Work Text:
It was so unfair. How did Luka manage to look so calm after what he had just heard?
For Marinette, it was taking all of her remaining willpower not to completely crumble with the weight of this new secret.
Chat Noir. Adrien Agreste. The one she trusted more than anything… was also the one she loved more than anything. And now, opting not to utilize the power of second chances, she had to do her damnedest to keep them both safe from here on out.
“What made you change your mind, then?” Luka gently tilted his head, hand extended with the Snake Miraculous in his palm.
Because I’m madly selfish, something deep within her wanted to blurt out, and too much of a coward to deal with this situation responsibly. Because I’m still Marinette Dupain-Cheng under the Ladybug mask, and that girl wants to have her partner and love him too. Because it was too great a betrayal to his trust to act otherwise.
…Because I would never have believed I’m cut out to be Ladybug if I knew before exactly what the role would ask of me one day.
But through blue eyes threatening to break down into sobs, she instead generated some line about being able to better act as Guardian of the Miraculous if she knows how to find Chat Noir at any time, and the risk of Hawkmoth getting to them being minimal if the identity reveal isn’t mutual.
Luka didn’t offer her much more than a pensive nod in response, and Marinette grew baffled all over again at how he could stand it—how he could witness untold horrors and learn groundbreaking truths, often in timelines no one else remembered, and still find peace within himself at the end of the day.
For crying out loud, she had just broken Luka’s heart all over again because of Adrien—using Viperion as a tool to fuel her own selfishness—and still, Luka stood before her, concerned above all with her well-being, and not the burden she had now forced him to carry with her.
It was all so unfair.