Work Text:
Marinette sits at her desk, letting the muffled sounds of the show above her ring through her head. Opening night is always the most nerve-wracking, and this is her first time working as a costume designer at this school’s theater.
Everything is going smoothly, she reminds herself. Nothing’s gone too wrong yet.
She glances around the room; it’s stuffed to the brim with different colors of fabrics and accessories scattered about as if they were tossed to the side. The mess of it all, ironically, soothes her every time she sees it. The splashes of patterns and textures in her vision are always so mesmerizing and calming to look at.
As she absentmindedly doodles sketches on a stray sticky note and hums, she makes sure to keep her headset attached and connected — just in case.
It turns out to be a decent decision when the speaker pressed firmly against her ear squeaks to life, making her wince, but then starts to echo with the voice of one of the directors.
“Marinette?” it calls.
Quickly, the costume designer sits up in her seat. “Yeah?”
“You okay to come upstairs? We’ve got a problem.”
This makes her shudder. What could be so wrong that the actor can’t come downstairs to her?
On top of that, backstage is somewhere that… she usually tries to avoid. It’s why she stays in her cozy little office downstairs, next to the dressing rooms.
She decides to suck it up, getting up out of her chair and rushing upstairs. As soon as she opens the door at the top of the steps, the overwhelming chaos of it all hits her like a truck. She continues forward anyway.
“On my way,” she mumbles.
Pushing herself through the seemingly infinite amount of crammed cast members, she tries to only pay attention to the voice in her ear. Which is much harder than it seems.
“Stage right, wing three,” the headset instructs, but it feels like something is electrocuting her eardrums.
She nods, before remembering that the directors can’t see it through the speakers, but is too exhausted to correct herself.
Trying to ignore the way everything she touches stings her like a jellyfish — to no avail — she squeezes her way through the small crowd of people helping backstage and to the correct wing.
She just knew that she should’ve remembered to take her meds today, of all days. It’d been an especially sensitive day, ever since she’d first opened her eyes in the morning.
But the show must go on.
She approaches the wing, and, to her surprise, kneeling down next to a heavy set piece is none other than Zoé Lee herself — one of their main cast members.
Marinette resists the urge to curse under her breath, remembering that other people near her have their microphones turned on, as she examines the damage.
Zoé’s dress has a rip down the side, starting from her knee all the way down to around the height of her ankle. The end of it hangs on from the huge set piece, suspended there and stuck.
A stage crew member looks at Marinette, eyes wide and panicked. “We didn’t want to risk ripping it more by pulling it off.”
Marinette turns back to the set piece, trying to ignore the pounding headache that’s been slowly developing between her temples. After taking a closer look, she can tell the rip isn’t as severe as it first looks. It’ll just take a bit of sewing, and…
“How much time left until Zoé goes back on?” she asks the crew member with all of her remaining strength.
“Uh, a while, but not too long.”
Marinette nods, closing her eyes for a moment to allow them to rest. Opening them again, she pulls out the sewing kit at her side, about to try to fix the dress.
But as she reaches for the end of it, she realizes her hands are shaking and her vision is blurring far too much — she won’t be able to sew the costume’s tear together again well enough to be unnoticeable while she’s in this condition.
As if it couldn’t get worse, the pit orchestra starts playing the next song. It reverberates in her ear loudly, and it’s the last straw that makes her decide that she just can’t do this here.
Her hands automatically drop the sewing supplies when they flinch and move to press into her ears in an attempt to block the sound.
“I—” she stutters. “Can't do this u— up here. Need… need q-quiet.”
Zoé nods, helping her get the dress out from under the set. Once it’s free, she lifts the skirt up so it’s not touching the ground, and gestures to Marinette like she’s telling her to go ahead.
Too exhausted to respond, Marinette thanks Zoé internally, hoping she’ll get the message. As soon as they start heading down the stairs, Zoé closes the door behind them, providing Marinette with an overwhelming sense of relief.
She takes a deep breath in, continuing to hurry back to her studio. There, she’ll be more comfortable.
Stumbling through the seemingly endless hallway, Marinette hopes Zoé is still following behind her as she shakily opens the door to her office.
Feeling as if she’s just run a marathon, she lets her eyes rest on the array of soothing colors around the room, trying to let herself relax.
Wordlessly, she grabs at her hip for her usual supplies — but remembers that she had dropped them downstairs.
Any and all thoughts she might’ve been capable of having at that revelation trail off when she turns around to see Zoé holding up the kit.
“I thought I should bring this down when you dropped it,” Zoé whispers. It’s barely aggravating Marinette's headache, as if she’s actively trying not to contribute to her sensory overload. Marinette would thank her, if she could.
Instead, she just nods, taking the kit from Zoé while avoiding touching anything else in the process.
Silently, she manages to get her thoughts back together and repairs the dress. After taking another second to check it over once more, she looks back up at Zoé with a nod and a sincere smile — or, the sincerest one she can muster, anyway.
Zoé, thankfully, smiles back without another word and makes her exit, heading back to the stage.
Marinette sighs, content, and sits back in her chair to let herself calm down again.
After the show is over, Marinette hears a knock at her door. “Come in.”
Zoé enters the room, a bit shyly. “Sorry,” she squeaks as she tries not to step on the stray materials scattered throughout the room.
Marinette looks at her fondly, playing with her fingers. “Don’t worry about stepping on stuff,” she assures. “It’s inevitable. Everyone does it.”
“Okay, sorry,” Zoé apologizes again. “I just haven’t been in here much before. How do you manage to even do anything, with all of this… stuff in the way?”
“It’s how I work best,” Marinette smiles, this time more easily than before. “It might look like a mess to you — but to me, it’s comforting.”
“I get it,” Zoé says. “Anyway… what I wanted to come in and say was that… I’m really sorry if I caused any big problems earlier. I could tell you seemed… I dunno, kind of upset, earlier?”
“Oh,” Marinette says. “No, don’t worry about that. You didn’t do anything, it was all on me. Just too much going on in my head.”
“Alright,” Zoé agrees. “What happened, though?”
“I’ve got… some sensory issues,” Marinette says. “Usually, my job involves staying down here where it’s quiet, but today I guess I had to come up there.”
“Oh, that must suck,” Zoé admits. “You’re not mad at me for leaving without helping any more?”
“I appreciated it when you brought my kit for me. I would’ve had to go back up to get it otherwise, and that definitely would’ve been a nightmare,” Marinette says. “I have my own coping methods, anyway. I’d feel bad if you felt obligated to… like… help me, or something. I don’t need help — and besides, you had to go onstage anyway.”
Zoé smiles. “Well… I also wanted to thank you for fixing my costume so fast. You really saved me out there.”
“Maybe next time, try not to trip,” Marinette teases, “so that I don’t have to go back up there.”
“Don’t worry,” Zoé jokes. “I’ll make sure to come down here first.”
As the two girls start to fall into a back-and-forth motion of playful bantering, Marinette feels her heart warm up in a way she hasn’t felt for years.
She likes it.