Adrien shut the door to his empty house after a long, tiring day at work. It reminded him of the day Marinette swore she worked harder than him. What a lie. She may work more hours, something she imposed upon herself, but Adrien was the one giving physical lessons while she sat at her desk taking phone calls.

He took a shower, grumbling about it before finally letting the hot water take the stress away. He doubted Marinette was coming home tonight; she'd been spending so much time at the office, which was perfectly fine by him. As long as he didn't have to deal with her, life was fine.

Not good, but fine.

Once completed with the shower, Adrien pulled on a pair of sweatpants before collapsing on the couch in front of the tv. He reached behind him for the clicker, only to find it wasn't where he left it.

Marinette must have moved it.

"Fine," he growled. Instead of looking for it, he settled down on the couch, letting his eyes close. Maybe he'd get a nap in before having to clean house and make dinner.

Heck, dinner was him and him alone tonight. Maybe he'd order food in, spoil himself.

He felt a weight settle on his head. It made him smile. Plagg. One of the very very few people in the whole world who actually cared about him and the only one who cared unconditionally. He reached up to scratch the little kwami between the ears. "Thanks, Plagg."

"For what?"

"Being here."

Adrien felt the kwami sigh and settle deeper in his hair. "Adrien," he began in a tone that got him worrying. "Can I talk very honestly?"

He felt his gut grow tight. "Yeah," he said. "Anything, Plagg. What is it?"

There was a small pause. "I'm worried for you."

Adrien's brow furrowed. "Why?"

"You're not yourself."

Adrien shrugged dismissively. "It's just a phase, Plagg."

"It's been 'just a phase' for a year." Plagg flew out of his hair and onto his chest. "Adrien, this is more than just about your father, and you know it."

The last thing Adrien wanted to admit to his kwami was that he was right. He and Marinette… how they got this far apart, he didn't know. People change, but had you asked an eighteen-year-old lovesick Adrien, he would have said that there was no way they'd change that much.

How wrong he'd been. "Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"

With that, Plagg zipped off somewhere, but he was back almost as quickly. This time, holding a ring.

His wedding ring.

"Adrien," Plagg began. "I know this is difficult, but marriage has it's rough patches. You two have to come together to work this out."

Adrien stared at the ring, remembering the night he took it off and slammed it on the counter. He'd been mad then. Furious. But he'd seen his wife, he knew that look in her eye. That was a look he'd admired so much. The same one she had when she swore she was going to take down Hawkmoth. And now, it was being used against him.

"Well, there's no point if she doesn't want to," Adrien said, snatching the ring from Plagg if only to get it out of his sight. "This is over."

"Adrien!"

"No, Plagg," Adrien said, standing from the couch and knocking Plagg off his chest in the process. "It's not working now, and it won't work if she doesn't care."

"Maybe not right now, but with a little time—"

"We've had time," Adrien snapped as he marched into the bedroom. "We've had, what did you say, a year? She's had time, I've had time, and while I want this to change, it's perfectly clear she doesn't want to and I'm not going to waste any more of my life trying to change myself to please people that won't let me into their lives because you know who ends up getting the short end of the stick? Me."

He opened up one of the drawers to his dresser, throwing the wedding ring inside of it before slamming it shut. "I have nothing else to give, Plagg. Nothing." Tears were beginning to well in his eyes. "I can't do that anymore. I can't. She's not going to change, Plagg, and I'm not going to stand around waiting and hoping that she notices me if I change. Because it's always me that has to change. Always. I'm sick and tired of never being good enough for anyone, and if I'm not good enough for her, then tough shit. I'm done, Plagg. It's over. I can't. I can't."

Before Adrien could fully dissolve to tears, Plagg settled in his hair and started purring. "It's okay, Adrien," Plagg assured. "It's okay. I understand."

From there, the anger slowly dissolved, letting the hurt and the fear flood in, and Adrien couldn't help but sink to the floor and sob.

Marinette hung up the phone for the last time that day. Hopefully, anyway. She was hungry and ready to go home.

Well, at least ready to crash in a bed and hope that she didn't see Adrien.

"Marinette," Tikki spoke up. "Before we go home, I want to have a little talk with you."

"Oh," Marinette said, somewhat surprised. She took a seat at her desk with Tikki floating in front of her. "Sure, what is it, Tikki?"

"I'm worried for you," the kwami said. "This… Nothing your going through is healthy."

"If this is about Adrien, I agree with that," Marinette mumbled.

"Partly," she said.

"See! Thank you for validating me."

"I never said that, Marinette," Tikki quickly corrected. "What I meant was that you are in a relationship where neither person gives anything."

"It'd be easier if he wasn't so full of himself," Marinette grumbled. "Honestly, it's like working with Gabriel. I'm not surprised he was Hawkmoth. Funny how his son's the keeper of destruction."

Tikki's eyes narrowed, and despite being a tiny thing, Marinette felt like she could shrink under Tikki's gaze. "I'm sorry if you don't want to hear this, but how dare you, Marinette! Do you even hear yourself?"

That got Marinette to pause.

"This is Adrien you're talking about. The boy whom you loved as a teenager because of his kind heart. The boy who became your superhero partner, whom you always assured was your equal, not below you."

"Well, he's changed, Tikki. I can't fix that."

"You've changed, too, and if you're looking to change him to suit your needs, you're going to be sorely disappointed, Marinette."

As Tikki's words sank in, Marinette's gaze fell to her desk.

Tikki sighed, the majority of her anger leaving her tiny body. "Marinette," she began again, her voice gentler now. "You have to understand that relationship is a box. It starts out empty and you have to fill it. You only get out of it what you put into it. A marriage is a very healthy union that gives solidity to a relationship, but it's still a box. An empty box."

"Well, my box with Adrien is very empty."

"The scary thing is that it's actually not," Tikki said. "It's filled with animosity and hurt. That last battle took a lot out of both of you, and instead of talking it out, you two each decided to dump your baggage—and I know there's been a lot of it lately—into the box. So the box is full—in fact, it's bursting at the seams—but it's full of all the wrong things."

"Then you're proving that it's better for Adrien and I to not have a box in the first place."

"That's not what I'm saying at all," Tikki gently corrected. "I'm saying that the box needs to be emptied, then repaired. Then you can refill it again. Properly. With love and care and selflessness."

Marinette's smile was bitter, but only Tikki could see just how pained it was. "Adrien doesn't love me anymore, Tikki. He doesn't want anything to do with me. And I don't want anything to do with him."

"With his problems, you mean," Tikki said, looking at her with understanding. "You still love him, don't you."

She bit her lip. "Love is wanting to be with someone. Thinking that person is home and caring about them. Love comes easy around that person. Adrien isn't that." Not anymore.

Tikki shook her head. "Love is many things. And while it can be that, that's not all it is." Tikki flew down to sit in Marinette's open hands. "First, love isn't a noun. Love is a verb. It's an action. Secondly, love isn't uncontrollable; love is a choice. Lastly, love comes in many forms. There is passionate love, companionate love, familial love, love for a cause, and so on. I dare you to tell me that you have no love, of any sort, for Adrien."

Marinette found she couldn't say a word. Seconds passed in silence as Marinette's eyes fell closed.

"Answer me this," Tikki began, breaking the silence and calling Marinette's attention back. "Is there any part of you that wants to save your marriage? Don't you wish that it could be like it was before?"

Marinette took a steadying breath, shoving away the memories of a secret midnight meetings between partners that shifted into a whirlwind courtship that ended in a stunning wedding and thrilling honeymoon. "Adrien is done," she quietly said. "He doesn't want anything to do with this anymore. He's not going to want to try fixing the box."

Another paused slipped between the two of them. "Marinette," Tikki said. "Would you, as the wielder of creation, be willing to try to fix the box?"

"It's pointless if Adrien doesn't want to."

"No, it's not," Tikki said. "You have no control over what Adrien does, but you have two options. You can either throw out the box, or one of you is going to try to take that first step. In doing the first, it's going to hurt both of you. Badly. No one just walks away from a marriage unaffected. But, if you chose to fix the box, how do you know Adrien won't become interested in fixing the box, too?"

Marinette couldn't know. "One person can't fix a marriage, Tikki."

"No. Marriage is a partnership. It takes two to fix the box completely."

"And Adrien doesn't want to—"

"Now, he may not," Tikki interrupted. "But one of you has to start. If the other won't join you, you can't do anything about it, but you can at least say you didn't give up without fighting for the very thing you swore at the alter in front of several witnesses to protect."

At the sudden memory of saying vows to Adrien in front of all her closest friends and family, Marinette felt her resolve to fight fade. She bit back the tears that threatened to spill over. "But what if I put in all that work for nothing?"

Tikki patted Marinette's hand comfortingly. "You've put in so much work into the box already," she gently said. "And every single relationship has to rebuild that box at least once. It could have just been dinged or it could be smashed, but it still was fixed. It may seem hopeless now, but are you really ready to take the risk of throwing out the box completely without giving it one last chance?"

Again, silence slipped between them, and Marinette's shoulders slowly grew heavy.

"Marinette," Tikki said. "I have a challenge for you. Forty days, that's all. After that, you can decide what you want to do. But for now, I'm asking for forty days."

Six weeks. Just under, actually. Six weeks of… whatever Tikki had in mind. Six weeks to maybe fix the box. She had loved/still did love Adrien. She married him for a reason. She remembered a time when they would sit on the Eiffel Tower and laugh about the day or comfort each other during the rough patches. Giving that up… it wasn't what she'd ever thought she'd do. Nor did it sound completely appealing.

"Forty days," Marinette relented, her heart hurting. "I'm not putting more than forty days into this box. It's…" she stopped herself before she said it wasn't worth it. It may not even be worth one day, but Marinette knew better: Tikki had something planned and she wasn't going to go against Tikki.

Tikki grinned. "It's a start."

"He's given up, Tikki," Plagg said that night, curled up next to Tikki. "He's shut down and hurting. Kid needs counseling, really, but that's not going to happen right now when all he can think about is how fed up he is with Marinette hurting him."

"It's not all lost," Tikki said with a smile. "Marinette's willing to give it a try."

Plagg's eyes widened.

Tikki nodded excitedly. "There's hope yet. She's tired and hurting and doesn't know if it's worth it, but she's going to give it a shot."

"Let's hope that it works for both of them."

Tikki nodded. "Yes, we can only hope. It's flickering, though. Let's hope the wind doesn't put it out."