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She never could have imagined her life going this way. Adrien, her ex, had managed to get her a role alongside his own in a local movie, with the hopes that she could get an ‘in’ with the costume department on their next movie. He had never mentioned that it was with Chloe. If he had, she would have declined.
The movie itself was a disaster, as Chloe used her pull as the director to humiliate her every chance she got.
“Marinette would be a better director than this,” Adrien grumbled after the fourth straight day of ruined takes and line changes.
Unfortunately, Chloe heard them.
“Is that so? Are you trying to take over my job, Marinette?” Chloe had whipped around, her words laced with hatred.
“No! No, I-”
“You’re fired!” Chloe screamed. “You’ll never work in showbiz again! And your chances of working in fashion are dead too! I’ll tell mother everything!”
“No need, Claudette. The girl had the nerve to tell me that my designs were gaudy and outdated!” Audrey Bourgeois sneered.
Adrien looked down at the sequined shirt he was wearing that made him look like he belonged in a circus in the ‘80’s. He definitely didn’t disagree with Marinette on this one.
Marinette ran to her trailer to change, tears streaming behind her. Adrien ran behind her.
“Marinette, wait!”
In her trailer, she sent a message to Tim, asking him to pick her up.
Tim’s car had pulled up soon after that. He got out and led her towards the car, but a bunch of reporters had swarmed her trailer.
Marinette was blinded by the lights. Flashing cameras were going off in her face.
“Marinette! Marinette! Over here!”
“How’s it feel to be blacklisted from the movie industry and the fashion industry in one go?”
She scowled at the reporter, Vicki Vale, at that one.
Screams of her name blurred together, and she hugged her boyfriend, Tim, a little closer to her. She was glad when they finally managed to get into the back seat and close the door.
“Everything will be okay, Mars. You’ll see.”
His phone rung, the weird tone that Marinette heard on occasion. This tone was always one that lead to him saying, “Marinette, I’m really sorry, but I need to go. Alfred will take you home. I’ll see you later.”
He gave her a kiss on the cheek and jumped out of the vehicle the second Alfred pulled to a stop.
~~~~
An hour later, Marinette received a call. Tim! Usually he was so busy during whatever those emergencies were that he would be gone for hours. She answered eagerly.
He didn’t even wait for her to greet him before he spoke.
“Marinette, we can’t see each other anymore. I can’t be seen with someone like you.”
“Tim? What-”
He never let her finish. “Sorry, I have to go. Bye, Marinette.”
Marinette’s phone dropped from her hand. Maybe he never really had an emergency. He just didn’t want to see her anymore.
Adrien burst into her apartment not ten minutes later, Steph hot on his heels. “Marinette, you can fix this.”
“No, I can’t. I need to get out of here.” She moaned.
“Sure. Why don’t we go to the movies or something? I’m sure Tim would love to come.”
She sobbed at his name. “No, like OUT of here. I… I think I’m going to go home. There’s nothing here for me now.”
“What? Why?”
“Tim broke up with me. I have no job. I’ve been blacklisted everywhere. I want to go HOME. To Paris.”
“Tim what?” Steph sounded shocked. “There’s no way.”
“Tell that to him.” She grabbed her suitcase and threw in a few shirts.
“How about we just go to the spa instead? Or Hawaii? We could work on our tans.”
“No. I need to go home. It was only a matter of time until he broke up with me anyways. I guess the bad press was the last straw.”
“Alright, well, let me help you book a flight. I’ll kick Tim’s ass later,” Stephanie frowned as she looked at her phone.
“I’ll pay,” Adrien whipped out a credit card as Stephanie booked her flight, leaving in four hours. He sat beside his girlfriend on the couch and gave her a small hug.
Marinette’s heart ached at her two friends, so clearly in love. Yep. She couldn’t stay here.
“Why don’t you check out Agreste? I haven’t heard from Edna in a while. I’m sure she would love some extra help. I’ll go too. This movie was lame anyways.” He frowned. “There is no way you’re getting blacklisted, no matter what the Bourgeois have to say.”
~~~~
Coming home was exactly what Marinette needed. She got to stay in her old room, and Adrien crashed on the couch. They arrived early in the morning, and her parents were busy in the bakery, so they decided to head straight to Agreste.
“Adrien, darling!” Edna Mode greeted them. “Wonderful timing. I was just going to call you.”
“What’s up Edna?” He looked around the room. There were no designs on the mannequins. No sketches on the tablet. “Is something wrong?”
“My dear, I have lost my inspiration. It is gone. I fear I will have to go back to designing only for the heroes and their bland tastes.” She tsked. “But No Capes!”
She held out an article, written in this week’s fashion section. “Agreste Washed Up? Mode struggles to change style with the times.”
“I don’t get it. You were going to transform the company?” His father had retired and left Gabriel to him. Adrien quickly changed the name to Agreste and hired the legendary Edna Mode, stylist of heroes, to take his place as head designer. Adrien couldn’t design his way out of a paper bag.
“Miss Style Queen had her lawyers bring this by yesterday. She wants to buy out Agreste.”
Adrien looked devastated. His father had never been the same after his mother died. The company had been prepared for disaster when Edna had been brought on. Adrien modeled and acted, continuing under his mother’s agent.
Marinette had actually been completing one of the roles that his mother had been contracted for.
She had met Tim when she went away for college, at his mother’s alma mater. Adrien had set up a scholarship in his mother's name, and he ensured that Marinette was the first recipient. They had broken up in their first year, and he connected with Stephanie. They had dragged her out on a double date with Steph’s ex, Tim. Adrien thought it would be awkward as hell, having both of their exes along, but it turned out that they were perfect for one another. Both couples had been happy and content… until Tim broke things off suddenly.
Stephanie sometimes took off like Tim did, but not nearly as often. They had thought that the two were cheating on them at first, but those fears had been quickly squashed.
Adrien’s shoulder slumped as he looked at the papers. The two went off to talk details, and Marinette was left to wander.
She made her way upstairs, where the main production area was, and sat down at one of the cutting tables. She saw a beautiful sheer navy fabric that was itching to have something made from it. She took a sketchpad from a nearby light table, and began to draw the design in her head.
Not long after, she found herself pinning and cutting fabric, marking the lines and quickly creating hems. She was half-done when they returned.
“My dear, did you do this?” Edna Mode’s voice boomed from behind her as she pinned the top and bottom of the dress together on the mannequin.
“…Yes?” Marinette hesitated at Edna’s loud voice. She hadn’t even asked if she could use the material.
“It is marvelous. Simply marvelous. You must finish it.”
With Edna’s help, the two finished the dress and hung it up.
“It is truly inspired,” Edna gushed at the finished product. “Adrien, why did you never bring her by sooner?”
“I- Wow, that’s amazing!” he stuttered as he saw the dress. “If only we had the money – we could do a whole line from Marinette’s designs.”
“We can!” Marinette exclaimed. “I have a ton of ideas, just using the fabrics here already.”
“A successful line would give Agreste a fighting chance.”
“Mari, do you think you could get one ready to go in a week? I need to answer Audrey by then…” Adrien grimaced.
“With some help? Definitely!”
Edna ushered her back to the lighted table. “Then what are we waiting for darlings? Chop chop!”
~~~~
Stephanie texted Tim earlier in the day, asking to meet up. He had seen her yesterday at the shoot out that they had been called to, but something urgent must have happened that she wanted to meet in person.
He hadn’t been waiting long when Steph greeted him by slugging him across the face. He fell back into the wall and slumped down a bit.
“What the hell, Drake?”
“W-What? I should be asking you that! What the hell, Steph?!” He had no clue why she would punch him like that, but she had thrown her full weight into it. He rubbed his cheek, rather than fighting back.
“Why the hell did you break up with Marinette?” she demanded.
“Break up? Why would I do that?” It was their two year anniversary in a month, and Tim had already been planning it down to the minute.
“You tell me! You’re the one that called her and broke her heart yesterday!”
“There’s no way. I can’t have.”
“Sure. Marinette just magically heard you break up with her then.”
“No, Steph. I couldn’t have. B had me busy with that shoot out, remember? When everyone left, I stayed behind with B and we worked on something for Oliver. I had to leave my stuff at Wayne Enterprises when I changed. Hell, I didn’t even get back to my phone until three hours ago.”
What the hell was going on?
“Well someone called her from your number, and it sure as hell sounded like you to be able to confuse her.”
He looked at his phone log. He had an outgoing call to Marinette, not long after he had left her.
He dropped his phone on the table.
“Oh no.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It wasn’t me, I swear.”
“It really wasn’t?” She looked at him skeptically. “Then who did?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” he growled. “And then they’re going to pay.”
He dialed a number he knew by heart. It went immediately to voicemail. “You have reached Marinette! Leave a message after the beep. Beep!” He could hear her giggling quietly on the recording until the actual beep of her phone went off.
“Marinette, please, call me. I didn’t break up with you. I don’t know what you heard, but I swear, it wasn’t me. Please… call me back.”
He hung up and went to grab his keys. He would make things right, and then find out who the hell was trying to ruin his life.
His movements were interrupted by Steph’s voice. “She’s not there.”
“Then where is she?” He would go wherever she was, no big deal.
“Well, Adrien and I kind of went to comfort her last night… and she was really upset. And she decided that she was going to go home.”
“But you just said she-”
“Paris. She went home.”
He wanted to complain that home was wherever they could be together, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t help. “Fine. I’ll just have to go after her.” Grand gestures were supposed to be a good thing, right? He would just fly there and convince her to come back home.
He went and placed another call to the airport. Steph waited, biting her lip as the tension rolled off Tim, making her feel guilty for encouraging Marinette to skip town.
45 minutes later, he had a flight booked for tomorrow.
“That’s settled. Now, let’s find out who the fuck I need to kill.” His eyes were dark with fury as he stalked from the private meeting room he had met Steph in towards the Wayne Tech building’s security department.
As he logged on to the system, Steph asked, “Do you want to use my phone to call her? Adrien went with her to check on the company. They’re likely together.”
“No. I know her. If she went this far to get away from me… well… she won't talk to me. Even if I did, she wouldn’t listen, or she would think it was just a game. I need to be there.”
Steph didn’t disagree. Both Marinette and Tim could be stubborn as hell. It was a wonder they didn’t fight more than they did.
“Chloe Bourgeois, and Vicki Vale.”
They stared at the screen where the two women filed into his office and Vicki took out the tape recorder she had. She had done an interview with him yesterday after Marinette was fired before he could get inside to pick her up, and he had been rude as he pushed through the crowds and past her. Chloe interfering he could understand as well, since she had just fired Marinette.
“This will make the headlines for sure. ‘Drake back on the market after dumping gold digger.’”
Chloe rolled her eyes and scoffed, but continued on anyways. She took Tim’s phone off the desk and dialed Marinette’s number. The second it connected, they hit play on the recording.
Tim’s voice rang out, “Marinette, we can’t see each other anymore. I can’t be seen with someone like you.”
“Tim? What-” they heard Marinette say over the speakerphone.
“Sorry, I have to go. Bye, Marinette.”
They hit end on the call and laughed. They placed his phone back where they found it, and quickly left, cackling all the way.
Tim seethed. Blacklisting her wasn’t enough? She had to go and break Marinette’s heart as well?
What if she never took him back? She wasn’t answering his calls – would she even talk to him when he got there?
~~~~
Adrien told her to go get some lunch with her parents and to come back in a bit.
She arrived, feeling refreshed and feeling loved, to absolute pandemonium. Adrien was having fun rollerblading around the empty first floor of the building. He was doing dance-like moves to the music that he had blasting from the sound system.
He was supposed to be setting out the staging area and the catwalk, but they all knew – he was packing up and getting ready to sell it in case they failed as he skated around the room.
Upstairs, Edna was sewing up the design that Marinette had left before Adrien had shooed her out. The tiny woman was mumbling to herself about the shop on the other side of Galeries Lafayette. Ironically, it was the original storefront for Style Queen. When Audrey wasn’t there, it was headed by either her daughter or by a rather nasty woman that Marinette and Adrien had gone to school with: Lila Rossi.
Rossi’s horrible taste and inability to understand colour theory had ruined the main branch’s local collection… for a while. Then it started thriving.
As Edna pushed the fabric through the sewing machine, she mumbled about how the shop had horrible taste but was somehow doing better than hers. It made no sense. She was an established figure in fashion and yet was struggling. How did they keep managing to come up with such similar designs to her own right before she managed to make them?
Marinette joined her, allowing the older woman to continue her rant as she sketched another design for Adrien using a rather nice set of green fabrics. She had her own thoughts on how Lila was achieving her current success.
Adrien, in the meantime, had finished pulling all of the pieces of the stage out and set them up. It was the longest and hardest part of the process. Now, he moved to the attic. His mother had a bunch of stage costumes up there, as well as his father’s original designs.
He wasn’t sure how they had succeeded. Only a short time of the company being in his hands, and he had managed to run it into the ground. He felt bad about ruining his father’s life’s work.
He sorted through the stacks of designs. Among them was a book that he remembered his father saying once was a source of inspiration for him.
Who knows, maybe it would help Marinette and Edna?
He thumbed through it. It looked to be an old spell book. It had drawings and descriptions of fairy-like creatures.
“Hey guys, look what I found,” he announced, waving the book in front of them. He continued when they both gave him a confused look, “My dad’s inspiration book!”
Marinette flipped through the spell book. It was indeed very inspiring. There was one page describing in detail a set of fairies rumoured to be in France. It had a picture of an ancient chest.
“Hey that looks like the chest in the basement,” Adrien wondered aloud. “Come on!”
Not giving Marinette a choice, he grabbed her hand and dragged her down two flights of stairs to the basement.
There was the chest, looking very much like the one in the book. Beside the image was an incantation.
They stumbled through the strange language, which ended with an instruction to say in the native language of the summoner, “Tikki, spots on. Plagg, claws out. Trixx, let’s pounce.”
The chest glowed where the lid connected and smoke poured out, before it burst open and three fairies flew out in glowing balls of red, green and orange.
As the glow faded, the little orange one, that looked more like a tiny girl with a fox costume on, yawned and stretched as it floated in the air, despite not having wings. “It’s been forever since we got out of there!”
“I’m hungry. Do you have any cheese?” the only boy asked, flying up to Adrien’s face. He was dressed in all black, and looked a bit like a cat.
Adrien startled and took a step back. “Uh… maybe? In the fridge?”
“Great-” the boy started to fly off, but the girl in the red dress with spots (and the only one with wings) grabbed him by the tail and pulled him back.
“Plagg, you can’t just leave!” the red girl chided. “Hi! I’m Tikki! This is Plagg and Trixx.” The girl pointed to the boy and other girl in turn.
“Adrien,” he introduced himself.
Adrien was grinning at their antics. Seemed he was completely unbothered by the whole thing. He had just readily accepted that there were three magical beings in a trunk in his basement.
Marinette, however, was silently freaking out. Edna had just raised her eyebrows in surprise. Dealing with heroes had clearly made her tolerance for the supernatural higher than most.
“What’s your name?” Tikki came up to Marinette.
“You-Yo-You-You’re… BUG-Bug fairy?”
“Marinette,” Adrien stumbled through answering for her as he tried not to laugh.
“Actually, we’re kwami,” Trixx corrected her.
“What’s a kwami?” Adrien asked as Marinette tried to compose herself.
“Kinda like a magic lender,” Trixx explained. “We use our powers to help others.”
“What’s the catch?” Adrien pushed.
“Well, we need something in return.”
“Cheese. Gimme cheese,” Plagg interrupted.
“Food will do,” Tikki agreed. “I like sweets.”
Trixx nodded. “Fruit. Blueberries are the best.”
Marinette finally spoke up, “What do you do?”
“Destruction,” Plagg said simply.
‘Des- We don’t need anything destroyed!” Marinette exclaimed.
“Is this place still a clothier?”
“Designer studio, but yes,” she answered.
Plagg flew away upstairs, and everyone followed after him. He saw the pattern marked out on the table for the next piece Marinette was going to sew. It would take her ages.
Plagg flew along the drawn lines, letting his finger skim along it, the outline cutting itself in his wake. The edges were seared shut, making the serger that they had sitting on the side to prevent fraying completely useless. When he finished he sat at the end of the fabric smugly.
Trixx went over to the fabric next. It had a bit of a sparkle to it, but nothing spectacular. Marinette would have loved to have had a more special piece of fabric for the layered dress, but only had the fabrics they had on hand to work with. If she had time, she would have sewn on some sequins or crystals.
Trixx took out a flute and blew a note. Sparkly dust flew out of the end and settled on the fabric. When the dust settled, the piece of fabric was adorned with the crystals and sequins Marinette had been envisioning, but also with an extra shimmer to the fabric that wasn’t there before.
“I alter perception and reality. In this case to enhance pieces!”
Marinette went over the fabric. It was better than she had imagined. She touched the crystals. They were really there.
“That’s amazing!”
Plagg huffed. “My power is way more impressive outside of mere sewing.”
“I’m sure it is. It’s still really helpful!” Marinette reassured him.
Plagg puffed out his chest.
“Can I see your design?” Tikki asked Marinette.
Marinette went over to her table and held out the paper with a shaky hand.
“That’s so cute!” Tikki praised her. “Is everything for it here?”
Marinette nodded, shuffling the notions for the piece over to where the fabric sat.
Tikki spun around and what looked like thousands of little ladybugs flew out from under her wings. They enveloped the pieces of project in a bright pink light. When it dissipated, and the bugs disappeared, the dress was sitting on the project table, completed.
The three kwami had taken her concept from start to finish in just a few minutes.
“So about those snacks,” Plagg interrupted Edna and Marinette’s gushing over the completed project. “We kinda need them if you want us to help again.”
“Why don’t you guys come with me to the break room and we can see what we can rustle up. I’ll go to the store if we don’t have something you need…”
The three fairies followed Adrien hungrily out of the room. He ended up making a run to the store for more food as Edna and Marinette excitedly planned. With some help with the actual production, the show had suddenly gone from an impossible dream to probable and realistic.
~~~~
Tim waited in the domestic flight section of the airport. He had to connect to Pittsburgh, as Gotham didn’t have any direct flights to Paris with seats available last minute. He couldn’t justify taking the Bat Plane either – Marinette didn’t know about his side job, and he was hoping he would be able to convince her to come back with him. Border control would be really curious how he skipped over to Paris if he didn’t take a public flight.
The weather was bad, but they managed to take off. The flight to Pittsburgh was bumpy, with more turbulence than he was particularly comfortable with. When they landed, he was very happy to touch the ground again.
They had been delayed and Tim had to run from the small plane section to one of the bigger carriers on the other side of the airport. He ran as fast as he could, desperate to make his flight.
When he arrived at the terminal, he heaved a sigh of relief. It was still full. He had made it.
He waited around for a while before he finally looked up. They should have boarded by now.
A glaring sign saying DELAYED hung over the entrance.
Normally flights listed roughly when boarding times would be when flights were delayed. This sign had nothing.
He made his way to the counter where a frazzled airport employee was surrounded by four other passengers.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t know when the flight will arrive. There has been some unusually bad weather, and flight crews are not taking off at this time. We will let you know when that changes.”
It wasn’t directed at Tim, but he listened all the same.
Looked like he would be stuck in Pittsburgh for a while.
Tim paced back and forth, and several times debated asking someone to give him a super lift to Paris, despite already having ruled it out in his head.
Did he know anyone who could change the weather that would be willing to help out? Yes, he totally did. He was so tempted to call them.
No, he shouldn’t.
In the end, he sat, fretting about Marinette and what was going to happen with them. He sent Steph a message, letting her know what had happened. She replied back that she let Bruce know, and that she had sent Adrien a message, but hadn’t heard back yet.
He laid down on an open bench and tried to shut his eyes to get some sleep while he waited.
A family with a baby and a small child came and sat a few seats down from him. He smiled politely at them and then tried to get back to sleep.
Not long after, the child threw a temper tantrum. Looked like the little girl was supposed to take a nap by the way that the dad was trying to convince the kid to rest, but instead she was stomping her feet on the benches, making the whole row wobble with her movement. After several glares from other passengers, the dad took the little girl away to talk and burn out some energy, hoping that she would rest.
Tim had just fallen asleep when something wet fell on him.
“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry!” the mom from earlier apologized to him.
Tim sat up in confusion, until he felt the wet against his neck.
He wiped a hand across it, coming back white and mushy.
The baby had spit up on him.
He shuddered before trying to reassure the mom, “It’s okay. I’m just going to wash up…”
He went to the bathroom and wiped himself off as best he could. He had to take off his shirt to wash the shoulder, and he was pretty sure it would stain, but there was little he could do about it. He only had one set of spare clothes, and he needed those for when he got to Paris. He would have to put up with it for now.
~~~~
Ten hours. It took them ten hours to finally make an airport-wide announcement that flights would resume in the next few hours. Debris was being cleared from the runways and planes were being inspected.
Tim was glad, at least until the announcement woke the baby next to him. They started wailing from being woken from their nap.
Tim groaned and rolled over, promptly falling off the bench.
He landed on his bag, bruising his side.
Outside, planes were finally starting to line up. It seemed they were keen to get the domestic flights going first before international ones. Tim grumbled but understood. The flight crews were being changed out for longer flights, as their flight was now going to be entirely overnight, instead of his previous late night arrival.
It was another three hours before Tim’s plane finally took off.
~~~~
Adrien began texting and calling everyone he knew in the industry to show up for their show. It was all last minute, and though they promised to try to be there, there was only so much he could do. He blasted a hastily designed invitation by Marinette all over the internet, begging people to come.
If they didn’t succeed, he knew one person that would be in the crowd for sure: Audrey’s lawyer.
They had made great progress on the runway showpiece items since meeting the kwami. However, they worried they couldn't get it done, even with the kwami magic. There was just so much to do, and the kwami needed a lot of breaks and even more food.
They saved the kwami’s help for the most intricate sewing jobs, and worked on the less complicated pieces themselves.
Eventually, they had a solid system down. Tikki and Trixx even helped Marinette and Edna make changes to the designs to improve them.
It was slowly coming together.
They might just make it.
~~~~
Tim was glad when he had finally reached cruising altitude. The baby and little girl were at the back of the plane, and he was as far away from them as it was possible to be. He laid his seat back as much as he could and closed his eyes, desperate for a better sleep so that he could be well rested to see Marinette in the morning. She often complained that he didn’t get enough sleep and constantly had bags under his eyes. He would give her no reason to complain today.
He put his earbuds in, playing some light piano music to fall asleep to and tune out the constant loud hum of the plane.
He must not have been asleep for long before something jolted him awake. He looked around, but the person beside him was out cold. He decided it must have been some more turbulence and closed his eyes again.
A few moments later his seat shook violently. His eyes shot open again.
It happened again.
And again.
Finally, he turned around. The kid behind him was kicking his seat.
The parent was fast asleep.
He sighed and tried glaring at the kid, but that just made them kick harder. He admitted defeat and turned around, trying to pretend that he was just getting a weird massage.
It didn’t work.
When the kid’s leg finally got tired and they stopped, he managed to fall back asleep.
An announcement blared over the system, “Hello folks! It is now 6:05 am local time. Normally, we would be preparing for landing, however, there has been an accident on the runway in Paris. We will be making a detour to Milan. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We will be arriving in approximately 45 minutes.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” Tim blurted out. The parents around him glared at him.
~~~~
“You’re going to have to model,” Adrien informed Marinette.
“What?” Marinette turned to him.
“Yeah, I called Allegra, Allan, Claude and Kagami, but they aren’t free.” He frowned. “We can pull it off, if we do the quickest changes in history and do excessively long catwalks.”
Marinette looked like she was gasping for air. She had been planning on helping with the changes. Adrien had been trying to get hold of four of his friends to help out.
“Think of it this way,” he tried to comfort her, “Now we don’t need to do last minute alterations.”
~~~~
“What does Agreste think they’re doing?” Lila grumbled as she spied on her competition.
Having the old bat next door had been a boon for Lila. Edna Mode had a habit of posting her designs on a board which was conveniently visible through the windows if you used binoculars. She had almost put them away after they had started packing up the shop for closure.
Now, however, mannequins were reassembled and had clothes pinned to them.
“How did she come up with that?” Lila grumbled as she saw a beautiful green dress with gemstones over it, making it look like a field of flowers.
She became bitter when she saw that Marinette was with Adrien and Edna. She must be the reason for the new designs. Edna would never come up with anything like those.
She continued to spy on the three people in the store, hoping to figure out what they were playing at… until she saw a tiny fairy floating around.
“My my… Marinette, you are resourceful.”
~~~~
Upon exiting the plane, Tim headed straight for the counter, along with practically everyone from his flight.
“Excuse me, sir,” he asked in Italian, “Do you know when our connecting flight will arrive?”
The attendant looked like they wanted to be anywhere else in the world. That wasn’t good.
“The- The airline has scheduled a flight for tomorrow morning at 10:15.” He winced.
Several people started yelling in anger. Tim, however, pushed his way through the crowd.
There was no way he was going to sit around for another 17 hours in an airport. Milan wasn’t that far from Paris. He would just take a train.
The station was nearby – only across the street from the main terminal. He rushed across the crosswalk, only for a bus to splash him.
He was now covered from head to foot in dirty rainwater.
“Damnit!”
He shook his head of the worst of the water and kept going. He would just have to change later.
He made it onto the metro that would take him to the train station and sat down in the first available seat. He was filthy. There was drying dirt on his face and in his hair. His clothes would be unsalvageable by the time he got a chance to wash them.
Today was not his day.
He was glad when he made it to the station and was able to purchase a ticket for the next train, leaving in 50 minutes. He used the time to run to the bathroom and attempt to clean up his face and hair. He also tried to wash out as much of the dirt from his shirt and pants as he could, using the hand driers so he wouldn’t be soaked for the rest of the day.
Before he knew it, they were announcing boarding for his train.
So much for grabbing a cup of coffee beforehand.
He settled into his seat, wishing there was another position he could be in – his back and neck were hurting so badly from sitting for so long – and prepared himself for another long sit. This train ride would be six and a half hours.
He scrolled on his phone for a bit and texted Steph to let her know what was going on. His phone gave a concerning low battery beep – he hadn’t had a chance to charge it since before he left Gotham – and he was forced to shut it down.
Without entertainment (he had forgotten a book as well), Tim looked out the window.
It wasn’t long before he fell asleep.
He woke abruptly to someone shaking his shoulder, jumping in surprise.
“Monsieur, you must get off,” the man dressed in official clothes hovering over him said in French.
Tim looked out the window. They were at the station.
“Thanks,” he replied groggily, grabbing his bag and getting off as quickly as he could.
“Now to find Marinette!” he exclaimed cheerfully. Several people shot him weird looks.
He looked around for the way out of the station, staring up at the signs on the ceiling.
CALAIS was written all over the place where the train still sat.
“Calais?” Tim had never heard of it. It certainly wasn’t his stop.
He ran towards a helpful map near the ticket office. Frantically, he searched for Calais on the map…. He found it eventually, right at the top. He was at the final stop, where the train station connects to take rides over the English Channel to Dover.
He was clear on the other side of the country.
“No!” he cried out and slid down the wall beside the map onto the floor.
He went to grab his wallet from his bag to buy a new ticket, when he noticed the zipper was open. He never left zippers open. He shoved his hand in, only to notice that the cash from his wallet was missing.
He felt his pockets for everything important. It was all still there, but he was now down several hundred Euro.
Could this day get any worse?
~~~~
Plagg had just cut out another suit for Adrien to wear. It was exhausting work, constantly using his powers. He grabbed a stack of camembert slices for him to eat and took them over to the pile of cushions the humans had set up for them.
After eating his fill, he lazed on the pillow.
The humans were good to them. They were hard working, and had shown they deserved some help. Even if he hadn’t agreed, Tikki wanted to, and Plagg couldn’t say no to Tikki (just don’t tell her that).
Tikki was in her element, flitting around and helping design with Marinette.
They had somewhat lied to the humans earlier. While they did need the sustenance of food for energy, their real benefit was the energy that humans naturally gave off. Tikki thrived on creativity and creation. Trixx on production and redirection of energy. These humans were pushing all of their energy into this one pursuit – creating. It was feeding them both. Plagg wasn’t getting much from it at the moment, but he could feel something building. There was some form of destruction coming, and it would make up for all the waiting.
In the mean time, he decided to have a nap. The humans looked to be winding down for the day too.
Plagg awoke to Tikki shaking him. “Plagg! Plagg wake up!”
“Whaaaaaaaaat?” he groaned, swatting her hand away as he sat up.
“We’ve been kwami-napped!”
Plagg blinked and looked around. They were inside some old bird cage. A woman with brown hair and dull green eyes was staring at them through the bars.
“I saw you little… things,” she said with clear disgust and greed in her eyes, “helping make outfits. You’re going to make me an entire line on their ideas.” She pointed to Agreste.
“We can’t do that. You have to have everything for it to work,” Trixx retorted.
“Then make it work! Adjust it. Just make it better.”
Tikki started to open her mouth to try to tell the woman again that it wasn’t how it worked, but Plagg elbowed her.
Plagg bowed to their captor. “We’ll get right on it, Mistress.”
“Good. At least one of you knows your place.”
She let the kwami out to work on her clothes. Tikki and Trixx tried to recreate a dress from the fabric that was in the shop, but found nothing they liked. Still, they did their best… sort of. It was an orange and green monstrosity. The green had orange jewels on it in the flower pattern… almost. The jewels were all wrong and they had to substitute for sequins. It looked cheap. Which it was. The fabrics were awful and scratchy.
Meanwhile, Plagg was going around the room.
“What are you doing?” the woman demanded.
“I’m putting my own magic on everything. Everyone will be falling over themselves to see your models when I’m done.”
“Excellent. Good work!”
Lila meanwhile, went and sent out an invitation using the main Style Queen contact list about an impromptu new line and showcase.
“We need food if you want us to do more,” Plagg said when he was done. He had just used a trickle of magic.
“Okay, fine. I’ll go get you something.”
She locked them back up in their cage. Lila left the shop in search of food for her new worker bees. If feeding them was all she had to do, she was more than willing. She would get some cheap snacks from down the road.
The moment the door closed, Plagg used the rest of his strength to call on his powers, disintegrating the cage around them, and flew straight at the door before his power ran out.
He ended up with a kwami-sized hole in the glass.
The others flew after him, and they slipped back inside of Agreste. Lila had picked the lock and the door was left open a crack. Thankfully, no one had slipped in during the night. They closed the door behind them and made a mental note to tell Adrien to get better security.
Thankful to be back to their home with designers who cared, they decided to raid the fridge, and then spend the rest of the night decorating and completing designs.
~~~~
Tim was left with two options: wait for the next train and hope he didn’t fall asleep, or find some other way to Paris.
He was just about to admit defeat and call Kon to fly him there, when an elderly couple came up to his place where he was still sulking on the floor.
“Is everything alright dear?” the woman asked him in French.
He was about to say yes, when he looked up at them. They looked so kind. Plus, he really didn’t have the energy to lie right now.
“No. I missed my stop. I need to get to Paris…” Hell, if he had just waited for that damn flight from Milan, he would be taking off in two hours. He should have stayed there.
“We’re going to Versailles to visit our son. We could give you a ride,” the man offered.
“I should probably just catch the next train…” It was only in half an hour. He could wait.
“Didn’t you hear the announcement?” the woman asked.
“What announcement?”
“Service is down for the next few hours.”
It would figure.
“I- Could I take you up on that ride?” Tim admitted defeat.
“Of course, dear,” the woman confirmed kindly.
He followed them dutifully to the car they rented, and offered to pay the bill for them. They tried to turn him down, but he offered the attendant his credit card before either of them could try to pay for themselves.
Halfway through the drive, it would occur to him that he could have just rented his own car, but it was far too late.
The couple were very sweet, offering him a snack and drink, and taking him to the station in Versailles, just as promised.
From there, he took one more train to Paris proper. It was just under an hour from Gare des Chantiers in Versailles to Gare de Lyon, the closest stop to Adrien’s company, Agreste.
He was so close!
He turned on his phone and checked in with Steph. She had heard from Adrien, who had told her they were helping out with a show at the main Agreste building. They should still be there now.
From there, he hopped on a bus.
Which promptly wound up in traffic.
He looked it up. He was only twelve blocks away. Getting off the bus, much to the irritation of the driver, he decided to run the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, as he got up, his pants snagged on a lose screw in the seat, and it promptly tore a hole in his pants. His Red Robin underwear was visible from a small tear in the seat where the pocket attached.
He hiked up his bag onto his shoulder, covering his ass with one hand, and began running, drawing the eyes of everyone he passed.
He arrived in front of the Agreste building as the sun began to set. The lights were on, and there was loud music playing. He had made it!
He was sweaty and gross, and desperately needed a shower and new clothes, but he was here.
Now to find Marinette.
~~~~
Lila’s show across the street was packed. Their show was to start in an hour, but so far, the only person there was Audrey’s lawyer.
Ten minutes into the show across the street and Edna began laughing. “You must come see this, darlings,” she called from the second floor.
Marinette was mostly done her hair and makeup, and Adrien was already ready, so they made their way to her.
Taking turns through the binoculars Edna had, they watched as Lila went down the runway in a terrible imitation of their field of flowers dress… only for it to fall apart as she took each step. A glance around the shop showed that the other pieces on mannequins were also starting to fall apart. Several were in tatters on the ground.
The patrons began leaving in droves. One of the first pointed out their sign, notifying passersby of the show in thirty minutes.
A surprising number of them entered the fashion house and took seats wherever they could.
“Go turn on the music dears.”
Adrien ran down the stairs to the sound system behind the staging area and began some light background music.
Five minutes before the show began, Adrien dimmed the lights and put on the runway spotlights. The music was turned up, and Marinette tried not to sweat through her first outfit as she paced.
“You’ll do great. Edna is going to help you with your changes, and I’ll stall as long as I can,” Adrien reassured her with a pat on the shoulder.
And then he was heading out in time to the music change.
As soon as he returned, Marinette headed out on a slow walk down the catwalk. She posed at the end, and even stopped halfway down the runway to pose as they had planned, to buy Adrien more time.
Thankfully, it was rather dark, and Marinette could barely see the outlines of the people in shadows. It seemed like they had a full house after all.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she finished her first walk of many for the night. It was a brief reprise however, because she had to run over to Edna, who had her next dress ready to go. She unzipped as she walked forward, and the dress dropped to the ground right as she stepped into the next one. She bent down and Edna put a different hair comb into her bun, and pushed Marinette towards the curtain.
Despite the chaos of it, it ran smoothly after all. They were done over half of the collection before she even tripped once.
“Marinette!” a voice called out on her final outfit before the end of the show. All that was left was for Adrien and Edna to join her on stage and take their bows. “Marinette!”
She glanced around, but saw nothing. Just masses of black shadowy figures.
“Marinette!” She finally located the voice, off to her left, but it was still barely audible over the booming sound system.
“Marinette, please!”
A shadow pushed through the seats to the irritation of those in them, and slammed their hands on the stage edge.
Tim raised himself onto the stage in one swift movement, quickly jumping to his feet.
He was filthy. His hair had something in it, and it was almost like it was glued to one side. He was covered in sweat and dirt. His shirt was stained by several unknown things. A laugh from behind him had him whipping around slightly and she saw the cause of the laughter – his pants had a giant tear in the bottom. He flushed, grabbing for his ass to cover the hole.
Despite his very disheveled appearance and clearly embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, he ignored it all. His attention was entirely upon her.
Her eyes widened in fear. What could he possibly want? Why come all this way to make it worse? Wasn’t breaking her heart enough?
She turned to leave, but he grabbed her hand gently. She could have easily broken the grasp, but chose not to.
“Marinette, please. I didn’t break up with you. Chloe and Vicki Vale played a prank. I swear. I would never break up with you.”
“The phone-”
“I never called you. They played a recording they made from interviews.”
“You disappear. A lot.”
“I’ll explain everything in private.”
“I-”
“Please.”
He got down on one knee, displaying the hole for everyone to see as he grasped her hand, reaching into his coat pocket. She couldn’t focus on that, however, because Tim was crying. Tim never cried if he could help it.
“Believe me. I love you, so much, Marinette. I was planning on doing this during our anniversary date… but you need to know now. I’m serious.”
He pulled out a box and flipped the lid open. Inside was a diamond ring.
“Marry me.”
“What?” Marinette gasped down at the ring presented to her, and then to Tim’s face.
She wasn’t sure what he had been through in order to get to Paris, but it had obviously been a nightmare. Tim was nervous. He was clearly scared. And yet, past the obvious fears, there was hope and love. He stared imploringly at her to answer.
Before the phone call, she wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment.
The phone call was fake.
She’d been through emotional hell for nothing.
She nodded, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
They were surrounded by a brilliant flash of light and glitter as Tim stood up to kiss her. Neither noticed as his clothes were altered into a tuxedo that Marinette had been toying with earlier but had never finished. Her dress changed into a white gown. They were too lost in the kiss to notice.
When the light dissipated, the crowd certainly noticed. They cheered not just for the couple, but for the quick change on stage.
Adrien and Edna rushed out to thank everyone for coming and enjoying the show.
Marinette, however, dragged Tim backstage to talk.
They stopped at her station, surrounded by her dresses.
“These are amazing. I always knew you had the talent – you just needed someone to give you a chance.”
He was examining the beadwork and crystals on the field of flowers dress when he realised – “I’m – what happened to my clothes?”
“We did it. You were a disaster,” Tikki came and settled on Marinette’s shoulder.
“I destroyed those old clothes,” Plagg noted as he went and sat on Marinette’s dressing table.
“What the h-”
“Hi, we’re kwami,” Trixx came and flew right up into his face.
He attempted to bat it away automatically, but Trixx flew out of his reach.
“Is that any way to treat someone who helped you?”
“Mari? What’s going on?” Tim asked.
“Heh. It’s a long story.” She explained the kwami and everything that had happened.
“So what was it that you wanted to tell me?” she asked.
“I’ve been running off all the time and bailing on dates because-”
A voice cut him off. “Red Robin. Stop distracting Marinette. We need her out here! Someone wants to buy the whole line in bulk!”
“Really?!” Marinette focused on the last part of Edna’s words.
Tim did not. “What- How- Who?” Tim whipped around to see Edna standing there.
“I am the dresser of heroes. You think I can’t spot a hero out of costume, darling?”
“…Red Robin?” Marinette asked, catching up with the rest of the conversation.
Tim turned to face her in horror. This was not how he wanted to tell her. He had saved her a few times in the city as his vigilante alter-ego.
“Well, that explains a lot.”
Edna trotted over and grabbed Marinette’s hand, pulling her away from Tim.
“Hurry along dear. We have customers! Red Robin, stay there. We will be discussing your costume. NO CAPES!”