Title: "Gloating Rights"
Author: Veritas Found
Rating: K Plus / PG / Most Ages
Characters/Pairings: Dewey Couffaine, Harmony Couffaine, Huey Couffaine, Louie Couffaine, Luka Couffaine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Melody Couffaine; Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng
Summary: Marinette puffed out her cheeks and adamantly avoided looking at the pleading eyes before her. She could see about fifty ways to answer Luka's innocent "What's the worst that could happen?" The only reason she was going to say yes was for the gloating rights she'd get when this played out exactly how she knew it would.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes/Warnings: I found this monstrosity on Michael's website. I swear I clicked on the ad because I thought it was some crazy Christmas tree stand or something? But it was apparently a three-person circle bike? And then I casually shared it with the LBSCers, because I know I'm not the only one playing with Lukanette kids, thinking "ha ha SUFFER WITH ME". My favorite thing about sharing HB plunnies is when Quick pops up with a Family Story that is sheer perfection and I'm just left sitting here like, "Well, I just shot myself in the foot." xD
(I also realized while editing this that I haven't finished Gertie's fic yet. While they're pregnant with the Twins, Luka and Marinette realize they need more room than the flat they're currently at. So they find a little house, where they're at until they're pregnant with Clara and move onto the Farm. Gertie is this cantankerous old woman that lives next door. The day Luka and Marinette show up to tour the house, she takes one look at Marinette's Very Pregnant Belly and goes. "Tch. Breeders." Unfortunately I don't write/finish any of these in order and no one's actually met her yet. xD)
"Gloating Rights"
Marinette sucked in a breath when the wide, pleading, puppy eyes looked up at her. Three sets of pouting blues – four if you counted the idiot standing next to her, the one she had looked at when she was sixteen and thought, "Yeah, hey, I think I'd like to make a life with you." – staring up at her, lips puffed out, a whining "Pleeeeeeeeeeease?" still ringing in her ears.
Part of her couldn't help but think she should just be grateful it wasn't another stray dog.
…part of her wished it was.
"C'mon, darning," Luka wheedled, wrapping his arms around her waist and dropping his chin on her shoulder. She puffed out her cheeks and continued to stare ahead, desperately ignoring the four boys in her life who were bound to stress her into an early grave. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Oh, he just had to go there…
"I want it on record…" she started, sighing heavily. The eyes of their sons grew even wider, sensing her resolve weakening in that way all kids had. Marinette was pretty sure it was the same sixth sense that let lions know which gazelle in the herd was the weakest. Luka's arms squeezed her. The jerk was smiling. "…for the future, when this inevitably plays out exactly how I know it will, that if you must you can buy this…bicycle for the boys."
Huey, Louie, and Dewey almost started cheering. They raised their arms and opened their mouths and everything. But she held up one commanding hand, and they froze that way, waiting. Like lion cubs ready to pounce. Luka had the nerve to snicker into her shoulder.
"But, again, when this goes down exactly how we all know it will –" she paused, wincing as images of the hospital and Captain Roger and the words bail fund flashed through her mind, "…I will never let you forget that I told you so."
There was a lengthy pause.
"…sooooo…" Huey started, fists still raised above his head, "…we can get the bike?"
Marinette heaved a long-suffering sigh. The sigh of a mother overruled and defeated.
"…yes," she groaned.
Luka was still snickering as their hellions (well, their two hellions and their sweetheart-but-easily-influenced-baby-brother) finally started to cheer.
– V –
The problem was…Marinette knew her boys.
And as soon as her eyes had landed on the circular, three-person 'bicycle' (that honestly looked nothing like a bike, and could it even be called a bicycle when it had three wheels?) that had caught their fancy, she knew she was in trouble. It was the same trouble that had found her spending her eighteenth birthday bailing their father and uncle out of jail. It was the same trouble that had Captain Raincomprix looking at how close Melody and Kurt were getting (even though Melody was barely nine), looking at his rookies, and cackling as he clapped their shoulders and wished them luck. It was the same trouble that let her know she'd be spending some time in the nearest clinic while one (or all) of them had bones set and casts applied.
…but it was also the same trouble that let her know she'd be in for one hell of a foot rub as Luka groveled his ass off. That might've helped her acquiescence. Just a little.
Because she had watched them ring up the box holding the deathtrap on wheels while twenty-five different scenarios had played through her head. That number had jumped to fifty as they made their way home and the boys chatted excitedly about their new bike. When Melody had run out the front door, eyes wide and mouth open as she cried "Oh my gosh what is THAT?!" (…and had promptly run back inside to call KK and tell him to come over right now), it had skyrocketed to a thousand and one.
Luka had herded the kids inside as Marinette stood on the sidewalk, her hand fisted in a white-knuckled grip on the strap of her purse. She caught their cantankerous old neighbor glaring at her from where she was watering her flowers.
"I know, Gertie," she sighed, shaking her head as the old woman's nostrils flared. "I know."
"If you know," Gertie tutted, "why do you keep doing it?"
Marinette thought really hard about that foot rub and sighed.
"…Couffaine," she said, as if that should answer everything (and, for her, it did). Gertie muttered what sounded like 'Breeders' as she followed her boys inside.
The house was suspiciously quiet as Marinette dropped her purse by the door and debated if it would be worth actually taking her shoes off (compared to how long it would take them to need that doctor's visit). The boys, Melody, and her husband had all disappeared somewhere, probably to the back to assemble the bike. Erring on the side of caution, she kept her shoes on. She found Harmony at the kitchen island, swinging her feet as she worked on some homework.
"Where are your brothers?" she asked. Harmony pointed towards the back door with her pencil. Marinette sighed and walked over to her, laying her hands on her shoulders and bending to kiss the back of her head. "Want some cookies? Chocolate chip. It feels like it's gonna be a chocolate chip cookie day."
Harmony paused with her pencil hovering over her notebook.
"…Ma?" she asked. Marinette hummed in reply, and Harmony bit her lip in a nervous tick Marinette knew she'd adopted form her. "If I say that bike is really stupid…like a really bad idea…do I still get a cookie?"
Marinette laughed and squeezed her in a tight hug.
"My sweet girl, you just might get two," she said. She paused, thinking, and winked at her. "I might even let you lick the bowl."
She kissed her head again and shared an exasperated smile with her before she went to preheat the oven. From out in the back garden, Louie screamed, and Marinette paused in taking the butter from the fridge. She grabbed enough for a double batch, just to be safe. (Tikki would always be happy for the extras.)
Twenty minutes later, she was pulling her first batch out of the oven when more shouting rose up from the back. Marinette was content to ignore it and continue baking – until Luka called "Hey, darning! Check this out!" in that way that let her know everything was about to hit the fan. She put the hot pans of cookies on the counter to cool, left the unbaked pans on the island, turned to share a look with her (currently favorite) child, and sighed.
"Come on," she said, dusting her hands on her apron before pulling it off. Harmony hopped off her stool and followed Marinette outside, where the rest of their family was standing around the boys' new bike like Christmas had come a few months early. Luka even had his hands on his hips like he was proud of the job he'd done putting it together. Dewey was imitating his pose, because he was at that age where everything Papa did he had to do, too. The other three were just…bouncing. Eagerly waiting for the go-ahead to test it out.
…Marinette took one good, hard look at the assembled bike and wondered how insulted Luka would be if she turned right back around and grabbed some ibuprofen.
"Well?" he asked, the fingers tapping against his hips letting her know he was eagerly awaiting what he was probably sure was going to be a positive reaction. Marinette pursed her lips as she carefully considered the bike – and her words.
There had been a meme ages back about two kids that kept fighting, so their mother had put them both in a large t-shirt with This Is Our Get-Along Shirt scribbled on the chest. That's what this bike made Marinette think of. It almost looked like a table, if the tabletop had been missing. She was half-tempted to make a sign claiming This Is Our Get-Along Bike and slap it on the ring that joined the three poles that made the legs of the bike. Or maybe it looked like a demented crab, with the little seats situated above the wheels being its little claws, ready to snap at her children. Or maybe it just looked like a large, wonky doctor's stool – the kind the tech would be sitting on as they wrapped a leg or an arm or whatever limb was bound to break before the day was done.
"…Papa, I don't think you're going to like what she's gonna say," Harmony said, stuffing her hands in the pocket of her yellow zip-up hoodie. "I think we should go finish baking the cookies before she says it and hurts your feelings. You're gonna need the cookies if you make her answer."
Luka blinked at their oldest like she had just punched him.
"…ok, ouch, Chaos," he chuckled, though the sound was a little weak in Marinette's ears. He looked back at Marinette instead, his face a little desperate. "C'mon. It's not that bad."
"…I already told you my opinion on this," she said, "but if we must. Well, go on. Let's get this over with."
"ME FIRST!" Louie cried, jumping on a seat quick and hard enough that the bike teetered precariously, convincing Marinette that the bones would get broken before they'd even figured out how to move the stupid thing. She sucked in a breath, but Huey hopped on the other seat and balanced it out before Louie could hit the pavement.
"Me, too!" Melody called, running from her papa's side to claim the final seat – except Dewey was already toddling towards it, too. Melody caught herself just before she knocked the three-year-old over. "Dew! You're too little for bikes!"
"Nuh-uh!" Dewey said. "You're too big!"
"Yeah, and it's a boy's bike, Mellie!" Louie said. "No stinky sisters allowed!"
"Hey!" Melody cried. She moved to bop him, but Luka caught her shoulders and held her in place.
"Ok, ok, that was a little mean," he said, giving Louie a look. "Apologize, Lou."
"No! She was stealing Dewey's seat!" Louie argued.
"No, she wasn't," Luka said. He looked down at Melody and lifted an eyebrow. "Right, songbird? You were going to let your brothers – who were at the store and picked it out – try it first, right?"
Melody pouted up at him, but still nodded and mumbled, "Yes, Papa." She kicked her toes against the pavement and grumbled, "It'll be more fun with KK, anyway." Luka rolled his eyes and patted her shoulders before nodding at Dewey.
"Go on, Dew," he said. Dewey cheered before climbing onto the last seat. He grabbed the ring and kicked his feet.
"Go, go, go!" he cheered. The twins laughed, gave their own cheer, kicked off, and…didn't go anywhere.
Beside Marinette, Harmony blinked.
"Um…" she whispered, leaning closer to her mother, "…aren't they supposed to…be moving?"
"It's three young boys on a bike shaped like a circle," Marinette sighed at her. "If they can't agree on the same direction to move, I highly doubt they'll move at all. We might not need those cookies after a…"
Marinette knew better.
She really, really knew better.
Or, at least, she should have by now.
Because the words we might not need those cookies after all were barely out of her mouth when there was a scurry of activity and shouting from the boys. They lurched one way, they lurched another, and then Dewey was screeching as Huey gave the bike a hard lurch and sent his baby brother flying head-first over the bike and into Marinette's rose bushes. Dewey was still airborne as his brothers overbalanced and crashed, hard, onto the pavement – which wouldn't have been so bad, except their legs were still tangled up in the contraption and…she was pretty sure Huey's leg wasn't supposed to be bent that way.
With Dewey screaming as he flailed in the thorny bushes and Huey screaming as Louie tried to shove the bike off of him with his definitely-broken leg still inside, Marinette levelled her dear husband with a Look.
"…I've got Dewey," he sighed, stepping around the boys on the ground to extricate their youngest from the bushes.
"Harmony…" Marinette sighed, already rubbing her temples and thinking of all the ways Luka was going to make this up to her. Foot rub, bubble bath, wine…
"I'm in charge until you get back from the doctor?" she asked. Marinette pursed her lips.
"Let's see how bad the damage is first," she said. "You might just have to finish the cookies for me, sweetie."
– V –
In the end, the damage was…minimal. Dewey would have been fine – if slightly traumatized – if not for all of his flailing. The bushes had scratched up his face and arms, but his jeans had mostly protected his legs. There were a few scratches on his back and sides where his shirt had ridden up. Luka had stayed with the kids and patched him up while Marinette hauled Huey into a cab and towards the nearest clinic (Gertie glaring judgmentally from the front window the entire time). They were pretty sure his leg was broken, and even that wouldn't have been so bad – except Marinette and Huey were still sitting in the waiting room when Brielle walked in, KK hobbling after her.
"You'll be happy to know whatever the hell these two decided to ride into oncoming traffic is safely on the curb awaiting trash pickup," Brielle said, shoving KK into the chair next to Huey. He started to whine as the shove jostled the arm he was clutching to his chest, but one sharp look from his mother stopped that quick. She levelled Marinette with another Look. "You really need to learn to say no, Mari. You're supposed to be married to the sensible one."
The kids were casted soon after (KK had only sprained the ankle, but his left arm hadn't been as lucky – the bone had actually been sticking out of that one), their mothers agreeing a Maman's Night Out would be in order someday soon. Later that night, as the kids were sleeping and Marinette's feet were propped on Luka's lap, his talented fingers working at every spot he knew would have her melting into goo, Marinette wondered if she'd be able to talk him into a backrub, too.
(The six dozen chocolate chip cookies packed up in their kitchen made her think she just might.)
"Hey, star?" she asked, sighing as he rubbed at a particularly sensitive spot and sent a shiver racing along her spine. He looked up at her from under his bangs, smiling as she stretched out her toes.
"Yeah, darning?" he answered. When she looked at him, he bent and kissed her big toe, and she rolled her eyes as she wiggled her toes at him. Less kissing, more rubbing, the gesture said. She tipped her head back and sighed, sinking lower on the couch.
"I love you," she said, moaning a little as he got back to the foot rub, "but I told you so."