The Best Laid Schemes O' Mice an' Men...
Summary: Marinette has a great deal of work to catch up on, and much to think about in light of recent events. Anxiety claws at the edges of her mind, but she's learning to cope, and she has a caring, if blunt, best friend, and a kwami to offer her advice. The latter may not fully support her approach to improving her relationships with her boyfriend and girlfriend, though.
Warnings: Panic attack
The pleasant warm light of Marinette's room offered the girl a comforting sense of familiarity and safety that counterbalanced the frantic creative energy that caused her limbs to tingle. Fabrics and sewing paraphernalia littered the room due to her typical chaotic style, which Adrien had gently informed her might have to change if she became a professional designer for a company like Gabriel.
"So, how'd it go with Nino?" Marinette hummed absently as she dove into nearly-complete design work on her desk with relish.
"Not bad," Alya said from the video chat app on Marinette's computer, a static crackle distorting her voice, "but he's going to have to complete a lot of speed runs of Super Penguino level 3 before he gets back to the bonus stage."
"And that's a ... bad thing?" Marinette questioned, repositioning fabric. "Does he not like level 3?"
"Nah. He likes it more than he'll admit, but it's a long level and I enjoy it more than he does."
"Ah," Marinette cooed. "That level."
She was nowhere near level 3 with Kagami or Adrien because she would make an absolute stuttering idiot out of herself. None of them were emotionally ready for anything close to that, though Kagami might be closer to it than her. Not that the pair, who were slightly more "familiar" with each other, hadn't spent a little bit of time coaxing her blushing and bashful self around first base, which she figured was roughly akin to "level 1" of Super Penguino.
"Yep," Alya popped. "You should really find someone to try it with, or at least so that you can move on from the tutorial to get to level 1. I know that Luka didn't work out, but you've got to put yourself out there, girl."
"I just don't have time for that sort of thing between school, the bakery, and my commissions." And trying to negotiate a relationship with two other people while also battling super-villains every second day, though she couldn't tell Alya that.
"But I notice that you did have time for Adrien this afternoon," Alya said in a conspiratorially hush. "Spill, girl. What were you doing with Mr. Agreste while I was disciplining Nino?"
"Don't want to hear about your fetishes, thanks," Marinette deflected faux-cheerfully.
"Oh, nice one girl," Alya enthused with no small amount of snark, "but you're not throwing me off the scent that easily."
Marinette caught herself between a yawn and a sigh. Of course Alya's dogged determination to uncover the truth could not be broken.
"We were just having lunch, and he wanted to thank me for helping him with Kagami by inviting me to a movie with them this Saturday."
As she threaded a needle to transition into the final detail work on her project, she found her friend's lingering silence somewhat unnerving, and so turned to her computer. Alya was merely leaning into the screen, having stopped typing up her most recent blog article.
"Why are you torturing yourself like this, girl?" she said at last as she plucked off her glasses and set them off screen. "I'm not saying this to hurt you, but I want to be honest so you don't get hurt worse: Adrien doesn't love you."
Marinette flinched and nearly dropped her materials, her breathing accelerating. In mere moments, it was reduced to quick pants. No matter how quickly she tried to suck down air, she couldn't get enough.
"And hanging around waiting for scraps, or for them to break up so that you can swoop in and save Adrien, just isn't healthy," Alya finished with paradoxical gentleness.
That was an agonizing accusation on so many levels, because in some ways she still thought that Adrien didn't really love her – that one day he'd realize that all of this was a mistake as they could never work with Gabriel Agreste and Tomoe Tsurugi watching all the time, ready to crush Adrien, Kagami, and Marinette, along with any hope of freedom or success in the fashion industry and it was too much trouble – she was too much trouble for them to be interested in her because she was just an experiment and nothing more and that was all that Marinette would ever be worth to anyone.
That was the anxiety. Kagami and Adrien told her that. Because they cared.
Affirming that to herself didn't soothe the burning ache of fear, but it did let her shut her eyes and tamp down on her breathing.
It would pass because it always did.
Your feelings are valuable, but they pass. They always pass. It always passes and they don't define you. They don't have to control you.
The rapid, shallow breaths that she could feel only half inflating her lungs slowly morphed into deep inhalations. She just had to breathe from her belly. Long. Filling her up. Slow. Leaving her empty.
"Girl?" Alya pressed from the darkness beyond Marinette's closed eyelids.
"Just a second, Alya."
There was a small blister on the sole of her left foot, which itself was stiff and achy. A nerve was pinched in her calf. She clenched, held, and released it. Her hands fell to her freshly-shaved thighs that were smooth under her fingers, warming uncomfortably with the harsh grip of her fingers that dimpled her flesh and left red marring. The rise and fall of her belly brushed her shirt, just below the swell of her chest. Shoulders high and tight, she forced them to relax with a subtle roll. Veins and arteries in her throat throbbed, slowing to a pulsation and then something normal that she couldn't even detect. Her scalp itched right at the crown of her head, so she scratched at it absently.
With one last low breath, she turned back to her computer screen.
"It will be alright, Alya," Marinette affirmed as much for her own benefit as for that of her friend. "I know where we stand and I won't let my feelings convince me of something that isn't true."
"If you're sure, girl," Alya continued dubiously, "but maybe you want to turn them down this time anyways."
"Why?" Marinette replied as she returned to the commission on her work desk.
"Well, what if they start, you know, making out in the theatre?"
Marinette fumbled a stitch and had to begin to undo it hastily.
"You don't want to see that," Alya said with a rough chuckle.
Actually, she kind of did want to see that. Adrien and Kagami were gorgeous people, and, well, first base.
"Listen, Alya, I said that I would be fine, and I will," Marinette said with an air of finality, not even looking up from her work this time.
"Okay," Alya replied and out of the corner of Marintte's eye, she could see her friend worry her hands together. "You busy or something tonight, girl?
When was she not busy? She'd fretted and catastrophized after last night's patrol, wasting time that should have gone into the commission that she was working on, spoken with Kagami for an hour, had three papers to write, two of which she'd already gotten extensions on, had to prep for her history test, was expected to help in the bakery on Saturday, and who knew how many akuma that Hawkmoth would send out this week?
"Yeah. Big commission that's due soon," she said. That deflection was such a lame excuse, so impotent and small compared to the whirlwind of concerns that buffeted her about each day.
"Getting things done at the last minute, again, eh? Gotta take care of yourself, first, though, girl. Don't kill yourself," Alya added lightly, though the flippant tone was itself strained by genuine concern and a hint of frustration.
Whatever her failings, and Lord knew that Marinette had her own, Alya was a good friend. She tried, more than Marinette deserved when she was prevaricating and outright lying constantly. It had only grown worse since she'd had to cover for her relationship with Adrien and Kagami and her new role as Guardian, and surely there was only so much that the other girl could take.
Would Adrien and Kagami one day feel the same way?
"You don't have to worry about it, Alya," Marinette strained.
"Alright," her friend replied with a curt nod. "I guess I'll leave you to it."
"Thanks, Alya. Take care."
"Bye, girl."
Her image shifted on screen as the other girl leaned in before winking out of existence, leaving only the dry "Rate Call Connectivity" prompt from her computer's messaging app in her place.
"Tikki, would you mind getting that for me?" Marinette hummed as she resumed her work.
The little goddess of creation rose from a slowly-dwindling pile of cookies and flitted over the Marinette's mouse and keyboard, taking the time to rate the call at a full five stars and then slamming her body into the power button on the computer screen. The image blinked off as Tikki did much the same thing to the "sleep" key, the tower's lights dimming and the low electrical hum that had pervaded the room dying away.
"She's not wrong, Marinette," Tikki said softly as she returned to her wielder and settled on Marinette's work desk. "You do need to take time for yourself on occasion."
"I do," Marinette insisted absently. "I spent an hour online with Kagami and Adrien last night. That was 'me' time."
"Really," Tikki scoffed. "What did you talk about?"
"Uh-" and there was that prevarication again, just redirected. "Lots of things."
"Marinette," Tikki prodded with a sigh.
"Okay, fine, but Kagami needed us after what her mother did. That's more important."
"Do you think that either of them would have wanted you to spend an hour with them, trying to help Adrien to lift Kagami's spirits, if they had known how much work you had to do?"
"That doesn't matter, Tikki. They didn't know." And you can't be blamed for what you don't know, as her conversation with Adrien himself reminded her this afternoon.
"You didn't tell them," Tikki pressed, plucking a needle from Marinette's pin cushion and handing it over when required.
"She needed us," Marinette stressed again, though she couldn't bring herself to look at the little kwami.
"You can't just sacrifice everything for the people you care about, even the people you love." The little goddess of creation flew up into Marinette's view to look her in the eye. "That's not how relationships work. It's just a way to foster resentment."
How was Marinette even supposed to know how relationships worked? Before she or they even knew what they were doing, she'd dived head first into polyamory. At least Kagami had done research. Now it was juggling two- three relationships between each pair and all three of them in addition to all of her other stresses. Even more than that if she counted "Mitsubachi," Ladybug, and whatever was going on with Chat Noir.
Between the "six" of them, it was like... a love Hexagon.
Cue a "honeycomb" joke from Chat Noir. She could almost hear his voice and see his grinning face in the back of her mind. Stupid cat was in her head.
Of course, he had a girlfriend, she had to remind herself because that was such a weird thought after having him chasing after her for so long. A love heptagon? There had always been something comforting about his affections, as insistent and ill-timed as his expression thereof often had been, because they were sure and solid and they flattered her ego, which was really kind of despicable.
"I thought you liked Adrien and Kagami?" Marinette grumbled because it was easier than trying to work through the matter in her head. "Weren't you in favour of this?"
"Well, you are very cute together," Tikki granted with a giggle, "but you're my first concern. It's because I care about you that I want things to work out. Honesty and open communication are necessary for that."
"I can handle it, Tikki," Marinette assured her. It was true. Despite the demands on her time, the weight of responsibilities, her Guardianship, her desperate attempts to support Adrien and Kagami with their parents and the much worse problems that they had to deal with, her role as class president – God, she was going to stress herself out even more if she continued on that line of thought.
Maybe she's right. Maybe I am just a mess.
"I'm almost done," she assured, rather than giving voice or mental space to that thought. "If I put in a good two hours of work tonight, I should be able to polish off the finishing touches."
"I know that you can handle it, Marinette," Tikki reassured her, "but I'm not just talking about one night's work or a commission. I'm trying to talk to you about what's healthy for you and for your relationship."
"I know, Tikki," Marinette replied and turned to her kwami, both her gaze and her voice pleading, "and I appreciate that, but I just – I can't deal with that right now, okay?"
"Okay, Marinette," Tikki granted, "but I'm here to talk if you need me."
Two hours of work uninterrupted by Tikki, her concerned parents, who had been told that her room was strictly off limits tonight, or Alya did indeed allow her to finish off the fine detail work on Aurore Beauréal's jacket. Once she fell into that easy rhythm of design that was almost the exact opposite of an anxiety attack because conscious thought just seemed to vanish while everything became instinct and muscle memory, it had almost been easy.
It was relaxing to just ... shut off for a little while
Straining her arms above her head with another yawn, Marinette rose from her chair, attracting Tikki's attention from the muted television that she had been watching using closed captioning.
"Are you alright, Marinette?"
"Yeah, Tikki," Marinette replied as she rose from her chair and made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth. "Be right back."
After preparing herself for bed and changing into her night clothes, she contemplated texting Kagami to check on her, but Tikki's earlier exhortation to take some "me time" was still floating in the back of her mind. She settled at her desk, waking her computer from sleep mode, intent on trolling through some youtube feeds. Her web browser booted up to reveal the last site she had visited: the Ladyblog.
A flash of hot jealousy had her clicking away immediately, but the damage was done. Alya had finished her latest article, it seemed, while Marinette was hard at work on her commission.
Honey-Cat: Is Paris' New Heroine Sweet on Chat Noir?
And there was that damn photograph Alya had been showing off in class today.
A clenching, rolling acidic feeling welled up inside of her, and if she let it, she would begin to hyperventilate again. There it was, and it wasn't fair. It never was to her or to Adrien and Kagami. She would give anything to pull her mind away from the grip of those ugly creeping tentacles of anxiety that were always sliming their way around the edges of her brain.
"Tikki, I'm ready for that talk now!" she strained in a hush, well aware that her parents were only a few rooms away.
The little Kwami joined her at her desk without a word, though she did pause to cuddle up to Marinette's cheek for a moment. A little physical affection went a long way towards settling her nerves. It always did, because she was used to touch. There was the lifetime of crushing hugs from her papa. Her mother cradled her head when she needed a good cry, stroking her hair and humming snippets of childhood lullabies until Marinette calmed. Tikki never shied away from expressing her affections with gentle nuzzles, and even Chat Noir had a complete lack of physical boundaries because those were a luxury they couldn't afford when they got tangled up together on a regular basis or had to body-check each other out of the way of danger.
She had to wonder, though, outside of their time together, did Kagami and Adrien ever have that? What would it be like to have a mother who never cuddled you when you needed to cry? Or never even let you cry? How could a father never wrap you up in his arms and make you feel like there was nothing in the world that could ever hurt you because he loved you and you never needed anything more than that to keep you safe?
She swallowed and blinked to hold back tears.
Tomorrow, wherever they were, Adrien and Kagami were going to get the biggest hugs she could offer.
Refocusing on Tikki, who had flitted over to the desk and was twiddling her nubs, she tried her best to banish those thoughts, but the article and the status of her boyfriend and girlfriend wouldn't quite leave her.
"Tikki," she began hesitantly, and the Kwami turned to her.
"Yes, Marinette? I'm happy to talk if you think that would help."
Time to bite the bullet.
"Do you think," Marinette paused. "Do you think that I made the wrong choice in giving Kagami a miraculous?"
"It is your right as the guardian to give our the Miraculous to any anyone you deem worthy, Marinette," Tikki reassured. "I can offer you my advice, and so can any of the other kwami, but we can't tell you if you're right."
"That's not the most helpful answer, Tikki." Why couldn't someone else just think for her – work through her problems for her? Her own racing, traitorous mind couldn't be trusted with that.
"Maybe, but it is the truth" she affirmed and retrieved one of her last cookies, taking a pensive bite before continuing. "Now, why are you worried that Kagami was the wrong choice? Like I said, we can give you advice, the best that we can offer."
"Thank you, Tikki," Marinette began, hesitating to try to find the right words to express the deeper concern that she couldn't quite understand herself before sighing. Best to just speak it aloud and see what thought coalesced.
"I- I think that I'm jealous. I didn't even realize that until last night with Chat Noir."
"Oh, Marinette," Tikki cooed. "That doesn't mean that you made a mistake giving her a miraculous. Don't let what Alya said get you to second-guess yourself. She tries her best, but a lot of the time her imagination gets away from her. You're all still young, and for her that means that she can sometimes be more interested in the stories that she wants to see than the ones that are true."
"I wish that I could say that it was just because of Alya's shipping talk, Tikki, but," she frownd and began to play with a stray needle to keep her hands occupied. "But it wasn't that I was jealous that Chat and Kagami got to spend time together."
"Of Kagami, then? Chat is your partner. That's understandable too. You don't have to be ashamed of that feeling."
"No, Tikki. It's worse than that. When I saw them together, I realized that I- I think that I'm jealous of Adrien." Considering his treatment at the hands of his father and just how little love he received, how could she have felt that way? Maybe it wasn't the anxiety talking when that mental voice told her that they would never work and it would be her fault.
"Oh, well, that is different, I guess." Tikki trundled over to a spool of red tread laying on Marinette's workspace, gripped its edge and pulled herself upwards. The sight of her her little nubby legs flailing in the air for a second before she settled herself into a seated position had Marinette smiling despite her dour thoughts.
"You could just float up, you know." Marinette snorted despite the sting in her eyes.
"Where's the fun in that?" Tikki asked with a cheeky grin, staring up at Marinette from her new psychiatrist's chair. Marinette settled herself and tried to collect her thoughts into something that could reasonably be presented to "Dr. Tikki."
"Adrien has so many things in common with her – spends so much time with her," Marinette sighed, resting her chin in her hands, bringing her face close to the attentive kwami. The two heirs lived in the same world, one that she really couldn't access.
"Kagami fences with Adrien almost every week. They go to the same parties, and their parents want them to be together. Everyone knows that they're dating, while I'm just ... alone. I know that they try to include me as often as they can, and Kagmi and I meet for orange juice, but- I don't know..."
"You see Adrien every day, but as 'just a friend.' You're afraid that the three of you are imbalanced." the kwami clarified with a slow nod. "In the time that you spend together. In how your relationships are developing."
"I think –" Marinette had to stop to settle her mind and unsteady heart. "I know, because of what happened with Chat, that I've felt that for a while. So, did I give Kagami a Miraculous for the wrong reasons – because I wanted an excuse to spend time with her, just the two of us? Did I want to share something with her that was ours because I was selfish and jealous and I didn't think that what I was getting was enough?"
"I don't know, Marinette," Tikki conceded. "That's a question that you have to search your own heart to answer. Here's what I do know. That heart is huge. Even if you were being selfish, you weren't just being selfish."
"How am I supposed to know, Tikki?" Wasn't the little god supposed to be wise in light of thousands of years guiding Ladybugs? "Maybe that's why I was so angry with Chat for just being silly and kind. Because he was actually using the time that I wanted to have with her, instead of leaving her out to dry like I did?"
The little kwami rubbed her nubby paws together, a frown darkening her normally jovial features
"Marinette, maybe now isn't the time for you to start thinking about your motives." The squeakiness of her voice belied her serious, contemplative tone. "If there's an underlying problem that's got you confused, don't you think that you should try to address that first so that you can think about your responsibilities as Guardian of the miraculous clearly?"
She had to admit that the advice made sense. Marinette spiraled out of control so often, even now that she knew better, because she lost sight of the root of problems - the real - racing down a path whose choppy brickwork consisted of nothing but anxious imaginings.
"How do you suggest that I do that?" the girl hummed.
"You're feeling left out by Kagami and Adrien. You have a right to that feeling, and you also have the right to tell them."
"Tikki, I can't!" Marinette exclaimed, slapping her palms to her computer desk and pushing herself back, her chair wobbling slightly. "They'd feel terrible, and how I feel isn't their fault."
"A lot of problems aren't anyone's fault;" Tikki continued without acknowledging the outburst or heat of Marinette's tone. "They're the result of us having expectations that aren't met because they aren't expressed and that builds up over time until the good feelings that you have aren't enough."
"But they're my expectations so it's my problem to deal with Tikki. That's what I was trying to do, I think, when I gave Kagami the Bee miraculous."
"And, Marinette," Tikki soothed with a caring frown. "I love you, but that's very unhealthy."
Marinette couldn't bring herself to do anything but stare at Tikki's concerned, sincere face.
"In a relationship," the kwami continued, "you don't have problems; you all have problems. Your responsibility isn't to solve everything on your own. It's to be honest so that you can work together to understand and solve your collective problem because what affects one of your affects all of you. You and Chat Noir said that you'd take on the world together, and this isn't so different."
"So you're saying that I should just dump my problems on them?" Marinette growled, rising from her seat in a huff to rummage about in a nearby drawer. Alongside the knickknacks and assorted school supplies lay a small pink fidget-spinner which she withdrew and began to twist in her fingers. "You know what I'm like, Tikki. If I did that, I'd be badgering them all the time."
"That's a very uncharitable way of putting it, Marinette."
"I know, but- but it's true, in a way. I know that I get lost in here," she paused and tapped the side of her forehead with the fidget-spinner, "and sometimes it's tough for me to tell when I should really be afraid of something or if it's just... me."
"So let them help you to know which is which," Tikki exhorted with a sigh, rising from the desk to float over to Marinette's shoulder. "Spend time together not just having fun – and you should have fun because you need it and deserve it – but be honest with each other. When they have to deal with fake people in their lives, don't you think they deserve the honest truth, even when it's not fun?"
Turning from her kwami, Marinette tossed her fidget-spinner onto her desk and scaled the ladder that led up to her bed, though she could feel Tikki trailing after her.
"Thanks, Tikki," she mumbled while pulling her comforter aside and slipping into bed, taking a moment to readjust her pillow. "Could you get the light?"
The kwami flitted off without a word, leaving Marinette to stare up at the ceiling, wishing that her mind could be as blank as the adjoining off-pink wall.
Kagami and Adrien deserved love and a safe place to fall because they never really had that while she, with her parents, had an abundance. Yes, she had her problems, more stresses than she knew how to handle at this young age, but was hiding them out of love actually worse than "burdening" the people for whom she cared?
They all had burdens. In light of Kagami's issues with her mother, that Marinette' hadn't even seen, many of those weights were things that they didn't seem to feel that they could share with each other yet. Maybe that wasn't right; maybe they did have to take the time to actually collect their troubles together and balance the weight between them, in all aspects of their lives.
She resettled her comforter, tucking it under her chin, as the room fell to darkness, the only light pouring in from the small circular window below her, still enough to see Tikki as she floated up next to her and settled on the open expanse of mattress next to Marinette's head.
"You know, Tikki," Marinette said as she reached out to stroke her kwami's bulbous head lightly, eliciting a happy chirp. "I think that you're right. We need to spend more time together, and I've got a plan for just that."
"Marinette," the kwami grumbled, brow folding under the pressure of Marinette's finger. "I was thinking that you might just talk to them without a "plan." You know that your plans can get away from you sometimes."
"We should sit down and be honest," Marinette affirmed, "and that's something that we'll talk about on Saturday, but for the time being, I'm going to fix my mistake."
"What mistake?" Tikki inquired hesitantly, pressing her paws to Marinette's probing finger and squeezing tight in a little hug.
"Giving Kagami a miraculous for selfish reasons – because I might have been just a little jealous of Adrien."
"Marinette," the kwami gaped. "I think that it would be worse if you took it away from her. She's part of the team, and hasn't done anything to deserve that."
"Tikki how could you even think that I would do that?!" Marinette's hand jerked back, nearly dragging Tikki with her.
"What are you going to do, then?" the kwami asked, her confusion and relief obvious.
"Well," Marinette chuckled, "I have been looking for a good candidate for a miraculous - one whose identity hasn't been compromised."
Of course, that only left her with one blond-haired option.
Marinette saw, but chose to ignore, Tikki's even deeper expression of dismay.
Author's Notes and Reader Responses
Not a lot of forward movement here, except for Marinette in her attempt to think more clearly about her relationship and everyone's responsibilities. Here, we actually get into Marinette's anxiety disorder, as yet more strains of secrecy have been added to her life.
The spiral begins.
Guardian of the Inheritance - Thank you for the encouraging word.
Alyce and Indi - An entirely possible conjoined explanation for Gabriel's... beehaviors. You see the lovely, contorted mess of "identity shenanigans" we've become tangled within? A person, or trio of people, may be able to survive by lies... but not, perhaps, for very long. I can promise you a bittersweet ending when all is said and done. There will be pain, and both Adrien and Kagami are the victims - and continue to be the victims - of emotional abuse. The effects of that last a lifetime, even when you can "survive by lies" trying to suppress them.
Thank you for taking the time to comment; it means a great deal to see that people are responding to the work, even if it's only a few kind followers.