Marinette's dream job designing Gabriel Agreste's Christmas windows turns complicated when she's forced to work with Adrien Agreste - the boy she's never forgiven for a collège prank.
Over twenty-five nights of late-night displays, grudges fade, sparks fly and secrets come to light, including an unexpected identity that changes everything.
As sabotage threatens her work and her world, Marinette must choose: follow her head with her steady boyfriend, Luka, or her heart with the one who got away.
Some of us are still out there writing and we need the support from the fandom more than ever! Share with your friends, your family, your Miraculous obsessed neighbour…we are craving the interactions!
Requests: I’m dying for more dad shohei!!!!!! Please more dad shohei; Can you write about arguments with Shohei maybe due to cultural differences or anything in general. But can there be a happy ending?; imagine dad shohei angry!! Like maybe you were looking and your child got injured. Or maybe someone said something to or about your child! He would be SO DEFENSIVE
A/N: Hi everyone, I'm back! I'm sorry for my prolonged absence, but school is insane. I'm working on getting caught up on requests and I combined these three together for this one. It's so cute and I hope you guys enjoy. I'll open requests back up as soon as I'm able. Thanks guys!!
Word Count: 1.6k+
Being a parent was not an easy job. You never thought it was, but there were certain times where it was more difficult than it needed to be. You loved being a mom, it came to you like second nature at this point, but you and your husband, Shohei, had different ideas about raising your kids every once in a while. That was especially true when it came to sports.
You and Shohei had two beautiful children together and as they grew older and started to take on more, you were worried about putting too much pressure on them to overperform. Shohei had been coaching your son in baseball since before he could even walk and your son loved it, but he was also extremely bright and was in almost all AP courses at his school.
Your daughter had been in softball most of her life too, but given she was only in middle school you were worried about her getting burnt out too quickly like you could see happening with your son.
It was late one night and you and Shohei worked on cleaning the kitchen after a quick dinner before rushing the kids off to practice, getting them home and getting them another snack, having them finish their homework, and get off to bed at nearly midnight.
“I meant to tell you that Daphne’s coach came up to me at practice tonight,” Shohei said as he put the tupperware with leftovers into the fridge. “Oh yeah. About what?” You sighed as you loaded the dishwasher.
“He thinks that she’s gonna make varsity if she continues on this route. She’s performing two years above her age group. She’s doing so good. If we up her practice another day a week she’ll be golden. Colleges will be looking at her when she’s a freshman,” you could hear the excitement in his voice as he continued to go on about what needed to be done.
You cut him off, turning around and leaning on the counter as you spoke. “Babe. I think we need to take a second here and listen to what you’re saying,” you chuckled as he stopped wiping the counters down, facing you, brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
You crossed your arms over your chest. “Daphne is already practicing three times a week and doing conditioning another two days. That’s only giving her two days off a week, honey. If we up her practice another day she’ll have one day off a week,” he rolled his eyes, continuing back with his task as he stuffed a roll in his mouth before talking again.
“Kenzo is going six days a week and he’s fine,” your eyes bugged out at Shohei’s words. “What? What do you mean he’s going six days a week?” Shohei swore under his breath at the admission he just gave out. You crossed the kitchen towards him, standing directly in front of him.
“Shohei! Our kids are not machines! They need to rest. Kenzo is in five advanced courses and in a club at school and playing baseball every spare second he has. Have you seen how tired he’s been lately? I’m worried about him and I find out you’ve upped his play and training time to six days a week? What the hell are you thinking?” You didn’t realize that as you continued talking that your voice was rising and you were progressively getting angrier.
“So what are you saying? That I’m a horrible dad for having him do this? If he wants to go far with baseball like he says then this is what he has to do. This is what I did!” You rolled your eyes, looking up at your husband's towering figure. “Now you’re putting words in my mouth. I never said you were a bad parent. I understand that this is what you did, but our kids are not you and I will not put this much pressure on them. You need to take a step back and look at how your kids are handling this. Have you seen Daphne’s grades lately?”
He took a step back from you, running a hand through his hair, shaking his head at your question. “No,” was all he muttered out as you continued your speech. “She’s almost failing two courses. She has missing assignments in every single class. I watch her do her homework every night and she’s playing catch up in every class. We cannot up her another day. I wanted to talk to you and her about sitting out this next season to get her grades back up.”
His eyes went wide and he shook his head, arms crossed over his chest. “She is not skipping a season. Do you know what that’ll do to her game? I’ll talk to her about her school work. Her skipping is not an option. She loves the game,” before Shohei could continue you went to cut him off, but he held his hand up, stopping you.
“Okay, so I’ll be the bad guy in all this. I’m just the bad dad that doesn’t care about our kids,” you groaned, putting your head in your hands, but before you could respond Shohei went upstairs and closed the door to the guest room.
You two had hardly spoken to each other in a week. You moved around each other in silence and the kids could sense something was going on. You caught the glances they would throw at one another, asking if either of them knew what was going on, to which the other would shrug.
Neither you nor Shohei made an effort to speak to the other and when you got a call from Kenzo’s guidance counselor wanting to speak to you two, you knew it wasn’t going to be good. The drive to the school was silent and when you sat down in her office, she smiled making small talk before bringing up the topic.
“Has everything been okay at home with Kenzo? I know he has a lot on his plate right now with all his AP’s and baseball. Is he resting enough? Eating enough?” You sighed at the questions, Shohei growing irritated at the topic.
“He’s been staying up very late to get his homework done. He’s at practice from almost right after school to seven. We make sure he’s eating, but he’s constantly growing. Why? Is everything okay?” She nodded her head, listening to you before continuing.
“He’s been falling asleep in a couple of his classes. I don’t think he’s sleeping enough. I think maybe he should cut back on baseball one or two days a week. I know he goes to the optional practices and maybe he can sit one of those out a week,” you agreed, glancing over at your husband to see how upset he looked.
You thanked her on your way out, Shohei lacing his hand with yours on the way to the car, opening the door for you. When he stepped in, he covered his face with his hands and spoke to you for the first time in a week. “I’ve pushed him too much. He’s sleeping at school. What the hell’s wrong with me?”
You rubbed his back, taking one of his hands and kissing it. “No, baby. You want what’s best for them. Do you have any idea how much the kids love you? So many kids wish they had a dad like you. We just need to ease up on Kenzo a bit,” he sighed, taking your hands in his, bringing them to his lips.
“Daphne needs to skip this next season. Her grades need to come first,” he mumbled against your knuckles. You nodded your head and smiled at him. “We’ll talk to them tonight, okay?” He smiled, bringing you to him to kiss you.
After cutting Kenzo back to only four days a week he was feeling immensely better. Daphne understood why she needed to skip out on a season, she wasn’t happy about it, but agreed that once she got her grades up that she could play again.
You sat in the bleachers, Daphne leaning against you, Shohei on your other side, hands laced together, watching another game for Kenzo. At this school there weren't separate bleachers for the home and away teams so you sat mixed in with all the parents from both schools.
An idiot further up on the bleachers wouldn’t keep his mouth shut about his son and how he was playing every single day of the week. When your son's team would come up to bat, he was the first to start yelling bad things. Shohei was growing more and more irritated with the guy, talking with the other dads about their son’s when he said something about Kenzo.
“Look at this dope! Do you even play ball kid? I feel bad for the dad that has to watch their son play like this,” he started laughing, but before he could say anything else, Shohei stood up, walking up the bleachers to where the other dad sat.
He crouched down, getting to the man's level, speaking under his breath. You watched as his smile slowly fell as Shohei smiled at him, patting his knee and walking back to where you were sitting.
“What’d you say to him?” You eyed the man as he leaned back against the top of the bleachers, not uttering another peep for the remainder of the game. Shohei kissed your temple, shrugging as he turned his attention back to the game.
“No one says shit about my kids and gets away with it. We won’t be hearing from him for a while,” you smiled as Shohei winked at you, hand resting on your knee and Daphne laughed. You loved your family and you couldn’t believe how lucky you were to have Shohei by your side.
I cannot wait to unleash my Ladynoir July fic!!! Totally inspired by @art-the-f-up Married Ladynoir au
Have a snippet because I love it and I love them:
‘But you don’t know his name, Marinette.’
She rolled her eyes, barely holding it together, her energy pulled tight just to stay calm.
‘No, I don’t know his name. But here’s what I do know.
I know I love him—and he loves me, fiercely. He’s brilliant, driven, unwavering. He challenges me, believes in me, stands by me like no one else ever has. And right now? He’s out there making sure our future—our home—is everything we’ve dreamed of.
I know he’d choose chocolate over sweets any day, and ice cream over croissants without hesitation. He has five names and only tolerates one. He’s stepping into a job he despises, because it’s the family business, and he’d walk through fire for the people he loves.
He wants a family—three, maybe four kids—but the thought of seeing me in pain terrifies him. He’s wealthy, yes, but only spends what he earns, not what’s been handed to him. He went to university in London not just for the academics, but to prove he could stand on his own.
He keeps a little notepad where he ranks Akuma villains by outfit and renames them all—better names, smarter ones. And he hates being late so much that every clock in his house runs ten minutes fast.
So no—I may not know his name. But I know him. And that’s enough.’
Her chest heaved when she’d finished, Alya remaining frozen, staring at her.
‘Wow!’ Was all Alya said. Marinette collapsing down onto her friend's bed her body drained of fight.
I’m excited to give you a teaser of my @mlbigbang2024 fic releasing 5th January 2025.
It’s with great pleasure, I announce my collaborator for this year @verabraun-art, and I would like to give a huge shout out to my wonderful beta @uptoolateart for helping me on this journey once again (especially after revealing my idea this year)
Relationship: Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Adrien Agreste, Adrien Agreste/Original Character
Tags: Dystopian fantasy, dystopian romance, post season 6, past Adrinette Relationship, Identities are known to most, Greek Mythology, PTSD, Mental Health Rep FMC, Sentibeings, most the cats are here to play, Ladybug in many forms, True Love Wins
Rated: M (Young Adult themes: violence, drug use, alcoholism)
Blurb:
The world Marinette once knew is gone. She now lives in a city shrouded in fear, where a shadowed government enforces strict order and the names Ladybug and Chat Noir are whispered in hatred. Once celebrated as heroes, they are now vilified as traitors who abandoned Paris in its darkest hour.
Unbeknownst to Marinette, something terrifying has been released, plunging Paris into chaos. With this new evil spreading like poison and humanity bending under strict government control, hope is nearly lost.
Then there’s that boy. And as she’s drawn into his world of cryptic truths and dangerous rebellion, Marinette begins to uncover fragments of the past—and the powerful role she once played in protecting the world.
Time is running out. To succeed, Marinette must rediscover not only the hero she was but the person she is meant to become. Yet as the darkness tightens its grip, the question looms: can she trust her new masked allies, or is he the one secret that will break her?
The battle begins again, but this time, the stakes are higher than ever.
Snippet:
In the deathly quiet labyrinth of Parisian streets, her heartbeat sounded like a countdown. Each throb magnified the anxiety coursing through her veins as she made her escape.
The air was thick and cool, blanketing her as she navigated a seemingly endless maze bathed in darkness. Each footfall echoed softly, swallowed by the oppressive silence that surrounded her. The buildings, towering and ancient, were rough to the touch, their cold stone damp with unseen moisture as her fingertips dragged against the uneven surface.
Her path was shrouded in shadow, the way forward obscured by an inky blackness that pressed in from all sides. She moved slowly, cautiously, each step taking her deeper into what felt like an otherworldly realm. The darkness was disorienting, and the streets seemed to shift subtly around her, as if alive and aware of her presence.
Then, in the distance, a faint glimmer caught her eye.
A soft, purple light pulsed gently, beckoning her forward. The only beacon in this void. A surreal, dreamlike glow that promised some semblance of direction amidst the disarray.
Drawn to the light, she navigated the twists and turns of the narrow alleyways, each corner revealing new passages. Its allure irresistible, the light remained ever-elusive, flickering just out of reach. It cast long, eerie shadows that danced upon the cobblestone streets, creating fleeting shapes that seemed to move and shift in the corner of her vision.
A voice called her name, and she gasped. The sound surrounded her, growing louder and clearer with every step she took.
She hurried forward. As she approached, the purple light grew stronger, its luminescence revealing the intricate patterns of old graffiti and weathered facades—symbols, animals and marks that pulsed with a faint, ethereal energy. The air grew colder, and a chill ran down her spine, but she pressed on, driven by a sense of inevitability.
The city’s oppressive darkness contrasted starkly with the otherworldly light, creating an atmosphere of surreal tension. The path narrowed, and the buildings seemed to close in around her, yet the light grew ever brighter, pulling her forward with an almost hypnotic force.
Finally, she turned a corner and the source of the light was revealed—a glowing, amethyst crystal, suspended in mid-air above a forgotten courtyard, radiating a serene yet unsettling light. It cast the entire space in a mystical purple glow, illuminating the area in a dreamlike haze. The crystal hummed softly, its resonance vibrating through the air, filling the space with an almost sentient presence.
In this moment, surrounded by the cold stone walls and purple aura, reality felt distant and fragmented, as if she had stepped into a dream that teetered on the edge of a nightmare. The labyrinth still loomed behind her, but the light offered a strange, comforting allure—a promise of answers, or perhaps more questions, just beyond the reach of the waking world.
But as she reached out to touch it, a wave of despair washed over her. The light dimmed, its once comforting glow now flickering like a dying flame. The symbols on the walls seemed to writhe, their meanings obscured and twisted. The cold seeped deeper into her bones, and the air grew heavy with a palpable sense of loss.
In the eerie silence, the realisation settled over her like a shroud: hope was lost. The light that once beckoned her forward was now a haunting reminder of what could never be reached. The maze of Paris streets, with its ever-shifting paths and encroaching darkness, had consumed her, leaving her adrift in an endless night.
But as she tried to gain her boundaries, amongst the fear growing and consuming her, she realised something else.
But he couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t just her eyes—those vivid blue pools that seemed to hold all the beauty of the sky and the sea—it was everything about her. It was the way her black hair fell like a cascade of midnight, framing her face with such elegance that it looked like a masterpiece made by the universe itself. The soft curve of her cheek, the graceful line of her jaw, and the gentle, almost wistful way her lips would part when she smiled. There was a quiet magic in the way she moved, an effortless grace that made every moment feel like it had been spun from a dream.
But the main reason he couldn’t stop staring was because sometimes she stared back, and in those moments, it felt like nothing else mattered.
