Miracle Thieves 1
(this has nothing to do with my halloween drabbles, i just have no self-control. and apparently i can prose like Rose freaking Lalonde holy-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If one were to be honest then, for Marinette, everything started back when she was five years old. A simple dare from a new friend, one Le Chien Kim, was what may have planted the seeds, or perhaps just watered some that were already there.
The exact wording of the dare would be lost to time, but the end result was Marinette stealing the oversized hat off of another boy who would quickly round out the trio of small children, Nino Lahiffe.
It didn’t take long for the three to start stealing things from each other discreetly, or as discreetly as a five year old possibly could, as a sort of game. Of course, their parents were nowhere near as enthused about the game as the children were. It didn’t matter that the friends were only stealing from each other, or that it was a game that all three children had agreed to partake in, it was stealing, and what kind of parents allowed their children to steal from others? So, the game ended for good.
Or not.
While all three children agreed to stop their game (with much pouting), it wasn’t long before Marinette started to get an itch to continue. An urge that made her fingers twitch and her young mind race to create plans to swipe a certain hat again, or a spoon off of Kim’s plate. Being the good child she was, she told her parents about her urges. They frowned, told her she was a good girl for ignoring the urges, and to keep on ignoring them, emphasizing that stealing was wrong.
This did nothing to actually help the urges go away, and as Marinette put more effort in consciously ignoring the urges over the years, she often found herself pocketing things without even realizing she’d done so. Many times she discovered buttons, or loose change or at one time even a whole book many hours after she stole them. Of course, she felt terrible and guilty, stealing was wrong. And if she was stealing things, that made her a bad person, even if she honestly hadn’t meant to steal anything or even remembered stealing at all.
Fearing her parents judgement, of having her belief that she was a bad person confirmed by those she loved more than anything, she instead turned to the two she loved almost as much- her childhood friends. Neither Nino nor Kim understood why she had those urges either, but one of them, no one was sure who, decided to restart their childhood game. It would stay between the three of them, of course, and Marinette soon discovered that it was enough to satisfy her urge to steal. She always gave the items back, and she no longer unconsciously stole anything.
For a while.
By the time the trio had entered collège, Marinette had come to include a couple of other children in the game. Not out of malice, but a desire to include potential friends into her play, share a secret. Reactions were… mixed. Although she always gave everything back - and she was very careful to do so, always checking her bag and pockets before leaving school - many of the children she stole from still got understandably upset, and more than one told a teacher.
Marinette’s parents were called in. The looks of disappointment they gave her were crushing. Perhaps if the word kleptomania meant anything to them other than a desire to steal things, things would have turned out differently. Alas.
Still, not every classmate she had started to avoid her. Even some of the children she’d stolen from welcomed her into the group, sometimes even at the cost of a friend or two. While most children would clutch their things and shy away or slap her hands away even when she had a perfectly innocent reason to have them out, other children like the perpetually optimistic Rose, the quiet but observant Juleka, or the friendly if cautious Mylene still welcomed Marinette as a friend. Nino and Kim didn’t abandon her, either, and through the latter Marinette met Max, who eyed her a few times but never shied away or hit her. When she returned his pencil case a week after they’d met, guilty and sure she’d ruined her budding friendship with him and his already existent one with Kim, he instead nodded and thanked her for giving it back. She’d nearly cried.
However, while Marinette made friends with those who didn’t hate her for her urges, that by no means meant that every peer who chose to interact with her did so with kindness. Chloe Bourgeois was the bane of Marinette’s existence, frequently mocking Marinette for all manner or things, implying that her thieving was done because she was poor -she wasn’t, though her family was nowhere near as rich as Chloe’s-, any time anything went missing for any period of time Chloe would instantly blame Marinette, and one time she even poured juice on Marinette’s shirt on purpose and claimed it was fine because she’d steal a new one before the day was over.
Furious at the destruction of a tie-dye shirt she’d help make herself, Marinette snapped and took up Chloe’s unwitting challenge. Nino later claimed he’d given his shirt to Marinette himself, not wanting her to get in trouble again.
In the end, all Chloe had done was up the stakes on Marinette’s game, though now it was more of a hobby. Shoes vanished off people’s feet, all manner of jewelry was suddenly no longer being worn but in their owners’ pockets, shirts were swapped out of nowhere, and one time Max and Nino had gotten fairly bad headaches before realizing they were wearing each other’s glasses.
Marinette was careful not to do that again.
The teachers she had almost all looked at her with scorn for her habits. While her peers would hit her hands if they saw them out and not glued to her person, her teachers would have her turn out her pockets if they couldn’t see them. Many times they’d have her do so after each class as well. Had it not been for her friends, school would have been torture for the girl.
Then she met Ms. Bustier.
Ms. Bustier was seemingly sent from Heaven itself. She never side-eyed Marinette, or treated her like a willing criminal, and only ever asked her - asked! - if she’d stolen something if something had actually gone missing. When she found out about the ‘game’ between Marinette and her friends -which now included one Ivan Bruel, one Alix Kubdel, and one Nathaniel Kurtzburg, the latter two having joined the game by teaming up to steal from Marinette - she was delighted at the fact that Marinette had an ‘outlet’ for her urges, instead of punishing the children. She’d even possibly given permission for Marinette to steal things off of her desk, although Marinette wasn’t sure of that and did everything in her power to avoid doing so.
All of that, however, was merely sowing the seeds of what was to come.
One day, near the end of the school year, there was a call for Marinette to go to the principal’s office. Chloe, naturally, made a snide remark about Marinette’s ‘hobby’, asking what she’d stolen this time, which Marinette forced herself to try and ignore. When she arrived, tears pricking in her eyes as Chloe’s words rang around inside her head - she hadn’t managed to ignore her after all - she found she wasn’t in trouble at all. She did, however, still start crying.
Marinette didn’t show up the next day. Or the day after. The day after that, though, she did return, even more subdued and withdrawn than usual. It was Sabrina, Chloe’s new ‘friend’ and the daughter of a police officer, who asked what she was doing out of jail. Marinette, stressed and on edge, burst into tears, and Chloe and Sabrina hastily backed away as several of her friends rushed to her side. From there, everyone found out what had happened.
An accident in the bakery had landed her father a spot in the hospital. Possibly for good.
Chloe had, naturally, been unsympathetic. Annoyed at not being the center of attention after a few minutes, she insisted in shoving her new, solid gold bracelet in everyone’s faces. Well, almost everyone’s. When she’d started reaching towards Marinette her hand suddenly snapped back, before she gave a mocking quip about how Marinette would probably just steal it to pay for her dad’s hospital stay.
Unbeknownst to Chloe, Marinette, who was at least partially convinced of her own terribleness for her constant thievery, had actually considered stealing for a similar reason for the first time yesterday. The accident in the bakery had not only put her father in the hospital, but had put the bakery itself in danger as well. Marinette had physically helped with the bakery, but that didn’t solve the money crisis that had sprung up in the wake of the accident and while Marinette would happily have given her parents a loan if they’d let her, her last commission had resulted in her getting ripped off, with no money coming to her at all. The only thing that had stopped her from stealing something from someone intentionally was the crushing uncertainty of whether or not any potential targets were in a similar boat. She didn’t, couldn’t know everyone’s story. Someone who seemed to be doing great financially might actually be in the same boat, just hiding it better.
Chloe, however…
It was a fight with her conscience and all the repeated lectures of how stealing was wrong against her desperation and belief that she was already just a dirty thief anyway the entire day. In the end, her desperation won.
Chloe, upon realizing her bracelet was missing, naturally threw a fit and blamed Marinette. Marinette didn’t trust her conscience to let her lie when Ms. Bustier asked her if she stole the bracelet, but before the teacher even had a chance Chloe threatened to call her father if Marinette didn’t empty her pockets and bag and everything else right then and there. Full of dread Marinette did as she was asked, and found the bracelet missing. Chloe continued to pitch a fit, but more and more of Marinette’s belongings were searched and it wasn’t found.
Marinette was on the edge of being unable to breathe when she saw the reflection of gold back in her bag. Confused and still panicking, she found the bracelet back in her bag, with a note attached. The note had said that the writer knew Marinette wouldn’t usually steal for real, but desperate times called for desperate measures and if there actually was anyone in class who deserved to be stolen from, it was Chloe.
Theft had never been a huge thing for Nino, and Chloe was a terrible person anyway. People’s morality can be incredibly black and white at times.
Though she felt guilty at having turned Nino into and accomplice for her theft, even if she hadn’t known he was for hours, she was grateful as well. With any luck the money from pawning the bracelet would help the bakery and her budding business both get back on their feet. Internally, Marinette vowed never to do anything like this again.
But the promises she made solely to herself had always been the hardest to keep. Time and time again, Marinette felt the urge to steal and while her ‘thefts’ at school helped, she started to crave more of a challenge. There were times when she’d look at Chloe’s extravagant hotel with it’s rich patrons, or find herself looking at the richer neighborhoods nearby online, and fantasize and plan.
She was just a dirty thief, anyway. It was only a matter of time before she acted on her urges, went through with one of her plans. She was just a greedy, awful thief.
The first time she went out in disguise, she vowed never to do so again as she slipped the stolen jewels into the police station to be returned.
The second time, she didn’t bother making any such false promises.
The third time, she actually had some fun.
The tenth time, she gained a pair of magical earrings and a partner.
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