It has been several years and IDK if anyone will care, but I've decided to come back to this story. Partially because I want to write more, and partially because I still enjoy this idea and want to finish fleshing it out. Here's to continuing Just a Friend.

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No sooner had her bedroom door slammed shut than Marinette had transformed into Ladybug and tore across the Parisian skyline. She didn't have a plan, nor did she have a destination in mind. All she knew was she couldn't be Marinette in that moment.

If you happened to be looking out your window that morning, you would have assumed Ladybug was on her way to battle. She flung her yo-yo with an intensity usually saved for particularly tough villains. She rocketed down city streets, anchoring her yo-yo around a light post, then a balcony, then a water tower, then a flag pole atop City Hall, building speed as she climbed higher into the sky. Marinette could feel Tikki through her mask, trying to get Marinette to slow down and talk to her. But Marinette was not slowing down.

Not yet.

"The nerve of him, the NERVE of HIM, how DARE he show up like that," the thoughts racing each other around Marinette's head. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears and her fingers felt like pins and needles. She kept gripping her yo-yo tighter and tighter, throwing it out harder and harder, until…

She missed.

She had gotten so caught up, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Marinette watched as her yo-yo arced towards the ground, the string falling limp, before feeling herself begin her own freefall.

Now, lest you forget, this is still Ladybug, the greatest heroine to grace Europe since Joan of Arc. Ladybug knew she didn't have enough time to reel in her yo-yo and throw again. What she did have time for was to use her own momentum to tuck her chin, flip through the air once… twice…three times, each time spooling her line up a little more, until she felt the line go taught once again. Her yo-yo exploded out of that last flip, wrapping itself around the nearest structure. Ladybug pulled herself up, dodged slamming into the side of a building, before launching into the sky and crash-landing right next to her yo-yo some hundred feet in the air.

Ladybug lay there a moment, uninjured(again, total badass) yet rattled, catching her breath. She scolded herself for losing control and replayed the events in her mind. As she did, her mind drifted from Luka for the first time since seeing him earlier that morning.

That is, until she realized where she was.

"Of course I wind up here." Marinette sat up and looked down from her perch on the Eiffel Tower. It was poetic. Too poetic. If she wasn't experiencing it herself, Marinette would have thought it sounded like bad fan fiction. Not just because of the ubiquity of the Tower in Parisian culture and romance stories, but also because of what happened here a little over three years ago.

For the first time, Marinette let the memories take over. Not just today, but for the first time in years.

…

A 15 year-old Marinette sits beneath the Eiffel Tower on a late summer afternoon. She doodles away in a well-worn sketchbook, crafting elegant dresses without a care in the world, unaware of just how few careless days she has left.

She grabs an eraser with a huff, still unable to get the neckline right. She's tried a plunging, sweetheart, straight, but nothing has looked just right so far.

Marinette stares at her drawing, mentally mapping a half dozen potential options, before a voice shakes her loose.

"I've watched you decapitate that poor woman so many times, I feel like an accessory to murder," quips Luka. Marinette looks up and meets her boyfriend's gaze. Leaning against the chair opposite Marinette, guitar bag on his back, raven hair swept to the side, Luka's piercing blue eyes never fail to make Marinette blush.

"She wouldn't be decapitated if her stylist could get her dress right," Marinette shoots back, grin spreading across her face.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad. I've been watching you for five minutes and they all looked great."

"That's because you're a fashion disaster," Marinette says, gesturing at Luka's outfit. She isn't wrong, as Luka's basketball shorts, untucked polo shirt, and oversized jacket aren't exactly considered 'chic'.

Luka clutches his chest and scoffs in mock offense. "I can't believe you. And the week of our two-year anniversary? How could you say such a thing?"

Marinette rolls her eyes. "That was four days ago, that doesn't work anymore."

Luka chuckles, "It was worth a shot." He pulls the chair next to Marinette, kisses the top of her head, and plops down next to her. "Ok then, Gabriel Agreste, what should that neckline look like?"

"Well, since you asked nicely…" Marinette spins off into a long-winded soliloquy about fashion trends and the historic significance of certain necklines. Luka sits and listens raptly.

Marinette loves talking fashion and Luka loves listening, but in the moment, she doesn't notice anything different about the way he's looking at her.

Our present-day Marinette flashes forward through the conversation.

"You never heard back from that performing arts school?" Marinette asks, knowing Luka had applied to their guitar studio earlier that summer.

A look crosses Luka's face that past Marinette attributes to disappointment of not getting in.

"I don't really wanna talk about it," mumbles Luka while avoiding eye contact.

Present Marinette flashes forward to the end of the conversation, tears starting to form in the corner of her eyes.

As the two get up and say their goodbyes, Luka pulls Marinette in for a deep, long kiss. When he breaks it, he pulls her in for a deeper hug.

"What was that for?" chuckles Marinette, overwhelmed by the affection.

Marinette misses the third sad look in Luka's eyes as he responds, "Just because I love you."

"Aww, I love you too." Marinette cups his face and gives him a quick peck before gathering her belongings, and walking off with a "Bye Luky" thrown over her shoulder.

Tears fall silently down Marinette's face. How could she miss it? How could she not see something was wrong? If she had, maybe she could have done something, said something, or at least gotten some closure for the person she met at age 3, had a crush on at age 8, fell in love with at age 11, had their first kiss with at age 12, and started dating at age 13.

It was one week later when she walked into school and realized Luka was gone, that he had been accepted to the performing arts school in Nice and left without telling her.

It was a month after that when she realized he blocked her and wasn't going to answer any calls or texts.

It was a year after that when she was finally able to talk to Juleka again. Not because Marinette blamed her, but they just looked too similar.

It was about a year after that when the first akuma attacked Paris, where Marinette accepted the mantle of Ladybug, defender of Paris.

It was a day after that when Adrien Agreste gave her an umbrella in a rainstorm, apologizing for a misunderstanding from the other day, and Marinette felt something she hadn't felt since Luka.

It was about ten months after that until Marinette was able to actually form complete sentences around Adrien, with Luka pushed to the darkest recess of her mind.

And two months after that, after all these changes and all this growth, Luka strolls back into her life and makes it feel like the last three years never happened.