Work Text:
“It must have meant something. That the world had been destroyed so many times and their love had lasted.”
---
“Hey, Marinette!”
“Oh! Hey? Hi, Adrien. Hello!”
She appeared to struggle with deciding on a greeting. He wondered why. Then again, it wasn't as if this was something unusual for her to be doing. “I didn’t see you there!”
No one knew how he was able to sneak up on people like that. He thought it to be cat-tendencies himself, but, for obvious reasons, he could not say so. Or, perhaps (purrhaps, haha) it was because he just wasn’t that noticeable of a person (or purrson… puns very much intended).
The former (furmer) was much more probable (purrobable… he really had to stop with these puns).
---
Beret to Chat Blanc
The first time it happened was with Adrien and Marinette. Just a few weeks together and the world was ending.
Literally.
But it’s not that easy to keep soulmates apart.
---
“So… what’s up?”
They couldn’t do this.
“…Nothing, really. If you have something more important (impurrtant—he was hilarious, thank you very much) to do, it’s paw—ahem—alright, you can—”
No.
“I’m not busy!” A pause. “OH I’M SO SORRY I DIDN’T MEAN TO INTERRUPT—”
“It’s no problem! Don’t worry about it! I, uh, just wanted to ask—wow, this is awkward—um, are you avoiding me?” Eyes widened. “If you are, it’s okay, I’m really sorry if I did something wrong! If not, uh… sorry to bother you. I’m probably reading too much into things anyway. I do that a lot, don't I? Uh—”
“What?! I’m not avoiding you! I’ve just… um… gotten busier this past month. Babysitting, working at the bakery, designing, schoolwork, you know the drill!” An awkward (paw-kward) smile. Very awkward.
With guardian duties and all, there was absolutely no way Marinette Dupain-Cheng (rather, Ladybug) could ever date Adrien Agreste.
“Oh! Good to know. Just don’t furget to take some rest every once in a while.” A wink.
Was that a cat pun?
---
Sunspot to Miss Fortune
In another timeline gone wrong, it was Ladybug and Adrien. It helped them. Everything. Warm cuddles, laughing together at a movie while a blush remained on their faces, all of it.
What had it helped them with, exactly?
It had helped them find warmth in sides of them they weren’t as comfortable in anymore. With all the pressure she'd had to deal with as guardian and all his responsibilities (as well as dealing with his father), it was nice to find someone who understood.
But, unfortunately for them, finding someone who did understand didn’t change the opinion of someone who didn’t.
Doors in the Agreste mansion shut once more, and Adrien felt lonelier than ever. The windows were locked, too, leaving him with no way to escape, and no way for her to save him. The glass was practically unbreakable from the outside. The way to destroy it was with his own cataclysm.
Then, he did the unthinkable. He broke the window. Shattered it. And transformed, leaving his horrible days in the Agreste mansion behind. Or, at least, that was what he’d hoped to do.
It was too bad, really, that nothing ever went very well for the Agrestes. Aside from the remote that controlled the window being out of his reach, there had been cameras installed in his room. Cameras monitored by Nathalie Sancoeur, who would not hesitate to inform Gabriel Agreste.
With this knowledge, it took little time for the latter to take advantage of the situation and, eventually, akumatize the one and only Ladybug.
That, for reasons quite clear, did not work out very well for anyone.
---
“We...” she paused, looking away from his confused eyes. “...we can’t.”
“Why not? I thought you said—”
“We just CAN’T, Chat!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“You don’t understand. There was this future, and I was… and Hawkmoth, and Bunnyx, and Chat Blanc had just…”
There was no way anything she'd said could have made any sense. Right? But then again, she'd always underestimated the power of the bond between the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous holders. Especially the two of them.
It wasn't often that two people unintentionally ended the world. Except with Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng. They were…special, somehow. No one knew why that was the case.
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. Chat Blanc?
---
Partners to Lovers to MissBlanc
The third time was with Ladybug and Chat Noir, the beloved heroes of Paris. They were bound to fall in love eventually, with all the time they spent together each day, and in this timeline, they did. They would die for each other. Which they had, several times already.
Only, when heroes love someone, they become a target. Or in this case, they’re used against each other. Hawkmoth had akuma after akuma go after one or the other, attacking them and only them. Until they’d finally had enough.
The heroes might not have known each other’s identity, and they might have been quite a distance apart. But they considered their hearts connected, and it wasn’t long until both were akumatized. Together.
“It’s you and me against the world,” they’d say.
And it truly was.
So the world died once more.
---
“…And she said something about Chat Blanc. Marinette, do you think… I might have been akumatized?”
“I don’t know, Chat. Maybe?”
She did know. She’d never forget.
But if everything went according to her nonexistent plan, she’d never have to bring it up again.
---
Moonlight to PrincessBlanc
The last time it happened was with Marinette and Chat Noir. Time spent together led them to fall in love with one another more and more without even realizing it.
Until they did. Their first kiss was under moonlight, much like many of their conversations had been. And before they knew it, they were dating.
It took longer this time for Gabriel Agreste to bring the world to ruins. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.
Tons of akuma victims (and akumas) targeted Marinette Dupain-Cheng, in hopes of weakening Chat Noir. She told him it would be okay. It wasn’t. Ladybug couldn’t transform until she was out of sight. Many times, she would only appear to capture the akuma, and she’d be gone again. The bond between the Ladybug and Black Cat was strained, though they knew they'd always keep each other in their hearts.
It was only a matter of time before Chat Noir was akumatized once again. Marinette, horrified at the reappearance of her nightmare, was eventually akumatized as well, along with thousands of Parisians.
Scarlet Moth had made a reappearance.
And for the first time ever, Gabriel Agreste had actually won.
---
Months later, and the two had given up hope. They could never be happy together as long as they were the heroes of Paris. And with the way things were going, there was no way they'd be defeating Hawkmoth anytime soon. Right?
---
An adult Alix Kubdel stood in the midst of millions of timelines, thousands of which she’d seen go wrong simply because two people could never be in love.
She had to do something. The world couldn’t keep ending forever.
---
“Hello, Minibug. Hey there, Kittynoir.”
“Bunnyx?”
Two innocent yet astonished faces looked up at her in confusion. Faces who’d never seen themselves destroy the very people they were trying to save.
She had to help them. Marinette had trusted her with this miraculous knowing that she could keep a secret. So she couldn’t tell them.
But Bunnyx had to do something. She couldn’t watch people die over and over again. She couldn’t watch teenagers suffer because someone couldn’t ever learn to move on. Or even try.
---
Before they knew it, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste figured it out. They knew. And soon enough, they were dating. They loved every side of each other and themselves, and they had learned a lot in the time that had passed. They would never know about all the times this had failed, but Bunnyx would make sure to change little things here and there when things were about to go wrong.
---
This had happened before. Yet somehow, Alix Kubdel felt that this time it would last.
And if it didn’t?
Well, that’s what she was here for.
--- EXTRA ---
8 years later, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste finally defeated Hawkmoth and Mayura, and Gabriel Agreste's broken (metaphorically, of course) face was plastered on every news article and magazine for months. It only got worse after people found out the identities of their heroes.
"Imagine having to fight your own father on a daily basis!" one person commented.
"How did he not know?"
And, of course, there were the conspiracy theorists wondering if it was all some elaborate scheme for publicity (whom Bob Roth agreed with after the first akumatization of Luka Couffaine):
"What if Emilie Agreste disappeared some other way? What if Gabriel and Adrien used their money to pretend to have magic to gain power over people? We all know that Adrien's fame quadrupled after his mother's disappearance and the rise of Hawkmoth!"
But something pretty much everyone agreed on was that Ladybug and Chat Noir were their heroes, the people who'd saved the world.
Alix knew, with the miraculous that was in her possession, that she was not meant to gain fame from her job as a superhero. If she ever did anything memorable (which, honestly speaking, happened quite often), she would be doing it in the future or in the past, meaning it would never be remembered (much less, caught on camera). The only people who would ever know she'd saved the world were her and Fluff (who, technically speaking, wasn't even a person).
She was never really a power-hungry person, and she didn't want the fame. But now and then, a little "thank you" would have been nice. The thing about doing something no one knows about, though, is that no one can thank you for it, because they didn't know about your involvement in the first place.
Yet every time she doubted herself (which was incredibly rare, but did happen), seeing everyone around her alive and well, as well as watching Ladybug and Chat Noir finally be allowed to be together, just everything, was a clear thank you from the world.