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The city is lit up in fire and heat blurs the asphalt streets. Luka ducks past rubble streaking down from the Eiffel Tower (the usual, he muses) and sprints faster, trying to outrun the damage and get home. If Ladybug can just move a little quicker… News stations are broadcasting the fight like entertainment and Luka swallows a sneer at the blasé attitude of coverage.
“Ladybug strikes again at Hawkmoth, but he slips away easily! Is Ladybug still up to the task of defending our city?” The news anchor talks quickly, excitedly, and her voice gnaws at a headache building in the back of Luka’s mind. Hawkmoth and Mayura have been ravaging this city for months and she’s treating this like little more than a match for entertainment. Just because Ladybug can set the city to rights doesn’t erase the scars carved into the city’s psyche.
“And where’s her beloved partner? Normally by her side, Chat Noir is conspicuously absent today. A noteworthy moment, viewers, especially since Hawkmoth and Mayura have just stolen multiple miraculi away from the dynamic duo of Paris! Where is Chat Noir on this momentously frightening occasion? Send in your answers, viewers!” A replay of Ladybug reeling back in shock as Mayura dangles a familiar bracelet before jumping backwards flashes across the screen as the news anchor speaks over it, their social media handles scrolling across the bottom. Luka bares his teeth before he remembers his calmness. That bracelet is his and Ladybug just let them take it—
Luka takes a deep breath. Counts in, one two three, out, one two three. Runs faster, lets his heartbeat wash over him. It wasn’t his, he reminds himself, he had it on borrowed time.
The clash and clanging of battle worsen their cacophony as he reaches the base of the Eiffel Tower, almost out of breath. Just when he skids to a stop, Hawkmoth coming into view, a flash of white light covers the city. Rubble pulls itself back into office buildings and wounds stitch back together, blood seeping into bodies where it once bled sluggishly out. Energy slams into Luka and he curses quietly, turning on his heel. Hawkmoth and Mayura are already halfway across the city when the lights stop flashing in his eyes, and there’s nothing left to do. No point being here now.
Instead, Luka makes his way to a nearby park and slumps onto a bench. Maybe he can convince Marinette to come over. There’s very little her company can’t make better, after all.
He doesn’t quite end up calling her. Instead, the akuma splits into two to reveal Mr. and Mrs. Bourgeois, and ladybugs flit around the city repairing damage, and Marinette stumbles out of the park, lost and dizzy in her own mind. She falls into Luka’s arms, absolutely distraught, finally crumbling under the weight of everything she's refused to tell Luka (tell anyone) until now. He asks again, years like tides lapping away the sharp edges of the question, and this time she answers: still secretive, still shy, but more of an answer than she's ever given before.
“Who’s taking care of you?” and he doesn’t say the rest, that if she pours all her heart into parasites who take it all and reach grubby, greedy hands out for more, that there will be nothing left of her at all.
“I’m so damn tired, Luka, take me home.”
He carries her home, leaves his bike, his guitar on the street, because nothing is more important than making her feel safe and home and happy.
Hours later, as she's sobbed into his shirt and soaked him in her misery, as his gentle hums finish wringing her soul of every betrayal she's carried for months, she finally looks up, eyes red and shimmering with tears, because she's exhausted but not out of tears yet, and she asks: and who do you have, Luka? He looks at her, brushes her tears away with gentle fingers, and hums. Marinette doesn't pick up on the tune right away, but he loops it again and again, and the notes sink into her tear-stained skin. That's her. That's her song.
And she gasps, and falls back into his chest, and hums. Not sure where the notes are coming from, she hums a harmony to his tune, filling in all the gaps and smoothing jumpy transitions, weaving around him, dancing in tandem, in a language she never learned but knows.
"This is who I have, my Marinette. I have you."
"...will I be enough to hold all of you?"
Her voice is quiet but strong, laced through with steel even as she voices her own insecurity.
Luka's heart sinks, boils in the acid in his stomach, leaves his chest empty and aching. How is she so strong in the face of such debilitating pain? Luka can feel it come off in waves from her heart, pressed into his skin at ever instance her body meets his. It leaves him broken and it's not even his, not even at its full strength. She faces this pain and stands strong anyways, spits in its face and shoulders forward.
…she gives him his heart and asks for him to tear it apart, cruel and careless, the way most people beg for compliments and kindness. She does this, he knows, because it hurts less to offer a sacrifice than to have it torn from her, unwilling. How much has she given up? Will she be enough?! she is everything; she is so much more than enough. Can he be enough for her? can he give her even a fraction of what she's lost?! She turns to him, and he knows his anguish is painted across his eyes.
Silence has hung heavy in the air, thick and stifling, for long moments after she asked her question. She doesn't hesitate to cut through it.
"Luka. My Luka, if I am enough for you, then you will be enough for me. We can be enough for each other, okay? Just how we are." And it shouldn't surprise him how the tables have turned, the way that she takes care of him, reads the worry in his heart so easily and pairs them to the words he never knew he needed to hear, but his heart aches again. She's so good at taking care of him. When will she take care of herself?
There is Luka, collapsed to his knees on the floor of his room, with Marinette curled up against him, pink clothes stark against his blue hoodie, the blue of his hair mingling with the blue of hers, tear stains darkening their clothes and staining their skin in spots, a grim parallel to the patterns she favors so much. There is Marinette, draped in his hoodie, kneeling between his legs, brushing tears away from his cheeks even as her own skin gets tear-soaked, aching from the smiles she doesn't feel.
Luka lets Marinette go, because when you love someone, that's just what you do. She loves so many people so much. He'd be lucky to have her love. But he'd give all of it up if she would just give that love to herself, sometimes, too. Instead, Marinette gives her love to him, gives all the love she has to him, gives love she used to direct to boys who called her friend and didn't quite know what that word meant anyways, to best friends who drift away at better prospects, at partners who don't know when to stop, to give her space. When it leaves her empty, she stands up straighter and steals strength from her own self, and when she breaks, she crashes, waves against Luka's shoreline, and lets him piece her back together, over and over, held together with shattered pieces and duct tape, and a love strong enough to destroy, and a love too gentle to do it.
Luka worries about the day his duct tape fails, and strums a little more forcefully on his guitar. He can only hope he finds a better solution for his Marinette before that happens. The way the battles are wearing on the city, he doesn't know if he will. His fingers itch for his miraculous now more than ever. He just needs a little more time...
Magic is addictive. Magic demands a price. Magic hides its horns behind a halo and tucks its tail in tight as it offers you the world, and when you reach towards the promises, it will grasp you firmly and pull you down. Magic is a gift but who is receiving it? it will not tell you.
And it will never, never be you.
So Luka aligns himself against Hawkmoth, yes, but Ladybug too. He wants the miraculous box. He wants Magic. Luka steadily gets angrier: at Hawkmoth for terrorizing the city, at Ladybug for refusing to end it. He's fighting without magic. He just has his heart of fire, and his hope.
As Ladybug taunts Hawkmoth, draws him out as battles get fiercer, destroy more of the city at a time, Luka slips further into the shadows. He lurks in hidden corners, listens to the words people exchange under their breath instead of the melody of their hearts. When his Marinette lets slip the way she took the fall for Lila's book-thievery, Luka smiles and whispers sweet nothing, and when she leaves, he slips into the Agreste mansion.
There is something Very Wrong here, he knows it by the way the notes of his music strike discordant and angry, yes, but also in the ways that the rooms look sterile but the dust is so thick the countertops can't be seen underneath; the way footsteps land light as a feather but doors slam hard behind angry, lonely hearts. The peacock miraculous, kept hidden in the safe to prevent the drain on Nathalie when not in use, slips into a pocket of Luka's hoodie. He strolls out, humming. Marinette's song has never sounded so eerie.
Magic lives beyond the lines of logic and laws, of rules and regulations. As the broken peacock stole time from Nathalie, it will give Luka the time he so desperately craves. He will bring the miracle box to himself, will peer into the lives of the people who have broken his Marinette, and he will wait, and he will watch. He is the perfect viper, and the time to strike is nigh.
But Magic is a cruel mistress. Luka gives his heart to Marinette, and it cannot steal that. Luka has stolen time from other miracles, and it would be boring to steal that. No, instead, Magic steals something else. Luka has glared into the face of this monster before, but Magic steals his balance, and Luka is left unsteady on failing earth, and his anxiety spirals. The weight of Marinette, his Atlas' burden, the one he swore to carry, weights heavier on his shoulders than he can bear, but he cannot give her up. He will not be another tally in her betrayal books, and so he grounds himself firm in the earth that shakes beneath him, and steals a little more time. He just needs a little bit more.
Ladybug is weakening. Ladybug is weakening, and oh, it shows. Perhaps she's not. Her powers grow: she carries potions tossed over to her cat in arms across battle fields and she lures Hawkmoth out more days than not, now. Hawkmoth, who is still reeling at the loss of his lieutenant. But Ladybug swallows loss in the magic of her suit. She falls back, recharges, comes back panting, out of breath, exhausted.
The mask covers her eyes but the weariness is plain to see anyways, bags under her eyes so heavy they drag her every step down. Luka slinks in the shadowed corners under fights, underfoot, follows Hawkmoth as he flees and glances back to see Ladybug slip into alleyways under the cover of the flash of pink light. Her hero friends are nowhere to be seen. Luka knows why. Ladybug has had them all, and did nothing to find Hawkmoth. She doesn't get another chance. Hawkmoth collapses in a burst of purple light into Gabriel Agreste, and Luka smirks. The gentle strains of notes echo through alleyways. They will haunt Gabriel into long nights, longer days.
Magic that swirled once around Nathalie has fallen limp at her feet, unlocked the coils of a chain that had been tightening at her throat for so long, so steadily, that it hurts to breathe in freedom, with the pressure come apart now so suddenly. Nathalie builds her strength one step at a time, and by the time she looks up from her trembling legs, Gabriel has fallen, lost and lonely without her steadfast support.
The choice plagues her: will she give up safety for this man who she has given everything for? what is she choosing, when she chooses him? Is it love? does she know how to love? Who does she choose: Gabriel Agreste, or Nathalie Sancoeur?
Luka stands on the turrets of a mansion-turned-empty-home, dangles his feet, and waits.
Tonight, he thinks, tonight he ends the plague on this city. Tonight he gives Marinette the magic she deserves. Tonight the city will dance to his music, serpents at his mercy, and he will finally, finally be enough. He will give his Marinette everything she deserves. And he will give it to her tonight.
In the end, it was never, never Ladybug destined to save the city.
Marinette will wake up to Luka trapped under Hawkmoth's rapier, spitting venom like a snake cornered. She will wake up to alarms blaring, akuma alerts confused and the city in panic. The fight has spilled out of mansion as Luka flees and gets followed, as he twists on the balls of his feet to keep Hawkmoth from the magic, his magic, that is Luka's magic, he needs it!
Luka slips backwards, sharpened edge of a sword cutting into the soft skin under his chin.
He slips backwards, and refuses to scream as Hawkmoth kicks him, in the ribs, in the thighs. He slips backwards, just a little bit further, and then he spins, jumps backwards and sideways into the water of a river Hawkmoth didn't quite notice, not as observant without his support, deranged and raving. Luka slips through the water and pulls himself out as Gabriel Agreste, disoriented, seething, spins futilely, searching the water for a boy he thinks dead.
Marinette watches, breathing the way the master she lost taught her, too tired to remember that she has magic. Or maybe just sick of it. Sick of the way the magic coated her skin slick like oil and drained the joy and the life and the energy from her to put together a mask, an identity Marinette didn't want to be anymore. Maybe once, that mask felt like confidence. Like freedom. Like the strength to be who the world needed instead of clumsy and useless and a waste of space, of life, of time.
Now all Marinette wants to be is herself. The way a boy made her feel, wrapped tight in his arms, warm and a little wet from her tears, but so, so kind.
She lets her purse fall as Luka steps forward, as Luka hidden behind a cloth mask and a hood she made for him, knocks Hawkmoth to the ground. She steps into the fluorescent light of street-side lamps as Luka reaches down, pulls the miraculous she's been after for so long away from this man, pathetic and desperate and with nothing to lose, and Gabriel Agreste reveals himself. And when Luka slips the miraculous on, steps forward again, and again, as Gabriel (exhausted now from a battle where the miraculous no longer protects him from the blows of an equally desperate boy) scrambles back, and when Luka goes to lean into his new magic, Marinette calls out.
"That's enough, Luka. You are better than this."
He turns, and Gabriel stands, and Marinette steps into Luka's space, and in the mayhem, Nathalie finds her way to the scene. Gabriel attacks Luka like a wildcat, like someone who has nothing anymore, screaming about a wife and love and need, need, need. Marinette, unsuited for the job, unsuited for Ladybug, pulls Luka into her arms, spins, and takes the blow Gabriel chooses to deal onto her own self. Then she lets Luka go, and he crumples to his knees, sobbing, breaking under the weight of a Magic he was not prepared to wield, and Marinette makes a choice. She grips Gabriel's wrists tight, and he struggles and writhes, and Marinette looks at Nathalie.
"You can choose yourself and love him too." The words echo and cut across the night, through Gabriel's wails and Luka's sobs. When Marinette lets Gabriel go, it's to Nathalie's care that she relinquishes him.
Nathalie, heartless for so long in her life, knows love now, taught it by this little tiny girl who loved everyone in the world but none more than herself. She will love Gabriel, and she will love herself. She will bring him home, and call doctors, and throw his money around until he's safe, and then she will step back, and she will not wait. She will let him go, because she loves him enough to let him heal, and she loves herself enough to take care of herself first, to let the weight of this burden rest on his shoulders, maybe for the first time. She doesn't miss those chains around her neck anymore. Nathalie tilts her face to the darkened sky and breathes.
It doesn't hurt.
Marinette lets Nathalie carry away Gabriel, a man who has terrorized the city for months in the name of a love she's not sure he understands, and feels nothing but pity. Ladybug will need to follow up with this, will need to interview reporters and show off the miraculous to prove the threat has been neutralized, will need to explain why no one has been arrested. Will need to follow up with the body of a woman lost to the world, do her best to heal her.
But Ladybug is not here. Here is Marinette, and right now, Marinette will heal herself, and the boy who tore apart the world in pursuit of her happiness.
She doesn't ask him to give up his magic. Not here, not yet. Instead, she offers him the space in her arms, and carries him home. They curl up on the floor of his bedroom, and her sleep shirt is stained with his tears, and she doesn't mind. She hushes him, rubs circles into his back, and chokes back the tears she's held at bay for months, because it's still not time to let them go. When his sobs die down, and the room falls quiet, she speaks.
"You are enough for me, just how you are. You don't have to change the world to find my happiness. All you need to do is look at yourself, and you will find what you need to make me happy, everything you need to be enough." She presses her hand against his heart, and hums the harmony to her song, so different unpaired from his melody.
"This is who you are. This is all you need to be."
She never asks for his magic. He presses each miraculous into her palms, giving them up one by one, and she holds them, and hums. She waits, lets him take his time, and when the Magic around him purges at last, lets him go from its demon grip, he breathes, and Marinette knows enough to know it will hurt, but she watched Nathalie today, and she knows it will get better.
She lets him hurt, sits with him through it, and hopes for the day the pain of freedom will hit her too.
No, it was never Ladybug destined to save the world. But Marinette is a hero in her own right, and this is her world too.
The next few months are spent in healing. Ladybug checks in on Gabriel, and the wife he thought he lost, the wife he thought he could never ask for help for. Ladybug could heal her. Marinette knows he should let her go. So Ladybug coaxes Gabriel through the loss, and Nathalie feels another weight lift from her heart. Emelie has been gone, been a dead woman walking in the months before her coma. Bringing her back is bringing back pain they cannot heal. It is a long, extended, painful death sentence. Adrien says goodbye to his mother and his kwamii, and his heart is empty but finally ready to heal. Gabriel is not quite ready yet, but he will be.
Ladybug makes a few more appearances, but Marinette is ready to let her go, too. She thanks Ladybug for giving her a chance to be something new, and thanks her for proving Marinette is enough. She says goodbye to Tikki, and locks the miraculi in their box, closed for good now.
Mostly, Marinette spends her time with her textbooks, and her bed, and her Luka. She spends her time remembering what it means to be herself.
Luka spends that time too, finding who he is without Magic, and who he is without Marinette. He spends his time looking for the words he hid from, and tries a little harder to mean it when he smiles. They find out what it means to be enough. Maybe they aren't right now, but they will be. On their own, and together, whenever together comes.