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Marinette Dupain-Cheng had a mark on her wrist. She didn’t know what it was for, or what it did, just that it was a music note. A quarter note, to be exact. The note was an ‘a’, and it was on the treble clef scale-y thing.
It had been there for as long as she could remember, and probably even longer.
Nobody had told her what it was until sixth grade, when a girl told her it was a soulmark.
Everyone had one, and they were all different. Some were incredibly specific, like Penny’s soulmark, a crocodile playing the guitar. Some were less specific, like Jagged’s soulmark, a pen.
But it was clear that they were soulmates.
When she met Luka Couffaine, she knew she had met her soulmate.
(What she didn’t know is that the bass guitar, what Luka played, is actually a bass clef instrument, and therefore he wasn’t her soulmate, but as I said, she didn’t know that.)
She grinned at Luka as she hopped off his bike, kissing him on the cheek.
“Thank you, Luka! I’ll see you after school, kay?”
Luka chuckled as he watched his girlfriend stumble into the school.
“See you then, Melody,” he said. The blue haired boy turned his bike around, pushing it towards the rack.
~
“Marinette, why would you attack Lila for asking you a question? That’s so unlike you!”, Rose squeaked. Marinette sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“I didn’t attack Lila, Rose, I was with my boyfriend. Lila hasn’t gone anywhere near me, nor talked to me for the past week.”
“You? Have a boyfriend? As if. Let me guess, girl, he goes to another school?”
Marinette ignored Alya, beginning to walk to the back of the classroom. Somebody tripped her, and she slammed into the steps, hard. She winced, knowing that it would bruise. Shoving herself up off the floor, she turned to look at Alya.
“No, actually. He’s in the grade above us, and everyone in Kitty Section has met him many times.”
“Girl, there is no way that Luka Couffaine would be attracted to a bully like you,” Alya spat.
“ Tellthattotheirstupidlyromanticdatesontheboat ,” muttered Juleka. But nobody heard her, just like usual.
“Alya, I’m not going to tell you again. I’m not bullying anyone, Lila is bullying me, and I’m not jealous of her. You know, Max, I actually thought you were smart. Maybe Lila’s a meta or something, because a napkin can’t gouge out your eye, it’s physically impossible. And even if it was, YOU WEAR GLASSES! LITERALLY NOTHING CAN PENETRATE YOUR EYE, UNLESS YOU REMOVED YOUR GLASSES, ESPECIALLY NOT A FREAKING PAPER NAPKIN!” Marinette slammed her hands down on the table, spinning to look at Max.
“For shame. All of you. For shame.” Then she sat down, suppressing her emotions before an Akuma could come. Adrien walked in at that moment, stopping in the doorway.
“Is everything ok?”
Marinette stood up, glaring at Adrien.
“No, Adrien. Nothing is ok. Because the high road needs to crumble, and her lies are hurting someone.”
“Please, Marinette! Her lies aren’t hurting anyone!”
Marinette was in his face faster than he could say ‘Plagg, claws out’, and he blushed, despite his best efforts. But what could he do? It wasn’t his fault that he had a crush on her!
(It completely was. It was also his fault that he was shitty at timing his crushes.)
“Yeah, they are, Agreste. Maybe you don’t think of this person as an actual person, though. Maybe you, just like the class, think that she’s just a place to get free baked goods, free clothes, and free babysitting. Because Lila’s lies are hurting me, Adrien. And I’m a person too.”
With that, she stormed out of the classroom, marching into the hallway. She turned into the bathroom, looking around.
“Is anyone in here?”
There was no answer.
“Good. Tikki, spots on.” She dove out of the window, yoyoing to a nearby roof.
~
Adrien sighed, following Marinette out into the hallway. She was nowhere to be seen, and he frowned. She couldn’t have disappeared that fast, could she?
His phone dinged with a notification from the Ladyblog, and he looked down.
Great. It was another livestream, an interview starring Lila, this time focusing on Marinette’s freak-out. He closed the app, looking around the hallway. Luka walked out of Ms. Mendeleiev’s classroom, frowning at his phone.
“Looking for Marinette?” Adrien couldn’t help but ask.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Apparently Lila accused Marinette of doing something, and Marinette—rightfully—yelled at her and debunked the most obvious lie ever to disgrace the earth,” Luka said.
“Her lies aren’t hurting anyone!” Luka walked up to Adrien, placing his hands on the younger boy’s shoulders.
“Listen here, Agreste. They are hurting someone. They’re hurting Marinette, more than you can ever fathom.” Adrien scoffed, knocking Luka’s hands off his shoulders.
“We can’t let Lila get akumatized again! She’s at a higher risk to akumatizations!”
“And why is that, Adrien? Because she’s been akumatized before? The thing with akumas, is that they get an outlet to release their negative emotions. Marinette has been fighting akumatizations for a long time. I may not be her soulmate, but I still love her. Open your eyes, Agreste Two. Marinette is hurting,” Luka ranted.
“You—you’re not her soulmate?”
“No. I’ve tried to tell her, but she’s so adamant that we’re soulmates that she won’t listen. If I thought for even a second that either of us were lying to or using the other, I would back out of that relationship as fast as lightning.” Luka’s voice became more passionate as he kept talking.
“So...who’s your soulmate then?”
The blue haired boy looked down, brushing his thumb over the opposite wrist.
“I...I don’t have one. I don’t have a soulmate, and I don’t have a soulmark.”
“Oh. Who’s Marinette’s soulmate, if it isn’t you?” Luka wordlessly held out his hand, and when Adrien didn’t move, Luka grabbed the younger boy’s wrist. He gently pulled his sleeve back, looking at Adrien’s soulmark. It was clearly pointing to Marinette, there was no doubt about it.
“You.”
Luka sounded heartbroken, but Adrien couldn’t help but internally cheer. His crush, Marinette, was his soulmate! That was amazing!
Luka smiled tightly before walking down the stairs, still looking for Marinette.
Meanwhile, Adrien ducked into a storage closet to transform.
~
Marinette had been sitting on the roof for about 15 minutes before a, “M’Lady?” came from behind her.
“Chat Noir? What are you doing here?”
“I saw something on the Ladyblog about Marinette Dupain-Cheng freaking out over something trivial again, and I decided it was best to see if there would be any Akumas.”
“Despite the fact that you can’t purify them? Let me guess. You were planning to ambush her when she walked out of school, and try to convince her that Lila Rossi’s lies aren’t hurting anyone. They are, Chat. And they can hurt Alya as well, and even Lila. What happens when Hawkmoth goes after one of them because Lila’s my best friend?”
Chat Noir paused, sitting down next to her.
“Not exactly, but I was going to try to talk to her. You’re right as always, M’Lad—Ladybug.”
Marinette smiled at the amended nickname, appreciating the effort.
“Since we’ve got some time on our hands, what do you think about a date?”
“Kitty, I have a boyfriend, and he’s my soulmate. I’m sorry.” She stood up, preparing to jump off the building.
“I know. I have a crush, that isn’t you this time, as rude as that sounds. I meant as friends.”
Marinette paused.
“Oh. Don’t you have class to get to, though?”
“Doesn’t matter. No teaching will get done anyway.”
“Fair. You know what? I don’t really feel like going back to class right now. I will go to the movies with you under three conditions.”
“What are they?”
“One, you detransform behind that chimney, take a photo of your soulmark with my yo-yo, retransform, and then show me the photo. Once you have done that, I will do the same. I want to be sure that you won’t tell people that we’re soulmates. Two, this is purely platonic, you hear me? Completely platonic. We will go as friends, and that’s it. I forgot the third one.”
Chat Noir nodded along to Ladybug’s words, thinking the conditions over.
“Deal. Yo-yo, please?”
Marinette handed over her yo-yo, and Chat skipped behind the chimney to detransform. A bright green light shone, and she heard the sound of the photo being taken. He transformed, walking out again.
“Alright. Here’s the baton, M’L—Ladybug.” Marinette accepted the baton, detransforming once she was carefully hidden behind the chimney. She quickly snapped a photo of her soulmark before transforming again, handing the baton back to Chat Noir.
“On three, we look at each other’s marks.”
“One,” Chat said.
“Two.”
“Three,” they said in unison, both opening the camera setting. Marinette sputtered, placing her yo-yo next to Chat’s baton.
“They...they match. How is that possible? I already have a soulmate, and he’s a different miraculous holder, and I know for a fact that you’re not him.”
(Snake Miraculous holders had a bad habit of actually turning out to be Chat Noir, but that was one time, and Marinette didn’t know about it. And besides, Luka wasn’t Chat Noir.)
“Ok, oof. But Ladybug, it is possible to have more than one soulmate, you know.”
“I know that, but no, I don’t think that’s it. Maybe I’m actually not soulmates with my boyfriend. What happens then? I love him, and I don’t want him to get hurt!”
“Ladybug, nothing will change.” Chat Noir sat next to Ladybug before continuing, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. (Platonically, he actually did respect her wishes, no matter how much the universe wanted them to wind up together.)
“It will, Chat!”
“Only if you want it to. I’m not going to pressure you into a relationship with me. We might be soulmates, but you have a boyfriend. And even if he isn’t your soulmate, you still care about him. I’m not going to make you change that.” Marinette smiled, before leaping off the roof. She looked up at Chat Noir, grinning at the boy.
“Last one to the movie theatre wins? I heard that there’s a Jagged Stone movie playing.”
Chat landed next to her before bowing with a massive smirk.
“Good idea, my lovely platonic soulmate. Good idea.”
And if Marinette cried happy tears later about how nice Chat Noir had been about the whole thing, well, she didn’t have to tell anyone about it.