a steady bass
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Relationships: Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Luka Couffaine & Nino Lahiffe
Additional Tags: Platonic blind date, Post-Break Up, Blanket Permission, Podfic Welcome, Luka Couffaine Zine
Summary: The thing is, it was really easy for Marinette to become Luka's person once they took a step back. Unlike Marinette, who had a small army of friends despite disappearing more and more often lately, he doesn't need people. He's perfectly happy by himself with his guitar and whatever secondary relationships his sister's friends and Marinette's hoard of hearts brings him.
He knows that scares her.
Status: Complete - 1/1 Words: 2,145
Notes: This fic was beta read by nottesilhouette, you should all go over and give her lots of love—her writing is a punch in the gut every time I read. Not only did she make this fic all pretty and shiny she gave it its name and an actual ending.
This was written for the Luka Couffaine Zine.
"Luka," Marinette sighs tiredly, her hands absently playing with strands of his hair. They're on his bed, hidden away below the deck of the liberty. His head's in her lap and he can't see the expression on her face, but he doesn't actually need to. He already knows she's looking at him with the same exasperatedly fond smile of hers that's been popping up more and more frequently when they're together — the one that says she's concerned and doesn't quite know what to do with him about it.
"It's fine, Marinette," Luka promises. He means it, too. Even if he was one for empty platitudes, he doubts the pretty words would work on her. She knows him too well.
"No, it's really not. We've been broken up for four months now," Marinette says, and there's nothing unkind or bitter in her voice. They both moved past hard feelings quickly. She's just stating facts, so he can't bring himself to acknowledge the part of his heart that still aches over it. "And I know for a fact that I'm the only person you bother to text regularly."
"Does it help or hurt my case if I say that's because you're my best friends," he half-jokes. Marinette might be his only real friend outside of his sister. He's perfectly fine with that. "I'm not lonely, you know. I don't need anyone else. I have you and Juleka and that's plenty."
Marinette hums, her free hand twisting his comforter into a tight knot. "I know you're happy with the way things are, but, Luka, you need a support system outside of your ex-girlfriend and your little sister — a solid base of people. Especially since I'm not always around when you need it."
"Doesn't Kitty Section count?"
"That depends, have you talked to any of them this month?"
His silence is damning.
Luka gets it.
Honestly, he does.
He knows it's not healthy or fair for him to depend so solely on Marinette. She already has enough on her plate. He doesn't want to be another stressor in her already overly complicated life.
It's just—
It's hard for him to describe exactly.
This is what Luka understands about himself: he's mediocre at socializing, he's bad at making friends, and he's worse at keeping them. What he doesn't understand is how he weaseled his way into being one of Marinette's people or how exactly she expects him to do it again.
Part of him gets the whole boyfriend thing. He's willing to overlook the bitter twinges of insecurity that come with knowing that he was always the second choice because being friends with Marinette is so infinitely better than dating her.
They weren't right for each other right now, and if they never are… honestly, he's a bit relieved about it. It was a lot of work — the constant taping up of all his broken parts with all of hers, to match up the clingy pieces of him to the distant pieces of hers. It hurt when he was her boyfriend and couldn't get a hold of her for an entire week.
As friends, the wants he has are different.
Obviously, he'd still like to talk to her every day, even if it's just a quick 'good morning' or 'goodnight'... but there's a different expectation of their commitment to each other. It doesn't burn quite the same way when Marinette goes radio silent for days on end. He can text her a cute picture of a cat and trust her to get back to him when she's free the same way she can trust him to be there for her when she's overslept and needs a lift.
More importantly, now that the tension of expectation is gone, she actually does respond… eventually.
The thing is, it was really easy for Marinette to become Luka's person once they took a step back. Unlike Marinette, who had a small army of friends despite disappearing more and more often lately, he doesn't need people. He's perfectly happy by himself with his guitar and whatever secondary relationships his sister's friends and Marinette's hoard of hearts brings him.
He knows that scares her.
Two days after their talk on the Liberty, Luka gives Marinette a call. She picks up on the second ring.
(In the back of his mind, Sass smiles and Luka wishes the Kwami could count toward his friendship quota.)
"Hypothetically," he says, "If someone wanted to make friends and they were really clueless, where would they start? What should they do? Is there like a platonic version of Tinder?"
On the other line, Marinette snorts, "They should let me handle it."
Luka glances over at his guitar and the scribbled page of half-formed bars and disembodied notes that look so inviting. He has to make a concentrated effort not to hang up on her in the face of what an absolutely awful idea this is. It's only the bone-deep knowledge that now that he's opened this can of worms, Marinette will not let The Conversation™ rest. The satisfaction of burying his head in chords and notes and his guitar will last hours; Marinette's determination will last forever. "I'm being serious."
"I thought you were being hypothetical," she says, and the words dance along her tongue in a badly suppressed laugh.
"Yeah, that too," Luka grimaces.
Marinette rolls her eyes. He can't see it but her tone, dust-dry, says it just as clearly as her words. "We're talking about making friends, Couffaine. Not going to the dentist, or dealing with an Akuma, or eating tomatoes. Making friends."
"It sounds about the same to me."
"This is why I worry about you," she sighs, "Listen, you trust me, right?" There's a pause on the other line, when it becomes awkwardly clear that she's waiting for his affirmation; he offers a hum and only half hopes she'll continue. "Then you know I wouldn't intentionally put you in a situation that would make you uncomfortable or that I thought was doomed to fail. Just… give me a couple of days and let me work this out."
"That sounds like a lot of emotional labor on your part."
"I'm considering it an investment."
A couple of days turns into nearly two months before Marinette sends him a text message with nothing but a time, the address to the cafe on the corner by his house, and a meme of a kitten holding a knife.
He sends her a baby bunny with the saddest eyes the internet can find.
Her responding cat gives him the most unimpressed look any animal is capable of and he knows that there's no avoiding this.
Nino Lahiffe is sitting at a small table pressed firmly against the glass of the window watching the door like a hawk. Instantly, Luka knows who Marinette coordinated this blind friend date with.
There's a small chunk of Luka that's relieved over the way Marinette's apparently decided to ease him into this whole making friends thing. She knows a lot of people, she's been annoyed at him a bit lately, and there were a hundred worse choices she could have made. Nino is safe. Nino is good. He knows Nino, likes him even.
That part is almost entirely overshadowed by the piece of him that wants to turn right back around, walk out the door he just came in, and bolt home at the expression on Nino's face. His grin grows like a shark, too wide, with so many teeth all he can do is focus on his eyes — which is a mistake.
"Luka," Nino says, bright and loud and too happy for someone roped into socializing in public with a vague acquaintance.
Nino holds his gaze, and Luka feels the trap closing tighter and tighter around his ankle with every step he takes closer to the table.
"Hey," he says, voice weak and strangled somewhere inconvenient in the back of his throat. He's not good with words and while he wishes desperately that he could have brought his guitar with him, he's not socially inept enough misunderstand why that very much wouldn't have been a good idea.
The smile on Nino's face twitches when Luka sits down. It doesn't dim, but it changes: something flickers across Nino's face at the stiff way Luka holds himself steady in the seat. Somehow that's worse. Nino has a face made to be expressive, mellowed out in the lively way he carries himself.
"So, you're doing this for Marinette, huh?" Nino's tone tries for joking but falls somewhere way too close to the truth.
"No," Luka says, too quick to be believable, but hey, say anything enough times, and it's bound to come true. Besides, he can't go into this whole making friends thing for anyone but himself. If he does he'll be cheating himself and putting way too much pressure on the person he's trying very hard not to rely on as much. "I just thought it was time I branched out?"
"Hmm," Nino hums, looks him up and down, and throws his head back to laugh. The sound's almost nice enough to make up for the fact that he didn't even try not to. "Right, right. And I'm going to pretend that she wasn't the one who cornered me by my locker and threaten me to come out here, that was all you. Way to be creative."
"She threatened you?" Luka asks. He can't help himself, even though the small chunk of his soul that didn't already want to cringe out of his skin has shriveled up and died a horrible death.
"By withholding date night babysitting services," Nino confirms. "You really make a scary lady when you try."
"I'm sorry about that," Luka says, "I'll talk to Marinette. You don't have to—"
"Of course I don't have to," Nino cuts him off and continues before he can get another word in, "But I wanted to."
"You did?"
"Dude," Nino starts, leaning forward to put a hand on Luka's shoulder. The pressure's nice, reassuring, and grounding, and — this is the first time he's had someone reach out to offer him a physical affirmation. He's a touchy person whether by nature or in spite of the fact that no one else in his life shares his love language. "You know me and Marinette grew up together right? Like there are pictures of us from pre-school. The point is I know her, and I kinda know you, too. What I don't know is what makes her think we'd be such great friends and that's killing me. So I'm going to ask you a very important question, one that can destroy this beautifully budding friendship right here, ready?"
There's a charisma to Nino, one that sweeps Luka up and makes him nod his head even though he very much is not ready. "Um, yeah. Sure."
"Okay," Nino says, letting go of his shoulder to lean back, his arms crossing against his chest, "Okay, what are your top five favorite bands? I need an essay on each of them, points will be taken off if they're from the same genre and you'll be negative if My Chemical Romance is higher than third place. You can only embrace so much cliche, man."
"So," Marinette asks, later that night. She was the one to call him this time. "How'd it go?"
"You already know how it went," he says. He's tired and his words are only half-formed things. If he had half a sugar cube more energy, he wouldn't have answered his phone, he'd have gone straight to his guitar and burnt off some of the residual tension in his bones.
Damn socializing.
Damn it all for being so draining.
Damn Nino, too, for being the best kind of trouble a musician could find.
"No, I don't," She denies, the playful edge telling him she very much in fact does know how today went because everything went just like she'd planned.
"Alya didn't tell you yet?" he asks, propping the phone against one of his pillows and flopping face down on the other.
"Nino doesn't tell her everything."
"Doesn't need to," he snorts.
"Okay, that may be so, but you didn't tell me," she says.
Huh, she has a point.
He's halfway through explaining to Marinette just how utterly wrong Nino's entire opinion of pop-punk is and how in no way shape or form does it come close to the glory that is the entire emo scene when he realizes two very important things: he's used up nearly an hour and a half to talk about a twenty-minute conversation, and Marinette's fallen asleep.
Luka smiles, and leaves the phone running all night.
He wakes up to an ended call, a garbled text apology from Marinette, and three essay length DM arguments from Nino. Luka's response takes just five words: "Fight me in person, dude."
Notes: Look at me posting two fics this year :O revolutionary! Ahh I started new job on top of my old job and I work 6 to 7 days a week now so like who knows when the next time I'll post is, hopefully soon! I have some old stuff I've been meaning to edit and get up
