Chapter Text
Things that need to be done before Alya Cesaire could marry Nino Lahiffe:
- Designs combining both Martinique culture and Réunion style needed to be made for the whole wedding party. Everyone should get to have a say in what they wear.
- The video of Alya dancing overenthusiastically to the cupid shuffle needed to be removed from Lila Rossi’s Instagram, lest Nino’s nana see and wonder what type of woman he’s marrying.
- The cake tasting needed to be had. Marinette needed to make sure that her parents didn’t go overboard and keep the couple for the whole night. Even if Alya was practically their daughter.
Even if they begged.
Even if papa cried. - A totally unique and unreplicable combination Bachelor and Bachelorette party needed to be planned.
And, lastly… The most difficult of all:
- Marinette somehow needed to be able to stand in a room with Nino’s best man, Adrien, and hold a conversation for more than five minutes. Even if, three years ago, he found out her identity, left Paris, and broke her heart.
“Easy,” Marinette groaned, sinking further into her barstool as she closed her notes app, her head touching the counter of the bar. She’d already crossed off the top two of the list items, and yet…
“I’m not asking for a miracle,” Alya began, obviously knowing what she was thinking about. She was the one to ask Marinette out that night, wanting to find out her progress… and also to check in on her wellbeing. It was obvious that she felt bad, she knew how things went between the two and how Marinette originally thought they would go. But she couldn’t just ask Nino not to have Adrien be his best man. “Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking. Just five minutes in a room together. You quickly plan the bachelorette party, since we know that you’re far too organized not to, give him the run down, and then leave. Back to your life, back to doing whatever it is you do now.”
“Sit at home. Alone,” Marinette supplied.
Alya grimaced. “It’s for the best that Luka got married, Marinette. You couldn’t keep playing that game. All that kiss and tell was gonna kill you some day.”
Marinette groaned, somehow sinking further into the wood of the bar. Anymore and she’d become part of the grain.
“Plus, Juleka’s in a better mood with you now,” Alya said, obviously looking at the other young woman as she undoubtedly danced on the floor with Rose. Marinette’s habit of coming back to Paris and making out with her brother had obviously put a strain on their relationship, even if Luka insisted that things weren’t committal and he was totally fine with only seeing her twice a year. “Who knows, maybe Nino will have a handsome cousin and you’ll fall madly in love.”
Marinette raised the side of her head to cast Alya a glare from one eye.
Alya didn’t falter. “So, he’s back. After spending three years in New York, Milan, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. I get it, it’s life changing, it’s world ending, it’s all the things you don’t want and more—especially after how things ended,” Marinette groaned, Alya carried on, “but, you know who else is back? Max, Rose, unfortunately Lila, and Kim. Good old Kim. All your friends, everyone who you’ve known for years, everyone who has missed you as you flitted in and out of Paris! Sure, you found out that Adrien was Chat Noir, went to his hotel room, thought you were finally going to get together, and then opened the door to find it empty—but you know, life happens! And when you least expect it, it keeps going on and on and on and on!”
Marinette turned her face back to the wood.
“I really did try to get Nino to change his mind,” Alya said flatly. “I begged.” Marinette doubted it, but…
“Why couldn’t he just stay in New York?” Marinette mumbled.
“Because Nino is his best friend.”
“Why couldn’t Nino go to New York,” Marinette said, “or Adrien done a zoom call for the wedding.”
Alya snorted. “Okay, that’s it,” she said, grabbing Marinette’s arm. “Adrien’s landing today, nothing’s going to stop it, you just have to clear your head and power on.” She leaned into Marinette’s view as her friend finally turned her head, insistently stating, “you were Ladybug for god’s sake. Even if no one else knows it, you do. I do. You gotta suit up, lovebug, and face the day, lest another evil butterfly come flying by.” Never mind the fact that there hadn’t been an Akuma in years.
Not since Gabriel Agreste was arrested.
Marinette rolled her eyes, finally lifting herself off the bar.
“There’s my girl,” Alya said. “Now, finish your dirty shirley, order another drink, and come do karaoke with me. I’m a hundred percent certain that I saw Say You’ll Be There on the song list, and you know that I’ve been singing Spice Girls since I was in diapers.”
Marinette stumbled into her apartment at one am. Not drunk, she didn’t get drunk, not out in public at bars. In friends’ apartments, maybe. She was still a bit tipsy which was, in its own way, dangerous. But she could fight through it, maybe.
Kicking off her heels, she looked at it, the studio she called home and had once been so proud of a few years back, the same studio she’d lived in ever since she was a fashion design student. The same one in which she’d left Chat knocking on her balcony door when she struggled to stay asleep, and eventually relented to let him in time and time again before he knew who she was.
“Someday, I’m going to move,” she grumbled, beginning to pull the bobby pins from her hair. She wouldn’t, of course, not for a long time. Rent-controlled apartments were rare, and while she pretended that the history that practically stained her hardwood floors was something she would rather forget, she was a nostalgic young woman. She’d be there for at least another five years, or until she was finally well and truly over Chat.
Five years would probably come first.
She passed by the photos washi taped to her walls, the ones where fourteen-year-old kids gave toothy smiles and eighteen-year-old young women gave winks while leaning into blond young men. If she was so concerned about history, she’d have to get rid of those first.
She sighed, finally removing the last bobby pin from her hair and letting it fall down her back, placing the black pin in one of the many bowls around her apartment placed for that very reason. Adrien would be in Paris by then, she was sure. He was probably sound asleep in the Agreste mansion.
“Welcome home, kitty,” she said sarcastically, beginning to climb the steps to her lofted bedroom, a space that was not unlike her childhood room.
This wasn’t how she expected things to be.
Of course, this wasn’t how anyone expected things to be. If you asked anyone, they told you how the story ended. Ladybug and Chat Noir finally got together, they were hiding in Paris somewhere, they were in love. They probably had kids, a dog, a hamster—normal jobs and normal lives. That was what the people of Paris wanted. She thought that that was the ending they would get.
She thought that when she went to the hotel room that night, he would be there. She thought that he was happy to know who she was. She thought that he loved her.
She thought wrong.
Marinette always thought wrong.
She thought she could get over him. She thought making out with Luka was a solution, one that she could keep trying every time she went to Paris. She thought that she would miss Adrien more than Chat, the promise of love more than sitting in her bed and watching subtitled anime while he mouthed the English translations.
By now, she thought she’d be waking up to someone else. That maybe she’d have a steady life, someone to wrap their arms around her in the morning.
Adulthood hits hard.
“Adrien Agreste,” she said, flopping back in her bed and pulling open her phone. She wasn’t above social media stalking.
There he was. Gold hair, tanned skin, too many muscles to know what to do with. Landed in Paris four hours ago, his Instagram posted a picture of him with his arm around Nino. His eyes were still kind, his smile still flawless. Her heart still pounded.
“Jerk,” she muttered, letting her phone fall down beside her. “I didn’t need you anyway,” except for all those times she did. Like when she put the earrings back in the box and said goodbye to one of her closest friends. She could have used him then.
She could have used him a lot of times.
Her eyes stayed glued to the ceiling, her chest rising and falling with every breath. There was no sound, no doting kwami, no laughter from her parents, and no Alya playing with her hair. Just her.
“Now I’m going to see you and fall in love with you all over again,” she said, wishing she could steel herself against the inevitable.