!
Marinette turned the steering wheel sharply, narrowly avoiding a collision. She had to slow down to regain control of the car. The two red cars pulled ahead, with Tuxedo-man now in the lead once more.
“Hold on,” Marinette told Nathaniel as she increased the speed again. Their yellow car nearly flew over a small hill. Nathaniel was in range of the tires again. He aimed — and strunk perfectly — but the tires were bulletproof.
“Those aren’t standard-issue,” Nathaniel complained. Marinette was too busy screaming to hear the rest; a man from the larger car had tossed out a grenade.
Marinette swerved around one grenade, then two. The third exploded just close enough to crack their windshield and fill the car with smoke.
They punched out the windshield so they could see again.
“Finally, some excitement,” Nathaniel laughed. Marinette smiled, too. She hadn’t spent years of thieving to be thrown off in a high-speed chase.
“Here we go,” she said, and she drove the car onto the side wall of the mountain. They soon found themselves on the ledge above the road, smashing through underbrush and avoiding full trees. Nathaniel already missed the windshield.
When their car emerged from their wooded shortcut, they had outpaced the other cars. Marinette pulled the car back onto the muddy hillside, and Nathaniel readied a sturdier weapon. The gang pulled out more weapons of their own, but Nathaniel was faster. A critical hit on the front right wheel sent the men spinning back down the mountain road. Nathaniel cheered.
Marinette slowed down now, matching the pace of tuxedo-man’s car. But the man kept driving, clearly shaken by the chase.
“Hey,” Marinette called to the man. She honked her horn a few times. Still no response.
“Hello?” she tried again. She pulled up next to the car and finally saw it: the man had passed out at the wheel, foot still stuck to the gas pedal.
Marinette’s car was back on the chase, but now to stop the driver, whose car showed fewer signs of stopping than of simply falling apart.
His car coming apart was confirmed by Nathaniel, who caught one of its headlight when a side panel flew off the car towards them.
“Take the wheel,” Marinette barked, and she prepared to jump. She pulled herself onto their car roof, and Nathaniel slid into the driver’s seat. He pulled them closer to the maroon vehicle, and she made the leap.
Marinette grabbed the steering wheel just in time to avoid a tractor parked in the road, but she couldn’t reach the brakes. The maroon car scrapes the side and loses a wheel. Nathaniel and the yellow car are right behind, with more effective brakes but less steering. He hits the tractor and loses sight of Marinette.
Meanwhile, Marinette was scrambling. Her vision is blocked by the hood of the car, now stuck up and dented. She tried to stop the car and talk to tuxedo-man at the same time.
“You’re... safe... now,” she said, as much to herself as to him, pushing desperately on the hood. Instead of returning down, however, the hood flew off, hitting Marinette in the process.
Another tire blew next, but the brakes have stopped working entirely.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Marinette screamed at the car.
Her command was less effective than the brakes. The only choice was to slip slowly towards the cliff. Marinette reached for her grappling hook and prayed for a miracle.
Holding tightly to the rope and to the man in the tuxedo, Marinette dangled above the sea and its many sharp rocks.
The car was a necessary casualty. It splashed into the water and sank quickly. Marinette tried not to think of the water below. She held firmly to the rope, trusting Nathaniel would arrive soon.
Meanwhile, Marinette looked at the man she had rescued. He appeared to be early twenties, not much younger than herself. He was handsome, too. Not a bad catch, she laughed to herself.
As she was staring, wondering about who he was and what he had been running from, Marinette strengthened her hold on the man. He was waking up, and she was worried he might panic.
Instead, she should have worried he would fight. A sharp hit to her face followed the first flickers of his green eyes. He struggled to get away from her; she struggled to keep hold of him, and the rope.
“Look down!” Marinette yelled. “You’ll make us fall.”
Tuxedo man must have a fear of heights. He could not suppress a whimper.
“OK, good, stay like that,” Marinette coaxed as she adjusted the grappling hook. He held more tightly to her as she let out more rope, slowly lowering them to the rocky shore below.
When they were still several feet up, however, the branch holding them gave out. Marinette had no choice but to drop, and so she fell, holding onto the blonde man in hopes of cushioning his fall at least. They hit the ground hard.
Now it was the man’s turn to discover Marinette unconscious.
“Are you all right?” He asked, worry saturating his voice.
Marinette did not wake up. The man pulled off one glove and soaked it with sea water, dabbing at her face. She began to stir.
“You’ll be OK,” he wished aloud, trying to coax her awake. But time was running out for him; a boat on the horizon betrayed the arrival of more men and women in pursuit.
“I gotta go,” he said sadly, leaving his glove on Marinette’s forehead with one last kind touch. He could not stay to face these men. His rescuer must understand.
But the boat picked up speed, and he soon found himself trapped. The shore left him exposed to the boat, and sheer rock cliff was unassailable. He ran towards an opening among trees where he could possibly hide, but he was too slow. The woman at the front of the boat called out.
Soon after, Nathaniel discovered Marinette, now lying on the shore alone.
“Marinette! I thought I’d lost you,” he cried, in a rare display of emotion.
“Where is he?” she asked, sitting up. The man’s glove fell into her lap, but she hardly noticed.
Nathaniel pointed at the now distant boat.
“Guess he got a better offer.”
“No!” Marinette clenched her fist around the glove in anger. Then she examined the glove.
“Who were those guys?” asked Nathaniel. Marinette didn’t answer. She turned up the glove, and a signet ring fell out: silver and smooth except for a small ensignia at the top.
“Whoa, it’s a ring,” Nathaniel exclaimed.
“I know I’ve seen this somewhe—” Marinette cuts herself off. It was so long ago. Could it be the same ring?
