Chapter Text
She ran. She ran as though the devil were at her back, as though if she turned around, she would suddenly transform into a pillar of salt.
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
She ran like the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels, so close to latching on and pulling her down, down, down into a circle of hell made just for sinners like her. She ran with the moon shining, indifferently, so high in the sky, so far out of reach, with rocks digging into the soft skin of her feet. She ran, too hurried to remember her shoes, with a bundle of clothes cradled in her arms, leaving imprints of her toes in the mud.
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng fled like a thief in the night.
Because she was.
She had gotten close enough to kiss him three times.
The first was on the last day of collège.
“Félix!”
He stopped at the top of the steps in front of the school’s entrance, turning abruptly. She crashed into him, as she tended to do to many things. His deep green eyes seemed to glow.
“Marinette.”
His voice was calm-- always calm. He behaved so well, so proper, that she wondered if there was anyone in the world who had ever seen him let his guard down.
They had known each other for two years since he entered their school. In all that time, she had never seen him up this close. She had never told him she loved him.
His hand on her arm brought her back to herself.
“Marinette?”
There was nothing in his eyes but calm, patient expectation.
She lost her nerve.
“H- have a good summer.”
He nodded. “And you as well.” And walked away.
The second time was a rare friendly get together close to the end of lycée.
Marinette’s best friend Alya organized a group study for college entrance exams.
But all of the obvious stares directed her way made her self-conscious, and the opportunity passed, fruitless.
The last was the night of their graduation.
Everyone they knew was seated around a long table in the restaurant at Le Grand Paris.
A girl with sunny blond hair and eyes so blue they were almost purple stood, clumsily, drunkily, in her chair. She pulled her short, fitted skirt a little lower on her legs. There was a glass (out of who knows how many) of red wine in her hand.
“To Félix!”
Everyone around the table quieted and looked her way. She raised her hand higher and waited for him to meet her gaze. His own was vacant, placid. Marinette watched on from the seat beside him.
“For being the only one out of us to get the hell out of Dodge!”
“Here, here!” someone called.
Despite the fact Félix had already turned 18 and moved out of his father’s manor, everyone understood that, now that lycée was over, he would be leaving the country in the morning to attend université abroad. It was a condition of his independent lifestyle, and his father’s continued financing of his education.
The girl waited for the scarce mutterings of assent to cease, not ready to drink her toast just yet.
“Félix. After today, I may never see you again. Since I was never able to say it, I’m telling you now: I liked you. At the very least, have a drink with me.”
Félix raised his wine politely while the rest of their companions cheered and tipped back their drinks, then took some of his own. Marinette finished all of hers in one go.
If only she had had that courage.
That was the night she realized Félix couldn’t hold his liquor.
For the rest of the meal, he was noticeably sluggish, droopy-eyed.
When the night was over, Alya and Nino pawned him off on her, citing their relationship as an excuse and her own sense of responsibility as a reason for her to make sure he got home safely.
The two conspirators tucked the drunk man and flustered girl into a cab and waved them off with a wink from Alya and a thumbs up from Nino.
The ride to Félix’s apartment was one of the longest of Marinette’s life. Before they even got down the street, he nodded off, slumped against her shoulder.
When they arrived, she thanked the gods he was never a particularly muscular man, but lean and tall. She was just relieved he was too inebriated to register her supporting his trek to the front door. Fishing for his keys in his pants pocket, too, was a reason to be grateful for his intoxication. She managed to get the door open, then they stumbled across the threshold toward the apartment’s sole bedroom. Félix flopped backward with all of his deadweight onto the mattress.
Marinette breathed a laborious sigh of relief and slipped off his shoes. Her own followed his to the floor for the time being, her feet worn out from trekking around in heels for the majority of the day. She could carry them out with her when she left.
The girl sat there on the edge of the bed for a minute, for once free to simply watch him without fear of being noticed. Even his expression as he lay there, out cold, was peaceful.
She huddled over him with both hands resting on either side of his head.
His forehead was smooth, relaxed. She studied the lines of his face.
“You know,” she said, and raised a hand to brush away some of the golden wisps covering his eyes, “they say there are three things that can’t be hidden. A cough, poverty, and love. I guess I’m just better at hiding it than she is.”
He was so close, finally. Her eyes caught his lips, and she leaned forward, wondering.
At the last second, she stopped, unable to follow through, but didn’t pull back.
“I guess I’m not drunk enough to forget my morals.”
She stayed there for a few seconds, watching him. It took her by surprise when his eyes suddenly flew open.
Startled, she bolted upright, facing the wall. Her hands clapped together at the palms and tucked between her knees while her heart beat a hole in her chest.
“Ah, that’s-- you’re awake? I put your shoes on the floor by the doorway. I really should be go-”
“Marinette-”
A hand reached out and grabbed hers.
“-why are you crying?”
With a start, she realized she did, in fact, have tears running down her cheeks. All of the times she planned and failed, all of the years she was too afraid to confess her feelings, wasted-
She turned and leaned down, kissing him.
She had no idea he would kiss her back.
The heat from his tongue and hands, the feeling of tightness in her gut.
Licking, biting, sucking, swallowing. The desire for more, unable to be sated.
She finally understood why lust was so closely linked to hunger.
The moon, already risen, sat high in the sky. From her place between Félix’s sheets, she knew the hour must be late. She wondered what would happen in the morning when they woke and were confronted by the light of the sun with their deeds.
She wondered if he would remember, if he would resent her for what she’d done.
She slowly rose out of the bed, grabbing whatever clothes were nearest her--a pair of lounge pans and a comfortable tshirt--and looked for her things. She had just found her dress, jacket and purse, and was headed toward the restroom when she heard him turn over and groan.
“Marinette?”
She didn’t bother to check if he could really see her or was just mumbling in his sleep.
She took the pile she was carrying and ran for the door without looking back.
She ran, dirty and tattered, like she was stealing something precious.
And unbeknownst to her, she was.
Marinette sat in the doctor’s office, trying to temper her concern. She had been feeling under the weather for several weeks now. At first she attributed it to her grief over Félix’s departure, as well as to what happened between them the night before he left. But after two months of nausea, fatigue, and dizzy spells, she gave into Alya concerned looks and visited the doctor.
“Miss Dupain-Cheng?”
A tall, dark and handsome man with black hair stepped into the room, drawing her attention. She pivoted the upper half of her body and followed his trek across the room to the other side of the desk. In the brief moment his back was to her, she noticed the remnant of blue tipping his long strands, which were collected in a tie close to the base of his neck. He took the chair and faced her directly, clipboard in hand.
“I’m Dr. Couffaine.”
“I’m M- M- Marinette,” she stammered, then blushed as a result. He smiled warmly and looked down at her chart.
“Nausea, vomiting, dizzy spells?”
“Yes. It’s been happening for a while. Should I be concerned?”
“Well, that kind of depends on you.”
Marinette stilled, expression blank.
“I’m sorry, what? I don’t understand.”
The doctor in front of her looked up from the chart.
“You’re pregnant. Congratulations.”
“What?” Her eyes grew to saucers. “There must be some mistake.”
“There’s no mistake,” he answered, referring to her chart again and flipping through a few of the pages before looking back up. “You have functioning ovaries and the presence of hCG in your blood. It is possible, in fact it is more than possible. Or did no one ever explain sex education to you?”
Despite the candor in his words, he spoke with nothing harsher than a joking tone. Marinette did not feel so much censured or ridiculed as teased by an older brother.
“No, I know all that,” she quickly replied, a light pink dusting her cheeks. “It’s just, I’ve been on birth control for years. This shouldn’t have ha-”
“There’s a reason why contraceptives don’t have a one hundred percent success rate. Any form of birth control can fail. There’s no guarantee you won’t become pregnant unless you completely abstain from sex.”
Marinette’s shoulders slumped. She knew this, she always had, so why was she so confused? She supposed it must shock and denial. Pregnant? What was she going to do-
“Will you keep the child?”
She looked up, surprised by the sound of her own thoughts being directed at her.
“Ah… I don’t know yet. I’m still… processing.”
“Of course,” Dr. Couffaine said, rising to stand. Marinette did the same. Her hand gripping the strap of her purse tightened. “You’re a friend of my sister, are you not? Juleka said she had referred you to me.”
“Oh. Yes. Right.” She stared into space vacantly for a moment before turning awkwardly to the door. Just before she reached it, she stopped and faced him again. “Ah, please don’t… saying anything yet. To Juleka. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. I need some time to think about it.”
“Of course, M- M- Marinette.” She smiled at his teasing. “I would never do that. Doctor-patient confidentiality is a real thing, and besides-” He paused and waited for her to meet his eyes. “-I would never violate your trust and privacy like that.”
She slumped again, this time in relief.
“Thank you, Dr. Couffaine.”
He smiled back.
“Please, call me Luka.”
5 years later
“Hello, my little darlings!” Marinette wrapped her arms around the two small charges in front of her, marvelling internally over how quickly they were growing. When she pulled back, there were two very different faces staring back at her. A girl, still just four years old, with sunny blonde hair and sky blue eyes. She had Marinette’s same bubbly personality, and was clumsy to boot. The other was a boy, also four years old, but his hair was black as midnight, and his eyes were green like a meadow. Sometimes Marinette found herself staring into them and seeing his father. He even had the man’s calm, composed demeanor. He was rational and quiet, the total opposite of his twin sister.
“Right. Emma. Louis. Guess where we’re going today?”
Emma’s bright blue eyes lit up, and she visibly shimmied where she stood. Louis, on the other hand, simply watched his mother with an expectant expression. Marinette smiled and leaned forward.
“Who wants… ice cream!?”
Emma squealed, and even Louis cracked a small smile. The green in his eyes seemed to take on a glow. Their mother stood, laughing, and pulled each one close to her side.
“Come on. Maman got an important promotion at work, and we’re going to celebrate!”
The little girl took that opportunity to break into a run, still holding onto her maman’s hand and pulling both her and Louis along.
They half-walked, half-trotted, the three of them, with Emma pulling at the lead, out of the preschool’s front yard gates and onto the sidewalk.
“All right, Emma, all right, slow down” Marinette finally said, doing her best to keep her amusement at her daughter’s excitement out of her voice. “The ice cream isn’t going anywhere, and there are too many cars out here by the street.”
Emma slowed but pouted.
“Maman, why don’t we have a car?”
Marinette gritted her teeth a little but only let the little girl see her smile.
“Well, sweetheart, that’s because Paris has too many cars. The metro is much more convenient.” Besides, I can’t afford a car yet.
“But his daddy has a car,” Emma argued, pointing to a vehicle a little ways down the street.
“Huh?” her mother asked absent-mindedly. “Who?”
“Him!” the small blonde insisted. “My new friend I made today!”
Marinette looked up at that moment and saw, just a few meters away, a little boy about Emma’s age. She could only see him and his parent from behind, but both were blond, and there was something familiar about the back of that man…
“Adrien!”
Emma dropped her mother’s hand and took off at a sprint.
“Emma!”
Marinette followed after her, mildly horrified, and jogging as best she could in her high-heeled shoes. When she and Louis, who simply followed along without comment or complaint, reached them, the little girl was chatting happily.
“Adrien, Adrien! We’re going to get ice cream! Do you want to come with us?”
“I’m sorry,” Marinette began, looking toward the boy’s father. “Emma can be really enthusiastic, and she loves making new friends. We didn’t mean to in-”
The man turned to face her.
“-trude.”
A moment of stunned silence passed between them.
“Marinette?”
Félix.