Chapter Twelve – Everyone Deserves Someone
In the end, Marinette and Nino only watch the first Harry Potter movie, then skip to the third – the best one – before starting to watch part one of the Deathly Hallows before they get bored and move to Nino's room to listen to music together. Eventually, they find themselves in the same position they were in when they were younger, only now instead of the school library, it's Nino's bedroom. They sit beside each other, leaning against Nino's bed, sharing earphones to listen to Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale while doing their own thing; in this case, Marinette is working on her Chinese using an app on her phone, while Nino is typing out a script for a new movie idea on his laptop. The faint tapping of keys over the sound of Heavenly Soup helps soothe Marinette, and soon enough she's more relaxed than she has been in weeks.
Like Marinette told Cat, Nino and her were never the hang–out–at–each–other's–houses kind of friends. They were more of the sit–together–in–the–library–and–read–Harry–Potter–books–and–listen–to–music–where–Chloé–couldn't–find–them kind of friends. Back when they were younger, before Alya and Adrien, Chloé was determined to isolate and control Marinette (and everyone, really, but mostly Marinette), which meant that anyone who got too close to her would be treated with the same treatment from the blonde until they left her alone again, when Chloé would go back to treating them the same as she had always treated them; with snide comments, threatening to call her daddy, and her haughty attitude.
This resulted in Marinette only ever being friendly with her classmates, because they didn't want to be friends with her because they didn't want to be treated the same as her, and while Marinette wanted to be friends with her classmates, she never let that happen so they wouldn't ever be treated the same as her. It was with nervous–excited trepidation that Marinette accepted Alya's friendship – not that she ever really had a choice, Alya kind of just latched onto her and then refused to let Marinette let her go in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way – in the first place, helped greatly by the fact that, unlike the rest of their classmates (and their entire school, really), Alya easily stood up to Chloé and didn't take any of her BS.
Thanks to Alya (and only partly through being Ladybug, because she only transformed into Ladybug the second time to save Alya, and she still wonders what her life would be like if Alya had taken her bag with her when she left the classroom), Marinette was able to come out of her shell and stand up to Chloé and make friends. It took time for her to fully trust everyone, however, and to let her walls down, but once she did she was so grateful that they were her friends, and she quickly realised she would do anything to keep their friendships, even if it was at a disadvantage to herself. That's why she would bring them so many treats from the bakery, make their banners, design their costumes, become class president so Chloé had one less way to control them. That's why she would never say no.
In some ways, as Ladybug she became so used to helping people and not getting, or expecting, anything in return that she started to go by the same general rule she had made for herself in her civilian life. She would bring treats in, make banners, design costumes, and whenever someone tried to give her something in return, something more than a 'thank you' and a hug, she would become so flustered and reject any attempts at returning the favour, albeit nicely, that she basically trained her classmates to take as much as they wanted from her and not expect to have to give anything in return.
In other words, by the time Lila had completely isolated her – which was far easier than it should've been, in hindsight, if they really were her friends and really knew her and really trusted her – Marinette was a brilliant friend to all of her classmates, but her classmates where, knowingly or unknowingly, using her. And it was all because she taught them to, and she let them, and they just figured it was 'Marinette being Marinette' because they never really knew otherwise.
"That's some deep thinking." Nino comments, pulling her from her thoughts.
She blinks at him owlishly, wondering if she was muttering under her breath, but when he just appears to be making an observation, she smiles sheepishly. "Sorry. I have a lot on my mind."
He hums in agreement, not looking away from proofing his work. "Like what?" He glances at her and smirks. "Luka?" He sing–songs his name, wriggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Marinette misses his look, having already looked back at her phone. It's turned off because she wasn't using it, and she traces shapes on the screen with her finger, tilting her phone so the light shines on it differently in order to see the patterns she is creating. "No. Just . . ." She trails off, biting her lip.
"Just?" Nino nudges her arm with his gently. "Just what? You know you can tell me anything."
Can she? "Can I?" She leans her head back against his bed and stares up at the ceiling. She feels him stiffen beside her slightly, and she rocks her head towards him and forces a smirk. "So, if I wanted to tell you about my previous obsessive crush on Adrien, you'd be fine with that?"
He grins, his eyes filling with mirth, and he shrugs. "Unlike Adrien, I'm not as oblivious as . . ." He frowns.
"Still not good at metaphors?"
"They're more Alya's forté."
"Hmm."
"Well, I'm not as oblivious as Adrien is – seriously, the dude has a superpower for it, I swear – and I am dating your best friend, so I know pretty much all of your crazy schemes." He smirks at her.
She gapes at him. "Alya wouldn't dare!"
"I have a way of getting information out of her." He gets a faraway look in his eyes, and a flush appears on his neck, moving steadily up towards his cheeks.
Marinette giggles and shoves his shoulder jokingly. "Ew. I don't want to know about the intimate details of what you guys do."
Nino snorts. "Please, I know what you girls discuss when you have your sleepovers." He rolls his eyes playfully and leans into her. "And I know how much you liked Adrien."
Like, Marinette corrects in her head. She smiles softly, shrugging. "What if I wanted to talk to you about designing?"
"I would pretend to know what you're talking about, and try to look interested." He grins.
"What about hamsters?"
"I'd join in and then we'd spend the next two hours looking at pictures of them on Google."
She giggles. "What if I wanted to tell you about the gross, gory, intimate details of my last period?" She raises an eyebrow challengingly.
He raises one right back. "You get squeamish talking about papercuts; I'd call that a miracle. A gross miracle, but a miracle."
She shrugs noncommittedly. "Perhaps I've gotten better with age."
"Or perhaps you're diverting from what you're actually thinking about." He frowns at her, any mirth leaving his eyes and leaving only worry and concern behind. He removes their earphones, turns off the music and throws his phone onto his bed, shifting his laptop from his lap to the floor beside him. "What's going on with you Mari?"
Her eyes widen in surprise before she forces a smile, giggling nervously. "What are you talking about?"
His expression doesn't change. "I think you know."
She presses her lips together and shrugs, feigning cluelessness. He sighs and takes his glasses off so he can rub his eyes. Marinette plucks them from his fingers, grabs the microfibre cleaning cloth from his top bedside table draw, and starts cleaning them gently, focusing all of her attention on the task at hand. Nino watches her absentmindedly, squinting slightly to try and make out her expression.
"Do you remember when we were seven?" He pulls his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, but he keeps his eyes on her, trying to read her (incredibly blurry) expression. He thinks he sees her nod, so he continues. "I think it was a Wednesday. Maybe a Thursday . . . I don't know; it wasn't Monday, and it wasn't Friday, and we were at school so it obviously wasn't . . . Anyway, we were in the library because–oh! It was Armistice Day! Remember? It was Armistice Day and we had to sit through all of the boring speeches and it was freezing and you forgot your coat so you were shivering the entire time and your lips went blue?"
"Yes, I do remember." She gives him an amused smile. "Mostly because I forgot my coat every year because I always forgot we had to sit outside for three hours in the freezing cold."
Nino snorts. "Yeah, well, you remember how at the beginning of the day we went to the library to escape Chloé?" She nods. "Do you remember why we had to escape Chloé?"
She huffs out a breath of air and leans her head back against his bed, momentarily pausing in her cleaning of his glasses. He reaches over to take them back, but she resumes cleaning before he can. "Because you were upset. Because your parents had had a fight." She lifts her head to look at him and he can only just make out the crease between her eyebrows she gets whenever she's worried. "Because you were five seconds away from crying."
He snorts unhumorously. "More like two seconds." He drops his head onto his knees, keeping his face turned towards her, but he closes his eyes. "We went to the back of the library, where they kept all the books on the different religions around the world."
"Because no one ever went back there."
He hums in agreement. "And we sat there and you knew something was wrong but you knew I wasn't ready to talk about it, and I started crying and I couldn't stop and you left." He opens his eyes and sits up. He swallows uneasily. "I thought you'd gone to get the librarian or you ran away because you didn't want to deal with my patheticness."
"You're not–"
"But then you came back. And you sat right next to me, grabbed my hand tightly, and started reading Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone aloud to distract me as if that was completely normal."
Her grip on his glasses has relaxed to the point that when he takes them from her, she offers no resistance whatsoever. Upon putting them back on he sees the tears in her eyes and his own immediately water. He grips her shoulders and forces her to turn to face him.
"You have no idea how much I love you for that Mar–Bear." She giggles and a tear falls from her eye. She wipes it away and looks down at her lap. "You helped me more than you will ever know. You let me know that I wasn't alone and that you were there and you had my back and no matter what you would hold my hand and stand by me." He ducks down to catch her gaze, hoping the emotions swimming in his eyes will be enough to fully illustrate just how important these next few words are. "You gave me the strength to stand up to him, and if I hadn't done that he'd still be in our lives and he'd still be hurting us."
She frowns at him, confused. "But you didn't stand up to your father until he demanded your mum . . . you know."
"Get an abortion." He finishes, the word leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. He has no issue with the act; he believes what you do with your body is completely up to you; it's just the thought of their possibly being a world where Chris doesn't exist makes him feel sick to his stomach.
"Yeah." She gives him a sad smile, more tears falling down her cheeks. "But that was when we were, like, nine."
"Yep," He pulls her into a hug and she clings to him, shoulders shaking silently with supressed sobs. He forces his own tears back and breathes unsteadily. "But I remembered that day, and I remembered that you were there. I remembered that I wasn't alone, and I realised that if I wasn't there for mum, then she would have no one, and everyone deserves someone."
Marinette frowns and pulls back from him, shifting her hands to his shoulders. He cups her upper arms and grips them firmly to prevent her from pulling away from him completely; he's not quite done hugging her.
"'Everyone deserves someone'." She repeats, and he smiles, nodding. Her eyes flick up to his. "I've heard that before."
"You've said it before." He blinks and a tear falls. She wipes it away for him before wiping her own tears away with the back of her hand. "You said it that day. I said 'Thank you', and you shrugged, gave me your Marinette smile and said . . ."
"Everyone deserves someone." Her expression softens as her gaze washes over him, reassuring herself that he is okay and he's not trying to give her some kind of hidden message.
"So," He pulls her back to him and rests his chin heavily on her shoulder, settling his arms around her tightly. His hands brush against her ribs and he inhales sharply. He's almost positive that last time they hugged she wasn't this boney. "Can I be your someone?"