Chapter Text
Marinette knows she could have it so much better, but that doesn’t seem all that much of a problem when she has a smile on her face, a charm in her pocket, and a seemingly undefeatable sense of optimism.
Adrien knows he could have it so much worse, but that doesn’t seem all that much of a consolation when he hears his mother’s sickly cough in the secluded rooms, and his father’s harsh voice at the council meetings he is forced to attend.
***
She loves her city, maybe more than anything. Marinette is in love with the smell of baking bread and strange perfumes from the street markets that spring up overnight, and she is in love with the twinkling of the streetlamps all across the skyline when the sun hides her face under the horizon, and she is in love with the mood of enchantment and delight that wafts through the air whenever she is allowed out.
Usually, this is to help with Chloè’s shopping. She likes to take the carriage out once every few weeks, Marinette trailing after her and carrying the majority of the hat boxes, bags of clothing, and other miscellaneous items.
But any opportunity to get into the streets? To see the sights, smell the scents, drink it all in with starving senses? Marinette will snatch it with both hands.
However, such a day has only just passed, a few days ago. She knows she won’t get a chance for another week, at least.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marinette tells the spider spinning a web in the corner of her cracked windowsill. “You’ll be able to see me, once I go out. I’ll wave to you. Chloè has a carriage, but I ride out with the coachman if I can.”
The spider doesn’t answer. Marinette watches it amusedly, just grateful for a few moments to rest her aching legs. She’s been up since five, since the cook of the Bourgeois household quit a few days ago, and Marinette’s taken on her jobs as well as the household tasks she has to complete. It won’t be for too long. It’ll be just until Mayor Bourgeois has time in his busy socialite schedule to pencil in interviews for the cook. (Or maybe, says the tiny pessimist on her shoulder, Maybe you’ll just have to do it forever. Would that really be so astonishing?)
Unconsciously, Marinette’s slender fingers rise to her cheek, trimmed nails prodding at the red, ring-shaped welt there.
Mayor Bourgeois has a habit of wearing heavy jewellery on his fingers, signet rings and gifts from wealthy associates, and Marinette often doesn’t see them coming until it’s too late to duck.
Would it be shocking, Marinette, that Mayor Bourgeois and that daughter of his, would ever do anything cruel for the sake of being cruel? Would it really?
She has chores to do. Better do those, then, before the Mayor or Chloè or someone becomes too angry and begins throwing things. (Marinette’s been there, done that, got the novelty glass-vase-shaped cuts on the pads of her fingers. That had made Chloè’s breakfast pretty hard to prepare, for a while.)
“Bye,” she tells the spider.
It continues to spin, content, totally unaware of its companion’s owes.
Marinette smiles at it anyway, and smooths over the blanket on the mattress, lying on the floor next to the window in the tiny attic room. Slovenliness leads to worse sins, Mayor Bourgeois is fond of saying, and Marinette can’t risk a surprise inspection of her living quarters.
Yet -
Hah! The Mayor should see his daughter’s room, sometimes, if that’s the case.
But no, that’s unfair. Is it? Yes.
Marinette pushes uncharitable thoughts out of her head. It’s not fair to Chloè that her father can sometimes be unreasonable, right? Just as it’s not fair to judge Mayor Bourgeois based on his opinions about tidy rooms. He's obviously the Mayor for a reason, after all, and the way he runs his household is his business and nobody else's.
The Marinette in her head makes a disgusted little tutting sound and turns her back.
Marinette ignores her.
Watch the Bourgeois household wake from sleep.
First to rise was Marinette, almost three hours ago, and she’s got the hot breakfast pastries cooling on a rack on the kitchen table, ready for Chloè to call for them. Flour covers her face and hands, making her pale, sun-starved skin even whiter. She wipes her hands on her apron pocket, then smooths out her dull brown dress. It’s one of her most prized possessions, save the two earrings saved from the fire that killed both her parents. She yawns, covering her mouth with her hand, then tugs tighter on two red ribbons, frayed and tatty after years of constant use. They hold her black hair, so black it’s almost blue, into two neat ponytails.
Second to rise are the other servants, although the Bourgeois house is so notorious, only the stuffy housekeeper and the tiny, scurrying pot-maid remain. Both of them are terrified of each other and the family of the house.
They don’t pay Marinette any attention.
Nobody does unless they need a scapegoat, and then Marinette is the first they turn to.
She knocks on Chloè’s door, then hurriedly slides to one side as the white handle turns and a sharp-heeled shoe comes flying out. Marinette’s often been at the receiving end of Chloè’s early morning temper tantrums.
“Chloè? I brought you breakfast,” Marinette calls into the room, still staying away from the door until she gets the all-clear.
The pair of the shoe is thrown, too. Marinette thanks her lucky stars she’s still behind the door. “Come on in, then, so long as the croissants are almond,” calls Chloè from inside the room.
Marinette hopes wildly that there are no more shoes to hand, coming in with the breakfast tray held in prominent view as a peace treaty. “Good morning, Chloè. Sleep well?” She asks, unfolding the stilts and slipping the tray on Chloè’s lap. The blonde girl glares at her, her stare piercing daggers into Marinette.
She doesn’t answer, just begins ripping at the croissant.
Marinette takes this as a sign to back out, and does so with great relief. Nothing’s gone wrong and she’s survived the morning without much physical injury at all, save a few burns from the oven when she was taking out the jam puffs.
“Enjoy your breakfast,” she says in parting shot, and escapes just in time to hear another sharp-heeled stiletto thud against the wooden door.
The last person to wake is Mayor Bourgeois, who often isn’t home. If he isn't out at official meetings, he's at functions and balls - Marinette has been adopted by one of the most wealthy, influential men in Paris, as the Mayor and a prolific charity figure - the master of the house spends the nights at other houses if he thinks money or power will come of the evening.
No. Marinette’s being perfectly unfair again.
It’s always nicer on the days Mayor Bourgeois isn’t home. The air is less tense. Marinette can sometimes get a break. On rare, rare, days, the Mayor takes Chloè with him, and then Marinette can sneak into the daughter’s room and sneak a slip of chocolate or a sip of rich cordial drink.
But, unfortunately, both are in today.
Marinette doesn’t put together a tray. Mayor Bourgeois likes sweet liqueur for breakfast, a bite of a sandwich for lunch, and then goes out to drink bubbling champagne and finger food for dinner. In fact, when she was younger, Marinette half-thought that her adoptive father - her carer - was some sort of magic man, to be able to live on such rich food and air.
Even then, the ugly truth was exposed. Young Marinette was just too naive to see it.
She retrieves the coal bucket from the closet and knocks tentatively on the door. Mayor Bourgeois can’t stand to be too cold - doctor's orders to deal with hia congestion - and the consequences for not keeping the fire are… too harsh to not see that the coal is piled on and the flames crackle merrily.
“Who is that?”
“Mar-Marinette,” Marinette calls, ashamed of the way her voice trips. Over her own name. She takes a deep breath, knuckles white on the handle of the coal bucket, and twists the doorknob.
Mayor Bourgeois is in his burgundy dressing gown, his moustache freshly waxed, ready for tonight’s hob-nobbing with the finest society France has to offer. His fat fingers encircle a square of chocolate, swallowing it in two neat bites. His blue eyes appraise Marinette - he is every inch her daughter’s father.
“Good morning, Marinette.”
“Morning,” Marinette says, too quick and too blunt, already kneeling on the hard marble and picking up lumps of coal in trembling fingers. Mayor Bourgeois scares her like no-one should be able to, and that fact alone keeps the pessimistic Mari in her head alive and well.
“Oh, Marinette,” drawls the Mayor, sarcastic and disappointed and so very superior, “What did we say about full sentences? You’ll never join my office if you don’t make an effort.”
“Sorry. Good morning, Mayor Bourgeois,” Marinette corrects herself. She hates how the Mayor dangles the opportunity of high society in front of her nose, a carrot to a starved donkey. In truth, all Marinette wants to do is wear the dresses she draws in chalk on the floorboards of her attic room, and twirl around the dancefloor to feel like a princess for half an hour. But she knows that’s too much to ask.
“And how was your night?”
“Pleasant, thank you,” Marinette says. She lets the silence linger too long before saying, “And yours, sir?”
“I feel it will be advantageous to my re-election this year, yes,” Mayor Bourgeois says loftily. Marinette doesn’t have to turn around to know that he'll be stroking his wobbling chins with one hand in a parody of thoughtfulness, the other hand scrabbling for more chocolates.
They speak no more.
Marinette works in silence, interrupted only by the sounds of the chocolates rustling in the wrapping paper. Mayor Bourgeois is in a good mood today - that’s good. That’s… better. Better than yesterday was.
Everyday will be better. It will.
That thought keeps Marinette growing and going as her fingers tremble in exhaustion over the last lump of coal, as her eyes burn when the dust stings them. But the fire is built, here it is, and Mayor Bourgeois hasn’t said anything negative. Maybe he met someone particularly well connected last night.
Maybe.
“I’ll return in a few hours to rebuild,” Marinette promises, dusting her hands on her faded apron front and lifting the considerably lighter coal bucket with both hands. Relief in a job well done raises her head, lifts her lips in the tiniest of smiles, ceases the tremble in her hands just a little.
She’s passing the bed when, quick as a flash, Mayor Bourgeois whips his hand from out of the chocolate box and clamps his fingers around Marinette’s wrist. The girl winces and jumps, the coal bucket falling from her hands and spilling all over the marble floor of the Mayor's bedroom. Mayor Bourgeois shakes his head a little, and tightens his grip; his nails are surprisingly sharp. They press into Marinette’s skin, hard enough that five thin crescent moons of blood stand starkly against Marinette’s pale skin. “That was clumsy,” the Mayor says in the voice of a God talking to a mouse.
“Sorry!” Marinette squeaks. “I’ll go get the mop!”
“You had better.” Mayor Bourgeois stands up and brushes the coal dust off his dressing gown. “I only stopped you to tell you that you could come with Chloè and I to the ball tonight at the Baux’s summer mansion, but with all this extra work… I doubt you’ll have the time."
How can someone so powerful be like this?
“I’m sorry. I’ll get it cleaned up,” Marinette says. She wants to wipe her wrist, feeling a little rivulet of blood running down her skin and into her palm.
“Thank you, Marinette,” Mayor Bourgeois says unconcernedly and loosening his grip just a slight amount.
Marinette flushes hotly and snatches her wrist back from the Mayor as soon as she can. This is no more than manipulation; of course Mayor Bourgeois would never let her go. It’s just to be cruel.
Is it really? What if this was your chance?
Biting her lip furiously, Marinette tells herself to shut up and goes to find the mop and a bucket of soapy water.
***
He loves his city, perhaps more than anything except his mother. Adrien could spend hours in his carriage with the windows spread open to take in the sights and smells and noises, or up on his balcony balanced on the railing to watch the oil lamps twinkle under the soft glow of the moon.
Paris is beautiful at night.
Sometimes, on nights when the moon is full and his mind is too treacherous for him to dare to fall asleep, Adrien will lie against the cool wall of the balcony, his legs dangling over the railing, watching the high society travelling to and from their balls and functions, and wish he could be as lithe and stealthy as the alley cats that perch on the roofs, so he could drop down onto the carriages and just get outside this stuffy court for once.
“Stay still, come on,” Nino grunts irritably at him, jabbing Adrien’s side with a tailor pin.
“Sorry, sorry,” Adrien says, keeping his arms wide while his friend, the tailor’s apprentice, pokes and prods at his body.
He needs a new suit befitting of a prince for the royal ball later on in the month, the one that will decide his whole future, and apparently the decision to make a new suit has sent the tailoring community into uproar. All of them bowed and pulled except Nino and Alya, two travelling tailors working mostly for the working classes, and Adrien experienced a thrill of rebellion when he accepted those two over the most aristocratic of tailors.
“Alya’s working the stall, today,” Nino continues in a conversational tone of voice. “She keeps hanging around, waiting for some girl she wants to befriend.”
Adrien chuckles. Alya’s conquests of friendship are the most entertaining moments of his week, when the dark girl will come in and chat to them both about an adorable girl or the cutest boy and her attempts to befriend them, whether they like it or not. “And who is it this week?”
Nino rolls his eyes. “Hold still! It’s some girl that trails around after Chloè Bourgeois whenever she comes into town. Alya’s taken her on as a new case, although I think it’s mostly because she’s dying to get back at Chloè. That girl…” Nino trails off, shaking his head as he wraps a tape around Adrien’s wrist.
Adrien tries not to move.
“Chloè Bourgeois? Isn’t she the daughter of Mayor Bourgeois?” Adrien tries. He remembers Chloè - every time he meets with the Mayor, the old man tries to set Adrien up with his daughter. Gross. He doesn't much like the Mayor.
Nino’s pins tickle, and he resists the urge to scratch.
“You got it in one. He lives in… uh, what’s-his-face's house, Tom Dupain-Cheng. You know, the palace baker? I was friends with their kid, Marinette, for a while, way back. We were, what, five? Yeah, it was eleven years ago. But then the bakery was in a fire, and - yeah-” Nino rubs his eyes. “Yeah, Marinette and her parents, didn’t make it and the Mayor needed a new house to move into. So now his daughter lives in the middle of the town and terrorizes everyone. I feel sorry for whatever girl has to trail after her all day - it’s a real sob story, man. Baker. Freak fire.”
Adrien doesn’t know how to respond. “That’s… that’s harsh.”
“Tell me about it. Bourgeois got the bakery, but he turned it into a huge mansion. It’s a disaster, if you ask me, although don't tell him I said that. I loved the Dupain-Cheng's strawberry puffs.” Nino starts patting around for a pencil to write down Adrien’s measurements. “And that’s the long and short of it. Alya’s seen Chloè pulling around some poor servant, and now she thinks she’s going to whisk the poor girl off her feet and into the glamourous world of tailoring.”
“Oh.”
Adrien’s always reminded of how split away from society he is when he speaks to Nino. He’s not allowed to any balls, parties, dances, anything; Nino can go to whatever he likes. Adrien’s spent his whole life groomed for Kingship - Nino actually lives with the people of Paris, as opposed to ruling over them.
And Adrien’s learned a lot in the few months since he hired the dynamic duo. What was once a mere fantasy, of going outside and mingling, has turned into a deep longing. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to stave it off for before he does something drastic that his father won’t approve of.
“All done for today,” Nino declares. “Run along, my Prince.”
Adrien laughs, rolls his eyes, and jumps down from the stool. “Got to go. Royal duties, and all that stuff.”
“I get it. No time for lowly Nino, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Nino claps him on the back as Adrien slides through the door of the guest suite the two tailors have set up.
In reality, Adrien has very little to do. He uses the appointment with Nino to get out of the council meeting, he doesn’t have any social balls to prepare for, and he has no documents to sign or write. He has the whole day free.
And his feet take him on the well-worn path to his mother’s quarters.
The Queen has been ill since before Adrien can remember. From what he’s picked up from the hushed conversations heard behind closed doors, she fell ill after complications during her pregnancy with him; the more daring courtiers whisper to each other that this is probably why the King can’t stand his son, and Adrien, hiding behind the wall, swallows down a lump of ill-placed guilt. His mother is always pleased to see him; King Gabriel so rarely makes the trip to the secluded bedrooms where his wife lies. Only Adrien and the royal physician ever seem to visit.
And every time he sees her he chokes on apologies he doesn’t need to say and love that he’s never been shown how to express.
“Adrien? Is that you?” Comes her worn, wan voice from behind the half-open door.
Adrien pushes it open and slips inside the darkened room. “Good afternoon, mother. Feeling any better?” The chair beside her bed is in the same askew position he left it this morning; the physician must be a little late. He falls into it and searches for her hand, lying above the sheets ready for the warmth of his palm.
“A little. When Doctor Martell visits, I’m sure he’ll fix me up. But I’m not so exciting - how was your day, darling? Did your new friend come and visit?”
“Nino. Yes - he’s my new tailor.” Adrien rubs his thumb on the back of his mother’s cold wisp of a hand. The Queen’s chambers are always in darkness; her curtains haven’t been pulled in sixteen years, since young Prince Adrien was born. He wishes he could just show her the sunlight, bring her up to the balcony outside his own bedroom, show her how beautiful her city is. He hasn’t seen her face properly since his birth.
He wishes she would get better.
He knows she won’t.
The Queen rests her head on the pillow. Her breathing is shallow and soft and her eyes have fluttered shut. “That’s good. Good for you to have friends of your own age, my son.”
So little conversation exhausts her. Adrien is willing to sit with her until she falls asleep, just waiting for her to drift off, for her grip to loosen on his hands and her breathing to even out once more. He wishes, oh how he wishes, palace life were different. If his mother was alive, it most certainly would be.
That’s another thing he’s heard from behind doors and around corners.
Before Prince Adrien arrived, whisper the courtiers, King Gabriel and his lady wife were out almost every day to mingle with their citizens.
Before Adrien was born, his father wasn’t holed up in the palace council rooms. King Gabriel smiled all day long, holding huge balls and parties where anyone could come and feast themselves. His beautiful Queen took flowers from the little girls, graceful and sweet, and slipped the little pansies and daisies behind the ears of the blushing babies. They danced. They dined. They helped the workers, paid for bread for the poor, helped the people that everyone had thought were doomed to die.
And then Adrien came along.
And everything changed.
He knows that, no matter if he intended to be born or not, his own birth had ruined the happiness the Royal family had created in Paris. Maybe his birth has prematurely killed the homeless, the helpless, the starving.
Adrien kisses his mother’s forehead, feather-light. “Sleep well.” He doesn’t like to run into the physician while he’s there; it feels too much like rubbing salt into the wounds of those old enough to remember what the Queen used to be like.
And so he goes.
His feet take him from his mother’s chambers on a directionless wander through the labyrinth of passages in the palace. Past the council chambers, where he hears his father’s voice over the controlled council member's protests. Past Doctor Martell coming through the door, although Adrien hides behind a decorative plant for that one.
Past the guest suite Nino has probably long abandoned.
Adrien wishes there were someone else. He doesn’t want to return to his chambers, read the books he’s read time and time again, and look out his window at all the people he could have been.
Sure, he has Nino and Alya, but they’re only ever here for a few hours at a time and anyway, they’re paid to be friendly to him.
Adrien knows he’s being ridiculous.
He doesn’t care.
He doesn’t move on from the guest suite, though. Anything but his stifling room. He can go in and talk to Nino, in the slim chance that he’s still there, or Alya if she’s arrived to help Nino lug all the equipment home.
He raps his knuckles on the door. “Anyone in there?”
“Hold up, man, I’ll be right out! Jeez! You don’t have to kick us out just ‘cause Prince Adrien left. Like, he hired us. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mind if we stay for a couple minutes.”
Adrien grins in relief. “Just me, Nino. Although, good argument. Keep that one in mind.” He pushes on through; Nino stands in the centre of the room, his bag on his shoulder next to him, his pencil shoved awkwardly behind his ear.
“Man. I thought you were that annoying butler back to kick me out. I swear, he just can’t get that I’m actually allowed to be here. Me! Here! Allowed!” Nino laughs. “So, what did you want me for?”
Adrien shrugs. “Nothing, really. The Queen’s been tired recently. I got nothing else to do. So, you in a rush?”
“Anything that gets me away from work for a little longer, my friend, I am willing to do,” Nino grins, slipping his bag off his shoulder. “More fittings, or just talking? Because I don’t know about you, but I am stuck full of pinholes.”
“So am I,” Adrien says, joining Nino on the floor. “I don’t know, I just didn’t want to waste the rest of the day in my room. I’ve read all my books and stuff, and I hate asking for more.”
Nino’s face darkens for half a second. Unexplainable anger, but not aimed at Adrien. However, he waves his hand in the air, and it’s as if the momentary blip never happened. “No problem, my friend. I got a great tale to tell about what Alya did last week, although she’ll kill me if she ever finds out I told you anything.”
Adrien mimes sealing his lips. “I won’t spill a word.”
“Oh, man, this cracks me up just thinking about it,” Nino wipes a phantom tear from his eye. “Okay, so, you know that little kid Alya was talking about? The one that gave her half of his bread so she’d make a little coat for his toy horse?”
“Of course,” Adrien nods. He feels warm just from the memory, one of the first times Alya actually admitted that he might be someone worth hanging out with.
“Well, this kid - I can’t believe I didn’t tell you - this kid, he goes up to Alya…”
***
It’s late, far later than it should be, when Nino finally stands and checks the watch in his pocket, gasping in alarm. “It’s seven! I’ll be late!”
“For what?” Adrien can’t help but ask.
Nino frowns apologetically. “The Baux house - they’re, uh, holding a public ball tonight. Nothing big, but it’ll be free food, and me and Alya want to save up so we can buy our own shop. I made myself a suit and everything. Sorry, man, I just didn’t think.”
Adrien swallows down his disappointment. “No, it’s okay, just because I’m not going to go doesn’t mean you have to stay. Go have fun, you deserve it after all the work you’re doing here, right?”
Nino frowns again. “I’m sorry. Maybe the next one, huh?”
“Yeah, totally,” says Adrien, although they both know that the next ball will see Adrien in the palace watching the carriages go by below him, and the next one, and the next one, and the next… But it’s fine. He’s needed here, if only as a reminder to the city that Prince Adrien is the one that ruined their brief period of serenity.
He watches Nino leave, and tries not to feel too jealous.
There’s no point in even asking the King anymore. Gabriel will look at him as though Adrien has gone insane, and then he’ll laugh and wave off his son’s request with one gloved hand. Move on to more important matters.
Maybe the Mayor would stick up for him, but only because he has dreams of Chloè on the throne.
Annoyed and dejected, Adrien slinks along the corridors and up to his bedroom. He slams the door, just because he can and because nobody can hear him anyway, and pulls off his stupid, fancy dinner jacket, throwing it in the corner of the room with all the force he can muster.
Then he curls up on his balcony to look at the Bauz Mansion, up on the hill, all lights on and carriages rolling up to the gates. He reckons he can see Nino in the distance - of course, he can't, he's just fantasizing - but those two heads bobbing together, one red, one black - those could be Nino and Alya out for a good time.
And Adrien, here, wilting like a princess in a tower.
Ugh.
He sighs and rests his head on the cold stone pillar behind his back. His foot jumps in the air underneath him, and not for the first time, Adrien wonders idly what would happen if the railing was slippery, or his balance was off, and he tumbled to his death.
Maybe King Gabriel would feel revenge had been exacted, and stop punishing the city for Adrien’s birth.
However these thoughts are never any more than fantasy. It’s not like Adrien would ever throw himself from the balcony of the palace. Some poor peasant will have to mop up all the blood, right, and Adrien would hate for his lasting effect on the world to be a sad little bloodstain on the cobbles.
Hmph. Maybe just to be safe, he’ll slide off the railing. He doesn’t want to slip.
He doesn’t move.
It’s not much to ask, is it, really? Just one night at a ball.
Adrien buries his face in his hands, pressing the balls of his palms into his eyes until he sees stars. The pain is refreshing. He just wants to be anywhere but here.
“Hey!”
Out of all the people in Paris, of course Adrien had to be born the Prince, had to be born to a father incapable of love and a mother whose health deteriorated as quickly as the rift between the King and his son grew.
“Hey, kid, I can just float here forever, y’know. Got any food lying around? Say, cheese? Anything?”
Of course, he can’t -
Wait, what?
“Who’s there?” Adrien calls, eyes still closed. “Is that you, Cartelli?”
“Nah, kid, it’s me. Your… uh, fairy catmother. Catbrother. Your good friend that you haven’t met yet. Call me any of that, right? I’m here to make your dreams come true, provided you give me cheese. Camembert, preferrably, although I am partial to a little bit of Belgian Blue-”
Adrien’s eyes fly open to see the tiny, black demon floating in front of his eyes, tiny paws clasped together as it begins drifting off into a lovesick rant about food.
“What are you?”
The tiny demon, which to Adrien’s astonished eyes, looks quite like a kitten, adopts a pose of intense annoyance. “I’ll forgive you that momentary blip in conventional politeness, seeing as I can be quite surprising at first, but my name’s Plagg, kid, and I’m… well, call me a kwami. Plagg the kwami. High five!” The demon - the kwami - Plagg - holds out his tiny paw, and, bewildered, Adrien taps it with the tip of his index finger.
“Have I fallen asleep on the balcony?” Adrien asks, surprisingly calm.
Plagg shakes his (?) head. Hiis large, green eyes twinkle with anticipation. “Nah. I’ve been sent by the Powers That Be.”
“Powers That Be?” Adrien asks, nonplussed. Why has a tiny black demon (okay, kwami) arrived for him, the most privileged boy in all of Paris? All of France? What does Adrien possibly lack that other people don’t need more?
“Yeah, kid, Powers.” Plagg pokes Adrien’s cheek, then abruptly changes course. “What’s that on your hand?”
Adrien lifts his left hand, stretching out his fingers. His signet ring, proof of his birthright, is a slim silver band glimmering on his ring finger. “It’s just… I don’t know. Proof that I’m next to inherit the throne, I guess?”
“Boring,” Plagg whines. His green eyes twinkle, and Adrien may have known him for five seconds, but that look can’t lead to anything but trouble. “Hey, kid, you want to go to the ball?”
“Yeah?”
Before Adrien can stop him, Plagg flies at the ring at full speed, and Adrien hears a voice inside his head.
Well, now you can, kid!
***
It’s very late when Marinette finishes most of the housework. Secretly, even though her hopes have been crushed countless times before, she hopes Mayor Bourgeois and Chloè will allow her to come with them to the ball at the Baux Mansion. Maybe this time will be different?
Hah. As if.
With a heavy heart and the heavy weight of responsibility on her shoulders, she heaves the coal scuttle into her arms, ready to rebuild the fire in the the Mayor’s room, so that on his return there’ll be less for him to criticise.
Then, Marinette will make the pastry dough for tomorrow morning’s tea meeting with Mayor Bourgeois and another potential supporter for the re-election. Chloè will need her jam tartlets.
Then, she’ll dust around the drawing room, make sure the Bourgeois household will be perfect.
Then, finally then, she’ll go up to the attic room and watch the coaches rolling up the hill on the other side of the city, faint twinkling lights showing her the way to the Baux mansion, showing her where she could have been if only the fates had allowed.
It’s not much, but the thought of just sitting down and resting her legs gives her the extra strength she needs to store away the coal scuttle and begin the pastry.
It’s usually a task that she can finish quickly, but her mind keeps flickering to the sound of Chloè and Mayor Bourgeois rustling down the stairs and bustling into the carriage. She hears the horses breathing heavily, their silver jingling, the sound of the coachmen talking to each other. Marinette just wishes, she wishes she could go with them. She has an outfit. It would only be - she would only want an hour of spinning around the dancefloor, looking into the eyes of a tall, handsome stranger, nothing on her mind but the movement of her feet and the swing of her handmade dress.
After she’s finished dusting, her tired feet take her up the four staircases to the attic. She has to duck her head just to get through the door.
The spiderweb is gone; she left the window open earlier this morning, and with the wind the spider must have tumbled. Marinette frowns.
She wants to be anywhere but here.
On nights like these Marinette will pull out her special project from underneath the deflated mattress she sleeps on, and work until her eyes forcibly close and she falls with her head bowed into deep, blissfully dreamless sleep.
It’s a dress.
Even whenever her parents owned this house, and whenever it was the Royal bakery, Marinette had loved to sew. She made scarves and gloves and hats for everyone, for the little boy that came to visit sometimes, for her parents and the couriers that collected the baked goods.
And so she’d made herself a dress, beginning with the bodice, made from sewn-together pieces of dresses Chloè became bored with, stealing the beautiful fabrics from out of the rubbish piles. She made the skirt, the beautiful ruffled skirt, of the same sorts of things. The result was an oddly beautiful Frankenstein of a dress, red and black and a thousand colours in between.
She was finished. The lace stitching around the waist was just a little decoration she didn’t need, really.
She could dance the night away, wearing this, another’s hands on her waist as she spins around and around and around.
But she won’t.
She’ll never get the chance to.
She had her opportunity. It’s her fault, isn’t it, that the fire was set? That’s what Mayor Bourgeois has said her whole life, in quietly remorseful tones that nevertheless say it's true, and Marinette knows it’s true. It’s her first real memory, of running around the house yelling for her mother because the bread little Marinette tried to cook was in too long. It caught fire. And in the kitchen, where there was an open container of flour.
Flour, which is so very. very flammable.
Marinette watches the coaches through the streets, buries her head in the soft folds of her dress, and chokes on a painful sob.
“Oh, no, please don’t cry! I’m here, it’s me, oh, I can’t stand unhappiness.”
Marinette feels something feather-light brush against the corner of her eye, where water threatens to spill over, and jumps from the cushion in the windowsill to fall with a thud to the floorboards. She yelps, partly in pain, partly in shock.
“Hi there!” Waves the tiny, red-and-black thing in front of her eyes. “My name’s Tikki. Are you okay?”
“This is it,” Marinette says to her knees. “This is the end. I’ve finally fallen and hit my head too hard. Why did my brain come up with you, though? Are you a character from a book, or something?”
“I’m a kwami. I’m…” The little - what, kwami? - pulls on the two springing feelers protruding from her head, trying to think. “I’m sort of like your fairy godmother, but tiny and pink and I do magic far better than those silly, floaty creatures.”
“You do magic?” Marinette asks disbelievingly. She pushes the dress away from her to allow the little bug a place to rest.
Tikki lands on Marinette’s knees. “Do you want to go to the ball, Marinette?”
Marinette’s gaze travels from Tikki to the window. The Baux Mansion, one of hundreds like it, aglow in the darkness of the night, where Chloè and Madame Bourgeois will be dancing and socialising and having fun. “Do I?”
“Yes,” Tikki says sincerely.
“More than anything,” says Marinette, words getting stuck in her throat. Why would this little bug arrive to her, as opposed to any of the other thousands of people in far worse situations than Marinette?
For some reason Tikki is looking at her with sorrow in her big, blue eyes. “I can help, if you let me.”
“Oh.” Again, the word comes out as more of a gasp, hope that Marinette has kept strangled for so long.
Tikki points to Marinette’s ear. “Those are lovely, darling.”
“They were my mother’s,” whispers Marinette hoarsely.
“I can make them better, if you’ll let me,” Tikki replies in the same hushed tone, like gossipers in a church.
“I just want to go to the ball,” says Marinette. She’s ashamed of how desperate she sounds.
The words have barely left Marinette’s mouth before Tikki is flying at the earrings at top speed and everything vanishes in a flash of pink and red and black.
And so you shall, darling!