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"I'm sorry... Just explain that one more time for me?"
Adrien blinked and repeated himself. "Well, you know. They wouldn't let me visit you in the hospital room unless I was family, so I kinda just told them that we're actually married."
Luka didn't quite know what to say in response to that, so he tried his best. "Adrien. We are two of the most famous people in Paris. I am happily married to Marinette, and you are engaged to Kagami, and you really thought that would work?"
"I'm literally here though?" Adrien gestured to the bed where Luka was propped up with a giant pillow and cast on his left leg. "It did work."
"You're an idiot."
"And I'm telling Marinette that you said that."
"She would agree," said the raven haired woman, one hand on her hip and the other on the edge of the doorway. Her face was frazzled, lose strands of hair threatening to fall in her eyes, and there was a small cut on her chin from the akuma. Or perhaps a fall? Luka figured the cure would have fixed that as best it could.
"Wife," the injured man said happily.
"Husband," said his wife, "we have a problem."
Adrien frowned. "I didn't think it was that bad an idea, personally."
"Not that," Marinette replied tiredly. "Thank you for checking up on him, but I need Chat Noir to check the perimeter of the city. We're not done."
Luka leaned forward and asked, "what? I saw you use your cure on tv."
"An illusion, and not one of ours."
Both men swore, and Marinette raised a palm in the air. Adrien nodded. The blond said, "be safe," and left the couple alone as he went to find a hallway to transform.
Luka's eyes worriedly traced the outline of Marinette's body. She was steady on her feet, but her mouth was set in a lazy line, and her pants were slightly ripped at the knee where they both knew she would bruise. "Are you alright to go back out without me, Mari?"
There was that fire in her eyes when she nodded. It was like a flame, that red of life and blood that came with being Ladybug.
And he loved her so much for it, for that spark that never left despite it all.
"I'm having Alya fake your second chance. Hawkmoth is smart, but we're smarter. He'll get greedy for your miraculous, too."
He frowned. "Are you sure?"
Marinette smiled. "An akumatized miraculous is better than fifty normal akumas." Her face dropped, ever so slightly. "Trust me, I know from experience."
He sighed.
His wife came forward to sit by him with a light touch on his upper arm, and the smell of strawberries -of her- surrounded him. It was a comforting touch, and Luka leaned forward, his hands on her cheeks gently as he tilted her into his kiss. "I trust you," he murmured, "but be safe. I'll be waiting for you."
Marinette let her lips drift to his chin, pressing a firm and wet kiss there against his stubble. "I know," she said. "I love you so much."
"I love you too."
His wife seemingly summoned energy out of nothing, probably sheer determination, and she hopped off the bed with a smirk. He knew what was coming before she even opened her mouth. "...Even if you're M. Agreste now."
"Don't say that," he begged. "It's the stupidest thing he's ever done."
Marinette cackled as she disappeared into the hallway.
Hours later, she returned to him, extremely tired and sore. It was be a long battle with Rena Rouge, Ladybug, Chat Noir, and King Monkey dueling with the akuma that threatened even Volpina for the title of most accurate and irritating illusions. Marinette shook her head as they filled out the minimal paperwork to go home, his leg healed by the (real) cure. Luka smiled as he settled his full weight on his knees, and she had matched it.
The two of them took the long way home because Tikki was absolutely exhausted, curled up in the bottom of Marinette's bag with Sass keeping her company. The two kwamis were not the best match, but they were content with each other's friendship partially because they realized how happy Marinette and Luka were together and partially out of respect.
Luka held Marinette's hand on the walk and had asked just twice if she was sure she wouldn't rather catch the metro, but she simply shook her head. "I want to take our time," she said each time, and that was enough for him to not ask again. He trusted her enough to tell him if she was uncomfortable, after all.
When they made it to their apartment building, there was a whole crowd of paparazzi, staring expectantly at the couple while shouting a cacophany of questions. Now, Marinette was an upcoming designer, and Luka an established musician, so they were used to the occasional hassle, but this? This was a whole 'nother level of bad.
"When did Adrien Agreste join your relationship? Have you always been polyamorous? The media wants to know," said one reporter, her hand jutting out a mic like a spear.
"Are you Luka's beard?"
"Can we see where Adrien stays?"
"How did you get injured in the akuma attack?"
"Where was your wife?"
The couple groaned and went to go inside where security was always waiting and growing impatient for the crowd to disperse. Once Luka had ushered Marinette inside and seen her up the elevator to the door of their residence, he came back downstairs with a scowl. There were still a few reporters left, some filming with their cameras angled at the sky towards the windows that hid his wife several floors above, but their eyes all snapped to him the moment he opened the doors.
"I am not married to Adrien Agreste. He just wanted to come check up on me," Luka said, and he laughed when he realized just the solution. "But don't worry. You'll hear all about it once I finish the song."
The pause that settled after his words was so pregnant it was overdue, and that same warrioresque reporter squawked, "there's a song?"
"Not yet, but there will be," he promised. Luka brushed off some lint from his pants and said, "Oh, and another thing. My wife is exhausted from helping people evacuate from the akuma. She was with our friends and prioritized them over herself. If you could all leave now, it might really help with her frame of mind. Marinette has always been so responsive with you before, but she needs her rest now."
A man, taller than Luka himself, leaned in. "But to be clear, you aren't cheating on Marinette, right?"
The rockstar frowned. "Of course not," he said briskly.
The paparazzo nodded. "Good, good. She really is nice."
Luka shook his head, but then he sighed. "Yeah, she is," he said softly.
Several reporters chose then to take their final pictures, the lights a blur, and Luka made his way back inside, already thinking of the tune that would be associated with Adrien forever.