A/N: This was originally supposed to be a long oneshot, but I split it into two parts. This story uses the idea that Mario and Luigi originated from Earth.
When Mario and his brother had first arrived in the Mushroom World, they had been a little taken aback by all the sentient mushrooms and turtles. It was a lot to take in, no matter how open-minded they both were.
When they met Princess Peach, it had been a relief to find someone who actually looked and sounded human. The question of how humans could have evolved in two completely different worlds, in almost exactly the same way, had crossed Mario's mind more than once, but he stopped dwelling on it when it became clear that nobody had any answers to give.
Humans were scarce in the Mushroom World – perhaps unsurprisingly, given its name – but they still existed, and that was an enormous comfort to the two men who'd once thought themselves completely alone in a strange new land.
The weeks rolled by, and the brothers reluctantly accepted their new life despite faint pangs of grief for the one they'd left behind. Luigi found it harder to settle; Mario still caught him gazing wistfully at green pipes as if hoping one of them might turn red and white like the toadstool-patterned pipe responsible for bringing them here. Maybe it was a good thing that they'd lacked any close friends or relatives back home. Fewer things to lose.
Mario still vividly remembered hugging Luigi the day the hospital had told them Mama was gone. At eighteen, Mario had known it was coming and had battled past the grief and dread to comfort his three-year-younger brother, because no-one else could. He'd promised Luigi that everything would be happy again – eventually.
Five years later, they had discovered a strange spotted tube sticking out of the ground in their back garden. It hadn't been there yesterday. Mario had stuck his head inside to get a better look and promptly been sucked down it by some tearing force. Later, Luigi had told him that the pipe began to sink back into the ground very fast; if he hadn't been so quick and desperate, he wouldn't have followed Mario in time and they would have forever been separated by the barrier between worlds.
He shuddered to think of it: Luigi sitting alone on the grass on a cold October day, crying as he dug into the earth in search of the magic pipe, unable to accept that he was too late. Luigi had already lost too much to cope with losing his brother and last true confidante.
But that wasn't how things turned out, and Mario was eternally grateful for it.
'The world that you came from...' said Peach tentatively over a cup of tea and a slice of cherry cake, 'What was it... like?'
Mario considered the question as he bit into his own slice and watched a flock of birds pass through the blue-and-white sky. They were sitting on the castle balcony that attached directly to Princess Peach's luxurious chambers. Mario, mildly uncomfortable with the idea of walking through her bedroom to get here, had instead opted to climb onto the balcony from the gardens below. The guards had been worryingly easy to evade.
'It was different in some ways,' he said at last. 'But... also the same.'
He often found it difficult to put his thoughts into words, not least because English wasn't his first language. Peach was always patient, her cerulean gaze never leaving him but never making him feel pressured to speak. The white-gloved hand that delicately raised the teacup to her lips remained steady, never gripping with more than the required amount of force. She was so effortlessly elegant in everything she did. So royal.
'We didn't have Toads or Koopas, and no power-ups,' he said, allowing himself a sad little smile. Back home had existed no magical instant cures or mushrooms to fix one's ailments. If his world had been blessed with 1-Up Mushrooms, then he would have made damn sure that Mama never died.
'You and Luigi speak Italian,' said Peach, and he was rather impressed that she even recalled the name of his language, let alone had it roll off her tongue so easily. 'Is that the language everyone spoke there?'
'Oh, no,' he said, shaking his head. 'Earth has many languages. Ours was just one of them.'
He put the last chunk of cake into his mouth, giving her time to mull over his answer before, not long after, she spoke again. 'Do you... miss Earth?' This time her voice was hesitant, worried even – it brought back memories of Luigi asking him the same question just last week. Luigi had been afraid that he was the only one still yearning for home, but that had never been true.
'Sometimes,' he replied. And that was it – just one word – because he simply didn't know what else to say. Peach seemed to think he was being evasive, though, and she didn't pursue the topic any further.
'What surprised you the most about being here?' she asked, and then she gave a small giggle. 'Oh, I'm asking too many questions, I'm sorry.'
'It's OK, Princess,' he reassured her, almost too quickly to sound convincing. But he really didn't mind. Somehow her curiosity was... endearing, rather than invasive, and that was something he hadn't encountered in his weeks of living in the Mushroom Kingdom. A lot of people (often young Toads who didn't know better) were too quick to ask things that were far too personal for him or Luigi to feel comfortable discussing.
He knew that Luigi had a good friend in Princess Daisy (another human in this strange world with so few) and often confided in her just like this. Daisy was impulsive and maybe not the most sensitive listener, but she truly cared for Luigi – enough that Mario felt safe leaving his timid little brother in her presence. She might hurt him, but never intentionally and never without sincere apologies upon realising her mistake.
His relationship with Peach was very much the same. It was hard to understand how, but he'd found a friend in her. A friend who he could approach when he needed advice about the world, or just needed another human to confide in. The delicious cakes were only a bonus.
'What surprised me most... How happy everyone seems. There's almost no fighting. No crime. No...' He hesitated, on the verge of saying 'drugs and alcoholism', but he did not want Peach to know about the rougher side of his world. It was silly, but a part of him feared being seen differently – if there were so many bad things on Earth, shouldn't he, a denizen, be bad too?
However, what he did say, Peach seemed intrigued by. 'You really think so?' she said in a tone of quiet wonder. 'But Mario, that's not true. Not everyone is happy. I wish they could be, but... there's still so much wrong with the world.' A shadow passed behind her eyes like a cloud moving in front of the sun.
'Like what?' he asked, genuinely surprised.
'Bowser, for a start. He's the king of one of our neighbouring countries, The Badlands. He's a horrible, cruel, greedy Koopa who wants to take over the Mushroom Kingdom for himself. He would destroy our peace and happiness if we gave him half a chance.'
Mario had heard this name in passing. Once, he'd overheard a conversation between two young Koopas who apparently wanted to enrol in Bowser's army. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but now, hearing Peach's resentful diatribe against Bowser, he realised it might have been a big deal after all.
'Is the Mushroom Kingdom at war with this... Bowser?' he asked, feeling the need to check, even though he doubted he could have failed to notice an entire war taking place.
Peach shook her head, a faint smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. He imagined this was caused by amusement at his ignorance rather than the conversation itself. 'No, but he's made threats. I think it's only a matter of time before he tries to make a move.'
'Could your people defeat him?'
'I don't know. I wish I could say yes, but he has an army of horrible creatures under his command. We've done everything we can to prepare for an invasion, but I'm always worried it's not enough.'
He looked at her, feeling an urge to reach out and – what? Wrap his arms around her? Place his hand on hers? Both actions seemed completely inappropriate and just imagining himself doing them made a warm flush creep up his neck and into his face. He must be getting ahead of himself. She might allow him to sit with her on the balcony and talk over tea and cake, but she was still a princess! Where he came from, touching a person of royalty would be a disgrace, maybe even illegal!
Perhaps she mistook his silence for fear, because she quickly pulled a reassuring smile onto her face. Oh, how his feelings fluttered when she did that. She was full of worry herself, always being responsible for the wellbeing of her innocent subjects, yet she tried to comfort him.
'Oh, don't worry. I'm making it sound much worse than it really is – honestly, there might not be a war at all! Bowser's a big bully, but he hasn't invaded yet, so... maybe he never will.'
'I hope,' said Mario, shyly smiling back. He could tell that she didn't really believe her own words, but it was endearing to see her try so hard... for him. Again, his emotions quivered in a way he wasn't ready for. He looked away and coughed into his arm.
Was this a crush? He was no stranger to relationships, but this warm, fluttery feeling was new. He had been experiencing it more and more frequently around Peach as of late.
Once again he had to remind himself that she was a princess, a woman who, even if she happened to be interested, was completely out of his league. He wasn't sure how the people of this kingdom would respond to a commoner from another world pursuing her, but he feared the consequences – for both of them – if he allowed himself to slip. No, he would stay safely within the bounds of friendship with her, and perhaps in time, he would find another nice woman who wasn't a Toad or a Koopa to enjoy different experiences with.
He could never let his feelings for Peach become known. Not by her and not by the kingdom.
They met up for tea and cake every Saturday at five o' clock. They had gotten each others' timing down so well that Mario would bound onto the royal balcony at exactly the same moment Peach emerged through the french windows. She would smile warmly, and he would try to smile back, and they would sit together and talk about what they'd been up to recently while a Toad servant brought tea and a platter of cake slices.
He hadn't been aware that her interest towards Earth ran deeper than the few questions they'd already covered. Today, with a plate of lemon drizzle cake between them and a warm sun glow on her face (she always insisted on sitting towards the sun so that Mario wouldn't have to), she opened the evening with another hesitant inquiry.
'I must wonder... Is there anything you miss about your world that we don't have here? Anything at all?' Her face was open and honest. She was a princess, politically trained, and knew how to keep her emotions unreadable or fake them in front of others. With him, she never seemed to employ the skill.
'Well...' He rubbed the back of his head – a habit picked up from Luigi. 'I hadn't really thought about it.'
'...If you think of anything, I would greatly appreciate it if you tell me as soon as possible.'
'Why?'
'I just want to make sure you're happy here,' she confessed. 'You and your brother were flung into our world – no warning, no preparation – and I'm amazed that you've both settled in so well, but... I feel bad, even though I couldn't have done anything to stop it. You must have lost so much...'
'Not much. Luigi and I, we lived in a tiny house together and worked hard just to survive. We had no real friends, no family.'
'No parents?' said Peach wonderingly.
'Our father left. I was six,' said Mario. He felt like he was peeling back layers of something around himself, exposing rawness and vulnerability that he'd never let anyone except Luigi know about. Yet it wasn't unpleasant to talk about these things with Peach. Once the painful process of removing those layers was done, he felt a little more... free. 'And Mama died when I was eighteen.'
He heard a quick intake of breath from across the table, but he kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the cake he was eating.
'Your mother died?' It was an utterance soft with dismay.
'She got sick,' he said. 'Very sick. They couldn't...' Without meaning to, he drew in a shuddering breath of his own. 'They couldn't do anything.'
From her silence, he realised that perhaps he should have waited until they'd talked a bit more before unleashing that old demon on her. Or perhaps he should have kept it between himself and Luigi forever instead of dumping it on this lovely woman who hadn't been prepared for his grim backstory. He suddenly felt like he'd peeled off one layer too many.
'I'm sorry,' she said at last. He couldn't help wondering if the sympathy in her voice was a well-practiced falsehood, but it didn't seem to be, and he chose to believe it wasn't.
He shrugged, taking another big bite of cake and not realising that his table manners might be rude. 'It doesn't matter,' he said awkwardly, unsure what the unspoken rules for this type of conversation were. 'It was a long time ago and Luigi and me are doing fine. Our mother would want us to be safe and happy, I think.'
'I'm absolutely sure she would,' said Peach, with a smile that radiated warmth.
Either out of a purposeful desire to spare him more angst or simply a lack of interest in learning more, she turned the conversation towards lighter things. They spent the rest of their time together discussing the tennis tourney that was going to be held soon. Mario discovered that he enjoyed almost every moment of her company, no matter whether they talked about mundane things or the sorrows of a life left behind.
His friendship with Peach lasted. After she learned about his mother, she rarely delved into overly-personal topics again, but they still met up every Saturday and talked about less serious matters. Sports, cake, the weather, how Luigi was doing, how Princess Daisy was doing, the inadequacy of Toad guards... Jumping onto her balcony became something he looked forward to all week.
Then, three months after Mario's arrival in the kingdom, their peace was shattered. The cause of it was a beast that, although Mario didn't know it at the time, would shadow them both for many years to come.
Bowser.
He was a Koopa, but absolutely nothing like the simple green Koopas he saw around town every day. Bowser was a nine-foot juggernaut of scale and muscle, with claws like meat knives and eyes like spots of magma glowing between volcanic rocks. He didn't want to declare war; he wanted to steal the kingdom's jewel, its princess, and force her to give up her lands to him.
He appeared with an entourage of hammer-wielding minions in tow, storming the castle. The hapless guards did nothing more than raise the alarm with their screaming and tumbling about. By the time Bowser had stomped his way upstairs, Peach was already aware of the invasion. And so was Mario, because it just so happened to be a Saturday evening.
He was standing up, facing the french windows and instinctively dropping into a defensive crouch. Knees bent, fists curled. His hometown hadn't quite been rough enough for him to get into regular fights, but he knew how to defend himself in a pinch. He had never imagined needing to defend himself against a giant fire-breathing reptile, though... 'Princess, stay back!'
'No, Mario!' she cried. 'We can climb down from the balcony if we're quick-'
They had no time. The windows flew open and a blast of hot, rancid breath washed over them. He almost gagged at the smell of old meat. Bowser had to duck to get through the exit, which brought his gnarly face hideously close. Once he noticed Mario standing in front of him, he didn't raise it again.
'Step aside, minion!' he boomed. 'The princess is mine!'
It was not self-preservation or even panic that made him act; it was knowing Peach stood behind him, cornered and in danger, her back pressed up against the engraved stone railing of the balcony. She hadn't made any move to try and climb down. Either she was frozen in fear or she didn't want to leave Mario to the beast's dubious mercy.
He pulled his fist back and threw it into Bowser's stomach with all the strength he could muster.
He was actually rather surprised when Bowser stumbled back a step and wheezed as though the air had been knocked out of him. But it was temporary; a moment later he was rising to his full height, flaming eyes murderous and claws ready to deliver a sure-to-be-lethal strike.
The battle that followed was, and would always be, a blur in his memory. All he could think about was protecting Peach, the woman who had been such a good friend and given him so much comfort and security in a world so unlike his own. If fighting a fire-breathing monster was how the universe wanted him to repay her kindness, then he would do it ten times over.
He dodged flame and claw with reflexes he hadn't known he possessed, jumping around the balcony like a madman. At one point he even climbed onto the railing and sprung off to kick Bowser right in the forehead. The bruised and startled Koopa, who clearly hadn't anticipated this level of resistance, fell back with a groan, shattering one of the french windows with his shell. Mario stood over him, breathing a little hard but feeling as though he was powered by lightning.
Bowser scrambled to his feet with clumsy movements. He leaned close and snarled a threat that they both knew was personal: 'This isn't the end.'
It wasn't until he saw Bowser's hulking form limping out of the castle and climbing into an airship that Mario began to relax. Then he felt a hand lay itself gently across his arm.
'Mario, you're hurt,' Peach whispered.
He made a surprised noise and immediately looked himself over, but couldn't see anything – just a rip in his overalls from the time Bowser's claws had whipped a little too close for comfort. But his body was riding high on adrenaline, disguising any hint of pain. What he didn't know, and what Peach informed him of, was that his leg had been caught by a claw swipe and he was bleeding from the back of his knee to the middle of his calf.
She wanted to tend him herself, but they quickly realised that Mario's choice of attire posed a problem; he would need to completely take his overalls off for her to reach his leg. She looked worried enough that she could probably bypass the awkwardness, but Mario stammered and protested and eventually convinced her to just let him go to the hospital.
Though it clearly pained her to leave him, she respected his wishes and summoned a servant to drive him there at once.
'What if he comes back?' said Mario, hesitating on his way to the car.
'Who?'
'That Bowser. He might come back.'
She smiled, full of affection and veiled worry, and did something that utterly threw him for a loop. She took his face between her hands and lightly kissed him on the forehead.
'You beat him so badly, I'm sure he won't come back any time today.'
Later, as he lay on a hospital bed, wincing while the Toad surgeon cleaned and stitched up his leg wound, he momentarily wished that he'd allowed Peach to do this instead. Embarrassment be damned.
Following the fight, Peach had asked him why he'd been so keen to risk life and limb for her sake. And the phrase was no exaggeration – Bowser could have torn him apart.
But the real interrogation hadn't come from her. When Mario came home the night after leaving the hospital, Luigi had been waiting for him. He had felt his normally timid brother's gaze boring into his head the entire way through dinner. Coming from a life that was nowhere near luxurious, they never took food for granted, which meant Luigi waited until they were done eating before he started laying into Mario with the quiet ferocity of someone who'd been horribly frightened.
All Mario had been able to say was: 'She's a good person. I think the kingdom really needs her. And she's a great friend; what kind of friend would I be if I let her get hurt?'
'You could have died, though,' Luigi protested, fear lurking in his eyes.
'I don't think I would have died. It felt like I was invincible. I've never fought anyone like that before, but I managed to protect Peach without any real injuries.'
'First of all, that's called adrenaline, and secondly, you had your leg sliced open,' said Luigi, who clearly did not agree with Mario's optimism about how the day had gone.
He dropped the subject eventually, but it kept cropping up over the next few days. He would sincerely ask Mario not to endanger himself like that again, claiming that no-one was worth his life. Whenever he said this, Mario would quietly nod as if to agree, but he never actually promised anything. He knew that, if he saw Bowser try to lay a hand on Peach again, his reaction would be exactly the same.
She helped make the adjustment to his new life not only bearable, but wonderful. He loved the Mushroom Kingdom now. He thought it was beautiful, colourful, happy, and full of adventure. Peach had told him so many things about her world that he found fascinating. It was because of her that, after all this time, he found himself no longer grieving for home.