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The night air was as close to clear as it could get amidst the Parisian chaos of cars and every now often burning. Once, years ago, Chat had joked that maybe, if they threw the Lucky Charm into the night for no reason, maybe one day the magic of the Miraculous would find pollution as some sort of evil and finally clean the city for them. Ladybug had given him an amused eye roll, pretending more annoyance than she truly held.
If only it were so simple.
A wish, a Lucky Charm, a hope that maybe was strong enough to be picked up by yet another one of the unexplainable creatures they had learned the world still held. It was on nights like this Marinette wished with all her heart and might, that there could be a way to buy more time.
For the solution to be as easy as simply purchasing time, exchanging all the valuables of the world for a hope that would finally materialize. As easy as an exchange that granted her full ownership of the time to come, that ensured that nothing would suddenly make a minute go faster than it should. That nothing would make her life scurry from between her fingers, her life run out like she had chosen to burn out instead of fading.
She would turn old. There would be a time in the near future where kids would sit in the very bench she had sat at during her first year of cóllege and turn in projects she had written on heroes of myths and stories, on her. There would be a time in which the study curriculums would be updated to tell her every achievement and mistake, brief glimpses of her life. History books would tell the story of Paris under magical fire, surely not missing the opportunity to include the very first picture that had been taken during her very first fight as Ladybug.
Children would scoff at having to memorize her friends' superhero names, and a girl somewhere in the city would spend an all nighter trying to remember everything about an akuma Marinette that didn't sleep over, for a test.
It had been awkward to say the least, the first time they realized how times were changing. Suddenly, they were not only superheroes, but characters in a movie written with doubtful accuracy.
How fast were times changing.
Suddenly, the first akuma had been a week ago. A month ago. Half a year ago. Last autumn. Before they knew it, the team had grown, disbanded and recovered. It had been days, weeks, months before fighting alongside any of their friends. Suddenly, it was back to being the old duo, just the two of them and no one else. And like that, it was a month, two, a year before they realized it would be just them against the world for a long, long time.
There was a period somewhere at the end of college where time felt more like some sort of hazy blur than part of a lifetime. They had lost so much in ways none could share, shades of guilt and grief growing with every day that went by in their eyes. It was certainly not the first time any of them felt as lost as they looked, and much to their dismay, probably wouldn't be the last.
Nobody understood it, not even themselves. The weight of unshared, unspokable loads would have been enough to crush them both, but in the end, it was nothing they weren't used to. Vague venting and nights in which the only thing lacking was spoken names were the only thing they had for so, so long.
Once, years ago, Chat had been adamant on sharing their identities for the sake of trust. And Marinette… she couldn't say she hadn't been tempted to.
Maybe in another life, in one of the thousands of universes they knew they would find the other in, Marinette would have long ago swooned over the sound of her name in her partner's lips.
Maybe, in one of them, Marinette had been able to embroider him a gift with his name on it instead of a hidden green paw. Maybe she wouldn't have smacked her own forehead upon realizing how bad of an idea it would be to give him a handmade handkerchief with his superhero name on it.
The night wind brushed around them, and Marinette wished it could simply take their worries away. The impending doom that rested upon their heads like a carefully crafted sword hanging from a thread. The unspoken words and caring thoughts between them, the kind that made her throat ache and her chest feel heavy, as if being constricted by the tightness of her own muscles out of stress.
It wasn't Marinette banging her heels against the metallic structure of the tower absently minded. It wasn't Marinette who formally knew the boy to her side, despite knowing the way in which every crease formed on his cheeks when he smiled after so many duplicating akumas. It wasn't Marinette who was supposed to keep the city safe.
And, most importantly, it wasn't Marinette who would keep the memories of her alter ego.
Ever since the day they had discussed it first after so long of leaving it an unspoken, unavoidable truth, every plan they came up with was simultaneously better and worse than the previous one. Marinette knew deep inside of her heart she would find her partner no matter what, but logically? Even if she stuck to searching in Paris alone, there were still thousands of boys who surely matched the description she would look for.
Chat Noir once joked he would simply detransform in front of her the second she renounced the Box.
That day, it took every ounce of control in Ladybug -Marinette- not to kiss him and shake him by the shoulders so that hopefully blood would flow properly into his brain and realize how bad of an idea that was. Then, it dawned on her, how she wouldn't be able to protect him the second her Ladybug memories were gone either. No matter how much they had talked about it, he was stupidly sweet enough to throw it all away.
As much as Marinette wanted to, she couldn't blame him.
“Chaton, if I- If I ever-”
He put a soft finger to her lips, shushing her with dread in his gaze.
“I know what you're going to say. Don't. Please, don't.”
“I don't want it to happen either, kitty. But, if the time comes…”
“I would rather stay by your side. If I could, I would simply never leave.”
Silent tears glowed under the moonlight. Neither knew who they belonged to.
Maybe the conversation would go better another time. Just like she thought so many times before.
It never did. In a way, it calmed her it didn't.
It was in those nights Marinette wanted so desperately to throw a Lucky Charm into the air and hope it would fix whatever. Maybe her. Their world. Everything.