This was inspired by the fic Delayed by Damagectrl (on AO3) which is one of my favourite Lukanette fanfics. Go read it - it's sweet, sexy and beautifully written.
Long Overdue
A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction
By Mintaka14
"You didn't tell me Marinette was seeing Luka," Adrien shouted over the noise of the Jagged Stone concert crowd, and Nino turned to him.
"What?" Nino shouted back. On the other side of Nino, Alya flicked a glance their way, but her attention shifted back to the stage.
"Marinette and Luka," Adrien repeated. "He was there when I went round. He's moved in with her."
Nino frowned a little. "I knew they'd met up again when Marinette went on that trip, and they've been in contact since then, but I didn't know they'd made it official." He turned in his seat to get Alya's attention. "Babe, did you know that Marinette and Luka were living together?"
"I knew she was asking him to move in," Alya said, and she frowned a little. "Wait, I thought you hadn't spoken to Mari since the breakup."
What she didn't say was since she blocked your calls and moved out, but it was there in her tone of voice.
"I wanted to apologise. To talk to her. It's been three years," Adrien said, and hated the way he sounded so defensive. He'd done nothing wrong, not this time. It wasn't wrong to want to make things right, and try to get back some of that friendship he'd had with Marinette, even if he couldn't give her the love she'd deserved. "Nino gave me her address."
The look Alya turned on her boyfriend promised trouble, and Nino shrank back in his seat a little.
"So is that what you're doing here tonight?" Alya asked. "Trying to talk to Mari?"
"She gave me the Jagged ticket," he protested. "She asked me to join you all for dinner after the show."
And surely that meant that Marinette was willing to forgive him, after all this time. She'd hugged him, and accepted his apology roses, and invited him to dinner, while Luka had watched with that enigmatic smirk of his that gave nothing away and hadn't said anything.
"So, what happened when you went round?" Alya's protective antagonism had shifted into curiosity.
"I didn't stay long. Their parents and Juleka and Rose were all coming round for dinner," Adrien said a little sourly. Alya sat bolt upright in her seat, leaning towards him with that journalistic gleam in her eye.
"Their parents? And Juleka and Rose?" she interrogated him, and her Cheshire cat grin grew broader at his reluctant nod. "Well, well, well. Luka moves fast when he wants to. Maybe that's what this after show get-together is all about."
"What are you talking about?" Adrien grumbled, but anything Alya might have said was drowned out by the sudden roar around them as the lights on stage dropped into darkness. Then there was an explosion of light and fireworks and the thunder of the audience as Jagged Stone took the stage in a wall of sound.
After all these years, Jagged was still a force to be reckoned with, and in spite of everything on his mind, Adrien found himself caught up in the music, singing along with it. A few times, the spotlight shifted to Luka, and Adrien heard certain pockets of the audience swell in enthusiastic volume. Clearly, Luka had his fans. The guitarist flipped sweaty blue-tipped black hair out of his eyes and flashed a brilliant, sharp grin at the audience, and Adrien caught himself wondering acidly how Marinette coped with other girls throwing themselves at her boyfriend. She'd never been particularly fond of Adrien's fans when they'd been dating.
Even on a stage dominated by Jagged Stone's dramatic presence, Luka stood out. Adrien saw him flick a quick glance and a smile into the wings, then his focus was back on his guitar and the music.
Jagged flung up an arm, and the stadium crashed into darkness again. In the interval, Alya leaned back and said, "Well, damn. Luka's a sweetheart offstage, but every time I see him on stage… wow!" She fanned herself with one hand, and Nino gave her a look of mock outrage.
"Are you saying I'm not wow?" he pouted, and Alya laughed.
"Honey, you're a whole lot of wow, but even you have to admit that Luka's hot. And he gives Jagged a serious run for his money. Mari's a lucky girl."
"Yeah, lucky," Adrien muttered, and Alya leaned across Nino to fix him with a curious look.
"So what were you doing calling on Mari, anyway?" she asked over the noise of people shuffling in their seats and hurrying to get to the bathroom. "Why do you suddenly care who she's seeing?"
"I just want her to be happy," he protested. "Just because we broke up doesn't mean I don't care about her. It just seems a bit… sudden, this thing with Luka."
"Sudden?" Alya laughed. "Jeez, it's been almost three years. It's about time she moved on, and she always had a bit of a thing for Luka back in the day, but she was just too hung up on-" Alya caught herself "-other things for it to go anywhere. I know your breakup with her was mutual, but it still took Mari a long time to get over it. I'm just glad to see her looking so happy again."
Alya must have seen Adrien flinch, because her eyes narrowed sharply.
"What? What was that look about, Agreste?"
Alya had him pinned under a hard stare, and even Nino was eyeing him curiously.
"It wasn't mutual, was it?" Alya said eventually when he didn't answer, her tone flattening out with the weight of judgement. "I thought there was something up, but Mari never wanted to talk about it, which was weird for her, but she insisted she was fine. You ended it, didn't you?"
"It wasn't fair on Mari to keep things going when I was still in love with someone else," Adrien protested guiltily. "Marinette's amazing, and I really tried, but she deserved better than that."
"Oh, my god. You were having an affair?!" A few heads turned curiously as Alya's voice rose to a shriek, fire in her eyes as she glared at Adrien.
"No! God, no, I would never do that to Marinette!"
Caught between Adrien and Alya, Nino frowned. "So, what? You're still in love with Kagami?"
"No," Adrien protested. "It was… someone else."
"Someone we know?"
"The only other person I ever heard you talk about like that before you and Mari got together was Ladybug," Nino laughed. His laugh trailed off as Adrien sat in uncomfortable silence. "Please don't tell me you broke up with Marinette because of your crush on Ladybug."
Adrien sighed. "You make it sound so… Look, it's more than a crush."
"Ooh, you're seeing someone?" Marinette's voice interrupted them with a teasing lilt, and he looked up to find her leaning over the row of seats. She didn't ask if it was the woman he'd left her for, and that might have been to spare him from Nino and Alya's judgement, but a tiny, nasty part of him that he refused to acknowledge wished that she didn't sound so pleased.
Her dark hair was tumbling in artless curls over the skin left bare by her red halter top, and he'd never seen her look happier or more beautiful.
"You should have told me and I would have got an extra ticket for you."
Alya stood abruptly, shoving past the two men to link her arm through her friend's. She levelled another glare at Adrien, and he felt himself wilting slightly under it.
"It was just a joke," Alya said firmly.
Marinette lifted an eyebrow, but all she said was, "If you're interested in coming back stage, we've got a few minutes before the band have to get ready again."
They followed her as she breezed past the security guards with a bright smile.
"Did you bring macarons again?" one of the bouncers called after her, and Marinette pivoted on one boot heel to give him an answering grin.
"Your favourites, Louis!" she called back. "They're in the usual place, and I've warned the stage hands what will happen if they finish them all this time."
There were thumbs up. "You're a doll, Marinette!"
Marinette was still laughing as she led them down a long passageway and pushed a door open. In the Green Room, Jagged's drummer was slumped on a couch, a beer in his hand. Adrien could hear Jagged Stone's distinctive voice echoing down the passage from the star's dressing room before the Green Room door closed and cut it off. The bass guitarist was mopping up sweat and retouching his stage makeup, and Luka was absently spinning a guitar pick between his fingers while Marinette and Alya giggled over something.
Luka met his eyes with a restrained smile. "Hey Adrien. Glad you could make it."
"Wouldn't miss it," Adrien told him with an answering nod. "Jagged knows how to put on a show. And you were amazing."
"There's nothing quite like playing for the home crowd," Luka said, and his smile brightened slightly as his eyes shifted to Marinette on the other side of the room. "Travelling with Jagged has been incredible, but it's good to be back in Paris."
"Are you back to stay now?" Adrien asked.
"I don't have any more plans to tour for a while. I'll be back in the studio next month, and I want to get settled in before things get too crazy with Fashion Week."
Adrien laughed. "Yeah, Mari gets kind of nuts. Just don't take it too personally when you don't see her for days on end."
"Ye-ah," Luka said slowly, his attention back on the pick spinning between his fingers.
"And chocolate always helps her through. She loves praline, but I'm sure you know that."
Adrien shot a glance at Marinette, and back at Luka, shifting on his feet.
"How did you dinner go last night?" Adrien asked. "How are Tom and Sabine? I haven't seen them in ages."
Luka raised his eyes at that, and the look he levelled at Adrien suggested that he saw far more than Adrien was comfortable with. Luka's mouth lifted in an amused smirk.
"I'm not doing this," Luka said calmly. Adrien must have looked dumbfounded. "Whatever you think is going on here, this romcom showdown over who knows Marinette best, who knows her family, I'm not doing it."
Adrien realised that his mouth was hanging open. "I… wasn't… That isn't what's going on," Adrien protested. "I'm glad she's happy. I'm happy for you both. I'm just hoping Mari and I can be friends again. You have nothing to be uneasy about."
"I know I don't." Luka was still watching him, and the effect was made more disconcerting by the black kohl rimming his eyes. "But you turn up on Mari's doorstep three years after you left her for another woman, with an armful of flowers, looking for forgiveness, and acting surprised that she might have moved on. Do you expect me to be happy about that?"
Adrien frowned. "Are you saying you want me to stay away from her?"
"I'm not saying anything of the kind. It's her choice. It's always been her choice, whatever makes Marinette happy," Luka said, and his eyes inevitably turned to follow Marinette, then his mouth turned up in a roguish smile. "But if she chose to break you in half for hurting her like that, I would hold her coat and help her bury the body afterwards."
"Wait, she told you what happened?" Adrien asked as the implication of what Luka was saying caught up with him. "She didn't say anything to Alya even."
"Five minutes!" the call echoed through the passageway, and the stage manager leaned around the door of the green room. "Five minutes, guys!"
"Time for us to clear out and let you do your thing," Marinette said, coming over to wrap her arms around Luka's neck as he stood.
All she did was stretch up and kiss Luka, rest her forehead against his, murmuring, "Knock 'em dead, rockstar." It was restrained - chaste, even - but Adrien found himself blushing and looking away. Her hands slid down the defined muscles of Luka's chest, and Luka's hands lingered on her waist, then he reached for his guitar, and Marinette gave the musician one last, glorious smile before she herded them all out the door.
Adrien barely registered the rest of the concert, and the crowd around him was a din in his ears that didn't drown out his own thoughts. If Alya and Nino kept shooting him concerned looks, he didn't notice, and for once he was almost grateful when the akuma crashed the concert and brought the encores to a screeching halt. At least it was a distraction.
The akuma was a fan who had apparently tried to get backstage and had been blocked.
Ladybug showed up, and they got Jagged and his band out of the firing line before FanBoy could hit them with exploding backstage passes. The ladybugs rippled across the auditorium in a wave of pink magic, and Ladybug disappeared to retrieve the band members before Chat could call out to her.
Ladybug was taking what Chat would have thought was an unnecessarily long time over the civilians after a battle. She had to be getting close to detransforming, and he was starting to get worried when she finally dropped into the alleyway behind the stage door with one arm wrapped around Luka. The musician was grinning broadly. Chat was just about to step forward out of the shadows to claim Ladybug's attention, but something in the air brought him to a halt.
He noticed Ladybug's fingers tangle a little too intimately with Luka's as she set him down, a private smile between them. There was something going on there that Chat didn't like. Luka leaned down and whispered something in her ear that had her blushing. Then Chat's superpowered hearing caught the words, "I'll see you at the restaurant, babe," and the implications hit Chat like a truckload of bricks as the musician sauntered away.
"Marinette," Chat said hoarsely, and Ladybug's head whipped around. That was all the confirmation he needed, even as she stuttered a deflection and a denial. In two strides, he had his arms around her, everything he'd ever wanted within his grasp in this one perfect woman. Ladybug, her eyes wide behind the mask, stepped back, breaking his hold as her hand went to the frantically beeping earrings.
"We can't talk here."
With a flick of her wrist, her yoyo shot out and she swung away from the alleyway. Chat followed. He would have followed her anywhere. She touched down on a rooftop, their rooftop, and it felt so right as he landed beside her.
He watched her detransform with a sense of wonder, and the magic melted away like sugar leaving Marinette standing there. A tiny red kwami hovered over Marinette's shoulder, watching him silently with huge, solemn eyes.
"Hi," he whispered. The kwami said nothing, and then his own transformation dropped.
He heard Marinette's sucked in breath, saw her eyes go wider. Behind him, he heard Plagg groan, "Kid, don't do this," but he ignored the little black kwami.
"Oh my god, Adrien," Marinette had a hand over her mouth. "Oh my god. This explains a lot."
"I can't believe it's you. It was you all this time, Milady" he breathed. All those months and years of guilt and self-loathing for loving Ladybug when he was with Marinette. If he'd only known…
He caught at Marinette's hand. She was looking down at their joined hands with an odd expression.
"Did you miss the part where I'm with Luka now?" she said in a strange voice.
Oh god. This was going to hit Luka hard.
"We can talk to him together," Adrien said gently. "He said it's always been your choice. I'm sure he'll understand, now that we know-"
"Know what?" Marinette interrupted. "That we're meant to be together?"
"Yes," he said eagerly.
"Adrien." Her voice cut him off like the crack of a whip. She jerked her hand free. "I'm engaged."
For a long moment, Adrien was speechless, silenced. All he could do was stare at his lady, at the hand she'd pulled away and the ring he hadn't noticed there.
"You can't be serious. You've been seeing him for four months and now you're engaged? Doesn't that seem a bit sudden?"
"It seems long overdue to me."
"How can you just ignore our history, Marinette?"
And that was the wrong thing to say. Adrien backed up an involuntary step as Marinette's blue eyes turned as hard as flint.
"Oh, I remember our history," she said in a voice that matched her eyes. "I remember our history where you left me because you were in love with someone else."
She advanced on him, and Adrien found himself giving ground until the wall at his back stopped him.
"You know, it was bad enough when you left me because you were in love with another woman," Marinette said, and she seemed to be fighting to keep her voice even. "But it's infinitely worse now that I know you left me for Ladybug."
"But you are Ladybug," he protested, and she slapped her hands over her face, giving a faint scream. Adrien was aware of a soft little voice, and Plagg responding, "Nah, I think we've just gotta let him get it out of his system, and then we can hopefully all move on with our lives." Adrien ignored them.
When Marinette dropped her hands, there was an unmistakeable flash of anger in her eyes, and Adrien wondered how he could ever have missed her resemblance to his Lady.
"God, it makes so much more sense now," she growled. "I knew that being Chat was more of an escape for you than it was for me, but I had no idea just how much. I might be Ladybug, but you never got that Ladybug isn't all of me. And I'm just beginning to realise how much you really didn't see who I was behind the mask."
"You didn't see me, either!" Adrien said with a sudden spurt of frustration. "We were partners all those years, and you kept shutting Chat down."
"I know," Marinette said a little sadly. "It's one of the reasons it was probably just as well we ended when we did. We both only saw part of the picture."
"And you wanted the perfect model," Adrien said bitterly. There was a flash in Marinette's eyes.
"Don't you dare. You know why I never gave Chat a chance, and it wasn't just because I was in love with Adrien. We put the whole damn city at risk every time we get distracted by our own personal issues, and I thought you understood that. And then every time you pushed the line, you pushed me away and made it that much harder to hold on to the friendship we could have."
"I gave you space, I stood back, even when it nearly killed me! You can't just turn off feelings like that!" Adrien almost shouted at her. "I loved you!"
"You loved Ladybug!"
She pivoted and stalked away to the edge of the roof, her hands clenching and unclenching, then she turned back abruptly.
"And now I find out that my friendship as Ladybug was never enough for you, and my love as Marinette wasn't enough either. It's not that no one can live up to Ladybug in your mind, it's that I can't live up to Ladybug," she said savagely. "You had me. You had all of me, and I loved you, but you broke up with me the moment you thought you had a shot with her, and the only conclusion that I can draw from that is that what you want is the mask and not the real me."
"That's not true! Marinette, I've always loved you," he said desperately, and he could see her jaw tense.
"Then why did you break up with me when you had me?"
There was a long silence, then, "I was a complete idiot," he said softly. "I know I screwed up. I should never have let you go."
She wouldn't still sound so angry and hurt if she didn't care. She had to care still, and he would spend the rest of his life making this up to her, making up for the hurt he'd caused her.
Marinette's head bowed, the dark, silky curtain of her hair swinging forward to hide her face. Then she looked back up at him and her blue eyes were resolute.
"I'm glad you did."
It took Adrien a long moment to take in the meaning of what she was saying, and when it sank in it felt as though she had reached in and ripped the heart from his body.
"What?"
"It hurt when you broke up with me, but I'm glad you did. If you hadn't, I would have spent the rest of my life feeling like something was missing. I always felt a little like I had to work so hard to get your attention. First when we were in school, and then later even when we were dating you were so sweet to me but I always felt like I was fighting to get you to see me, and I thought that was just me being insecure, but it wasn't. At least now I know why." She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "It gets exhausting."
"Marinette-"
"You're… Chat, you're my closest friend and I want that friendship back with Adrien, but you aren't the one I'm meant to be with." She was trying to be gentle. It wasn't working.
She took a few deep breaths, and her hand went to the ring on her finger, turning it as her expression softened.
"Luka sees all of me, and he loves Marinette. And I love him."
The way her voice melted when she said Luka's name stabbed him like a knife.
She waited for a moment to see if he was going to respond, but there was only silence as he bowed his head.
"I really don't know how to process all of this right now. I know I don't want to lose my friend and partner, I just need to… I need to think this through. I think you do, too," she offered softly. He heard her draw in a shaky breath and let it out as she looked down at the ring on her hand. "This was supposed to be a big night for me, but not like this. Alya and Nino will be waiting at the restaurant, and Luka will be wondering what's keeping me. Are you still going to join us for supper?"
"How long has he known?" Adrien asked in a muffled voice. "Did you tell him?"
"He figured out that I'm Ladybug back around the time I gave him the miraculous."
On the edge of his vision, he saw her lift her hand towards him, hesitate, then it fell back to her side.
"I never told him. Luka worked it out because he knew me," she said as kindly as she could, although nothing would quite take the sting out of the words. "He says it's like a song you know really well, and then you hear it played on different instruments, or at a different tempo, and it takes you a while to work out why it sounds familiar, but then once you do it's obvious what you're listening to."
"Just like that," Adrien muttered bitterly.
"Just like that," Marinette agreed, and turned away, heading towards the restaurant and the musician waiting for her.
X
Plagg hung in the air just on the edge of his line of sight, and the kwami sighed.
"Kid, you screwed up."
"No kidding," Adrien ground out, not bothering to reign in the misery and anger that threatened to swamp him. "You knew. You knew Ladybug was Marinette! Why didn't you tell me?!"
The kwami levelled a look at him.
"So, what? You could mess with her head even more when she found out that you were only with her because you knew she was Ladybug?"
"I wouldn't… It wasn't…" Adrien stuttered to a stop, not quite knowing where he wanted to go with that. "I would have loved her."
"The bug was right – if you didn't love her enough without knowing, you weren't going to love her enough when you did. Life's not a romantic comedy, kid. And if it was, you're not the hero of Marinette's movie."
"So what do I do now?" Adrien whispered, and felt Plagg brush against the fingers buried in his hair. The little cat god twined around his wrist.
"You decide," Plagg said implacably, but there was a hint of sympathy. "You either choose to wallow in misery and blame everything on everyone else, and mess up Marinette's life trying to fight a lost cause and win her back, or you wish her well, let the dreams of Ladybug go, and become the hero I saw you could be when we first started all of this."
X
Adrien was the last one at the restaurant, of course, and he stood there for a long moment, watching as Marinette held out her left hand proudly and Alya squealed, grabbing at it and bouncing in her seat as she pored over the ring. Marinette had recovered her poise, and she was glowing like the sun in the love of her friends and fiancé, a thousand times lovelier than ever.
Nino was laughing at something Alya said, and Luka smiled gently down at Marinette. Adrien had never felt more out of place.
And then Marinette looked up. The glow dimmed. Mari was staring straight at him with an anxious, tense look that didn't belong in those beautiful blue eyes. And that look was his fault.
He straightened his shoulders, put on a smile, and made his decision.