A tea party in the constellations

I write things and sometimes I try to draw

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“Did you never get to decide what to have for dinner?” “No?” she looks upset at his answer, and he elaborates. “We always had delicious food, and if we were eating with other people, my parents were always really strict about eating what I was served. I saw this film once, where there was cake for breakfast to celebrate a birthday. I remember asking for that, but we had it for dessert anyway. And now I can finally decide for myself what to eat, always.” “There are lots of things you can have for breakfast that are healthy. Cake is for treats, and you shouldn’t have treats in place of a real meal. That makes them less special. Eating well is part of taking care of yourself.” He sighs. “I know. I don’t think having cake for breakfast would make my life all that much better, in the end. It just sounds fun. And naughty. My dad would’ve never let me, not even once.” Marinette turns back to watch the sky, and after a while she says, “I’ll bake you a cake for breakfast every birthday. You can choose which one, and I’ll bake it for you. If I don’t know how, I’ll ask Papa to teach me. And we can have cake tomorrow. Getting married is supposed to be a big celebration too, right? So tomorrow, we’ll have cake for breakfast.” “What else are we going to do tomorrow?” “Whatever we want to do. It’s more than a month until school starts. Until then, we can do anything.” “And after school, we can do anything.” “And today?” “Right now, I just want to be right here with you.” Little wishes are easily granted.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“The public nature of the current investigation of your father is of course impossible to overlook, but until there has been a guilty verdict by the legal instances responsible, his being under investigation is not itself an argument for the Republic to ignore his opinion on the matter. Please present Mr. Agreste with the proposal. In case of his refusal, we might reconsider if he is indeed tried and found guilty for the crimes for which he is currently-” “Are you saying no?!” It’s very much not the adult thing to do, probably, to stand up and interrupt the lady representing the laws of the Republic when your main argument is that the man in question broke them. The lady frowns. “Miss Dupain-Cheng, Mr. Agreste is still a minor and his father is not yet a criminal, even if the accusations against him seem undeniable. Assuming he would refuse is not an argument for liberating him of his rights and responsibilities as a parent. If he is tried and found innocent, Mr. Agreste will be under his custody still.” She closes the dossier with emphasis. Marinette’s brain says that there’s no way, not with all the evidence, not with all the testimony, not when they found his wife, but Marinette’s gut reminds her of every rude word she saw accepted because he’s famous, every unreasonable demand that no-one protested because he’s rich, every rule Chloé Bourgeois got away with breaking because of her father’s name. The idea that Adrien might be back in that house, with that man, is enough to make Marinette swallow nausea because what if there is a way to find reasonable doubt for the lawyers Gabriel Agreste’s money could buy and the lawmakers it could intimidate. “There is one thing,” she says before she before she even has the time to finish thinking it, and stares the woman down in a way that isn’t at all like her, but a second nature.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

In real life, marriage is bureaucracy. There are applications to be written, forms to be filled out, lawyers on phones and lawyers writing e-mails and lawyers writing formal letters to other lawyers. Adrien’s aunt and her parents in long conversations about money and house rules are an absurdity, unimportant details, but details she’ll accept if that’s what it takes for her to keep him. Adrien, still just a bit uncharacteristically high-strung when he is officially over, but forgetting it after four minutes in Papa’s company, every time. Their last day of college, to which Adrien is allowed under a lot of planning and hush-hush and the escort of a police officer with a gun belt under her blazer, and only to meet the class one last time before autumn finds them in some five different lycés. Coming up with the official story for why Adrien will be living with her, the not-even-half-of-the-truth she has to tell Alya and to which Alya is hypocritically sworn to secrecy until after summer break but which she does get to tell Nino and which by his excitement may or may not be shared with the cousins whose room he shares for the summer (Nino, after being told to keep it down by both his friends in Paris and the family in Meknes, swears up and down that neither of the two speak any French worth talking about and they’re more into footballers than models, no offence) Paris breaks out into high summer, and with no supervillains and no school and with friends scattered across family visits and holidays and their first part time jobs, her days slow down into a numb limbo of things she can’t tell her friends, things she can’t tell her parents, things Adrien probably isn’t supposed to tell her but him not telling her is on all levels impossible. She wakes up at ten and spends her days doing nothing but waiting for word that the court hearing has a date. She sees the police as Ladybug and then texts Adrien that they’re asking for Cat Noir.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

She's rambling. Two days of playing the grown-up who knows what she's doing when she's talking about the aftermath of fighting a super villain, and talking to her parents is somehow the most difficult part of all of it and this is the time when she MOST needs to show them that she's serious and mature and have considered the consequences of her actions. As the silence draws out she's not at all sure this is any better than the unfiltered thoughts she just unleashed on them. But here is the crux of it: that there isn’t any explanation that will make this idea seem reasonable except for the truth, and the truth is the one thing she isn’t allowed to tell them. She's fifteen and she's asking to get married to a boy who she's never even gone on a date with, because if else he's going to move abroad. If she were her parents, she wouldn't agree to that either. "It's really important." Papa shifts in his seat. "Well," he says, "I wasn't expecting this talk until you were at least old enough to threaten to elope."

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“Don’t say that name.” “It’s yours.” “It’s his.” “It’s thousands of people’s!” “I don’t want anything he gave to me.” “Kitty, he gave you half of your genes. You don’t have to ever meet him again, but you can’t stop that. And the most important person in my life, he wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Gabriel Agreste.” “I’m gonna change all my names.” “I love all your names.” “How do you even know, Nino promised-“ “The May 2014 issue of Closer Teen. That beret was from me, by the way, I don’t even know if there is a fanclub in Brazil. Athanase. I’m not sorry I lied, I had to save the world. I’ll get you something better for September 26th.” “That’s a very random date.” “It’s your third name’s day. Do you know where the name comes from? It’s not from him, just because he has it too.” “Of course I do, it’s from the Bible.” “It means ‘hero’.” “Marinette, you don’t have to make things up to make me feel better about it.”

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Adrien Agreste cannot run like Cat Noir. Still, it is thanks to Cat Noir’s countless treks across every rooftop of the central arrondissements that he finds his way home now. Hawkmoth and Mayura have left the Paris a war zone, its citizens either hiding or sleeping. The streets are empty but for one single, stupid teenage boy making his way in the opposite direction of where the battle ended. Adrien Agreste does not have Cat Noir’s stamina and he hasn’t slept at all tonight, but needs must. There is so very much wrong and so very little he can do to fix any of it, but there is one thing that only Adrien Agreste can do. So he runs himself winded and aching in the streets still eerily quiet in the early, early morning, praying with every heave of air that the police will at least leave Hawkmoth’s identity unnamed until there is an official charge brought against him, will at least have the discretion of not showing up at his door before that. And in this, if nothing else, the goddess of luck smiles upon him. The iron gates of the mansion are still closed, and he needs to do little more than round the corner to the old servant’s entrance and raise his phone with the chip. The silence of the house is familiar, but today, Adrien knows that it is because it is truly empty. There’s no Nathalie to burst through the doors, no father skulking around his office, and the staff wouldn’t come in before six thirty. Adrien doesn’t need to mind to keep his steps soft, doesn’t need to knock the door to beg for his father’s attention. It’s natural for a boy to open the doors to his father’s study, isn’t it? So Adrien does, but he picks up a sample of Italian silk on his way towards the looming Klimt pastiche of his mother. She’s probably in the mansion, somewhere, she’s got to be. But Adrien isn’t supposed to know that, and Adrien is too much of a coward to go looking for his mother’s undead and unburied corpse. What Adrien can do is the thing that he does know and that Cat Noir doesn’t – namely that his dad hides stuff behind the portrait.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“What happened to your face?” “I called Inukashi fat.” “Really,” Shion’s voice was flatly unconvinced, and he touched the red cheek with the back of his fingers. “There might also have been some veiled comments about parenthood.” “I’m not even going to try and reason that one.” “Don’t worry, we didn’t let your mama see.” He reached up to take Shion’s hand, and tightened his grip when Shion started to pull back. Once upon a time, Shion had made a half-sensible, strange confession. Nezumi’s reply had been to mock him for it, part amused by Shion’s silly crush, part annoyed by the dumb way he chose to phrase it, and a part of him had lit up, a part of him that he firmly told that this juvenile bullshit was something for which his life had no place. I’m drawn to you, Shion had said, yet the only thing that ever came out of it was a cowardly, hateful kiss that meant nothing of the sort. But Shion was letting him hold his hand, and that tiny act had long since said everything he was trying to put into words. It was one thing to make fun of a confused boy who couldn’t tell that a girl was trying to confess to him before she spelled it out. Telling him that he was the closest thing you had to the things you didn’t think you’d ever get to have was a different burden entirely. A slice of cake and a knitted sweater might’ve been enough to seal the fate of a fugitive child, but that was, inescapably, not how it worked between adults. Shion had shifted his hand so that his thumb was free, and it was stroking Nezumi’s skin in light circles that echoed to the marrow of his bones.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

It feels inescapably self-centred that it is on her own heart she dwells, but if this day has taught her anything, it is to bear the agony of waiting. Lingering on all the bad things happening to them hasn’t been helping anyone, but maybe, maybe, she’s ready to investigate why they’ve both been occupying that same space in the heart that one of them always wanted and the other would only hurt to turn away. Maybe, it’s all been about a choice she had made back when Ladybug had seemed temporary, back when she’d thought this would be over in a matter of weeks, and her life would go back to being boring, and Cat Noir wasn’t yet someone she’d miss like her left arm. Paris might still look the same as that day, but Adrien’s life doesn’t and Marinette has become someone very different from the girl he’d given his umbrella, and wearing Plagg’s miraculous is just a normal boy who also has problems that can’t be solved with magic. In the places of her heart where she's softly pushing Adrien away, there is a well of precious moments she never let herself dwell on because disloyalty was never an option. Only now does she allow herself to look at them and remember, consider them in the same light she'd bask in every little time Adrien paid her special attention. Love can’t be switched off like a radio, and it’s hard to teach yourself to stop wanting something you can’t have, but she never considered the option of accepting something else. It's laughable how easy it is to discover him there, the one who was never a lesser option, just the victim of her loyalty to a boy she’d loved so much that telling him seemed impossible. Adrien, who would probably have to leave no matter how much Marinette had asked him to stay, who she’d have no chance of catching up to in his father’s car, who was long gone when she finally could admit the feelings he’d never asked for. Cat Noir, who came back.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

She stews for the few minutes left until lunchtime, uninterrupted as Alya doesn’t come back. She goes home, transforms, and sets off to the Police Headquarter once more. Whatever the boy who is Cat Noir does or doesn’t want, whatever would make Adrien’s life easier, it’s all out of Marinette’s hands. But Ladybug’s job isn’t over yet, and getting that off the list will at least be more useful than sitting still and waiting for a miracle she knows better than hoping for in process where the magic has done its duty and passed it over to the rigid hands of the law. She brings the envelope and places it almost demonstratively on the desk of poor inspector Dubois who promptly cancels all other appointments. He makes short process of dragging out an already distressed piece of paper and a recorder. “Please state your name for the record.” “Ladybug.” She looks him straight in the eyes for longer than necessary, and he does not say what she can tell he wants to. The girl behind the miraculous has no business with any of this, and the girl wearing it finds that she is breathing easier when she can summon some purpose. Marinette can’t reach Adrien, but the people who can at least listens to Ladybug, and some still logical part of her brain knows that this is more important than being in class and fighting tears in frustration. The pretending helps, a little. The tears don’t feel quite so close to the surface when she’s putting on the face of the superhero who could fight Hawkmoth, and be someone else than the girl who can do nothing to make better the personal disaster he left behind.

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“School time,” Marinette says, and accept the nuzzle pressed to her cheek. “You know, maybe it’s not that important that you’re with me today. I mean, now that Hawkmoth -“ “Oh Marinette, of course I’ll come with you!” her kwami says, diving towards her purse. As Marinette makes to close it, the air moves as something not quite solid brushes past her. “Plagg?” He stares up at her from beside Tikki. “I’m not staying holed up here all day.” “Okay,” Marinette says and closes the purse, swimming in too many feelings and too little sleep to pursue the fleeting thought that Plagg was here for Nooro and Duusu and she should at least tell him to stay away from any cheese in school. Maybe he just wants to be with Tikki. The thought of Plagg wanting to be with Tikki sends a tense reminder about the boy with Plagg’s miraculous wanting to be with the girl with Tikki’s and how he’s all alone somewhere, but looming in front of Marinette is the tangible reality of another boy who probably isn’t going to be in school because he’s so very much more alone than she’d ever thought possible.

For @wipbigbang 2023, with illustrations by @leafas63c / @miraculosus <3

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The streets outside were a country in constitutional chaos and with public trust in the government fragile at best; inside the Sahdmahdi Law Offices was Apollo Justice, who had been nine when he was dumped in a foreign country with nothing but the clothes on his back. This was not the first time he had had to start his life from scratch; how hard could it be to do it now that there was an entire nation in need of his work, now that this was his only, pitiful chance at following the only family he had ever known? It wasn't as if a rented apartment and a job at the least respectable law firm in the state should even require the word "sacrifice". God only knew Apollo Justice had never been someone who would be a loss to anything when he left it. 

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“Sometimes you have to judge your friends, too,” said Marinette lowly. “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean they’re perfect and shouldn’t be told to be better. And if Lila was always nice to you and nice to everyone you saw, why should you have believed me if I said she wasn’t nice to me?”

“Because you’re my best friend and you’ve never lied to me before!”

Marinette’s face twisted into something sad and unreadable for a moment, and then she dropped her forehead to the chair’s backrest once more and said nothing, neither denying nor agreeing with that statement. Alya had witnessed Marinette lie a lot - excuses to her parents, weird stories to teachers, misdirections to get Chloé and Sabrina off their backs, intentionally trying to sabotage a competition so that Kagami wouldn’t get to take a picture with Adrien. The silence about a blue scarf that Adrien, for all she knew, still thought that it was his jerk of a dad that had knitted him when in fact it had been stolen. Marinette lied a lot to others and why shouldn’t she have lied to Alya, too? She must have, at least as much as Alya must’ve lied to her about Rena Rouge, but she didn’t know that Alya knew about that, and Alya wasn't allowed to let her know. 

The silence dragged on, but despite the things that had been ripped open, it was the familial understanding between two people who knew each other so well that there didn’t need to be any conversation for the company to be appreciated.

Alya wiped her face and moved to lean against the wall, making space beside her on the bed. “Part of being a reporter is deciding what I publish and what I don’t,” she said, and dug out her phone. “There’s a lot of things I know about that I don’t put on the Ladyblog because I know it’d cause problems if it was public knowledge.”

Written for @mlbigbang 2022

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

"Lately there’s been a lot going on as Ladybug, and I’ve had to lie to her about a lot of stuff and I hate it. She doesn’t deserve it - she’s the last person who deserves it. There are so many things she deserves to know- Alya-”

Never before had she heard Ladybug sound so passionate. The girl who’d saved the city at least four hundred and eighteen times was standing close enough to touch, and her voice was terrifyingly breakable. 

“Alya, it’s because of her that I became Ladybug. Before I met her, I was a coward. I let difficult things be and kept out of trouble, and my best friend was the one who told me that it’s on every one of us to fix the things we know are wrong. The first time I was Ladybug - you were there, remember? I was super scared, and afterwards I wanted to give my miraculous to her because she loves superheroes and I thought someone strong and brave like her would be much better at it than I would.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Ladybug chuckled. “She got in Stoneheart’s way. That was when I realised that being Ladybug was my chance to be like her - that as Ladybug I could make a difference. When I’m just me, I could only watch as she nearly died - but as Ladybug, I could save her. She was the first person who ever made me think it was possible I could be something more, and the first person who made me realise why it is worth it. If she hadn’t been there at my side that day, I would’ve never been Ladybug again.”

For @mlbigbang 2022

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

She’d lifted her phone before she’d made the conscious thought to do so, tracing their motions with the camera with expertise born from months of practice. They barely paused to exchange exhilarated grins before Cat Noir was off again, baton shooting down to the street between the buildings as he reached a hand out to Ladybug as he made the jump. She sprung to catch it, let herself be pulled along as he pivoted them into another freefall. Cat Noir landed on the railing of the bridge with all the ease of his animal namesake, his hand firm around Ladybug’s as she stepped down with a slight wobble a moment after him. He pulled her close to keep her steady, and Alya’s thumb pressed mindlessly on the screen as Ladybug leaned in . Neither of them noticed Alya a few insignificant metres below them, fingers pinching and zooming as they appeared completely lost in each other, hands firmly clasped and arms pressed tight between them. Alya couldn’t have said how long the moment lasted, as captivated by what she was seeing as the two superheroes seemed to be by each other. That was something else than the playful banter and friendly teasing she’d seen them share on the regular, this was like- 

It was like Marinette and Adrien, she realised, mind empty as her hand dropped, camera no longer following as Ladybug pulled away to let her yo-yo shoot out to a stovepipe on the building behind Alya, and then they were gone. 

For @mlbigbang 2022

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

And when Marinette’s foot jerked in a blind attempt at hitting him, he burst into laughter, and it was unlike anything Alya had ever seen. Adrien, reserved Adrien, friendly Adrien, never-getting-close-enough-to-know Adrien, would smile, would chuckle, would sometimes let out an undignified giggle. He had produced some obnoxious guffaws for Cat Noir when he did the voice acting for that movie. Hearty laughter was not something Adrien did , yet here he was, and it was as if a flip had been switched. This must be what Nino and Marinette had seen in him, this must’ve been the boy that the two of them would go through fire and water for. It wasn’t the handsome face or the earnest politeness, the eager performance in class, the occasional mournful comment about his father that would be brushed off instantly. The boy who was laughing so hard that he cried over Marinette and whatever the hell kind of stupid dress-up-games they were doing was a person who Alya never had known existed, and that must have been that. 

Like Adrien had seen the girl whose eyes were distant and smile was content as she laid on the floor with one foot in the air and a knee nearly in an eye socket, Marinette must have somehow seen this boy who Alya never did before now. 

For @mlbigbang, this chapter illustated by @kitsuna020 <3

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

“I think they’re finished about the cheese,” Juleka effectively ended the debate as the group once again turned their focus to their classmates below, where Adrien was indeed putting the cheese into his book-bag. The mood of the conversation didn’t seem to shift even if the topic did; Marinette looked all business without one single flailing limb or awkward grin, and Adrien had crossed one arm to rest the other elbow on in the rarely seen gesture of local heartthrob rubbing brain cells together . He seemed to make some kind of suggestion to which Marinette promptly shook her head - Marinette disagreeing with Adrien , what the hell - and then she seemed to name some alternative to which he nodded along. He pulled out his phone, tapped away for a couple of seconds, and then turned it around to show her. Only now did Marinette light up in a smile.

And then she patted his head.

For @mlbigbang 2022

[tea-for-you]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Shion would be waiting for Nezumi to come back, and Nezumi had to tell him to let go of the promise he’d never meant to make, and wasn’t going to keep. Shion wasn’t going to leave No. 6 and Nezumi wasn’t going to stay there, and even the most fantastic of stories couldn’t work on broken logic.