Ed notes: This chapter potentially toes the line of the rating. There is partial nudity, and it gets suggestive, but not explicit. Just letting you know.

See the Light

A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

By Mintaka14

Chapter Four – The World Has Somehow Shifted

She was reading too much into that song. All Rose's talk of romance and fairytales and Disney was getting to her, and sung in Luka's gorgeous voice of course it was going to sound like…

Dammit, she was a grown woman, and she was not going to cry.

But her vision blurred as she typed out the curt little response to Luka's text. She didn't dare trust herself to write more.

She should know by now that Ladybug didn't get the happily ever after, and she didn't get the prince. (But I don't want a prince, the voice whispered at the back of her mind, just Luka)

The wedding dresses were done and delivered, so Marinette threw herself into making her own outfit as a distraction. If she couldn't go to the Liberty, she could focus on gold embossed blue silk chiffon with grim determination. The results were at least pretty enough, she decided as she faced the mirror on the morning of the wedding.

The skirts drifted around her knees in a cloud of powder blue and gold filigree. She flattened her hand over the narrow gilt belt at her waist and regarded herself critically, reaching up to tuck an escaping strand of hair back into the chignon at the nape of her neck. Marinette found herself wondering if Luka would like it, and cut that train of thought off sharply. It didn't matter what he thought, because they were simply friends, assuming they could even be that anymore. She was not doing this to the both of them all over again.

She heard Mylène's voice at the door, and caught up the clutch purse with her disapproving kwami in it, sliding into the pale gold heels that she'd bought for the occasion. Time to go and be happy for her friends.

Marinette travelled out to the vineyard for the wedding with Ivan and Mylène, and sat with them under the trees as the harpist played and the guests gathered. The soft chatter died down, and as the music paused and swelled in the bright afternoon the brides made their way down the grassy aisle together. Rose was sunshine in blushing pink and cascades of flowers, bright as she beamed up at Juleka. And Juleka, in her darkly elegant moonlit gown, glowed.

Marinette's eyes turned to Luka, taking his place beside Anarka. He'd managed to lose his suit coat and tie somewhere along the way, and the teal fall of his hair was a vivid splash of colour over the charcoal and cloud grey of his shirt and vest as he bent to say something quietly to his mother, his arm going around her. Luka's head turned, and for a moment his eyes met hers.

"Are you okay, Marinette?" Mylène whispered, and Marinette jerked her gaze free, managing to summon up a smile that must have been convincing enough.

It was a small wedding, but half of the guests were Couffaines, and it turned out that the Lavillants were a lot like Rose, so it wasn't by any means a subdued or formal occasion. Marinette had never met Rose's parents, but it was obvious where Rose got her enthusiasm from once she'd been introduced to Rose's mother. And then there was Jagged.

He'd swooped down on Marinette in an exuberant avalanche the moment that the two brides had been whisked away for their photos, and Marinette had been left laughing and breathless. She was passed from hand to hand, and congratulated at every turn on the stunning wedding gowns.

Once or twice, she caught Luka looking her way, and there was something in his eyes that made her heart stumble, but he kept his distance. She was, she told herself, grateful for that.

Marinette caught up her pale blue and gold skirts as the breeze fluttered them around her and picked her way carefully across the grass as the entire company trekked through the gardens towards the waiting château. Luka still hadn't come anywhere near her by the time they'd all reached the wide paved courtyard where waiters were moving around with trays of champagne and platters of elegant hors d'oeuvre waited on tables against the backdrop of old-fashioned damask roses and ivy and stone walls. She smiled and waved away the offered champagne glass, and threaded her way through the chattering guests to slip inside the doors of the huge old hall ready for the reception. Once inside, she breathed a sigh of relief in the temporary silence.

The hall was a warm cavern of stone and timber, glowing in the candlelight and soft with tables full of white linen and pink roses, and Marinette tilted her head to look up into the strings of pennants and fairy lights that twinkled from the ancient rafters. She knew, without looking, that the soft footfall behind her was Luka.

"Rose's fairytale," she said a little wistfully. "It's beautiful."

"It is." He was looking at her. "Feeling a little bit overwhelmed?" he asked sympathetically.

"It's just been a long day."

For a moment, it looked like he was going to reach out to her, but he shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Everyone will be coming inside soon. I'm thinking it might be a good time to go find a quiet corner to get ready for our performance," he suggested, and Marinette let out a faint sigh.

"A quiet corner sounds like a wonderful idea."

As she followed him out of the hall, Luka chuckled and nodded at one of the delicate pink flower arrangements. Nestled in among the roses, Marinette saw a tiny glittery black bat, and she couldn't help laughing.

"It's Juleka's fairytale too," Luka said.

The space he led her to had obviously become the designated storage area for every musician on the guest list. They picked their way through the jumble of instruments that seemed to fill the antechamber, and Luka gave a wry smile.

"Jagged's brought in enough to start a fairly sizeable orchestra. I think things are going to get loud later on."

He found his acoustic guitar propped behind a drumkit, and she perched on a chair while he tuned it. She found herself staring stupidly at those arms of his, and the snake tattoo that coiled down his forearm from under his rolled up shirt sleeves, wishing they were wrapped around her. It really wasn't fair of him.

"Marinette?"

She shook herself out of her stupor.

She kept waiting for him to say something about the way she'd run off the last time he'd seen her, or to ask if she was alright. Instead, he played a quick rising scale on his guitar, and then settled into an easy little melody that was familiar enough that she could sing along with it. She was grateful for his silence as she gave most of her attention to warming her voice up, but a part of her couldn't help wondering why he said nothing.

Marinette startled and pulled her attention back when Luka stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

He said, "It sounds like it's just about our turn. Are you feeling ready?"

The noise was rising in the hall behind them with the sound of laughter and talk, and shoes and chairs clattering on the flagstones. Anarka's voice rang out over the babble, commanding someone to Sit down, ye auld pirate! Marinette heard Jagged's holler in response, and felt a sickening spike of nerves. What had possessed her to agree to this? She was going to sing in front of Jagged Stone? Marinette looked back at the hall full of people, and gave a shudder.

"What on earth was I thinking? I can't sing! I'm going to completely choke in front of everyone and embarrass Rose and Juleka on their wedding day."

Luka caught her hand, tugging her around gently until she was looking at him.

"I've got you," he insisted, just as sincere and steady as he'd been when they were teenagers, and she took a deep breath, letting it out again. "I won't let you fall. You've got this."

"Have I?"

His answering smile was full of certainty. "You've done worse than this before, you can handle a handful of friends who'll love you even if you sound like a crow. Which you don't," he told her with a warm laugh in his voice. "You've spoken on stage in front of fashion critics, you can handle anything."

"And I wanted to throw up every time."

"But you didn't."

Marinette tilted a dark look at him, and he smothered a smile.

"Okay, so you threw up. I can take a bucket on stage for you if you like."

"It's alright for you, Mister Rockstar," she sniffed.

"There's a reason I never took Jagged up on his offer to take me on tour with him," he told her. "Although, in retrospect, a classroom full of bored fifteen year olds is a tougher audience than a stadium crowd, so maybe I should have."

She could help the laugh that escaped, and she looked down at his hands still holding hers. Dangerous, to even consider taking the support he'd always offered her, but she kept her eyes on him and her hand in his as he caught up his guitar, and she let him lead her towards the hall.

In the end, it wasn't hard to block out the soft rustle of people at the tables, or Rose's excited little squeak. She didn't even notice Jagged's wolf-whistle, or Penny shushing him. There was Luka and his guitar and his wonderful, reassuring smile as she followed his music and sang.

His smile grew brighter as she chimed in with, "All those days, watching from the windows," and the guitar chords rippled before her like water. It was easy when it felt like there was just Luka, here with her. Perilously easy.

She sang, "All at once, everything is different," and she wasn't singing for Rose and Juleka anymore. Luka's gorgeous blue eyes were on her, only on her, as he took up the melody. Music was his truest voice, and in that moment she heard his heart as clearly as he'd ever heard hers. Marinette felt something like an electric shock, and faltered her cue.

Luka's eyes shifted swiftly into concern, and his voice picked it up again until she'd recovered. She couldn't be having this moment now, not in the middle of Rose and Juleka's wedding, not on their day. Luka's warm, husky voice wrapped around her, held her up, and as he sang "At last I see the light" Marinette knew that this was something she was never going to recover from.

The sound of applause brought her back to herself, and she broke away from the look in Luka's eyes with a faint gasp. Somehow she managed to find the words to wish Juleka and Rose and very happy marriage, then she slid past everyone, heading a little too fast towards the door. Friends, and people she'd never met in her life, spoke to her as she passed and she offered them brief, strained smiles. She barely knew what she was saying to them, and didn't really hear what they were saying to her.

Finally, she found herself outside in the cool and blessedly quiet night air. She could hear the sounds of the first round of music starting, and Jagged's boisterous voice over the static wail of an electric guitar being tuned. The laughter and chatter in the ballroom behind her was muffled and felt like a whole world away. Marinette put a hand up to her overheated cheek, and was a little startled to find that she was shaking. Even after all these years, after convincing herself for so long that they were just friends, that it was fairer to him if they were just friends, that he didn't want to be more than friends after everything she'd put him through, those steady blue eyes of his could still hit her hard.

"Marinette?" Luka said behind her, and she jolted. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. You're going to miss the dancing," she said, trying hard to keep her voice light. She didn't think he was fooled. He'd always been far too good at reading her mind and heart, even when she'd been incomprehensible to herself, and that was another thing that had made him so dangerous to be around.

"They won't even notice I'm not there for a while." He shifted a little, close enough that she could bridge the space between them if she wanted to. "I'm here if you need me."

He had always been there for her. That simple truth was what broke her down in the end. She felt a bubble catch in her chest, rising to force its way out with a strangled sound. She almost doubled over, gripping the ivy-covered wall beside her, and heard Luka's quick inhalation, his hand rising towards her and falling again as she backed away.

"See, this? This is why I broke up with you when we were teenagers," she almost sobbed at him. "You make me want to hold onto you and tell you everything, and I can't!"

Luka was holding himself in intense stillness.

"The other relationships I've had, it was easy enough to walk away when things got too close, but you… It's not fair!"

"What's not fair?" Luka asked carefully.

"Doing that to you!" She was shaking now. "Having to give this up again. Why does everyone else get to have someone to love them and I don't?!"

"You do." He took one small, uncontrolled step towards her. "Whether we're together or not, whoever you're with, whatever is going on in your life, I love you. I will always care about you."

"You need the truth, and it's the one thing I can't give you," she said miserably.

Luka's voice was so soft it was almost unspoken. "What if I already know?"

It took a moment for his words to catch up with her and sink in. The world faded into a distant buzz in her head, a cold tingle that crept over her.

Oh, that was bad. That was bad. He couldn't mean what she thought he meant. She'd given up so much to keep anyone from knowing, and she could still feel the crushing backlash of what had happened when she'd made the mistake of telling her closest friend. He couldn't know.

"Marinette?"

In the dizzying spiral of her fragmented reactions, she couldn't think, couldn't move. She stood still, and felt his hands close over hers, gently, so very gently. The contact anchored her to the moment.

"Marinette, I'm here. It's going to be okay."

She turned her hands, palm to palm, under his hands and wove her fingers through his.

"I told Alya," she breathed, and the quality of stillness deepened as he listened. "After you and I broke up, I was so sick of the secrets and lies, and Alya found out some things, so I told her. For three months I had someone who knew, then of course it went wrong, and now Alya has three months of patchy memories from collège that I'm not a part of. I'm still not sure how much deeper the impact to her mind went. The last time I saw her, back around the time I started at the Institut, she still had that puzzled, blank look when she looked my way because I had to take her memory of my secret identity away."

Marinette drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"I never, ever want to do that to you," she whispered, and Luka drew her closer, his fingers still tangled in hers. "I couldn't bear to look into you eyes and see that blankness there."

He was close enough that she could feel his heartbeat and the soft huff of his laugh against her hair. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Marinette? You will never see that in me. Never. You could take away every memory I have of you, and I'd still have stars in my eyes when I look at you. I'd just fall for you all over again, like I do every time we meet."

She hiccuped on a sob, and looked up into his warm, steady blue eyes.

"If that's what you need to do to be safe, then take them," he told her. "I'll happily give up those memories of knowing that you're her if that's what you need. It doesn't change a thing about how I feel about you."

"It's not just that. Have you thought, if I take away your memory of me being… her… and we still try to make us work, we're back to all those secrets and broken dates and lies."

"Then give me what you can. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that some truths aren't yours to share. Just don't lie when you can't tell me, and I promise you I'll understand."

That he was willing to compromise even that for her… Oh, Luka.

"Or," she let out the word on a soft exhale, as if testing the idea, "you know."

And who else, when all was said and done, would she trust more than Luka with her heart and all of her secrets? Who else would she trust to keep the world safe, and everything she'd been fighting to protect?

Luka's thumb was gently tracing the line of her palm, and the touch was calming even as her mind cleared and raced. This didn't feel like a scared fourteen year old, alone and overwhelmed and terrified she was going to lose her best friend as well as the boy she loved. This felt like the moment when she held a lucky charm and the pieces of a plan started to come together in her mind. This felt like what she needed.

Marinette stretched up on her toes and met his lips with a kiss.

She heard the sudden hitch of his breath, and there was a moment's hesitation that would have let her draw back, freak out, rethink, but she wasn't holding back anymore. This time, when she kissed him, he met her halfway.

Marinette stumbled backwards into the ivy-covered wall as she tugged Luka with her and his mouth came down on hers, desperate and insistent. And oh god if he'd kissed her like this all those years ago she never would have been able to give him up.

She felt the ivy catch at her hair as he backed her up against the wall. The touch of his hand on her jaw, his fingers buried deep in the unravelling curls at the base of her neck, was bringing everything undone and Marinette tilted her head back as his mouth trailed down to the hollow of her throat.

Marinette's hands clutched at his shirt as the weight of his thigh pressed against her, and she hitched her leg up against his hip, trying to get closer. The gutteral noise he made did unspeakable things to her and god he was ruining her as she pulled him closer, wanting him closer, wanting him. His mouth was on hers again, swallowing the sounds she was making. She could feel him, hard against her, through the layers of silk chiffon.

In the haze that he was making of her mind she was still dimly aware of the sounds of the wedding and the presence of their friends and family in the hall just beyond their deeper well of shadows against the wall, but as she pushed harder against him, the soft froth of her skirts bunching between them, Marinette didn't care. Her hands came up to dig into the muscles of his shoulders, holding him and oh god, Luka.

White heat swept over her, blanking out her thoughts, and then they were breaking apart, breathing hard.

"Please tell me I can kiss you again," Luka rasped. His fingers were tangled with hers, and she could feel the uneven rise and fall of his breath.

"Oh, god, yes!"

The kiss was softer this time, reverent, with the feather light brush of his lips over the corner of her mouth, and she shivered at the touch.

"Luka? Are you out here?" someone called.

Marinette blinked in the sudden wash of golden light and raucous swell of noise, and she looked up to find Rose and Juleka standing in the open doorway. Juleka had a hand over her new wife's mouth, and Rose's eyes were impossibly wide. She was almost vibrating, and reached up to pull Juleka's hand away.

"Best. Wedding present. Ever!" she breathed with barely suppressed intensity, and Luka gave a soft huff of a laugh, leaning his forehead against Marinette's. He plucked a stray ivy leaf from her hair and let it drift to the ground.

"Rose, I love you like my own sister," he said, "and I know it's your wedding day, but please go away."

After Juleka managed to tug Rose away, there were a few more soft kisses in the darkness before they reluctantly returned to the wedding reception. Marinette parted from Luka for just long enough to grab her purse and disappear into the bathroom to untangle her ruined chignon and pin her hair back into some semblance of order in front of the mirror. Her dress was hopelessly crumpled, though, and her lipstick was beyond repair. Marinette found herself smiling dopily at her reflection.

"Marinette, this is bad!" a tiny voice said portentously from her purse, and it felt like a sudden dunk in cold water. Marinette slowly ran her hands down her wrinkled skirts, delaying the moment, while she thought. Finally she straightened, and turned to face her kwami.

"You're going to have to erase his memories," Tikki insisted.

"I don't think so," Marinette said, ignoring Tikki's horrified gasp, as her mind ran through the possibilities with lightning speed. "No."

"Marinette." Tikki's tone was ominous. "You're not thinking straight. You're letting a few kisses cloud your judgement. You know –"

"Has it occurred to you," she interrupted Tikki, "how long we've just been fighting everything to a standstill? You say I'm a fantastic Ladybug, but we're no closer to getting back the butterfly Miraculous than we were ten years ago. Ten years. I've been so caught up in just surviving from moment to moment, one battle to the next, one villain to the next, that I haven't been able to think beyond that. I had no idea how much it was draining me until I reconnected with Juleka and Rose again, and with Luka."

"Do you remember what happened the last time you revealed your identity? Alya –"

"Luka is not Alya," Marinette cut off the doom-laden lecture, and there was a hint of growing steel in her voice. "And I'm not a fourteen year old, new to her responsibilities, anymore. You say you trust me, so trust me. I'm feeling clearer than I have in a long, long time. For the first time in years, I actually feel like I have hope, and I will find a way to make this work."

Luka was waiting for her when she made it back to the hall, and she barely noticed the kind and knowing grins of their friends and his family as the rest of the night passed in a haze of glitter and fairylights and music with Luka's arms around her. Tikki was silent in her purse where she'd left it at the table. There would be serious conversations later, and the fate of Paris to talk about, but right now she didn't care.

The speeches were finally done, the fairytale cake was a scattering of crumbs, and one of the guests had taken over the stage to sing a slow, sweet cover of Nothing Else Matters while couples danced and smaller groups laughed and talked. Luka pulled Marinette close, his hands warm on the curve of her back, and she looked up into those deep blue eyes of his.

The invitation that he whispered against her ear sent heat straight through her. Feeling a little breathless, she tried to pull herself together. They were still in the middle of the dancefloor and surrounded by people, his mother was right there, but those eyes of his were doing things to her.

"You don't want to take a turn on stage?" she asked a little dazedly, glancing at the musicians on the tiny stage, but he was only looking at her.

His mouth curved up in a tiny smile. "There are other songs I'd rather be playing right now."

There was only so much she could take, Marinette decided. Her hands slid down from around his neck to the lean, solid muscle of his shoulders and chest, and she enjoyed the way he reacted under her touch. She flicked a glance up at him through her lashes.

"Then take me to bed," she told him, her voice turning low and throaty. "I want a private performance, rockstar."

Luka made a strangled noise, and she took his hand.

In the soft darkness of his guest room on the other side of the château, when her dress slid to the floor in a shimmer of blue and gold, she heard his swift inhalation. Then it was his turn to steal her breath away and make her cry out.

Some time later in the early dark hours of the morning, when the sounds of music and loud laughter from the hall were finally starting to die down, and the newly weds had long left the party for their bridal suite, Marinette propped her chin on Luka's bare chest and enjoyed the view. His hands moved over her back, coming up to stroke the tangled fall of dark hair from her eyes.

"Beautiful," he whispered in that husky voice that sent shivers through her.

Beyond the heavy damask curtains at the windows, she could see the first faint light of dawn.

"What happens now?" Marinette asked quietly. As the corners of Luka's mouth lifted in a smile that turned a little wicked, she pouted at him. "Other than that!"

The quilt had ended up in a puddle on the floor somewhere in the night, but the sheets shifted around her as he gathered her closer and brushed a kiss against her hair.

"I think this is where we live happily ever after. Rose will disown us if we don't."

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" she said, rolling her eyes. She settled back against him again. "Although I'm not sure I remember how to do happy."

"This looks like a pretty good place to start to me."

Her finger traced a line around his wrist where a particular bracelet had been, once upon a time. Maybe it was time for the snake Miraculous to make a reappearance. Tikki would probably have a lot to say about that, but maybe it was time to rethink a few things. She circled his wrist again, looping back to where she'd started.

Marinette gave a sudden gasp and sat up, the sheets tumbling away from her as Luka protested. She stared down at him with wide eyes and complete disregard for her current nakedness.

"I… think I have a plan," she told him a little breathlessly, and Luka burst out laughing.

"Of course you do." His voice with thick with adoration and pride, and he pushed himself upright, reaching to cradle her cheek in his hand as he kissed her slowly and thoroughly until she was dazed with it. He rested his forehead against hers, and she could see that beautiful smile of his. "Some things never change."

"But I think it's time that some things do," Marinette said, and kissed him back fervently with all the love in her heart.

...

Many weeks later, Sass turned from contemplating the butterfly Miraculous, finally returned to the Miracle Box where it belonged, to give the kwami of creation a smug look.

"I told you yearsss ago you ssshould have brought back my massster. Your wielder iss a brilliant Ladybug, but sshe needsss more than cold duty to truly thrive and ssshine. And the ssnake makess many thingss possssible."

Tikki huffed and made a sour face.

"Fine, you win. You were right."

Sass's fangs bared in a wide grin.

"Musssic to my earsss," he hissed, and sailed away to find a patch of sunshine to enjoy his victory. If anyone had been around to listen they might have heard the little snake humming, "At lassst they sssaw the light," as he tucked his tail under and settled into a coil, but the kwamis were too busy celebrating Nooroo's return to hear anything else, and on the couch, Marinette and Luka were lost in their own little world of tangled hands and lingering kisses. Whatever Luka was saying in a husky undertone to Marinette had brought a rising blush to her cheeks and a bright smile to her face.

They were happy.

In that moment, everyone was happy.

And that, Sass reflected with immense satisfaction, was exactly as it should be.

Ed notes: Sass decided that he wanted to have the last word, and who am I to argue?

With huge thanks to Quickspinner, for letting me play with your original prompt. I hope it delivered! And thanks to Verfound, for putting me onto that cover of Someday Out of the Blue. Many thanks again to the LBSC gang, for being so awesome, and helpful and supportive.

Comments are love. Thank you for reading See the Light.