A/N. So this is basically the third reunion/reveal fic I was talking about before, but this is a multi-chap instead of a one-shot. I'm expecting this to be 3-4 chapters long? This is also what "The Perfect Day" and my last two reunion/reveal fics were practice for.
*Cracks knuckles* let's begin as I immerse us in another world of pain.
BTW, opening song lyric is from All Time Low's Time Bomb
-When It Rains-
"Just two kids stupid and fearless
Like a bullet shooting the love-sick
There's only one way down this road..."
Marinette often dreamed of falling. No, not the kind of falling that left you flailing awake and pressing a hand to your chest as you caught your breath, reminding yourself that no, you are not about to become a splatter on the ground; you are in your bed and that you were never falling to begin with. She didn't get those kinds of dreams anymore because falling wasn't something she feared. Instead, she would welcome the concrete rushing towards her because she knew that she could catch herself. She could never quite see what she used to yank herself away from the freefall and soaring through the rooftops under the bright Parisian sky—a grappling hook, maybe? No, that couldn't be right, it felt much smaller than that in her hand. Whatever it was, she trusted it and her skill to wield it.
There was also someone else in her dreams. He wasn't always there, but some nights she would see the shadow of a boy, hear the echo of a laugh. Sometimes she thinks she chases him in her dreams. Sometimes she thinks he's chasing her.
Those dreams always blurred the line between sleeping and waking, and on mornings like these she would open her eyes and be surprised that instead of seeing the beautiful view of the Paris skyline, the peeling floral wallpaper of her one-bedroom apartment would greet her instead.
The same kind of disappointment filled her and a sense of longing she didn't understand. For God's sake, she wanted to be a fashion designer, not some kind of stunt woman, but she dragged herself out of bed with the same reluctance that she always did whenever she had that dream, which is basically every other day for the past five years. A dream can only carve a hollow in your chest so many times before you begin to forget you're hollow in the first place. But today Marinette felt it, acutely, like the absence of a heartbeat.
Like any proper millennial with a job and somewhat of a social life, the first thing she reached for was her phone. Marinette squinted at the screen and groaned as she saw that Alya had left her at least a dozen text messages and three missed calls.
She accidentally left her phone on silent. Again. Not that she was even sure it would have woken her up if it wasn't on silent. She was, after all, infamous for her ability to sleep through almost anything before 9AM, 11AM if you catch her on a weekend.
She skimmed through the text messages—all of them some kind of variety of wake up or where are you or Marinette Dupain-Cheng, I know your phone is on silent and you are a dead girl walking, well, sleeping.
She finally read Alya's latest text message, sent about an hour ago, saying that she decided to take a cab and that she'd be at Marinette's apartment in an hour.
Wait, what?
Alya was supposed to be in New York. She's not supposed to be back in Paris until Sunday. Did she take an earlier flight? Marinette brought up the calendar on her phone. Today was only—ah, crap, it's Sunday.
Marinette flopped facedown back into bed and groaned into a pillow. She was supposed to pick Alya up from the airport. She was supposed to stop by her parent's bakery first, pick up pastries, and then pick up Alya. It's official, she is the worst friend ever. Alya had every right to kill her. Maybe if she hauled her ass out of bed now and made a killer breakfast before Alya arrived, Alya would forgive her. Yeah, that sounded like a good—
"Knock, knock, girl. If you're still sleeping, I will break the door down," Alya's voice filtered in through her door.
Well, so much for that plan.
Looks like it's back to Plan B: Pout and plead exhaustion.
Marinette padded across her apartment, bare feet against the cold floor almost enough to make her shiver. She yanked the door open, already squeaking out an apology and a promise of free pastries, when the redhead pulled her in for a bear hug that she returned wholeheartedly.
"You're lucky I missed you so much that I don't have the heart to kill you just yet," Alya said.
She let out a muffled laugh against Alya's shoulder and pulled back slightly.
"I also brought a surprise," Alya said, a smirk on her features as a man with a cap resting on his head stepped into view.
Marinette gasped and stepped back from Alya before launching herself at Nino, and he chuckled as he returned her hug. "Nino, oh my God I haven't seen you in forever!"
"DJ-ing has been keeping me pretty busy, but it's great to see you again, bro," Nino said, and Marinette ushered them into her tiny, and admittedly messy, apartment.
"I wish I'd cleaned up a bit. I totally lost track of time. I could have sworn it was only Saturday today, but I will make this up to you," she rambled as she cleared her kitchen counter to make room for her haphazardly thrown together breakfast. "I bet you two have so many stories to share and I can't wait to spend the day catching up with you! How did you meet up anyway? I—oh crap—ah it's okay Nino, I'll clean up the spilled flour later, you just relax there with Alya," she said. She was rambling, she knew she was rambling, but she couldn't seem to find the off-switch. It happened every time she was caught off-guard or felt the tiniest bit frazzled, and right now she was both.
Alya laughed good-naturedly, used to her friend's rapid-fire speech. "I heard he was in New York and I decided to hit up one of the clubs he was playing at. We got dinner afterwards, talked some, and it just so happened that he was planning on heading back to Paris in a few weeks, so we decided that we might as well sync our visit together. He's going to take the extra room in my apartment while he's here," she said.
Marinette risked a glance away from her crepe batter so she could get a better look at Alya's expression. There it was—the slight flush to her cheeks, smile a little bit wider, and a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Alya had never quite gotten over Nino. When their careers set them on different paths, they parted amicably with a promise to pick up where they left off if they still had feelings for each other down the road.
Based on the sickeningly sweet aura the two were projecting, Marinette was willing to say that the feelings were still very much alive. She was also willing to bet that they did a lot more than just talking, but hey, if that's what the kids were calling it these days, who was she to question it?
"Oh my God are those crepes? I haven't eaten a real one for such a long time," Nino said as the smell of quickly filled up her apartment.
"You guys want it sweet or savory?"
"Sweet!" Alya called at the same time Nino said, "Savory!" The two shared a playful glare before Nino let out an exaggerated groan and gave in to Alya's preference for sweet crepes.
"You can have both, you know," Marinette pointed out. "You can have sweet and you can have savory."
"I haven't had a good crepe in such a long time, I think I'll have both sweet and savory in one please," Nino piped up. "Swavory?"
"Saveet?" Alya offered.
"I hate you both," Marinette said with a smile.
After an obscene number of crepes later, Marinette's stomach ached from both the food and the laughter. Nino was in the middle of another story of crazy fan encounters he's had over the years and Marinette was laughing so hard that she almost missed the sound of her phone ringing.
Incoming call from Adalene Moreau…
She squeaked in surprise as her boss's name flashed on her screen and ran into her bedroom to answer the call. Apparently there was some sort of mishap with the upcoming fall collection and they needed her to come in immediately because they needed all hands on deck. Yes, they were aware it was her day off, and no, of course Marinette didn't mind coming in on such short notice, and yes, she'd be there in thirty minutes with coffee.
Sighing, she pulled out a smart pencil skirt and blazer. She changed before heading back out, apologies already at the tip of her tongue. One look at her from Alya was all the girl needed to raise her eyebrows in question.
"Work," Marinette said weakly.
"But it's your day off!" Alya said.
"I know, and I'm really sorry, but—"
Alya interrupted her and dismissed her apologies with a wave of her hand. "Relax, I, of all people, get what it means to have a work emergency. Go! It'll be fine. Not like Nino and I aren't used to you flaking out on us. You used to do it all the time in school," Alya said and winked conspiratorially at Nino.
"I did?" Marinette asked. A lot of her time at collège seemed to be a bit hazy to her, almost like a dream that she could never quite remember. Alya liked to joke that it was because she actually spent a lot of those years dreaming, falling asleep in the oddest places during random points in the day.
"All the time," Nino confirmed. "Come to think of it, Adrien used to disappear a lot too."
Adrien. Man, she hadn't thought about him in years. It's been even longer since she's seen him. His name brought a smile that was both fond and embarrassed on Marinette's face as she recalled how hard it was to talk to him.
"You two weren't secretly making out behind our backs, were you?" Alya said, eyebrows wiggling suggestively.
Marinette's face burned up and she made a face at Alya. "Please, I couldn't even talk to him."
"Don't need to talk to make out!" Alya called as Marinette finally made her way out of the apartment.
"Goodbye!" she yelled and rushed out of her apartment before she could be subject to further mortification. At the last minute, she darted back and grabbed an umbrella just in case it rained today. It was with a slight grimace that she realized that it was Adrien's umbrella. She didn't even know why she still had the thing. She wasn't in love with him anymore, but every time she thought of getting rid of it, it made her chest ache.
She leaned back on the door and sighed, shaking her mind clear of any further thoughts of Adrien Agreste before steeling herself and heading to work.
A/N. This was mainly background and setting up the plot. I'll be cranking up the pain-o-meter in the next chapters!
Anyway, so basically this is working off of my personal headcanon that after Hawkmoth is defeated, everyone will forget the miraculous ever existed. I mean, the show has explicitly told us that there have been multiple LBs and Chats in the past, yet when Marinette and Adrien first showed up on the scene, not a single person was like-oh look, Ladybug and Chat Noir have returned! For superheroes who have existed since practically the beginning of time, you would think they'd be legendary by now, but they aren't. There's practically no record of them, not even myths or fairytales or what have you.
That being said, it makes sense to me if Tikki and Plagg purposefully erase memories of their existence. Can you imagine the amount of villains that would chase after TIkki and Plagg's power? It would be like Hawkmoth times a thousand. They would never be able to be dormant because they would be in too vulnerable a position. How did Hawkmoth know of their existence? *shrugs* maybe he found Nooroo by accident, maybe he himself was a previous Miraculous holder, maybe he found the book in some used bookstore and got lucky.
Either way, that's my own personal take on what happens afterwards. Feel free to hit me up with ideas on this little theory of mine.
As per usual, please leave a review!
-Indy