A/N: Before we dive in, I just wanted to clarify something that a number of people have asked about: Marinette and Adrien are 25 in this story. Where Chapter 1 left off (and where this chapter begins), seven years have passed since Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated Hawk Moth. They were 18 when they defeated him—it was the summer before they headed off to university. Hopefully that clears up some of the questions you guys had.
Marinette stood quietly against a pillar as people milled in an endless, surging sea around her. She was a little further back from the luggage claim than was practical—it would be, if not easy, then at least possible to miss her six suitcases should a large group of people happen to walk past at just the right time. But the pillar provided a solid, unwavering anchor in the swell of the crowds, and Marinette felt it was worth the risk for the reassuring steadiness against her back.
Over the years, Marinette had come to decide that, despite the various architectural designs, airports were all virtually the same—the same crowds, the same rush and bustle, the same tight sensation that never quite eased from her lungs until she had finally gotten herself out of the hectic structure. But today, the atmosphere of Roissy settled over her, insistently needling her with its differences. Even through the universal, endless din, the rumble of voices was very obviously French.
This wasn't like the phone calls with her parents every few days. Her parents were her parents, and that they spoke French was a simple matter of identity. But it had been nearly three years since Marinette had been to Paris last. Nearly three years since her ears had been filled with nothing but the beautiful lilt of her native language.
It somehow felt both familiar and foreign, and she couldn't shake the strange sensation in her chest that wanted to feel reassured but instead left her lungs tightening even more anxiously than the feeling that airports normally evoked.
Someone bustled past, close to her pillar, and Marinette shifted her luggage trolley in closer to give them more room. She attempted to expel the tight feeling in her lungs and focused her attention back to the steady parade of suitcases in front of her. If she wasn't careful, she was going to get distracted and miss her luggage altogether.
Without thinking, she gently slipped her hand into her purse. She felt Tikki place a reassuring, tiny hand on her own, gentling dispelling a small bit of her dread.
A flash of red caught her eye, just rounding the curve of the luggage claim. Marinette quickly pushed off of the pillar and guided the luggage trolley toward the lazy susan. Sure enough, those were her six suitcases, miraculously all lined up in a row. Then again, maybe there wasn't anything miraculous about it—with their bright red coloring and black polka dots, it was obvoius that they were meant to be together.
Marinette got a few curios stares from some of the other people waiting for their bags as she hurriedly hauled the suitcases off of the train before they could be whisked away again. She was actually quite proud of the suitcases and their distinctive decorations. She had painted her original suitcase like a ladybug long ago for the fun of it, and had happily discovered afterward how much easier the coloring made it to find her own bags.
Now, however, those glances made her shift uncomfortably. It was one thing for a teenager to have a single red suitcase; quite another for a grown woman to have six. Trying to ignore the growing uneasiness in her stomach, Marinette piled the suitcases haphazardly on the trolley and quickly strode away.
The trolley had a wiggly wheel, and its metal bars rattled in her hands each time the wheel served and stuck. Feeling ever more self conscious, Marinette ducked her head and focused on the singular task of making it to the doors and out of this place that had no right to feel so foreign.
But as Marinette reached the doors, she slowed the cart to a stop and paused. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep uneven breath. You can do this, she told herself. Confidence. She took another long breath, warding away the dread that had been clinging to her all morning. Be honest, she told herself ruefully. It had been clinging to her for far longer than that.
Not allowing herself to hesitate any longer, she forced her eyes open and strode through the doors out into the brilliant afternoon sun. Squinting a bit against the light, she glanced up and down the line of waiting cars for her mother's blue sedan.
She stumbled sideways as a heavy weight slung into her side. Disoriented and frowning, she almost yelled at whoever had bumped her—but a strong pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders.
"Marinette!"
Marinette felt her eyes widen as she got a mouthful of wavy, brown tresses. "Alya?!" she squeaked, incredulous. "I thought you were in Rome until next week!"
"Of course not, silly! Do you think I would miss your homecoming?" Then, throwing a sly wink, Alya added, "I just wanted it to be a surprise."
Marinette threw her arms around Alya, for the first time feeling her shoulders relax. "It's so good to see you," she said earnestly. "I'm glad you came."
Alya gave her a familiar pat on the head, then pulled away. "Alright, we better start loading your stuff into your mom's car."
Marinette looked where Alya pointed to see her mom waving happily a few cars down. A rush of relief flooded her from head to toe, so strong that it nearly took Marinette's breath away. Home. She was going home.
Struggling to push away the crushing weight of that realization—both reassuring and helpless—Marinette quickly pushed the cart to the car. As they walked, Alya glanced critically at Marinette's precarious tower of suitcases. "How many of your outfits did you have to leave behind?"
"What?" Marinette asked sharply, scandalized. "I didn't."
Alya fixed her with a critical look. "You brought all of them?"
Marinette rolled her eyes as she opened her mom's trunk. "Yes, Alya. I put all that hard work into making them—I couldn't just get rid of them."
"Mari, you have six suitcases," Alya said firmly, lugging one of them off of the trolley and handing it to Marinette. "Are you telling me that you abandoned everything else and only brought clothes?"
"No," Marinette quipped defensively. She took the next suitcase from Alya and shoved it into the trunk. "I've got shoes—" Alya groaned loudly. Without stopping, Marinette continued, "shoes, a few books, some papers, my toiletries, a few small knick knacks."
Alya was watching her with a flat, disbelieving stare. Marinette yanked the next suitcase from Alya's hands. "How on Earth did you manage to fit all that and your gigantic closet?"
"I borrowed a friend's magic," Marinette replied sourly, shoving the fourth bag into the trunk. Then, frowning, she glanced from the very full trunk to the two remaining suitcases.
With a sigh and a sidelong look at the last two bags, Alya shut the trunk door. "I guess I'm sharing the back seat with these, huh?"
Marinette gave Alya her sweetest smile, which earned her a light smack on the shoulder.
"Fine, fine," Alya grumbled, though she was smiling. "You stick those last two in the back and I'll put the trolley away."
Marinette opened the rear passenger door and unceremoniously shoved the other suitcases in. She paused with her hand on the door as she caught a sniff of the familiar scent of her mom's car. It was such a little thing, something she hadn't ever paid much attention to, but now it only increased the strange, bittersweet feeling in her chest. Taking a deep breath, she left the door open for Alya and slid into the front seat.
"Hi, honey," her mom said, leaning over to give her a tight hug. "Did you have a safe flight?"
"Yup," Marinette told her. Just like I texted you ten minutes ago, she thought to herself with fond exasperation. "Is Dad at the shop?"
Her mom nodded. "He really wanted to come, but we couldn't leave the store empty for the afternoon."
"I know that," Marinette reassured her. "Thanks for coming to pick me up."
"Ah-hem?" Alya said pointedly, sliding into the back seat. "No thanks for your lovely friend?"
"Thank you, Alya," Marinette said with a grin. Then, trying not to get her hopes up, she added, "Will you have to fly out again soon?"
"Nah," Alya told her, waving her hand dismissively. "I was able to get my boss to keep me on local stories for the next month. My next assignment won't be until sometime after that."
Marinette was outright beaming now. "Really, Alya, you are the best."
"Do you know where your next assignment will be?" Marinette's mom asked.
"Not yet." Alya shrugged. "I got lucky with Rome, because they knew pretty far in advance that they wanted me covering the ceremony. But a lot of times the trips are pretty last minute."
"You mean like when they sent you to New York the one week I was out of town?" Marinette asked with good-natured sarcasm.
Alya was shrugging again. "Can't help that. It's just the nature of journalism." Then, pinning Marinette with a look, she added, "So, how did the last minute packing go?"
It was Marinette's turn to shrug. "Alright, I guess. Once I had my suitcases packed with what I was taking, it was just a matter of finding out how to get rid of everything else."
"You didn't throw it away!" her mother exclaimed. She said it like a question, as if her daughter had gone insane.
"No, Mom," Marinette assured her quickly, trying not to roll her eyes. "I dropped a lot of it off at Good Will. It was mostly just odds and ends from around the apartment."
"What'd you wind up doing with the furniture?" Alya asked curiously. The last time they had talked before the move, Marinette had been trying to decide. Furniture was too expensive to ship across the ocean.
"I wound up selling it online," Marinette replied. "Well, except the nightstand. Allie needed one, so I gave it to her. But I made a little money off the rest of it."
She didn't add how disconcerting it had felt. She hadn't had much furniture in her small flat, but everything she did have were items she had bought in New York. They felt like a permanent part of her everyday life, and there had been something deeply personal and final about selling them. As if she were carefully dismantling the life she had made for herself in that crazy, fast-paced city over the past seven years.
"Did Allie wind up throwing you that goodbye party?" Alya asked. Marinette could hear the careful way she phrased it, almost hesitant. Stomach fluttering uneasily, Marinette bit the inside of her cheek.
"Yeah," she replied, much more cheerfully than she felt. "It wound up being really small—just a handful of the NYU crowd—but it was fun."
Marinette could see her mother frowning next to her. Suddenly, it was as though the car was filling with water, threatening to cut off her breath.
"What about at work?" Alya cut in, and Marinette gratefully felt her shoulders inch down a bit from her ears.
"Didn't I tell show you? They got me a cake." Marinette pulled out her phone and scrolled through her gallery. She handed it back to Alya, who gave a low whistle.
"That's one nice looking cake," Alya said appreciatively. Considering the wide range of truly expensive cakes Alya had seen in her mother's kitchens, Marinette knew that was a huge compliment.
"Yeah. My supervisor was still upset that I decided to leave, but everyone else was super happy for me."
Marinette felt a small pang. Jessica, and Keri, and Jackie—it was going to be strange not working with them every day. For the first time, she wondered which of her New York friends would eventually fade into the background. Marinette wasn't going to fool herself—she had been through the whole international move thing before, and she was well aware that only the strongest of friendships really held up, despite Facebook. There was no doubt that many of her New York friends would slowly become "acquaintances," but she had no way of knowing yet who those people would be.
"You start up at Attitude on Monday, right?"
Alya was watching her with an overly-airy smile. You can think about that later, Marinette scolded herself. No need to make Alya worry needlessly. Forcing what she hoped was an easy smile, Marinette replied, "Yeah. I can't wait, but I'm also a little nervous."
"Don't worry, dear," her mother said, placing a kind hand on Marinette's forearm. "You have the whole weekend to get settled in."
"Well, yeah," Marinette said, shrugging a bit. "But I'm planning on spending most of tomorrow apartment hunting."
Her mother sighed. "Really, Marinette, I don't see what your rush is. Your father and I are perfectly happy to have you back home. And you'll save so much money!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Marinete replied. She had heard her parents' arguments a thousand times over the last month. "But I'm 25. I've been on my own for seven years. Moving back in now just feels …"
"Like a step backward?" Alya supplied.
"Yes," Marinette breathed, shooting Alya a grateful glance. That was it. That was exactly it. "I love you and Dad, truly. But I like having my own place."
This time, her mother's sigh sounded resigned. "Well, be sure you at least take your time and find an apartment that works well for you, and not just the first one that's available."
"I will." She smiled, and was relieved when her mom smiled back.
"And one that has a big enough closet," Alya added, glancing shrewdly at the suitcases beside her. "Or perhaps a spare bedroom that you can fill with clothes racks."
"I'll keep that in mind," Marinette said, voice and stare both going flat.
"Seriously, I don't know—"
Alya cut off short. The car was suddenly flooded again, the water rising past Marinette's mouth, choking her.
"—why you bother to keep them all," Alya finished hurriedly, as if it would make up for her awkward pause mid-sentence.
Marinette laughed, pretending not to have noticed. "I just like my clothes, okay?" she said, rolling her eyes. Alya rolled her eyes back, but Marinette didn't miss the small, worried frown that had returned to her mother's lips.
"Just wait, Mrs. Cheng," Alya said, turning to Marinette's mom. "Once she starts up Monday morning, Marinette's closet is probably going to start filling up faster than ever. You'll probably wish for her to leave faster just to be rid of all the clothes!"
Her mom laughed. "I suppose that's true." Then, tapping on her lips, she added, "I need your input. I made a roast for dinner. What would you girls like for a side dish?"
"Green beans," Marinette replied decisively, earning a chuckle from her mom.
"Alya?"
"That sounds wonderful to me!" Alya replied. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you, my mom tried some of that soup you sent me home with last time and loved it. She wanted to know what you used."
Marinette leaned back into her seat, listening to her mom and Alya discuss the recipe. The momentary tense atmosphere had dissipated, but Marinette couldn't shake the painful regret it had produced in her. She wasn't sure what Alya had been about to say, but that didn't matter. She had obviously almost slipped and mentioned—
No, Marinette told herself firmly. No. I'm not going to think about him.
It was obvious that Alya and her mom were doing their best to avoid the subject altogether, which she appreciated.
Marinette gave a small start as Tikki patted her hand again. She hadn't even realized she had slipped her hand into her purse. Still, the gesture made her smile, and she gave Tikki a small, grateful nudge before drawing her hand back into her lap.
She couldn't help noting that Alya hadn't once mentioned Ladybug. Be real, Marinette told herself. Ladybug is old news—you know that. For the first two years after Marinette had left Paris, Alya had still talked about her hero often. But even Marinette was aware that it had now been a long time since anyone in the City of Lights had spared a thought for her. She had come to terms with that already, but it did nothing to lift the thin blanket of despair resting on her shoulders.
A/N: You guys, I am so sorry for the month long wait between chapters ;-; Like I mentioned in the notes of the first chapter, I really can't promise regular updates for this story. Part of it is just that this story is going to take a little extra time to get right. But the other, bigger part of it is just that life has been a bit crazy recently. Not that things weren't crazy back when I was working on It's Complicated and Hazard. But the difference is that I was kind of using those stories as a way to shirk some pressing stuff, which was just making the stress and everything else a million times worse. So part of this big long break was me trying to get a few things caught up and back on track. I want to say that it won't be another month long wait until chapter three, but honestly it just depends. I've had a lot less time to concentrate on writing. Regardless, I really hope that you guys will continue to enjoy the story and be understanding about any lapses.
I'm sure you're wondering WHY Marinette didn't show all those years ago. I was hoping to get that far in this chapter, but it was just growing too long. I reached a good stopping point and decided it would be better to get at least SOMETHING up for y'all to read. I promise that you'll get to find out next chapter.
The first few chapters of this fic are going to focus quite a bit on exposition, but I promise that the action will be picking up by chapter four or five. Also, for those of you worrying: yes, this story is going to be pretty heavy on the downer stuff in the first half. But the second half is going to be very heavy on the happy stuff, which will hopefully make up for it. And despite the harsh feelings in the first half, there's also going to be plenty that I think will make the first half enjoyable ... *ahemsexualtensionahem*
The name "Attitude" for the company she's going to start working for is a ballet term. It's a fashion company. I REALLY don't know much French, and I was going to try to just come up with a few fun names in English, plug them into Google Translate, and see which French word best fit what I wanted. But I did take REALLY simple ballet lessons as a young kid, and I'm familiar with a few basic ballet terms. I suddenly thought, "Huh, that might be a cool way to come up with a company name, since ballet is so graceful and a fashion company might want to capture that grace in their designs." So I pulled up Wikipedia's glossary of ballet terms and didn't even make it through the As before I came across this gem. It's just perfect. It's a beautiful ballet position, graceful and elegant, yet conveys all of the commanding power that ballet requires. Plus, it's also a play on the word attitude in the traditional sense (which, as far as I can tell, means approximately the same thing in both English and French, although I could be very wrong about that). Grace, elegance, power, and attitude all rolled into one word. The perfect name for a fashion company, if you ask me ;)
Thank you all for reading! I can't lie: the response to the first chapter blew me completely away :D I was worried the first chapter was too _ (boring, sad, slow, -insert term here-), so it was absolutely WONDERFUL to see so many people get excited about it! I haven't had time to reply to many comments, so if that includes yours I'm really sorry! Hopefully I can really soon.
As always, feel free to come squeal with me about these two dweebs on Tumblr (Konekat) -obligatory "my blog is NSFW" warning- Although just a heads up that I haven't been able to get on as often recently with life being … life. Haha
And, last but definitely not least, a million thanks to Sandra (sandrastar66), who is so lovely and puts up with me bouncing ideas off of her. Your input is always so fantastic! Thank you~~ ^v^
