AN: Thank you qookyquiche, actualtinydragon, amarantea, and luullaby for the amazing, amazing, amazing art of last chapter! Check out AO3 and/or tumblr for links! And, dear and darling paperskirts, thanks for keeping me together when I was having a meltdown over this :')
"Three minutes and eight seconds," Alya announces. "You're slowing down, Mari."
A muffled grumble emerges from the lump of blankets on the couch, followed by an arm unfolding out with the hand flattened open expectantly.
With a roll of her eyes, Alya dutifully checks the lid to ensure it's securely closed before carefully passing over the steaming thermos of coffee to the waiting hand. The rich, heady aroma of fresh coffee saturates the air enticingly, coaxing Marinette to poke her head above the ocean of blankets she submerged herself under for the night. Her short cropped hair is an absolute stormcloud around the harbour of her blue eyes and deep eye bags as her fingers slowly clamp onto the thermos, an anchor to fix upon.
A basket bearing the logo of gold laurel leaves framing a distinctive 'TS' signature dangles from Alya's fingers, though the fragrant, buttery smell of fresh croissants speaks for itself.
Further enticed by the prospect of food from home, Marinette slowly emerges. Blankets roll back from the shore of her body to reveal horribly rumpled overalls and the couch's handwriting creased onto her freckled skin.
Luckily, Alya is fluent in all dialects of Marinette. Her glasses glint as she peers down to read each droopy line of exhaustion nested in every wrinkle and crease. Her tongue clucks in fond exasperation as she asks with a hint of wicked humour, "Rough night?"
"Loooooong" rolls out of Marinette's mouth in response, more yawn than word.
Her response ripples through the rest of her body in a wave of motion as she stretches both arms up and out, arches her back, and reaches for the end of the couch with her toes. A pained grunt rips from her throat as her cramps and aches stubbornly refuse to disappear, prompting a laugh from Alya.
"Sometimes I forget how tiny you are," Alya says. "You sound like a dinosaur. A dying one."
"I hurt," Marinette whines, following up with a long swig of coffee. The caffeine sparks a bit of colour back into her pale cheeks.
"For how often you ignore my texts and stay up all night working, I can only call this karma," Alya decides, shooting Marinette a significant look that Marinette pointedly avoids by drinking more coffee. "I don't need the read receipts to know you didn't even open my message. Do you deserve these delicious croissants and quiches your parents made for us? Hmmm… my stomach says no…"
"If I didn't, you wouldn't have gone out of your way to the bakery to pick them up," Marinette grins, calling Alya's bluff. "You're absolutely and positively the very best friend in the world who I don't deserve."
Alya laughs, reaching in to snag herself a croissant before dropping the basket of food onto Marinette's lap. "Yeah, yeah, you suck up."
"It's working though," Marinette beams, lifting the lip of the basket's top to peer at the contents. The vast amounts of flaky, buttery croissants and little quiche tarts nestled within incite a lengthy growl from her stomach, a reaction Alya shakes her head over. Marinette can only imagine the conversation Alya had with her parents for them to pack so much food.
The lure of coffee pulls her back, reminding her of more pressing concerns- such as the way time seems to muffle her ears and blur her vision. A meager few hours of sleep is not rejuvenating in the slightest. Marinette decides that if death via lack of sleep was coming for her, she might as well be awake enough to greet him. She gulps back another mouthful of hot coffee before grabbing the handle of the basket and setting it down gently upon the floor, the most graceful she's been all morning.
As she sits back up, a long groan creaks out mournfully.
"I'm weak for your charms, clearly," Alya deadpans dryly around a mouthful of croissant. "Please tell me that was the couch and not you."
The sharp crack that pops out from Marinette's neck as she rolls her head around the terrible knots gnarling her muscles up condemns her before she can even speak.
Alya's face scrunches up sourly as she finishes the last bit of her croissant, an expression more appropriate for biting into a lemon and not the delicious creation Marinette knows her parents' croissants to be.
"There's nothing I can say to convince you that was nothing, right?" Marinette laughs nervously, drawing her knees up to frame her thermos of coffee protectively.
"Was it worth it? Was whatever it was that kept you up all night worth the destruction of your body?" Alya demands, gesturing dramatically.
"Please, if I was going to actually destroy myself I wouldn't stop halfway like this," Marinette snorts as she curls her hands around her thermos.
A slight pull of the plastic wrap along her shoulder catches her attention, a small tap that outweighs the incessantly heavy ache of her muscles. The reminder douses her ice cold, electrifying her into a sharp and instant wakefulness that the coffee in her hands couldn't achieve.
A jolt of hypersensitivity has her new tattoos prickling in tiny sparks fraying away under her skin. Unconsciously, her peonied wrist lifts up for her hand to rub the raw sensation away. Her fingers halt just short of the transparent plastic wrap before curling into a tight fist to lower back down with slow purpose.
Through the window of her plastic wrap, the anemones must be glinting silvery white upon her skin. Marinette doesn't look.
A pause hangs between the two of them, growing heavily pregnant as Alya's eyes follow the ascent of Marinette's hand before they suddenly widen behind her glasses. The pause quivers, waiting to be broken.
The shock reflected clearly in Alya's clear hazel eyes holds flecks of concern that Marinette cannot answer to. For all that Alya is wickedly observant, her surprise is expected; she hadn't been looking, hadn't been expecting Marinette to have a hiding place she doesn't already know about.
It's as much a surprise to Marinette. The white peels of anemones stretch her soul open for the dark blue eyes of nectaries to gaze from.
She has never felt so vulnerable. She has never felt so unsure.
Her skin burns, flushing with an emotion she can't quite pinpoint. Shame? Embarrassment? Pride? Words rise up in a tide and clog within her throat, but the anemones shining through the transparent plastic wrap speak for themselves. Saying what, Marinette is still not quite sure.
The couch dips as Alya sinks down at the edge. Her hand finds one of Marinette's blanket-covered knees hunched up protectively against her front, and gives her a reassuring squeeze.
"Mari, they look perfect," Alya says softly.
Trust a journalist to know exactly what to say. Trust her best friend to know exactly what she needed to hear.
With a deep, shuddering breath, Marinette slowly unwinds herself and leans into Alya's confidence and strength. Uncertainty still crawls through her nerves in an undercurrent of static, an echo of the burning heat that laced through her veins in unforgiving forks that threatened to crack her open.
Last night had been more reaction than reason, more impulse than intention. The lack of clear purpose leaves Marinette unbalanced.
But the tattoos bloomed upon Marinette's shoulder have never felt more right, as if they had always been there waiting for her to unearth them. Their growth has little to do with delicacy and more to do with fortitude. The pauldron of anemones capping her shoulder protects her as surely as they reveal a facet of her soul.
There's a hazy truth lingering at her peripherals that she doesn't want to confront yet, if ever. It doesn't hurt though, to arm herself with a little invincibility.
"Alya." Her voice finally unsticks to allow words to wing unsteadily from her mouth. "What am I doing?"
"What you always do," Alya says, reaching out and gently lifting Marinette's chin up with long fingers. "Whatever's been needed."
Except Marinette's always been informed of what's been required of her. She can trust other's needs to drive her, to bolster her into someone more, someone better than the sum of her insecurities and doubts. Even if she chooses to distance herself from the consequence of soulmates, tattooing all those who come through her door, who choose her, is when she is at her best and brightest.
Sometimes, Marinette feels it's as close to a hero as she can be.
But there had been no one in the shop last night, save for her, the rain, and the handful of anemone blooms Adrien gave her scattered across her desk.
"What did I need?" Marinette muses quietly.
The basket on the floor almost tips over as Alya swings her legs up onto the couch and folds her limbs loosely around Marinette's. She hums thoughtfully, her gaze tracing the outline of the plastic wrap, before suggesting, "Maybe not a what, but a who."
The next sip of coffee that Marinette takes lingers at the back of her mouth, warm and dark and earthy. A slow swallow, and she can feel the tickle of tiny indigo catmint blooms in her throat, can remember the round weight of Adrien's laugh. The trickle of coffee down to her stomach echoes the way his eyes dropped to her marked wrist, his gaze unabashedly curious and magnetically drawn.
His touch had burned her; but she wonders how it'd taste, the light of his skin.
A beat later, and Marinette's face flames up self-consciously. Alya may not be able to read minds, but she comes pretty damn close. The knowing glint in her eyes has Marinette gulping down another mouthful of coffee and almost choking as it overflows her mouth. Even after excessive amounts of coughing from her and laughter from Alya, the hunger still lingers at the bottom of Marinette's belly.
"Gee, I wonder who it could be," Alya muses teasingly, pretending to stroke her chin in thought. "Obviously someone who's funny, smart, cute, has great hair, looks amazing in purple, gets you free stuff…"
"Alya!"
"You're right!" With a toss of her curly hair, Alya laughs, "It's me, obviously. I do look incredible in purple."
The laugh that snorts through Marinette's nose carries an edge of relief. The anemones stitched onto her skin are already an admission to something- or someone- but she's not ready to admit that out loud to even Alya.
Even as Alya's smile quirks up to a side in understanding, her arm thrusts out, sleeves rolled up to the elbow to bare seemingly unmarked skin. Tiny moles pepper her forearm, the only visible landmarks for the invisible constellation of tattoos Marinette already knows by heart. Alya's fingers wriggle in the air expectantly and age old habit nearly has Marinette raising her own hand to bump up for their secret handshake.
She doesn't though, not anymore. Wariness replaces amusement as Marinette prods her metal thermos against Alya's fingers instead. "Al, we both already know what happens when I touch you."
"We know what has happened. We don't know what will happen," Alya argues, undeterred. Her eyes fix upon Marinette's plastic wrap pointedly. "I'm not asking to touch you back. You know, though, that I like to know. And judging from last night, you have more surprises than I thought."
Marinette smiles weakly. "Gotta make sure you don't get bored of me." Her hands remain resolutely on her thermos, anchoring herself to her coffee.
"I think it's safe to say that after all the shit we've been through together, boring is the last word I'd use to describe you," Alya says. "Maybe ambitious, or resourceful, or stubborn, or obsessive-"
"Gee, thanks-"
"-or maybe, brave."
There is a compliment and a challenge loaded within such a heavy word, daring Marinette to rise up to meet Alya's eyes. She sits up straight and arms her spine up with steel, knowing exactly what Alya is trying to do.
And damn if Alya knows her all too well.
"You know what killed the cat?" Marinette asks as she sets her empty thermos down on the floor.
"You know what brought it back?" Alya shoots back as she leans down and snaps the lid on the thermos closed.
A faint smile crosses Marinette's face. "Not a what," she echoes, "but a who. You did."
"And now," Alya says, "you will."
Her forearm extends out again as she sits back up, an offer of escort, a gesture from another era. She is ready to lead, if Marinette only takes that first step forward. Soulmates may be Alya's business, but tattoos are Marinette's; this is a bit of both, but Luck be A Lady is Marinette's home, where any who come are folded under her wing.
So she takes a deep breath, unfurls her hand, and touches right on a mole at the crook of Alya's elbow. With careful precision, Marinette traces down a path she's traveled before, her finger gliding over Alya's skin.
The tattoo flares to life, awakening in iridescent paths that shimmer brighter as Marinette is the one to lead the way down. The colours hum excitedly, flickering in flashes of bright white and neon blues and pinks, pulsing continuously up against the tip of Marinette's finger as she methodically traces her way down over the bump of Alya's wrist, beyond the mountainous terrain of her knuckles, and across to the end of her pointer finger.
Curiosity feels like a slow burning tempered by the cool touch of her fingertip.
And it feels like nothing different beneath her own skin.
Marinette doesn't know if it's relief or disappointment that cools her nerves. Even as Alya's tattoos come online in a rush of light and heat, nothing changes within her own body. Her peonies sleep, her anemones rest, and her soul is quiet.
"Dang," Alya whispers at the brilliantly lit conduit shining on her arm. "This is pretty cool."
In a roll of motion, Marinette clasps the expanse of her palm over Alya's hand and sweeps up the length of her forearm. The illumination of every tattooed path awakens in a startling rush, scintillating with the fluctuation in energy. The complete network of pathways burns strongly enough to be a light source of their own, Alya's own vambrace of knowledge.
Marinette's fingers linger at the elbow for a moment longer before dropping back down to her lap. They watch the circuits hum with pulses of iridescence, traveling around and around until the totality of Alya's tattoos shine in equilibrium.
The light goes first from Alya's fingertips, dimming, then shutting down when there is no further contact to sustain it. The fading creeps upwards, systematically turning all conductive tracks of the circuit off until there is only smooth, dark, unmarked skin left, innocent and unassuming.
Where Marinette's fingers go, the light follows.
A long, low whistle from Alya punctures the stunned silence as her fingers graze over her own arm, as if she could call her tattoos to life again. They do not yield to her.
"I don't think they react so brightly for even Nino," she admits. Her eyes cut up to Marinette's, reading her reaction. "Well, now I know."
And now Marinette does too; she's known most everyone who's touched Alya's tattoos and connected with her. The list isn't long, but that there is a list at all is remarkable.
"You're so lucky," Marinette says suddenly, unthinkingly. "Just- your tattoos don't follow the same rules as everyone else's. If someone doesn't work out, you know you always have someone else you connect with."
Alya chuckles dryly as she rolls her sleeve back down. "Mari, I'm not an exception. You know soulmates aren't like apples where I can just pick or choose. I love you all. And I love you all a little differently. It would still tear my gut out to lose like you or Nino, soul mark notwithstanding."
"I mean, I can't even handle knowing that there's only one person I'm tied to out there," Marinette sighs, wriggling her legs to free herself completely from her blankets. Without a beat, Alya grabs the deposed fabric and slings it over her shoulders for warmth. "It's so much to expect from just one person, to be a perfect fit. At least with several soulmates, there's less pressure maybe? It splits it up equally then."
The look Alya fixes her with belies her suspicious retort. "I hope you're not trying to compare me to Voldemort here."
The laugh that bursts out from Marinette tastes a little bitter in her mouth. "Even Voldemort got to choose what objects he could split his soul into."
"I'm axing the Voldemort discourse," Alya mutters, rolling her eyes up high. "Soulmates just mean, of all the people in the world, I choose you." In the pause that follows, her fingers tap against her forearm in thought before she adds, "And you, and you, and you, and you, in my case."
"Except I wouldn't be," Marinette protests. Her legs swing around Alya to plant onto the ground, upsetting her thermos. It tips and rolls a few paces away, the silver of the tightly capped lid glinting back at her. "Choosing, that is. It's never actually a choice."
Alya arms herself with her ire, jabbing a finger out to poke Marinette in the leg. There is no escaping her sharp gaze as she fires back, "It's not a trap either. Are you a body or a soul? You react, or you decide. So choose."
They're practically nose to nose but they might as well be standing on opposite sides of a chasm echoing after each other in cyclical repetition. There is no give in Alya's conviction, but there rarely is when her stubbornness has the dedication to magnify the weight of its force. Mountains will crack themselves open before she does.
That doesn't stop the simmer of resentment from bubbling up against Marinette's ribcage, a brewing storm of defensiveness and indignation. In the center, her heart pounds loud and heavy with judgement, with false pretense of calm.
And beneath, beneath the anger, there is an undertow of doubt churning at the bottom of her stomach, testing for give, searching for roots to feed into.
It is an impasse they have not been able to bridge before, and one they will not bridge now. Neither is willing to fold; so they deflect instead.
"This sounds like one of those pep talks you used to give me when we first took over this place from maman," Marinette finally says, leaning down to grab her runaway thermos.
"Yeah well," Alya sighs, blowing a curl from her face, "I haven't given you one in a while so I think you were overdue."
The thermos claims the top of the basket as its new home as Marinette cracks the lid open again, contemplating the merits of a croissant; but the hunger has disappeared into a numb pit. She takes one anyway and offers it to Alya as she sits back up. "Maybe you're more like Dumbledore then."
"Please," Alya scoffs as she releases the blanket around her shoulders to devote her full attention to the offered croissant. As she sinks her first bite in, she continues, "If you're going to compare me to anyone at least choose someone born within a century of my age."
"How about Hermione?" Marinette suggests, pulling her arms around in a stretch. The plastic wrap on her shoulder warps with her movement, reflecting the light of the studio. "Time is just a social construct anyway. You know we've all got souls of different ages."
Alya rolls her eyes good-naturedly, pointing the uneaten end of her croissant at Marinette in accusation. "Saying that doesn't let you off the hook for being perpetually late to everything. And since when did you become a soul expert?"
Marinette flashes her an impish grin. "About three minutes ago."
"Great," Alya cheers as she finishes off the rest of her croissant in quick, neat bites. "Can Nino and I film an interview with you about if after we talk to Juleka and Rose today?"
"Think I'll need more qualifications than 'info pulled straight from my ass'," Marinette counters dryly. "Also is that today?"
"Yup, unless every calendar I've looked has been lying to me, in which case I'll need to postpone their interview to wage war on all calendars across Paris," Alya says as she brushes the crumbs off her lap and onto the floor. She toes a shoe off and sweeps the crumbs under the couch, nodding in satisfaction as the floor gleams clean once more.
"You'll win and then we'll be left dateless, which will mess up our way of quantifying time, which will destroy society's infrastructure, which will lead to the collapse of humanity," Marinette laughs. "Running headlines: Alya Cesaire, Destroyer of Worlds."
"It's got a nice ring to it at least."
The front door opening sounds faintly in reply, as if called upon. Even through the closed door of her workspace, Marinette can make out Rose's bright voice calling out in greeting.
Her cheeriness has the dismaying effect of reminding Marinette the little sleep she managed to snatch the night before. All at once, the weight of the day drops heavily onto her shoulders, inciting an enormous yawn. She glances longingly at the lumpy couch and worn blankets, and sighs, "I'm gonna change and brush my teeth, I'll be out of here in a moment."
"You know you can stay," Alya suggests, wincing as a symphony of cracks and pops sound from Marinette's body as she conducts herself into standing. Alya's foot snags the handle of the basket and thrusts it away from Marinette as she hobbles forward to her desk for her spare clothes.
"Not today." Between the lack of sleep and Alya, Marinette is rubbed a little raw, stripped a little naked. "Not today."
"If you change your mind…" Alya trails off as she stands as well, neatly folding her discarded blanket to toss back down onto the couch.
"I know." And Marinette does. She always knows, with Alya. "Thanks."
"No problem, Potter."
"Why am I the Chosen One?" Marinette asks as Alya makes for the door.
"Why not?" Alya winks before slipping out.
She takes the energy with her, leaving Marinette with an empty thermos, too much food, and a question that rattles in the confines of a room that suddenly feels too small. Even as Marinette trips into the tiny adjoining bathroom and pulls out her toiletry kit, the question follows and dives into her mouth, deep into her lungs, burrowing into her gut.
It sits, an uninvited curiosity. The taste of Alya's confidence has always been different: more potent, more persuasive. It if could, it'd give Marinette wings, give her fearlessness, give her invincibility, give her all she could ever need to save the world.
Marinette doesn't want it. Her world condenses into the pinprick end of Tikki's needle tips where ink hovers at the precipice, waiting for her to direct its creation. From her own hands, a universe stitches itself out across the expanse of bodies of all who come to her. Her skill coaxes out facets of souls to shine, bright as stars, and to call out across the dark vastness, hoping for an answer back.
The rest is up to fate and coincidence, forces that would take a Chosen One who's much more put together than her to manipulate.
The bright lights reflected off the white sink do nothing to lighten the eyebags bruising blue and dark upon her face, to soften the overcast of her thundercloud of hair, to distract from the plastic wrap framing the silver of the anemones to glimmer through. She's seen better days, but better days have not seen the new addition to her body.
Before she brushes her teeth or untangles her hair or washes her face, she gently peels the medical tape securing the plastic wrap off, and discards the plastic from her shoulder entirely.
In the tiny bathroom with only her reflection as witness, the anemones take their first breath of fresh air.
"I should tell maman," Marinette murmurs as she gently washes the anemones with cold water and antibacterial soap. As she retrieves a container of Aquaphor ointment to rub into the healing tattoo, she decides, "I'll tell her when I return the basket."
The thin sheen of ointment soothes her sore skin, sharpens the edges of her tattoos, burnishes the broad strokes of pearlescent silver and deep blue unfurled on her shoulder. They gleam proudly when she's done, as delicate as needlework, as strong as armour.
For good measure, Marinette rubs a little ointment on her peonies as well, polishing herself up a little brighter.
"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," she whispers to her reflection. "Creator of Luck."
For a heartbeat, the words ring true. For a heartbeat, she believes them.
"Well," she sighs, tiredly scrubbing her face and the moment away with her hands before beginning to wash up. "It's a work in progress."
Brushing her teeth and changing from wrinkled overalls to a strappy yellow sundress does wonders in making her feel human again, even if her hair stubbornly remains an untamable poof. Marinette pulls out her makeup bag, considers the contents for a second, and puts it away. Some battles call for retreat, especially when no amount of cover up or foundation will hide her eyebags.
Her overalls sling over the back of her chair as she comes back to her workstation, a chore for another day, another time. Tikki sits at the corner of her desk by her bag, her companion when drawing and partner-in-crime when tattooing.
Bypassing the bag, Marinette holds Tikki up as if seeing her for the first time. Tikki's sleek, red body sparkles back at her, as new as the day she came into Marinette's hands. Yet for all the years they've worked together, she has never fit into Marinette's palm so perfectly; an intense compulsion to tattoo something else onto her skin flares up, a little sun expanding and burning in her chest.
Tikki almost drops from her hands like a lit match; Marinette sets her gently, carefully down instead, putting her away properly. Marinette's fingers uncurl as she brings her hand up, revealing unmarked palms and not the scorch mark she expects.
Her hand flexes, the peonies stretching out across her wrist restlessly in memory.
She takes her bag and hoists the basket up, grabbing the thermos when it tips over the edge, before hurrying out. The sound of Alya's voice paves the way to the front, a trail leading to Juleka and Rose sitting comfortably on one of the couches, Nino fiddling with a videocamera in front of them, and Alya rambling as she adjusts the microphones on Rose's collar and Juleka's jacket.
Attention immediately swings over to Marinette as gravitates closer to say hi, lifting the basket of food up in offering.
"Pretty dress Mari," Nino compliments. His eyes rove up and widen as they catch sight of her gleaming new tattoos. A myriad of emotions and questions flicker in his hazel eyes, but what ends up shining through most transparently is his concern. Marinette smiles proudly, if tiredly, a wordless reassurance that Nino relaxes at. His concern tucks away for another time, a more appropriate moment.
His tact and ease of acceptance wrap around Marinette like a blanket, steady and assuring. Her smile softens gratefully, and he gives her a small wink as he blithely continues, "It makes you look-"
"-put together," Alya finishes, quirking a knowing eyebrow at Marinette. "You're that tired, huh?"
"Only thing in my emergency stash," Marinette yawns, popping the lid of the basket open for Rose to take a croissant. "And yes. Hopefully the yellow distracts from the mess that is me and the dress tricks you into thinking I'm getting fancy when really it's because it's as easy to pull on as a onesie."
"True, but it's less warm." Rose frowns in concern as she tears her croissant in half to share with Juleka. "You sure you won't be cold? You can borrow my jacket if you'd like. Or my sweater. I might have an extra somewhere actually…"
It takes both Juleka and Marinette's combined efforts to physically stop Rose from searching through her bag, everyone else's bags, and likely through the entire studio for an extra sweater. Only until Mariette insists that she appreciates the thought does Rose settle back down on the couch, her eyes still shining in concern as she threads an arm with Juleka's.
"Are you joining us too, Marinette?" Rose asks hopefully, her free hand patting the empty spot next to her in invitation.
"I was just on my way out actually," Marinette laughs nervously. "Maybe next time."
"Don't say that, this one will hold you to it," Nino says, gesturing towards Alya even as he fiddled with the tripod.
"You make it sound like a bad thing," Alya accuses with a pout, sticking her tongue out at Marinette when she laughs.
"I only meant it in the very best of ways," Nino assures her dryly.
"I'll always hold onto Mari," Alya declares loyally. "She's my one and only."
"I'll hold onto Juleka then!" Rose chimes in, leaning comfortably into the delicate hollow of Juleka's shoulder. Turning towards the halo of Rose's bright hair, Juleka plants a kiss against her head with a small smile. In a move so subtle that Marinette almost misses it, Juleka laces her fingers with Rose's slowly, tentatively. With a fierceness not often witnessed, Rose grips Juleka's hand protectively and pulls her close, as if daring anyone to take Juleka away from her.
"No problems with your tattoos then?" Marinette asks, a placeholder for the question she doesn't voice.
It's Juleka who answers, her "Well…" dragging out reluctantly into the open. Immediately, Marinette crouches down, dropping her basket to the floor so she can give her full attention to the pair of them.
"Tell me," Marinette encourages gently.
"It's not a problem," Rose insists, her brow furrowing into a frown.
Still, all it takes is a nudge from Juleka for Rose to lift her head, revealing a small tattooed magpie refracted in shades of purple nestled at the crook of Juleka's neck and shoulder. Its head lifts to watch Rose's retreat, its dark eyes sad. Colours flicker through the plumage anxiously, an undulation of maroon that cuts the magpie into a form composed more of sharply edged shadows than soft feathers.
Without a word, Rose leans down again to press a gentle kiss upon the magpie. Its bladed wings ruffle contentedly beneath her lips, the maroon splitting under spiderweb-thin lines of lavender shining through like silver in a cloud. The wings part to reveal a rose quartz glittering with tones of magenta and cyan resting on its back, a jewel framed adoringly by the magpie as it twists its head back around to brush the exposed heart.
"Oh," Marinette breathes. "That is… wow, congratulations."
But Juleka shakes her head, her expression glum. Another nudge into Rose's side has Rose sighing, her cheek puffing, and her cardigan unbuttoning beneath her fingertips to reveal the bright pink tank top underneath.
As she turns to discard the cardigan onto the back of the couch, her back bares a delicate web of lace stretching down from the back of her neck, pulling across both shoulders, and dripping between pale shoulder blades to form a diamond. Each carefully handwritten loop drapes across in crystallized filigree, delineated in painstakingly fine dotted lines stitched with a single needle. Bracelets of tiny flowers tangled in netted lace wrap around her forearms, adorning Rose with the simplest and most permanent jewelry. She had been so infectiously excited about expanding the design across her back, her smile bright enough to be a new sun.
But as Marinette watches Juleka sweep her fingertips through the lines of lace as if they are strings on an instrument, she remembers, the day Rose came in to get them done was rainy.
The sun Marinette remembers of that day was more a sunflower, tall with verdant green and haloed with soft gold.
Time slows then speeds up double time, yanking Marinette into scrambling for answers she just missed as Rose's soft call of "Juleka" reorients her. Rose catches Juleka's hand as it comes down, leaving Marinette's eyes rewinding back to the lace for the touch she watched but didn't process.
She scans, once, twice, and finds nothing.
Her mind finally slams on track with the realization that there had been nothing.
"This is not a problem," Rose insists to Juleka, her tone growing fierce. "You are not a problem."
"I know," Juleka sighs, an admission caught between hesitance and confidence. She merely wraps an arm around Rose's waist, drawing her close again and seeking comfort.
Rose gift wraps Juleka with arms twined around her torso, hands laced in a knot resting over a crow Marinette knows slumbers on the branches of Juleka's ribcage. She imagines sun-bright yellow eyes blinking open, gaze drawn to Rose's touch, Rose's love, Rose's promise.
"I don't think you have anything to worry about," Marinette assures Juleka with a kind smile. "You're both in good hands."
"Your hands, it would seem," Alya chimes in quietly, startling the three of them. As Marinette twists back to look at the strangely quiet duo, she catches sight of Nino focused intensely on the video camera, clearly recording the interaction as Alya watches patiently beside him. She flashes a grin in apology and encouragement at Marinette. "Luck be A Lady does it again."
"You're the best, Marinette," Rose agrees enthusiastically. "You're wonderful at this, and it's amazing that you design everything yourself!"
"That's the thing," Marinette laughs self-consciously, reddening at the sudden shift of attention. "Even if other people steal your designs, you can always tell pretty much if it's a copy or the original. Every artist has their own style and mark; like fingerprints, in a way."
"You've touched all of us." Juleka's statement hangs quietly, matter-of-fairly, a simple truth bearing the weight of a universe.
"Maybe not all," Marinette admits, "but if you ever need me, I'm there."
She wishes them more luck than Théo, who keeps falling in love with people who eventually leave him when they find their soulmates; than Mme. Bustier, who is still searching, seventeen years later; than Lila, who found out and regretted it since; than Fu, who lost his soulmate young and carried the loss with him all the way to old age. She wishes them the kind of luck that Manon still believes in, the kind found in fairytales where all ends happily ever after.
She hopes that they are one of the lucky few who can make it work.
"Well," Marinette sighs, glancing at the video camera before grabbing her basket and ducking out of shot, "I should get going."
"Wait," Juleka stops her. With a little shuffling, she reaches into her bag to withdraw a sword of violet gladiolus flowers to present to Marinette.
"This is beautiful." The stem twirls gracefully through Marinette's fingers as she accepts the gift. She sheathes the bottom in the corner of the basket, leaving the purple blooms to sway in the air, her own modern day sword and shield. "Thank you! Hope you guys have fun interviewing."
"Think we got a lot good stuff already," Nino says, looking up and sending her a thumbs up.
"Take your time," Marinette insists, though the cheeky smile she sends at Alya gives away her teasing. "Don't rush it."
"You're lucky you're cute," Alya snorts, bumping her hip against Marinette's as Marinette heads for the front door. "You better eat all that or your parents will worry and send even more food next time."
"What says love better than a mountain of food after all?" Marinette laughs, turning the handle on the door. "See you guys later."
Amongst a chorus of farewells from everyone, she steps out right into a brisk skein of air playing through the street. It tugs at her dress and ruffles her hair before zipping away, only to come back around to blow goosebumps onto her skin and waft the buttery scent up from the basket.
Marinette inhales deeply and sighs at the weight in her arms.
"What am I supposed to do with all these croissants?"
.
.
.
Tom Dupain always said, "Many mouths make light work."
That often meant an open invitation to any of Marinette's friends to come over during lunch or after school to snack on leftover pastries from the day before, freshly warmed up courtesy of Sabine. Frequent visitors often included Alya and her siblings, always willing to try new recipes, and Nino, always ready to polish off even the stalest of breads; but Tom always puffed out proudly at the bottomless pit that was Marinette's stomach, an unmatched force of nature.
Meals, of course, were always delicious, but Marinette loved singing to songs on the radio with Sabine as they cooked, loved racing with Tom as they frosted cakes, loved pulling out an old recipe with both her parents and making it their own.
Her parents taught her that food meant love and warmth and welcome.
So Marinette's first instinct when she has more than she knows what to do with is to seek and share.
Her feet turns and starts walking before she even knows where she's going. Colour and texture bleed into the street, into the buildings, layering each step she takes with an old history that breathes itself anew. Paris is old, but not often like this, covered in a patina of riotous ornamentation celebrating the fantastical. When iron railings begin curling gracefully overhead in swirls and arches, and the awnings and facades of buildings ripple in curvilinear undulations by her side, she knows exactly where muscle memory is taking her.
There are little wonders in every corner of the street that Marinette never grows tired of finding, that pull her along in the subtlest undertow of curiosity until her current circles to the glittering cloud of flowers constellated against lush greenery, a nebulous nursery cradled in clear membrane.
Marinette swears the Catmint Print grins even brighter at the sight of her, as if it knows her orbit will always bring her back around.
The stem of gladiolus flowers sway at the top of her basket as she walks up to the front door where the 'CLOSED' sign remains still. Despite the deterrent, the glittering windows that carve out the recess for the door hold bundles of flowers collected together to form gold-gilded green arms welcoming her in.
As the door gives way before her hand, Marinette suspects the place may never actually be closed. Or perhaps her timing has always just been lucky.
"Sorry, we're not open!" a familiar voice rings out as she steps in. Instinct places Adrien in the back, which she confirms when she finds no trace of him in the front.
"I come bearing gifts," Marinette calls back as she picks her way to the part in the folding screen. The place feels utterly unchanged from when she was here the day before.
She wonders if Adrien was up the entire night as well.
"Marinette?" another voice demands incredulously, this one unexpected but not unfamiliar. Before Marinette has the chance to respond or to even cross the threshold into the back area, an abundance of nauseatingly bright yellow snaps right in her face with little ceremony. Standing at the exact same height with similarly striking blue eyes, Marinette can almost mistake the person in front of her to be a mirror image of herself, except in no universe could she ever look at Chloé Bourgeois and think they could be anything alike.
A mutual feeling, judging from the narrowing Chloé's eyes. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng," she enunciates, bordering between a greeting and an insult. "Are you lost?"
"Chloé," Marinette returns. "You're charming as ever. I'm just looking for Adrien."
"What do you want with him?" Chloé asks. Her hands plant on her hips, shifting to fill the divide between the folding screens with the confrontation of her body.
Her aggressive stance is an old one that Marinette knows too well, but the way Chloé's eyes linger at the basket hanging from her arms then flicker up in suspicion is new. Her fingers tap an impatient rhythm on her hips, long nails curving out like claws, as she protectively guards the way to the back, to Adrien.
If Marinette had known she was going to encounter a dragon, she would've armed herself with an extra cup of coffee beforehand.
"Not that it's any of your business," Marinette says, "but I've got some food I'd like to give him. Croissant?" She pops the lid of her basket open in a gracious offering, carefully keeping the violet gladiolus far away.
"Adrien is my business." Chloé's nose wrinkles at the buttery scent that rises up from the open basket. She doesn't take any. "If you're here for an autograph or a picture, leave before I call security."
"Oh, I don't believe this," Marinette mutters. A spike of exhausted irritation sharpens her voice as she takes the kid gloves off. "I'm not a groupie, I'm not a stalker, I'm a friend. I'm not here to take anything from him, I'm just here to give him something."
As Chloé leans in dangerously close, Nino's words flag up in Marinette's mind, holding back her rising hackles. As entitled and pushy as Chloé may be, her intense care for Adrien comes from an understanding place.
"He's happy here. Don't ruin that for him, or you'll have me to answer to." The warning jabs out, sharp as a sword, and armed further with Chloé's fierce glare. The concern and protectiveness in her voice is what digs under Marinette's skin, what makes her wonder who is really the dragon here.
"Chloé? Is that Marinette?" Adrien's voice wedges in between them, halting Marinette's reply. He appears a moment later behind Chloé, but for all of his added height and broadness in frame, he stands a blithe calm compared to the crackle of Chloé's energy. An enormous smile splits across his face as Marinette gives a little wave in greeting. "Hey! I didn't know you were coming by today."
"I didn't know either, it just kind of happened." Marinette grins sheepishly, ignoring the way Chloé crosses her arms as if barring herself closed. "If you're busy, I can come another time."
"You have perfect timing," Adrien says. His eyes dart between her and Chloé in consideration as he reads the strings of tension. "I was gonna be left all by my lonely self. Isn't your appointment coming up Chloé?"
"I can reschedule," Chloé sniffs.
"Hey," he says softly, waiting until Chloé turns to look at him. "I'll be fine."
His quiet does what Marinette's ire could not. In just a breath, he tempers Chloé's fire into smoke.
"Call me later," Chloé insists to him before she turns back to Marinette with narrowed eyes. "I want to hear about everything."
She sweeps out of the shop, her high ponytail snapping it behind her in a whip of molten gold. A tired exhale escapes from Marinette before she realizes it, prompting a wince from Adrien.
"Sorry," he apologizes. "Chloé's my oldest friend, but I know she can be kind of…"
"Hey, you don't have to apologize for her," Marinette says. "I've known her for a while too. My parents' bakery caters for her sometimes and she got her very first tattoo from maman."
The mention of tattoos draws Adrien's eyes over to her shoulder. He slowly, thoughtfully drinks in the gleaming silver anemones sprawled over her shoulder.
"Is that one new?" he asks, his gaze intense. Hairs rise up along Marinette's arm, as if reacting to a ghosting touch.
"Yeah," she admits. The simple admission leaves her strangely vulnerable; but Adrien's earnest smile is encouragement enough for her go a step further and reveal, "I did it last night."
Her shoulder warms under his focus, an ache tickling through her anemones as if they turn under her skin to receive his attention. It must be a natural reaction, since they were inspired by the anemones he'd given her just the other day. She doesn't know how he must feel about that. She doesn't even know how she feels about that.
"They look even better on you," Adrien finally says, soft and wondering.
He never reaches to touch her, never does what she expects him to do. He doesn't need to. The attraction burns the space between them, turns sight into touch.
"So," Marinette starts, her mouth dry. She licks her lips as she holds her basket up, drawing Adrien's eyes away from her shoulder and up to flushed freckled cheeks. "Hungry?"
For a dizzying second, Adrien leans a little closer.
"Maybe a little," he murmurs, his gaze dropping again-
- but Marinette blinks and he's stepping back with the basket hanging from his arm, plucked from her hands. The crescent of his smile cheekily hooks up higher on one side at she attempts to swipe the basket back, only for her to narrowly miss smacking his chest as she misses. He plucks the gladiolus from the edge and offers it back to her in consolation, which she takes with a shake of her head.
"Light fingered thief," Marinette laughs, lightheaded.
"I'm light on my feet too," Adrien grins, nimbly stepping to the side and offering his free arm towards her. Smudges of dirt pepper his purple sleeve, an eerie echo of something that Marinette cannot place until sudden déjà vu reminds her of Alya.
There is no confrontation here though- only an open invitation.
"Shall we, then?" she accepts as she steps forward, loops her arm through his, and leads the way.
AN2: As always, please check AO3 and/or tumblr for tattoo links!
This chapter is, hilariously, only half of what I originally outlined and planned for it but it was getting so long that I had to split it up (which hopefully means a faster update!).
I am so unbelievably sorry for taking nearly a month to update! Depression and anxiety paid an extended and unwelcome visit to me, which slowed my motivation and drive down to a speed a rock probably could've outpaced. I can't thank you guys enough for the amazing response last chapter though! It really blew me away, the amount of love that came through your comments, messages, tags, and art :') Every time I felt defeated, I'd look at all the support and pull myself together, in writing and in life. It seems like such a small thing, summed in in these few sentences, but every single message meant the world to me! Thank you, to each and every one of you again and again and again :')
