Archive of Our Own

what do you see, luka?

butterflies

so many butterflies, coming close

what color are they?

black

i see him too

i see me

but him

but it’s me

can you hear him?

no

can you hear me?

no

wait for me

i’m coming

The nature of such accidental, unsolicited things like living is that somehow, we unintentionally learn how to reinvent love. We take the way it’s been molded for us—or the way it hasn’t been—as we grow, and we make it our own. And then we teach it to others, and they teach us in turn, and perhaps the most important thing we learn from it all is that this living, breathing thing, which has transcended more time than we have years and more space than we have feet to travel, has as many forms as there are people who have ever, ever been alive.

Marinette is one of those alive, alive people, and she starts to learn it just before she turns fifteen. Which is, arguably, half the average age that people figure this out.

In the time that she and Luka have been dating—officially, capital D Dating—they’ve invented a code of the senses. What do you see when you close your eyes? What color is it all? What do you hear in all those hearts around you? Can you hear your heart? Can you hear mine? What’s your name, what color are the walls, what do the blankets feel like, what does your breath feel like when you hold it and count to five, what does it feel like when you put your hands in mine? A catechism of feeling and seeing and hearing and existing, just so at the end of the day, they can do it all without being pulled into this void where they forget exactly how to do those things.

Most of the time, it’s Luka who needs the questions, the feeling of something in his hands besides the guitar picks he scrapes against his palm or the strings he admits he’s afraid of snapping if he claws at them too hard. It’s Luka who needs the hands on his face and the numbers to steady his breathing, who needs to be somewhere in the corner of the library or hidden deep in his cabin—anywhere he won’t be seen. Anywhere he can hold onto her. It’s never more than him needing a quiet space, a quiet moment until he’s himself again, but it’s probably still more than she supposes he’d ever want anyone else to know about.

He’s kind enough to ask, every time, if she has it in her to stay with him for a bit while he sits in silence and closes his eyes, or when he feels out his guitar and plays the songs his heart knows best, just because he knows her presence will only make it better. And he’s kind enough to hold her hand for those extra few seconds, and kiss her knuckles or her cheek, and thank her, really thank her, for her time. And for everything she does, and everything she gives.

“Just,” he always says, “if you need me, please don’t hesitate to tell me or ask me to stay. You do enough for me. I want to do things for you, too.”

It’s never that Marinette wants to hide whatever it is she’s feeling. It’s more a combination of two things. One, that whatever she’s holding in her heart tends to disappear, without ceremony or reason or any volition but its own, when she finds something or someone else to care for. And two, that she has to hide it at all costs, because she doesn’t know what would happen to her if she ever were akumatized, and she’s too afraid to find out.

She just has to not think about it. She just has to carry all this good luck with her until everything goes away for everyone.

Besides. As long as Luka can hear her, he’ll be okay in the end.

But he can’t today.

So she has to go to him.

As far as she knows, he hasn’t missed many full days of school since the first time she visited him—maybe only one or two. But this week has been full of texts just before lunch, all saying the same thing: Ma is dismissing me early, but I’ll be okay. Which he’s been saying instead of don’t worry about me, but she finds reason to worry anyway, even quietly. Juleka hardly says a thing about it, even though she must know, and it isn’t until she has a free period in the art room that she’s able to really ask him herself.

Her heart doesn’t drop, exactly, when the messages come in during their usual back-and-forth. There’s that first jolt, and then the slow sink into the pit of her stomach. Almost numbly, she gathers up her things, and seizes up in surprise when Marc taps her shoulder.

“Is he okay?” he asks, picking at the chipped black polish on his nails. “Your—Luka.”

Her Luka. It’d sound sweet if she weren’t so buried in the chill of the need to get to him. “He will be, yeah,” she says, nearly rasps it. “I’m going to see him now. Did you want me to give him something?”

“Oh, um—” Marc fumbles a bit, reaches behind him to gather a few sheets of paper held together with a small binder clip. “Just a side story. For fun and practice and… stuff. Nath even illustrated it.”

Marinette raises an eyebrow. “‘Nath?’”

Instantly, Marc turns as red as his sweater, and thrusts the papers into her hands. “I hope he likes it!” he stammers, and books it back to his seat. Marinette has just enough in her to crawl out of the worried haze and catch him squeezing Nathaniel’s fingers under the worktable.

That would be sweet, too. Maybe it already is.

Luka’s already waiting for her by the time she makes it out to the Liberty. He’s got his phone in his hand, and he texts her a simple greeting once she’s aboard the boat. They trek through the clutter on deck, until they’ve cleared out some space to sit, and even though neither of his guitars are anywhere to be seen, he still curls the fingers of his right hand in some rhythm, like he’s trying to play out his heart with none of the instrument and none of the music.

“It’s happening more often these days,” Marinette says, cutting to the chase. Luka’s hands stop, momentarily, and she uses the pause to slide her fingers between his and squeeze.

He goes softer at the edges than usual, and squeezes his hand back, and nods.

“The nightmares, too?”

Another nod. His nail polish is chipped, too, and the ball of his new tongue stud is poking out between his lips.

“Do you, um…” She chews her lip, lets go just enough to thumb his knuckles. Just enough to let him know she’s still here. “Do you want to paint my nails again? Or do you want me to read to you, maybe?”

Luka squeezes again, and holds up two fingers.

So she settles up, nestled against his side as much as he’d like her to be there—which, she comes to learn, is very much—and finds whatever she can. The story from Marc and Nathaniel, pictures and all. Her homework assignments for Miss Bustier. His homework assignments, even though he’s done most of them already and just wants the reassurance that he sort of did it correctly. News articles about kittens and concerts and whatever hope there still is in the world. The Ladyblog—every article but the one about him.

It’s during the last of these that Luka stops tracing his fingers up and down her arm and finally speaks. “He could get me again.”

“He won’t,” she reassures him, even though he could ask how she can be so sure—even though she wouldn’t know exactly how to answer. “It’s rare that Hawkmoth goes after someone more than once.”

“It still happens. He could still do it.”

She locks her tablet, and stuffs it away in her backpack. “Is that what you’ve been so scared of?”

“I’ve been trying,” he says—insists it, even though she believes him. “The medicine. And I’ve been trying to meditate more often. Like when we first met, you know?”

“I know.”

“How can you be so sure that he won’t?”

She isn’t. That’s probably the scariest part of it all. The only thing that might be scarier is the pause that comes after his question—like maybe that answers it for him. But she still gets to her feet, and holds out both of her hands, and says, “Can I try?”

It’s quiet below deck. Just what she needs.

Well. Just what they both need, really.

“Come on,” Marinette says gently, and pats a space on the couch for him. She’s been here enough times that she gets comfortable way too easy, might as well start calling it home, too.

Luka’s still hanging in the doorway, hesitant by the counter. He’s practically white-knuckling the edge of it, and if possible, it looks like his nail polish is even more chipped than before. “Are you sure about this?”

She looks at him earnestly, with a patient smile, and pats the couch again. “Do you trust me?”

That seems to get to him, and he takes slow, almost too-careful steps forward, sinking down beside her with a careful gaze. She takes his approach as a yes, and has to wonder if he’s ever been so vulnerable around anyone else. Or if he’s ever wanted to be.

“I…” Marinette gets to her feet, and stands in front of him. “I want you to be afraid.”

The color starts to drain from Luka’s face. He even looks at her like she’s a little crazy. Maybe she is, considering how she worded it. “What?”

“I want you to be afraid,” she repeats after a deep breath, “and not worry about anyone or anything getting you.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s okay. It’s okay if you’re scared.”

Luka shifts uncomfortably, like he’s been slapped with some kind of public speaking assignment, or asked to sight-read something when everyone who knows him knows he’s always been better at playing by ear, or by heart. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he says to reassure her, too. “I do, honest. I just don’t know why you want me to do this.”

In the silence of the cabins, Marinette swallows a little too hard and wrings her hands. “Because, if… if Ladybug can’t come and protect you when you’re scared, then I want to. I want to try.” She’s scared to turn her back on him, but she does anyway. Spreads her arms wide, and shuts her eyes tight, offers herself to whatever invisible demons and butterflies are out there, and in here, and inside him. “So, go ahead. You can be afraid.”

“Marinette—”

“I mean it,” she says, and curses herself for sounding a little shaky. “Go ahead.” Go ahead. Go ahead before I get too scared, too.

Luka doesn’t argue after that—or if he does it without words, she can’t tell. There’s just a long stretch of nothing, where she’s standing as tall as she can make herself, and he’s sitting deadly quiet behind her. She’d start to think he’d snuck out at some point if it weren’t for the breathing—slow and even at first, and then a little louder, sigh after sigh after sigh.

“I’m scared,” he says. Shudders it, really. The couch creaks under his weight, and he melts into crying. “I’m scared because he could get you whenever you go away.”

She has to hold all of her breath and compress it into the smallest ball in her chest, stiffen her muscles with the stuff, just to keep herself from turning around. Because it’s not her turn. It’s not her turn, and Luka never gets a turn as far as she knows, so he has to take one. He has to. Even if it means he’s shaking and muffling his sobs with his hands, even if it means he’s learning how to breathe again, even if it means he has to take an hour to get all the shakes out. At least he’s getting them out to begin with. At least now he can be scared.

He’s crying, and it’s killing her. And she still says, “If Ladybug can’t do it, then I will. I will.”

She only gets to say it twice before it gets too hard to talk around the lump in her throat, and she has to put all of her attention toward keeping her own tears from spilling, but they win out anyway. But maybe if she keeps quiet, if she covers her mouth and breathes through it, he’ll never know.

Why? Why is she breaking, too? Isn’t it supposed to feel good to take care of the people around her? Isn’t it supposed to feel good to be so selfless?

Luka’s calling to her, but she feels his arms wrapping around her waist from behind before she actually hears the words. “Baby,” he says like an apology, like he’s been ripped from something. Himself. He pulls her back toward him, and she goes stiff and sinks to her knees with her hands clamped over her mouth and her eyes shut tight. She could swallow it all down if she just tried a little harder. If she could get her spots on without having to yell for them, keep the butterflies away and swallow down everything that could summon them so that she doesn’t have to leave him. If she could just, just, just—

“It’s okay if you’re scared,” she says, eyes wet and vision blurring, and she feels hysterically stupid. She doesn’t even want him to look at her, or feel for her. “It’s okay if you’re sad, I’ll—”

“It’s okay for you, too.” He barely sounds like he’s crying anymore himself, but maybe those are just the perks of whispering instead. “You don’t have to be her.”

Yes, I do, because I am her, she wants to scream. Instead her chest goes tense, and she presses her hands even harder against her mouth, keeps her voice from leaving her a second time because she’s afraid of what will happen to it. I’m Ladybug and I’ve saved everyone but myself every time. I’ve saved you before, I’ll do it again, I just have to keep doing it. I just have to—

I just—

I—

He tugs her into his lap, turns her around and hugs her so tight that she can’t tell if he’s doing it more for her comfort or his own. Or if he’s doing it to give her the privacy of her own breaking. She can’t answer when her brain is short-circuiting like this. He nearly crushes her bones, and drags his fingers up and down her spine, and says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been so much for you to handle. Too much. I’ve been too much.”

If she had a Euro for all the worse things she’s handled. “You’re not too much,” she tells him, and curls her fingers in the back of his hoodie. “I’m the one who should be saying sorry—”

“I’m a handful,” he says, laced with an underlying, and I get if you can’t hold it all; I wouldn’t want to hold all of me, either. “A big handful.”

“I have two hands,” Marinette whispers into his neck, and only holds on tighter, and won’t let him admit that he does, too.

“Talk to me,” Luka says once they’ve settled and it’s been quiet for too long. He’s been rubbing her back the whole time, cradling the back of her head like he couldn’t let go of her even if he wanted to, waiting for their breaths to go even. “Please tell me what you’re thinking about.”

Marinette shuts her eyes tight, her heart sinking like a stone, and says, “I can’t.”

She can’t, she can’t, she—

Why?

Why is this the first time it hurts that she can’t? She’s always stuck to her morals before. It’s never been such a struggle to tell Chat Noir why they can’t know each other’s identities. She even doesn’t terribly mind not telling Alya, even though there’s most likely some unspoken code that they should tell each other basically everything. The only time that’s come closest to this is Lila, maybe. And even then, she was only compromised because she felt… threatened. Like her identity really was at stake, and for what? A reputation? Some horror at the thought of being associated with her?

No, even this is different. This time, she actually wants it. Doesn’t feel like she has to do anything. She just wants, and wants badly, and she’s never wanted it as much as she does now. And it hurts. Almost as much as it hurt to go home that afternoon, and as much as it’s hurt to even look at Luka in the days afterward no matter how many times he tells her it’s okay. No matter how nothing’s halted, and nothing’s changed.

Even Chat Noir’s told her it’s okay, in spite of all the coaxing and friendly jabs, and it doesn’t make her insides squirm like this.

Maybe she’s just scared of finding out.

Adrien says he called her name at least three times, but she didn’t hear a single one. It’s only the touch on her shoulder that gets her attention just as their free period is beginning, and she nearly falls out of her chair from being so startled. Which, of course, Chloe makes a point of laughing at. It overlays Lila’s silent fuming in the back of the class when he asks, “Can I talk to you for a bit? Outside?”

Marinette’s so distracted by literally everything that she can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed or angry or even weirdly delighted, either by the attention or purely out of spite. In fact, she almost forgot she was in class to begin with. She even barely registers the vague concern in Adrien’s expression from his seat in front of her. But she nods, numbly, and gathers her things as she gets to her feet, and is only dimly aware of how he squeezes her shoulder on their way out of Miss Bustier’s room.

It’s not unusual for them to spend time together, even alone. She’s mostly given up on getting to spend time with him outside of school, except for those rare happenstances when his father gives him permission, or when he’s brave enough to find just the right loopholes and trick his bodyguard. But he’s been good to her in the time they do get together, the same kind as always. He’s a quiet observer, an encourager. Mild manners and sweet smiles, something contained and not his fault for being that way. Something aching to get out—starting to, little by little, if the recent flashes in his eyes are anything to go by. She can only assume—and only because she’s stopped peeking into his fencing practices—that something, someone, somewhere, is helping him out of his shell. Maybe it’s happening in a way she could never have helped it along.

Maybe she’s… mostly okay with that.

He takes a seat beside her at the top of the steps near the classroom, hugs his knees to his chest. Watches her so carefully, like he’s trying to get a read on her soul. How long ago was it, that she wished he’d look at her like this all the time? That if he did it enough, maybe he’d see in her exactly what she wanted him to, and he’d fall in love just like she’d always wanted? “You seem kind of sad today,” he says, a hesitant prompt. “It’s not like you. Is that weird to say?”

There are other students calling to each other down the hall; the voices ricochet so much that Marinette can’t make out what they’re saying, but she doesn’t particularly care. She finds herself staring, close enough to him that their knees could touch, but they don’t. “No,” she says. “I didn’t think it was obvious. I didn’t think… you’d notice.”

“I think anyone would notice if it’s you,” he says, and she knows he’s trying to be well-meaning, but it still stings a little anyway. “You’re one of the most optimistic people I know. You make the most out of every situation—even if it’s frustrating for you. If you’re not feeling great, it’s… kind of like a rainy day, I guess.”

“You don’t like the rain?”

“It’s so-so.” Adrien tilts his head. “Do you?”

Without meaning to, Marinette sits up a little straighter, her chin just barely touching her hand, and almost doesn’t answer at first. She chews the inside of her cheek, and looks down the stairs. “I used to,” she murmurs. “I used to love it.”

Whatever Adrien’s reaction is, she doesn’t see it. Doesn’t really want to. Neither of them speaks for a while; they only take in the classroom sounds around them, the echoes from down the hall and in the courtyard. But he’s the first between them to speak up again. “I thought… whatever was bothering you, you wouldn’t want to talk about it in front of other people. Not that you have to tell me anything. But if you want to. We have some time.”

Fantastic. Another person she’ll have to say no to. Another person she can’t with. She takes a deep breath, crumples it up into a ball in her chest, lets it out with her face in her hands. “It’s complicated,” she tells him, because she will not cry in front of Adrien Agreste, and she will not cry in front of Luka Couffaine again.

“I know complicated,” Adrien says.

Does he? Does he actually?

Marinette holds her tongue, and swallows hard, and tries again, for the sake of friendship and common decency. “Do you ever just… carry something so heavy in your heart that you can't share with anyone else? And you feel guilty about it all the time?”

When she looks Adrien’s way again, his eyes are wide. Horrified. Like he’s been caught at something, but she can’t place her finger on what. It makes her heart sink to wonder how many times he’s worn that expression. How many times he’s felt caught in something, ready to apologize for anything, even if he did everything right. “What…” He clears his throat, coughs uncomfortably into his hand. “What makes you ask something like that?”

She figures it should be obvious, but she doesn’t push the point. Instead, she decides on telling him that it’s just something she’s been thinking about lately, and returns to losing herself in the almost-quiet of the halls. It’s not that she expects him to help her, or even understand her. She just needs to say something. She just needs to put it out there with someone who isn’t Alya because she doesn’t want the tough love, someone who isn’t Luka because the last thing she wants to do is burden him even more. “It’s just a lot,” she murmurs, “and I just want to be good to people. I just want to be a good person, and not have to… to…”

Marinette isn’t sure how she wants to finish that sentence. Adrien doesn’t try to finish it for her, or even prompt her to. He only checks his phone for the time, and she presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, because maybe if she does it hard enough—if she tries hard enough—then all these feelings can go away again, just like they always have. And she won’t have to worry about the butterflies she sees. She can just worry about everyone else’s butterflies instead. She’s done it for long enough. Can’t she hold out a little more again? Just a little more? If she thinks about all the Lucky Charms she’s summoned, all the demons she’s fought, all the butterflies she’s freed… if she thinks about all the people she’s de-evilized, all the people who know her name, no, Ladybug’s name…

If she thinks about protecting Luka again, from everything in himself—

She presses harder, and her shoulders start to shake, even after Adrien rests his hand on one of them. Just to let her know he’s there. “That’s not something you have to worry about,” he says; she doesn’t bother to look at him, but his tone is soft and careful enough that she can hazard a guess at his expression. “You’re already a good person. You always have been. It’s like I told you. You might not be Ladybug, but you’re our everyday Ladybug.” There’s a squeeze at her arm—a fresh wave of tears she has to fight back. “Everyone sees it. I hope you’ll see that one day, too.”

She’s barely lifted her head to look at him, and he’s holding his arms open for her, a meaningful sparkle in his eyes that only makes the tears try harder at trickling her out. It only takes a deep breath and a nod from her before he’s pulling her into a hug, the kind she doesn’t want to let go of no matter who’s giving it. The soft, unassuming kind that says, I’m here, I’m here. And sure, she goes a little rigid at first—anyone with complicated feelings would, she thinks. But eventually she crumples under his touch, and holds him closer, and hides her face in his shoulder so he doesn’t have to ask her about anything. “It’s hard,” she whispers, and shuts her eyes tight. “It’s so hard.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Adrien says, a hum that she feels as much as she hears. Slowly, he shifts back to look at her, and he’s got the same dopey you’re welcome smile he had when she kissed him months ago. “Better?”

Marinette gives him a one-shoulder shrug, and drops her gaze, picking at her fingers. “Sort of.”

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

She wants to tell him that time is the one thing she’s pretty sure she doesn’t have, or can’t guarantee, but a figure out of the corner of her eye stops her from speaking. They both look down the stairs, Marinette wiping her eyes all the while, only to see Luka waiting patiently at the bottom, a frown on his lips. (In some other corner, she’s sure Lila is either fuming even more, or delighting in trying to take pictures to make her look bad, but it’s awful that Marinette even spared her any thought.)

Luka…

Marinette sits up a little straighter, already ready to apologize, explain, defend herself. But Adrien nods his head in Luka’s direction, seemingly unaffected. “You should probably go over and talk to him,” he says.

“Yeah.” A sniffle, another dumb nod. “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

“Anything,” Adrien says softly. “And, hey?”

She looks back.

“I hope you can let him carry some of that weight, too.”

Damn it. Damn it. Why does he have to twist her heart like this? Why does she still have to love him? Why doesn’t she know how to do any of it right?

Without a word, and in the few minutes she has left before algebra, she descends the staircase. Can’t even bring herself to look Luka in the eye as she clutches the railing nearby. “Are you mad at me?” she asks, so small, so stupid. “For talking to him, even though…?”

“He’s your friend,” Luka tells her, with a hand on top of her head and no terms of endearment. “Why would I be mad at you for talking to your friend?”

Marinette shakes her head. She just figured… “I’m so sorry, Luka.”

“For what?” he asks, more gently than maybe she deserves. “Talking to Adrien? Hugging him? Those aren’t things you have to be sorry about—”

“For what happened at your house,” she says, because it is. “I tried to help, and I think I just made everything worse, for both of us.”

The bell for the end of the period rings before they can say anything more. Luka sighs, jams his hands in his pockets, and bends to kiss her before walking her up the stairs. The usual ritual.

“Do you want to come over later?” he says, though something in his voice compels her to say yes anyway.

Nothing halted. Nothing changed.

Marinette’s only ever seen crime scenes on those drama shows on TV. Flashing lights, bright yellow tape, CAUTION DO NOT ENTER CAUTION DO NOT ENTER. She’s never understood why anyone would ever want to go back to them when they must bring up some terrible, visceral feelings. Thoughts of what could have happened there. Memories of what did happen there. It all must make them sick, want to turn tail and hide where nothing could get them.

It’s sort of how she feels when she steps down into the cabin again and sets a little too stiffly on the couch. What happened here? Why is she so scared of being here, of being alone here, of being alone with Luka? Why does it feel so different from their group time together at lunch, or the few occasions he got to walk the halls with her? Couldn’t he see the caution tape the moment he picked her up from the art room? Couldn’t he hear the sirens the whole walk over? She felt it all—couldn’t not feel it, even when the thought of him alone was enough to tide her over through Chloe’s offended expressions and Lila cornering her in the bathroom with yet another greedy warning.

Maybe Luka did sense it all, too, and that’s why he brought her over anyway.

Marinette starts to say something to break through all this quiet and though, but Luka stops her with his knuckles brushing her cheek and a look so determined that she almost forgets all her words. “I know you’re sorry,” he murmurs, thumbing gently just under her eye, like he’s afraid he could break her with a breath. “I know. And I don’t want you to be.”

She waits until the silence has gone on long enough before she lets herself speak. “I can’t help it. What do you want me to do…? Stop being sorry? Stop being scared for you? I just want—”

“I know.” His shoulders go a little slack. Are they fighting? Is this a Serious Talk? Their first Real Serious Talk? Is it bad? Is it bad even though he’s holding her hand? “And I told you. I’m not expecting you to fix me—I never have, I don’t want you to. You don’t have to fix everything about everyone, Marinette, you’re not supposed to.”

“But—”

“Don’t,” he says, and squeezes. And then, “Your rings are full.”

Marinette squints. “What… are you talking about?”

“It’s a chemistry thing.” Luka’s hand slips away from hers, and he moves to heft the classical guitar off its stand. He’s kept it out in the open these days, practiced with it a little more than usual. He says it means a little more to him now. “Let me see if I can explain this right…”

“I thought you hated science.”

“I hate physics,” Luka corrects her. “Chemistry is fine.” He takes a seat beside her, nestling the guitar in his lap but not playing it. It’s the weight of it, she knows, that comforts him plenty. “So, look… in chemistry, right, you have atoms, and every atom is surrounded by electrons—wait, you don’t do this stuff till next year—”

“I can follow, sort of.” Marinette insists quietly, and hugs her knees to her chest. “Keep going. Atoms. Electrons.”

“Okay, so…” He scrunches up his lips—either because he’s really invested in it, or really trying to get the science right, or really hoping she doesn’t think he’s dumb for this. Which she doesn’t, but she’s already interrupted him once, so she goes for a shy, encouraging nod. “So, the electrons kind of, orbit the center of the atom in rings. But each ring can only hold a certain amount of electrons before they move out to the next ring. And then the ones on the outside, those are the ones that help atoms bond to other atoms. I think. I think that’s how it works.”

“Uh huh…” She wasn’t wrong. She is following, sort of. “So… about us—”

“I—” Awkwardly, Luka rubs the back of his neck and looks around. “I dunno if, you’re one of the electrons, or if you’re the whole atom. Because I guess it’s like, the energy or something, in each electron, it can never go inward, only out to the next orbital, or something like that. But there’s also the whole thing about bonding, and sharing them, and…” He sighs, and drops his head into his hand. “Maybe I don’t know where I was going with this after all. Sorry.”

It’s adorably familiar, the way he talks in circles and tries to figure everything out as he’s saying it. Is this how he feels… literally any time she talks? “It’s okay,” she tells him. “What’s this about, anyway?”

But Luka’s shaking his head, and strapping into his guitar. He mumbles something about how this is why he uses music instead of words, and takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. “Just, listen,” he says, and he must wait for her heart to come to rest before he starts to play. It’s a song that sounds just a little older than them, a waltz that isn’t too ornate but still clings to emotion. He has to have played this song a thousand times, because his eyes are closed the whole time, and his fingers press into the fretboard like they run on memory alone, and the words seem to come to his lips before he’s even sung them. English, accented with a little bit of French and a little bit of something else.

Marinette’s not the best at it—that’s Chloe’s department, all thanks to her mother—but she thinks she can make out one of the lines.

When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.

She picks up the first part soon enough, only because he sings it so many times. But by the time she figures out what it means to not want the world to see you, he’s already fading out, I just want you to know who I am, and his eyes are fluttering open, I just want you to know who I am, and he’s looking at her expectantly, waiting for her judgment. I just want you to know who I am.

Marinette takes a breath. Holds it. Lets it go. “What color was that?” she says, sounding more dreamy and breathless than she meant to.

Luka’s expression softens. “Blue and green. A little grey.”

“Okay. You’ve officially lost me.”

“I figured.” The guitar settles in his lap, and even though his hand is shaky, he rests it on her cheek anyway. It’s warmer than usual, and his fingers are just as callused from picking as she remembers, and on instinct she leans into his touch and cradles his hand close. “It scared me a little. What happened last time. I’ve never seen you so…” He shakes his head, either because he doesn’t want to remember it or because he doesn’t want to unearth anything. “I just want you to feel like… you have someone, some people to go to, if things are ever too much.” His voice drops, and when she opens her eyes again, just for a moment, he looks like he wants to kiss her everywhere he can. Except he doesn’t, and maybe it’s for the best even if she wants it. “You do so much for everyone, Marinette. Somebody’s gotta do something for you, too.”

This time it’s her expression that twists up in confusion. Partly because she wonders if Juleka ever told him so. “Does that mean I have to push electrons into the next ring? Or that I’m supposed to bond mine to other people’s?”

Luka laughs, soft, knowing. “Both, I guess.”

“Then…” With a nervous touch of her own, she toys with a lock of his hair, brushes some of it out of his eyes. She wouldn’t mind bonding to him, she supposes. “What about the song?”

His laugh dies down, and he nudges her hand back. “I thought that was kind of obvious.”

“You want to be that somebody.”

“Well. Yeah. I hope I can be, anyway. Even though I turned into…” There’s a beat or two of quiet, and he readjusts the instrument in his lap, darts his eyes away, takes a deep breath of his own. It always feels like he knows more than either of them lets on. It’s not unsettling except for secrecy’s sake. “Look, I know there are some things you can’t tell me, about… why everything feels like too much, or why you disappear sometimes, for so long. And it’s okay that you can’t. I still trust you.” His hand slips to her jaw, to her shoulder, to himself again. “But I want to tell you things, at least. I don’t—I don’t let a lot of people in. ‘Cause it takes effort, and I’m fine with them only seeing a little bit. But you’re… different.”

Marinette tilts her head, just enough to meet his eyes. “Extraordinary…?”

Luka smiles to himself, like he’s trying to hide it, and tightens his grip on the neck of the guitar. “I want you to know me, Marinette. As much as you want to. And, I want you to feel okay telling me what you can. Or what you want to.”

God, there’s so much she wants to tell him now. She doesn’t even know where to begin. Her gut twists, and she comes a little closer to him on the couch, her nails catching on the frays in his jeans. “Do you want to know?” she asks, chewing her lip and looking off to the side. “Who I am. Do you want to know?”

His eyes spark—she could have seen it from kilometers away, she thinks.

Slowly, she lifts the shoulder strap over his head, coaxes the guitar from his music hands and lays it properly on the floor. Just long enough for her to lean back nervously against the couch and ease his head down, press his ear to her heart. Her fingers are trembling where they wind in his hair, and his body goes tense for a moment. But he crumples against her soon enough, and his arms find their way around her waist, and she holds him closer still. Vulnerable, scared even, but not crying.

“Do you know now?” Marinette asks, nearly scared to speak.

Luka sighs, and nods, and presses in just a little more, fingering the fretboard of her spine. Playing her.

“What about you?” Her chest tightens, and her touch pauses at his hood before she dares to kiss the top of his head. “Who are you?”

His eyes drift up her way, and he kisses her shoulder over her blazer because it’s the closest thing he can reach. “I’m a boy,” he murmurs, “and I’m scared and my brain is sick and I think I love you.”

Alya screams through the phone when Marinette tells her—first, that Luka’s had to reassure her multiple times that he isn’t mad about Adrien, and second, that he… loves? Her?? He loves her, no, he thinks he loves her, and he told her she didn’t have to say it back if she wasn’t ready yet, or if she didn’t feel like it yet. And it wasn’t that she didn’t feel like it yet—she really did want to say it, she did. She just couldn’t get the words out when he was looking at her so thoughtfully. She couldn’t get the words out on the boat at all.

“Okay, but. He loves you,” Alya says, and sniffles melodramatically on the other end. “They grow up so fast.”

“Keep talking like that, and I’m not inviting you or Nino to his gig.”

“Okay, okay.” Marinette can practically hear her grinning. “Anything to support my future brother-in-law.”

It makes her wonder if, at some point, Juleka’s ever thought that way, too. She thinks about it more than she probably should, long after she hangs up, in between the reminders of what Luka said.

The rest of the school week goes a little easier than expected. No anxiety, no early dismissals. Only blue-green songs and classroom rehearsals he won’t let her sit in on, eager chatter with her friends at lunchtime and more stairwell talks and the sight, this time, of Nathaniel sliding his fingers between Marc’s under the table. Adrien even takes the seat next to hers during study hall once, because it’s “conveniently” the only seat left, and whispers that he’s glad she seems better. In between his helping her with physics and her helping him with math, she scribbles a note on a scrap of paper and pushes it his way: Do you think your dad would let you come out on Friday night?

Adrien barely tilts his head to read the note, but he takes a long time to do so. He squints at it a little, then looks at her slowly, then back to the note, then back to her. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking, exactly, but something in him weakens around the edges—is it pity? apology?—and he writes something back.

I’ll see if I can fudge something.

Then he holds up a finger, and writes something else.

Could I bring someone else along?

This time Marinette’s the one to stop and stare. She doesn’t have to do much guessing. Something goes soft in her, too, but she smiles all the same, and gives him a little nod, and they fall back into their work easily. Something goes soft, sure. But something feels like it’s going right, too.

Just before study hall ends, Adrien taps her shoulder, and slides a folded piece of paper of his own toward her, lets her read it to the tune of the bell.

Thank you for letting me carry some of you, too.

Marinette’s face warms, and she beams to herself, and she nods and tucks the paper away. She may not keep a lot related to him anymore, but this is going in the lockbox. Especially when he claps her lightly on the back, and helps her out of her seat so they can walk to class together. Even when Lila oh-so-sweetly asks to “steal her away” for a minute, she just “has a question about some class representative affairs,” and hisses with dark eyes once they’re alone, “I don’t know who you think you’re playing, but you’ve been treading on thin ice for a long, long time. Watch it. Unless, you know.” Her eyes narrow. “You really want to be sorry.”

Which freezes Marinette for a moment, because she thought they were done with this. Maybe they were only done with Luka’s part. She wrenches herself free from Lila’s grip—subtle, but pointed—and murmurs, “The only thing I’m sorry for is the way you’ve been loved.” It’s the middle road at best, but right now she doesn’t have the time or the energy or the heart to go high for someone who will only ever go low for her.

Friday afternoon comes without consequence, and most of them—Alya, Nino, the rest of Kitty Section, Mylène, and Alix—gather in Marinette’s room to get ready. Nino flips on some music, Juleka lends her nail-painting skills to anyone who wants them, and most of them take turns doing some makeup. Even Ivan and Nino take a spin in the chair, come out with streaks of blue and purple and red around their eyes and on their cheeks to match the masks from that contest so long ago. It’s not a festival or a huge concert. But it’s Luka, and they want to support him.

“This is going to be so fun,” Marinette whispers excitedly over the music, smoothing out her dress and all but vibrating in her seat.

Juleka nods, and glances back at the little bundle on the desk just behind her. She smiles to herself, and gives Marinette’s hands a squeeze before painting them metallic blue.

Marinette leads the way to the café—she’s only been there the one time, but she remembers the roads they took like the back of her hand. It’s almost 7 by the time they’re settled in, a huge group of them taking up two tables close to the front, and just before the spotlight goes on the bell above the door tinkles. She’s the only one who turns, curious, and her stomach just barely twists at the sight of Adrien and Kagami slipping inside. He’s guiding her toward an empty table nearby with a hushed hand at her back—the same one Marinette remembers feeling just the day before—and she turns to the stage again, feeling only a little sick and losing herself in the compressed applause that erupts once Luka hops up and into the stool.

“How’s everybody doing tonight?” he says, bouncing his leg with that usual smooth smile of his, and the sickness starts to taper away. But a deep breath is all it takes, apparently, for him to be able to read and work with the crowd, and for whatever jitters he has to die down. He searches the audience with his eyes until he lands on her, goes still and smiles wide. “All right,” he says, strapping his guitar on. “Now I’m good to go.”

Beside her, Alya giggles and nudges her teasingly, and Rose has to suppress a squeal. She nudges them both back to quiet them, and it’s as she’s taking out her phone to take some photos and record the first song that she notices Adrien just a table over. In the dim light, she can see him sitting stiffly, until Kagami looks his way and casually rests her hand on top of his, and she immediately casts her eyes down.

At least until the blue-green music starts, buzzing and electric and full.

And her heart flutters.

And the lyrics she knows find their way to her lips.

I just want you to know who I am.

Luka plays a few more songs after that, a wider range of taste than she was expecting. An artist she’s never heard before, and one she knows is his absolute second favorite—he plays two of those. He even covers something by Jagged Stone, and that one famous song from Carmen whose name she can’t remember until Nino whispers, “That’s La Habanera, dude,” and Alya corrects his pronunciation.

The audience claps after each one, and even louder after he sets the electric guitar on a nearby stand, but he has to put up a hand and say, “Hold on, hold on, I’m not done yet.”

That’s Luka. Always fulls of surprises. Hardly ever done.

From offstage, one of the café staff hands him a black hourglass case. Leather. Worn. Decorated with a couple of stickers here and there.

Marinette knows it.

The space is mostly quiet while Luka trades off his electric and opens the new case, but Alya whoops encouragingly to keep the energy up, because of course she does. Most everyone follows her lead, so that he’s grinning by the time he’s on the stool again, classical guitar cradled close like a lover and tongue poking out just sheepishly enough that the stud glints in the light.

“Just a change of pace for this last one,” he says. “It’s… something that I feel.”

He takes a deep breath, and starts to play orange. And Marinette sits up straight, and otherwise forgets how to move.

Luka mentioned it before, more times than she can count. That her song calmed him. That he’d been playing it on the classical here and there. She’s just never heard it before now. Not so publicly. And there’s a tunnel vision that seeps in from the corners of her eyes. Takes her back to the foot of his bed where he patted an empty space and apologized for teasing her. To all the times she’s caught him humming it to himself, or plucking it out on his electric in the art room, each time a little more different than the last. To this dreamy place she doesn’t really know, a meadow or a place by the sea, where the breeze flutters through her hair and her clothes and he’s there, playing to her, loving her while he closes his eyes and feels out every note. And nobody’s hands are shaking, and nobody’s legs are bouncing, and this is all they need to know about one another.

She barely realizes she’s tearing up until her vision swims, oh no, and then her chest is tight, and her nose is burning, and—

“Oh, bud,” Alya murmurs, and starts dabbing at her eyes for her so her makeup doesn’t run.

When he lets the last note fade, he only leans close to the mic, nearly kissing it as he thanks the audience and bids them good night. Nearly everyone stands up for him, cheering and clapping until their hands hurt, and Marinette’s so small that she can barely see him hop off the stage and round it to gather his things. There’s absolutely a swarm of people surrounding him after, complimenting him and asking when he’ll play here again and all but swooning over him, and Adrien catches her eye in the meantime, joining the group with Kagami in tow.

“You made it,” Marinette says, half-surprised and half-confused. “What did you think?”

Adrien smiles wide. “It was awesome,” he says as the café’s usual jazz starts to fill the space. “He’s incredible. What about you, Kagami?”

“It’s not my usual fare,” Kagami replies with a shrug, looking to him and standing awfully close, though it could have been from the crowd clearing out. “But I can respect it. Thank you, for inviting me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Adrien never did actually invite her anywhere himself, did he? It was always a crazy random happenstance if they were ever alone together. A happy coincidence that hardly repeated itself.

Somewhere in her trying not to think about it, she catches Luka’s eye. His whole face lights up, and he beckons her over with a hand, then nods his head toward the door. She hesitates, looking around at the people she doesn’t want to abandon, but most of them seem wrapped up in conversations and each other. Anyone who does look her way only smiles, knowingly, and returns to whatever is in front of them.

“Go ahead,” Adrien says, and gently nudges her forward. “I think he’s waiting for you.”

Marinette stumbles a little, but manages to get herself together with a weak smile, and somewhere along the way, Adrien disappears into the crowd, and Luka becomes a little bit clearer.

Outside, he mouths, and that’s her cue to push through.

He finally gets through the door a few long moments later, toting both guitars and clutching at his chest for breath. His hair is clinging to his forehead, either from the spotlight or the people or the sheer anxiety of the experience, and his bottom lip is a bit swollen from biting too hard, but otherwise he looks fine. “That was… a lot of people,” he says. But then he looks to her, and he softens under the streetlight, more affectionate than most things she’s seen lately. “Hey. Cute look.”

“Hey,” she stammers. She doesn’t usually, with him, but she would with any other rock star, so maybe it all cancels out. PEMDAS, or something. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just need some air, and some—not, people.”

“Well, what about me?”

“You’re not ‘people,’” he murmurs.

Marinette flutters again, and scrunches up her lips. “I’ll trade you.”

“For what—?”

Shyly, she takes the classical case from him, and fumbles in her purse for the bundle from her desk. She holds it out to him, along with a rose wrapped in cellophane—a white one, tipped with blue. “That’s for you. For your big break.”

“It’s just a coffee shop gig,” he says. “Nothing special.” But he looks touched all the same, and unwraps the bundle to reveal the sleeve of blueberry macarons she made just the day before. For her to give to him personally, and not to scheme over or mess up this time.

“It is special,” she insists. “It’s something you did and it meant a lot to you, everyone could see it.” She grips the handle on the case a little tighter, tries and fails to blow some hair out of her eyes, scuffs the ground with the heel of her boot. “It’s your thing. It’s how you talk to the world when you don’t know how to say all the things you want to say. Even if you’re scared to say them.”

He looks up from the package, eyes wide and lips parted, cellophane crinkling under his touch. “You know me,” he breathes.

“You wanted me to.” The others are all still in there, and she hopes they stay. Just for a little longer. “So I hope I do. And…”

He watches her, patiently. “And?”

“And I think I love you too,” she says, standing on the sides of her feet and feeling the breeze of his music and tearing up all over again. If her makeup smudges this time, she won’t care about it. She sniffles, and she can’t reach him even if she stands on tiptoe, so she repays the favor from weeks and weeks and weeks ago—kisses her fingertips, and clumsily presses them to his mouth, and stands back on her heels in apology.

Luka stops, touches his lips in disbelief. He looks like fire, under the glow of the streetlamp, everything about him molten right down to the seas in his eyes. Like he’d wrap her up in one of those romance-movie, all-consuming kisses if their hands weren’t so full. Instead, he bends to bump his forehead to hers, and sighs in relief in time with her, holds it until their eyes fall closed and their bodies go slack. “How about I buy you some cocoa and walk you home?”

Marinette can’t help giggling in the space between them even though she’s bubbling under her skin, ready to explode, yearning to tilt her head just that little bit and knowing it wouldn’t be worth the wait if she did. “Okay,” she whispers. “On one condition.”

“Name it, baby.”

She screws her eyes shut tighter, and flexes her free hand, and suppresses every aching, burning thing that made her feel. “Play it again. The orange. Play it like that. I want the night to hear it.”

She doesn’t have to open them again to know that he’s smiling, this close to her lips. “Deal.”