Ummm... this is kinda my first fanfic for Miraculous ladybug and also my first chapter. I'm just spit-balling here so try not to judge too hard. Think of this as like a prologue. No marichat yet but oh so much to come. That is if this actually turns out good…. heh.


Hopeless Romantic: a person who holds sentimental and idealistic views on love, especially in spite of experience, evidence, or exhortations otherwise.

Marinette knew what a hopeless romantic was. She could recite that definition by heart. She also knew that she was, herself, a hopeless romantic. A very extreme one, she thought most days. It was the only way to prove to herself she wasn't crazy, and that she was acting only as hopeless romantics do….hopelessly in love.

Many times she tried to comfort herself in the fact that there was nothing she could do in the first place. It was all because of the stupid umbrella. That stupid rain. That stupid boy with his stupid golden blonde hair and his stupid shining emerald eyes. His stupid kind heart. Her stupid heart. The one she handed over to him unknowingly on that fateful day. The day her life changed. The day she went home, pulled out her computer typing in the definition for crush. Then the definition of love. Then the definition for hopeless romantic. She stayed up researching until the moon disappeared and the sun shone brightly in her face and she smelled the pastries being made downstairs. Yep, she definitely had the symptoms. All the imagining. All the power love contained that she felt coursing through her entire being every single day after that one. The smile her classmates loved so much. The optimism her parents were so thankful for. The kindness Master Fu admired her for. It was because she was in love with a boy. Deep in love. Hopelessly in love. Yep, she was definitely hopeless.

The symptoms only began to worsen. Staying up late at night became a habit, one she was constantly scolded for by Tikki and her parents. But at this point, she didn't care. The true love stories she read about, beautiful. The long lost loves finding each other at the very end and getting their long-awaited happily ever after, breathtaking. They were all the same, but, somehow different. She never got tired of them. They made her chest feel warm and bubble with so much hope and faith she thought she might burst. She liked to express that hope and faith when she was ladybug. Soaring through Paris and protecting her people. She had always had hope in love, therefore she would always have hope in people. She saw the way they protected each other, the way they sacrificed their desires and the materialistic wants for a deeper feeling only some could imagine. She vowed to protect that with her dying breath. She vowed to protect her love.

Her infatuation with the boy, her boy, grew. Any detail did not escape her grasp. He loved video games. He was becoming close friends with Nino. He was an old friend of Chloe's….she was still figuring that one out. When he laughed a room got brighter. When he was tired it felt dim. He was tired a lot. Maybe because of the Chinese, piano, fencing...he was always so busy. She wanted to know what he was doing, where he was going, creepy stalking be darned. She made a map of his schedule and put it up in her room, it made her feel closer to him. Alya soon began to notice her dreamy sighs and her Hawkeye the minute Adrien would walk into a room. When confronted about it, she proceeded to go tomato-faced and try to play it cool by sputtering out a simple but yet calm, "W-WHAT! HAHA nooooo….", then sprinted into a brick wall. It didn't take long after that for her to really confess. However, in some ways, it was good Alya knew. She soon started receiving the daily supply of Adrien pictures and Adrien's modeling magazine cutouts. She never discarded a single one. The Adrien shrine was born. Then Alya got a little more demanding, she wanted her to start talking to him. That, she decided, was when it got ugly. Like, Chloe's personality ugly. Marinette's calm, sweet, sometimes soothing voice became a full out stuttery, squawky, and squeaky mess. Thank the gods Adrien actually tolerated it, but it was a real problem to deal with. All those people who found their true love, they didn't squawk or squeak. They didn't stutter and melt into a puddle of steaming, blushing goo right in front of their loves face. They wowed the guy with confidence and charm. Oh, so much for that. Utterly hopeless.

So time went by, and Marinette's love drummed on to the beat of Adrien's song. Off to the side, of course, as she could still not talk to him. Could not get him to notice her. Not really. Not the way a hopeless romantic would dream of being noticed. They became good friends, along with Alya and Nino. They went to movies, concerts, got ice cream together. She found out things, personal things. Like, his mom was gone and his dad was a total buzz kill. Though she admitted grudgingly she still adored his work. She supported him, he supported her. They were really good friends. Keyword, friends. Sometimes she got close, close enough to feel that electrifying spark that just screamed love. Like that one time, they almost kissed in Nino's horrificator movie. It was ruined of course, by none other than our beloved queen bee, but still, pure. Fireworks. But they were fleeting moments. Much more fleeting than the "just a friend moments" and the "great friend moments". It was tiring. Truly hopeless.

Marinette began to grow tired. She had the support of course, from Alya and Nino definitely and many more of her wonderful classmates. But it just felt like the same dreadful thing every time. "Loved hanging out with you, your such a great friend!". Yeah, she got it, she was a friend. She tried to reach out, through Valentine cards and letters and a beautiful blue scarf she slaved over (but couldn't bring herself to claim was hers because of well, a series of unfortunate events). Nothing seemed to work. She was still happy, seeing him happy. Happy having friends and the most clawsome superhero partner she could ask for, but her heart was still searching for the something more and she wasn't getting it. The late nights of true love reading and fantasy conjuring grew shorter and shorter until she just began to fall into a dreamless sleep. Awfully hopeless.

Fight an Akuma. Friend. Sketch a design. Friend. Help with the family baking. Friend. Go to school. Friend. Reject Chat. Friend. Go on date with Luka. Friend. Always and forever just a-

Enough.

She was done.

Hopeless romantic be darned this was not working and she was done with the constant and ever-present friend.

Maybe it's supposed to be this way, maybe this was the way her story was just going to unfurl and in the end, she would get her happily ever after with her true love and ride off into the sunset on the back of a white horse. But for now, she had had enough. She was taking back her life, going to search out there in the big world and carve a new path. Because she knew she wasn't hopeless, her love and her heart were not hopeless.

She was a hopeful romantic now.

And she was going to go out and find someone who made her hopeful.