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There was a nervous sort of energy thrumming beneath her skin. An anxious buzzing. Her sketchbook lay open and untouched on her lap. Her pencil tapped an agitated staccato against the page, eager to move, to create, but…there was nothing.
There hadn’t been anything for a while now.
Marinette pushed out a breath in a heavy sigh and looked up, her eyes staring listlessly out across the lawn of the Trocadéro. This place used to make her happy. Before.
The Trocadéro breathed life. It had always been an endless source of inspiration for her. She had lost track of how many hours, how many days she had spent on these very steps, filling sketchbook after sketchbook with countless designs inspired by the things she saw here.
There, by the fountains, were the tourists taking a selfie. Before, she would see their bright smiles and the play of water behind them and see swirling, dazzling skirts the palest shade of blue. André’s cart was parked at the top of the steps on the other side of the lawn, a line of couples already queueing up for their Sweetheart Ice Creams. Before, she would see the lovesick expressions and think of sweetheart necklines, pale pink dresses that would burn orange in the sunset and glow white with the moonlight. M. Ramier tossed breadcrumbs to his beloved pigeons a few benches away, a gaggle of kids giggling as they reached tiny hands into the bag to help. Before, she would see a little hood with kitty ears, or maybe even a frog with wide, innocent eyes staring from the top of unruly curls.
But that was before.
This place used to make her happy.
Now, it just made her sad.
She had filled entire sketchbooks on these very same steps. Before.
Now, she was struggling to fill a single page.
Before, she had hidden behind that column, waiting for the perfect opportunity to tell Adrien how she really felt. And when he had actually offered her a ride home, she had blundered something about couscous and waved him on. Before, she had sat in her room with the girls and plotted and schemed time after time how she would one day track down André with Adrien and get a Sweetheart Ice Cream together. When they finally had, all she could remember was how their flavors hadn't matched, the combinations not complementing each other at all. Before, she had dreamt and hoped of first dates and hamsters and three kids in a future that seemed so certain, if only she could speak. And once she finally had spoken…
Loving Adrien Agreste had always been exhausting. She didn’t know why she had expected that to change once they had actually started dating.
Her fingers tightened around her pencil, stopping the incessant tapping. Her eyes burned, and she narrowed them in an effort to keep from crying. She wasn’t going to cry today. She had promised herself that.
She looked back at the blank page, her pencil still hovering. This was stupid. She had a job to do. A commission…well, a favor to complete. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Adrien, not anymore. She had wasted enough time thinking about Adrien the past few years.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. She hesitated only a moment before pulling it out.
JC: Hey.
JC: How goes it?
Marinette bit her lip. Her thumbs hovered as uncertainly as her pencil. There was nothing for Juleka, either.
JC: Band practice 2day. U coming?
No. She didn’t think she was.
…she hadn’t been to band practice in a while, either.
JC: It’s just Ivan wants 2 c the new costumes.
JC: …we all do.
Her page was still blank.
The showcase they needed the costumes for was only a few weeks away.
She had nothing.
Her phone buzzed again, making her jump.
LC: ignore her. take your time.
Her gut twisted.
LC: we’ll still be here when you’re ready.
LC: our current costumes are FINE.
LC: no rush.
She was still staring blankly at the screen, blinking against the burn of tears in her eyes, when another message came through.
LC: …i don’t want to ask if you’re ok. you don’t have to say. you know that.
LC: …but are you ok?
She almost threw her phone down the steps. Instead, she muted it and shoved it deep inside her bag.
…she was a terrible person.
She had been avoiding all of them: Juleka, Rose, Ivan, Luka…especially Luka. It was easier to avoid Ivan, who didn’t go to the same school as them anymore. It was harder to avoid Juleka and Rose when they shared most of their seconde classes together. Luka was…harder, in a way, to avoid. She went to his school now. They didn’t have any classes together, but they almost always had lunch with him and his friends. He hadn’t been sitting next to her lately, not like he used to, but that left the only other spot at the table across from her, and she knew he spent most of their lunch period watching her. When she’d bothered showing up instead of hiding out in an art room. She always felt his eyes on her in the hall between classes, too. He hovered on the periphery, like her pencil over the blank page. Close enough that she knew he was there and concerned, but always respectful of her wishes.
He knew she needed time.
He knew how guilty she felt about…
Just like she knew he didn’t.
That’s probably what made it all worse.
She was the one who had chosen Adrien, even as she had been getting closer and closer with Luka. She was the one who had kept Luka in the background, a constant presence in her life, between time spent at the Liberty, time spent with the band, and time spent just because they were friends. She was the one who always went to Luka with her problems, simply because he let her and he cared. She was the one who had taken advantage of that, in the end.
…she was the one who had broken his heart, even as she was breaking her own. Even if he would never tell her that – even if he didn’t see it like that – she knew that to be the case.
She had never stopped Adrien from his open affections around the older boy, after all. She had never tried to keep Luka away from the disaster that was quickly becoming the good ship Adrienette. She was friends with Luka, after all, and so was Adrien, so even if Luka was in love with her he would be happy for his friends, right? That’s what she had told herself, at least. That’s what she’d tried to believe, even as time drug on and she realized more and more that Adrien had never really been in love with her, anyway. Not the part of her she needed him to be.
Things were supposed to be easier when they revealed their identities. Instead, it just ended up being one more thing Master Fu had been right about. One more mistake she had made.
Her hand fisted around the spine of her sketchbook again, and with a frustrated cry she threw her pencil down the steps. She curled in on herself, hugging her knees and taking deep, steadying breaths.
Adrien didn’t love her. He never had.
And she was starting to think she had never really loved him, either.
So why did it still hurt so bad?
“Marinette?”
She froze, her fingers digging painfully hard into her sides. Probably hard enough to bruise. She knew that voice.
…she had been avoiding that voice, too.
“Are ye all right, lass?” Anarka Couffaine asked, kneeling onto the step beside her and laying a heavy hand on her shoulder. She was sure it was supposed to be comforting. Right then it just felt suffocating.
She nodded mutely, and under the Captain’s scrutinizing look she opened her mouth, tried for an affirmative, and found she couldn’t lie to her. So she bit her lip, looked back at the blank page, and shook her head. The Captain squeezed her shoulder with a heavy sigh, and with a heavier plop she sat on the step beside her. Marinette blinked when she held her pencil out to her.
“Ye dropped this,” she said, as easily as if she was commenting on the weather. As if she hadn’t seen Marinette throw the pencil down the steps just a second ago.
“I…thank you,” Marinette mumbled. The Captain hummed and looked out across the Trocadéro.
“I’m surprised t’see ye here,” she said. “Thought ye’d be aboard me ship fer practice. Though I s’ppose ye haven’t been by in a fair bit, eh?”
She chuckled, but there wasn’t much humor in it. It rattled like ice along Marinette’s spine.
She used to feel so comfortable around the Captain. Around all of them. The Couffaines were of a special ilk, one that breathed chaos but within the maelstrom offered acceptance and warmth. A safe harbor in the raging storm of their lives. The Liberty breathed life just as much as the Trocadéro, and if she was honest with herself the last place Marinette had truly felt inspired was aboard the boat. She missed that, but she couldn’t go back there. Not yet.
The Captain heaved another sigh at Marinette’s silence. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
“I know what’s happened, lass,” she sighed, looking down at her hands and fiddling with her rings. The gesture was comforting and familiar, one she had seen on Luka countless times. It was safe. “More or less. I know what me bairns have told me.”
“…and what did they tell you?” Marinette asked quietly, her hands gripping her sketchbook so tight her knuckles blanched. She waited for the rebuke, the Captain’s wrath and ire for how callously she’d treated her b’y, but she just hummed, spinning a ring again.
“I know Adrien came by fer band practice last week and left with a black eye,” she finally said. She sounded so calm for how the words slammed into Marinette, like she was doing nothing more than commenting on M. Ramier’s new hat. “The b’y wanted advice from Luka. On how t’win ye back. Whatever he told me son, I don’t think Luka liked it very much. The Agreste b’y is no longer part o’ the band.”
Despite herself, Marinette felt a small smile struggling to break through. It seemed Adrien was losing a lot of things in his life lately. That shouldn’t make her feel as good as it did.
But there was a part of her that was still trying to be nice. Kind. To admit that it wasn’t just Adrien’s fault, what had happened.
…she never should have agreed to date him when she was still so confused.
“I also know ye’re through with the lad and that ye have no inkling of restarting things,” the Captain continued. She snorted derisively, and Marinette couldn’t stop the surprised look from crossing her face. “Tch. Good riddance, lass. The b’y is useless. Calling me sunroom an atrium. Tch. Like we’re some fancy mansion and not a simple sailing vessel.”
Marinette bit her lip and looked back down at her sketchbook. Her cheeks were pinching with the need to smile, and from the corner of her eye she saw the Captain glance at her, catch her expression, and smile herself. The Captain heaved another sigh and reached out, clapping a hand on Marinette’s knee and giving it a firm squeeze.
“I know ye don’t want t’hear this right now, but ye’re better off, lass,” she said, and just like that the smile was gone. Marinette’s gut twisted again, her fingers clamping around the edges of her book. The Captain was right. She didn’t want to hear it.
Marinette had been avoiding the boat specifically for this reason. The Couffaines would only try and make her feel better, and right then she didn’t want to feel better. Right then, she had to feel the hurt. She had to feel it to get through it.
And Marinette desperately wanted to get through it.
There wasn’t anything kind or respectful Marinette could say to her, and while she knew the Captain wouldn’t care – would probably even encourage a well-placed swear or rage-fueled rant – Marinette still respected her too much to be mean to her. It wasn’t the Captain’s fault everything had gone so pear-shaped, after all. It wasn’t fair to be cruel to Anarka Couffaine just because she was hurting. Not when the Captain had never been anything but kind.
She should be cruel to herself.
Because, ultimately, that’s who she blamed. Herself. Everything that had happened since the breakup – and everything that had led up to that night and the weeks that followed – was, in the end, her fault.
She had had her reservations about dating Adrien, in the beginning. She had blown every chance of confessing her feelings to him in collège, and when they had ended up at different lycée…whatever hard-won closeness they’d had before had quickly dissolved. And Luka had always been…well, Luka: so easy to talk to, so warm and comforting, so there. There had always been an attraction from that first day on the boat, one that had only grown the closer they got. And Chat…she had always looked at Chat Noir as a good friend and trusted partner, but there had never been any romantic feelings for him. Not really. But when the masks had come off and Adrien had been standing in Chat’s place…and Chat had always been in love with Ladybug. It had seemed silly not to try. Adrien was everything she had wanted for the better part of three years, and Ladybug had always been everything Chat had ever wanted, so…surely they could make it work? Didn’t they at least owe it to themselves to try?
Her girlfriends had certainly seemed to think so, when Adrien had finally asked Marinette out. Even Luka had been supportive, in that way he had always wanted her happiness more than his own. And everyone in the city expected Ladybug and Chat Noir to live happily ever after, right?
That had been her mistake, in the end. Because Marinette wasn’t Ladybug, or at least she wasn’t just Ladybug. And all Adrien seemed to want was Ladybug.
Things had been fine, at first. In the beginning. Sure, they’d had to sneak around, but she had expected that. Gabriel Agreste had always been on the more controlling side of strict parents. Adrien had had to sneak around when he was dating Kagami, and he’d always had to sneak around even to hang out with Nino. She had expected no less from him when it came to their own relationship. But…the longer they were together, the more Adrien’s Chat started to show. The less she was able to view him in a romantic light. The more she felt nothing when he kissed her. And then Gabriel had found out, and he’d actually seemed excited that his son was dating such a talented aspiring designer, and Adrien had…hated it. Maybe even more than she had. Gabriel Agreste controlled everything else in Adrien’s life. Controlling his dating life as well had caused the dwindling spark to be snuffed out completely, even if Adrien would never admit it. Not if it meant admitting he’d been wrong about Ladybug and Chat Noir being Destined Soulmates.
So she’d admitted it for him.
In the end, they had barely made it a month.
…in the end, Adrien hadn’t needed a girlfriend. He’d needed a mother. That was something Marinette would never be able to give him. That was something no one but his actual mother should ever be expected to give him. He wasn’t hers to fix, and it was unfair of him to expect that of her – even if he didn’t realize that’s what he’d been doing.
She had sought out Luka more and more, towards the end. Luka had always been a sounding board. An anchor she could cling to when everything else got to be Too Much. And she had taken advantage of that, but he had also let her. All he had ever done was love her, and a part of her had been a little desperate for that. It was a different kind of love from what Adrien had been able to give her, and perhaps that had been the problem. In the end.
“…why don’t you break up with him?” Luka asked, his soft voice painfully loud in the silence of the room. Her cries had petered out at some point, but she still clung to him like…like she really had no right to be clinging to him, not when she still bore the title of Adrien Agreste’s Girlfriend. “He doesn’t make you happy, Marinette.”
Luka bent over her, curling around her and holding her tighter. His warm breath ghosted along her ear, his nose pressed into her hair.
“I didn’t let you go so you could be miserable, Mari,” he whispered, the words barely louder than a sigh, and that was all it took to break her. She pulled away from him, blue eyes locking with blue as she searched for something that had always been there. Something she knew she’d find but had always shied away from.
Luka Couffaine had always loved her, more than she felt she’d deserved and more than she’d let herself admit.
Maybe that’s what made it so easy to forget the boy who supposedly held her heart. Maybe that’s what made it so easy to tug Luka towards her, to crash her mouth against his in a desperate meeting of lips and teeth, to kiss him like she had never been able to kiss Adrien.
…but it was also what made it so easy to jerk away, to splutter out an apology she didn’t really mean, and leave him in a daze as she ran from the boat. From him.
She hadn’t been back to the Liberty since that night.
She had met Chat Noir on a rooftop not half an hour later, and it was on that rooftop the good ship Adrienette had finally sunk for good.
And Luka had…Luka had been wonderful, as he always was. He’d sent her a text that same night – it had been waiting on her phone when she’d returned from meeting with Adrien – to make sure she was ok. To ask if they could talk. To let her know that he was there, if she needed him.
She hadn’t had the courage to tell him she’d always need him. Or…anything, really, as she’d ultimately left the text unanswered, but especially that.
She’d started avoiding him at school the next day. It hadn’t taken him long to get the message, and though she could tell he wanted nothing more than to pull her into a corner and hold her and tell her it was all going to be ok…he had kept his distance, too. Given her time. Even if it was the last thing he wanted, he had done it. He was…he was too good like that.
Glancing at the Captain, who had grown uncharacteristically quiet beside her, she wondered if she knew about the kiss. If she knew what had happened that night. She wondered if she’d still be so kind if she did.
The silence dragging on between them was starting to get uncomfortable. Marinette wasn’t used to the Captain being so still. It made her nervous, seeing someone usually so full of life so quiet. Nervous enough that when a loud, crisp popping – the cap snapping off a cold glass bottle – disrupted that silence she jumped hard enough that her sketchbook tumbled to the steps between them. They both looked down as the Captain raised the bottle to her lips. It had fallen open to a page featuring Luka’s new mask, or what was supposed to be Luka’s new mask. It had ended up being a very detailed drawing of his smiling face instead.
When the Captain offered her a sip of her drink, she chugged it so quickly she started coughing. The Captain only laughed as she clapped a hand against her back.
“Easy, lass,” she said, smiling. She picked up Marinette’s sketchbook and folded the paper back to a blank page without comment. Marinette tried to smile and handed the bottle back to her. The juice had been fizzy and tasted tropical. It suited the Captain.
“I’m sorry,” she said, closing the sketchbook and setting it down beside her. She sighed and laid her hands on her knees, flexing her fingers in a way she’d seen Luka do when he had too much nervous energy and no guitar to relieve it with. “I…I’ve been kind of a wreck lately.”
“Understandable,” the Captain said with a nod. “These things take time, lass. Broken hearts don’t heal overnight. Anyone who’d expect that o’ ye clearly never had a heart themselves.”
“…what’s that say about me, then, if I expected it of myself?” she asked quietly. The Captain chuckled and offered her the drink again. She shook her head in a polite refusal.
“It says ye be human,” she said, shrugging as she took a swig. “It says ye want t’be through it. He was yer first, aye?”
Marinette wondered what it said about her that all she could do was shrug. The Captain leveled her with a knowing look, and she hung her head before picking at the cuffs of her capris.
“He was yer first,” the Captain said. Marinette looked up, frowning as her eyes roamed over the plaza before them. It was a beautiful day. A normal day. She hated that she didn’t feel very normal.
“He was…what was expected,” Marinette finally said. When the Captain raised a bushy eyebrow over her red glasses, Marinette sighed and toed the steps before her. “Did you know, when he first joined our class, I kind of hated him? I didn’t even know him. All I knew was that he was Chloé’s friend, and that was enough to know I wouldn’t like him. But then…then he was nice to me, and I…I got so stupid over one kind gesture. I didn’t even know him, but I was convinced I was in love with him.”
“The heart be funny that way, sometimes,” the Captain chuckled. Marinette pursed her lips and shook her head.
“I still didn’t know him when we started dating, not really,” she sighed. “It’s like…it’s like there was the Adrien in my head, the one I was convinced was perfect and I was destined to be with, but then there was…Adrien. And Adrien wasn’t as perfect as I had always made him out to be. He wasn’t real.”
“And there be the rub,” the Captain said. Marinette sighed, nodding.
“There be the rub,” she agreed. “Adrien was my first big crush, but…can I honestly call him my first love? I don’t know if I ever actually loved him. Not like I love…”
She stopped, her mouth snapping shut with a click of her teeth. The Captain’s eyebrow lifted again, and Marinette’s grip tightened on her knees. The Captain looked back out over the Trocadéro and finished her drink. When the bottle was empty, she leaned forward and hung it between her knees, spinning it idly by the mouth for something to busy her hands with.
It was something Marinette couldn’t help but notice, the way the older woman couldn’t seem to sit still even while being still. The way excess energy seemed to thrum through her like a plucked string, constantly moving and going and being. It was something Luka shared with her – something Marinette shared with her. It was also something she had never noticed in Adrien, who was so used to rules and keeping his place and had never been filled to bursting with a creative desire so strong you just had to get it out or you’d explode.
She wondered if that was her answer, right there. If you were supposed to fit with your Person, why had she never fit with Adrien?
“First loves be tricky like that,” the Captain finally said, tapping the glass bottle against the stone steps. The sound reminded Marinette of her bangles, the clicking of her rings, of wind chimes glinting in the sun as they moved with the breeze. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, pulling it into her lungs and holding it there until it burned. “Me first was a useless lagabout. Still. Gave me two wonderful bairns, so he can’t be all bad.”
Marinette started at that, her eyes popping open as she turned back towards the Captain. The Captain’s eyes were crinkling around the edges with her smile, distant and warm as she looked out over the milling crowd. She knew about…of course she did. When the Captain had finally come clean with Luka, after that akuma had forced the truth from her…Marinette had been the first person Luka had gone to. But even then, the Captain had always played those cards so close to her chest. She never spoke about Luka and Juleka’s father, not if she had any choice in it. He was part of her past, and the Captain had always been more focused on moving forward.
Marinette said nothing. She didn’t know what she could say. For her part, the Captain just tapped a slow, tinkling beat on the glass bottle with her rings. The silence continued to stretch, but there was nothing uncomfortable about it. The Captain would talk when she was ready, just as she knew Marinette would.
“It’s funny, when ye’re young,” she finally said, her fingers still tapping at the bottle like she was picking at old strings. “Ye think in such strict, narrow ways. Life be in black and whites, and ye can’t imagine it being any other way ‘til one day…it is. Ye think ye be meant fer one person. That one person be yer fate, yer destiny, and no one else will possibly compare. Could possibly take that place.”
A group of kids ran by, screaming and laughing as they disrupted a group of pigeons. She expected M. Ramier to yell at them – to see a purple butterfly flapping its way across the sky – but he just laughed and offered more crumbs to the little girl with the yellow shorts. She ran over to the spot where the pigeons were regathering, tossing the crumbs out for them and giggling as they cooed.
“But a heart’s a big place, Marinette,” the Captain said, smiling as a breeze blew through her hair. She closed her eyes and breathed it in, her fingers stilling on the bottle. “Bigger an’ stronger than ye could ever dream. Big as the sea, lass. There’s room enough fer a world o’ love there – and a world o’ hurt.”
Marinette swallowed and looked back at her knees. Her heart didn’t feel very big just then. It felt…fragile.
“A part o’ ye loved him, I reckon,” the Captain continued. Marinette pursed her lips, but the Captain just smiled. “Enough t’try and love him, at least. As best ye knew how. Ye’ve been chasing him a long time, lass.”
“…I was confused for a long time,” she insisted. She swallowed, blue eyes flashing in her mind. “And I hurt a lot of people because of it.”
“Ye ever hear how love be a battlefield?” the Captain chortled. “Lovers rarely leave unscathed. Look at Jagged and me, lass. We can hardly speak t’the other these days.”
Marinette looked at her, her eyebrows furrowing, but the Captain was still staring out across the lawn. There was a sad little smile on her face as she tapped her bottle against the steps again.
“…but there be love there, once,” she hummed. She glanced at Marinette with a smile. “Some days there still be. When I look at our bairns. Have I ever told ye how we met? That good fer nothing pirate and me?”
She shook her head, because no, she hadn’t. She wasn’t even sure the Captain had ever told Luka that story, at least…not that he’d shared with her. The Captain hummed and looked back out over the Trocadéro. M. Ramier was packing up his things for the day, but the girl in the yellow shorts was still holding his bag of breadcrumbs and prattling off a million questions. The group of tourists had moved on, but André’s line was as long as ever. Somewhere on the streets beyond, a horn blared at something. A young man had laid down a mat and a speaker a bit down the plaza, and he was breakdancing for money. The Captain closed her eyes and breathed it all in, much like she had moments before.
“Ye know I dinnae hail from France,” she finally said, her eyes still closed and a blissful smile on her face. Marinette nodded, even if she couldn’t see it. Some part of her felt the Captain could probably sense it, though.
“Luka said your family’s from Scotland?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure. As if Luka might have been mistaken. The Captain nodded.
“Aye. A wee town in the Hebrides. Jagged – Jacob, back then – went to me school,” she said. Marinette’s nose wrinkled.
“…I thought Jagged was from New York?” she asked. The Captain chuckled and nodded again.
“Aye,” she said. “We went t’boarding school, lass. T’was the closest school t’me farm, and his parents be hoping it would…straighten him out, so t’speak. If ye think he be wild now…”
Marinette couldn’t stop the snort that escaped her, thinking of a Teen Jagged and his parents’ absurd notion that anything would be able to ‘straighten him out’. The Captain’s smile grew as she tapped her bottle.
“I was mad fer him, lass,” she said, her smile softening. “Back then. All I knew a’fore that b’y was me farm and me village and…he showed me life could be so much…bigger. Better. We dropped out final year. Left it all behind fer the music. It was, at the time, me grandest adventure.”
Her smile grew slowly as her eyes slid across the steps to rest on her. She dipped her head as her eyebrows once again lifted over her glasses.
“But, me darling girl, t’was not me only adventure. Ken?” she asked, her rings tapping against the glass. Marinette swallowed and looked back at her knees. At her hip, she could feel a buzzing in her purse, but she ignored it. The Captain sighed and turned back to the Trocadéro. “Jacob Stone taught me many a thing, Marinette. More’n anything, though…he taught me me true love be me freedom. That I be made more fer the leaving than the staying – and, that being said, some things…some people be worth staying for. Even if ye don’t always stay.”
“I can’t…” Marinette started, and when the Captain hummed she shook her head. The laugh that escaped her was waterier than she had expected. “I can’t imagine Jagged Stone in a stuffy uniform. It’s so not rock-n-roll.”
The Captain barked out a laugh, her head tipping back as she dropped her bottle. It rolled away, clanging against the steps as it went.
“Me darling girl!” she crowed. “Why d’ye think he left?”
They laughed until her sides hurt, until tears were pooling in her eyes and spilling over and she was crying, great heaving sobs that found the Captain shushing her as she gathered her into her arms. She held her close as she cried, and Marinette clung to her like she would her own mother. The Captain cooed and rubbed her back, telling her it would be all right – that everything would be all right, that she needed to let it out, that it was all fine.
It didn’t feel fine.
Not just then.
But…it also felt like maybe it could be. One day.
“Adrien never loved me,” she finally said, clinging tightly to the Captain’s great coat. She hummed, still rubbing her back, but she did not say anything. She just waited for her to continue. Patient. Kind. Understanding. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “And that…that’s ok, because I don’t think I ever loved him, either. I think…I think I was confused, and by the time I realized how I really felt…everyone just expected me to be with him…and…and…”
She was hiccoughing, and the Captain shushed her as she patted her back.
“It’s all right, lass, t’will all be all right,” she sighed. “He said he did, ye know. Love ye. Tis what he told me b’y, at least.”
She was sure he did, because just like she was sure she’d never actually loved him Adrien had always been sure he loved Ladybug. Which is probably what he’d said, right before Luka had…God, had Luka actually punched him…?
“I think he loved an idea of me. One he’d been holding on to for too long,” she sighed as she sunk into her. “But that idea wasn’t me. I don’t think he ever really saw me, not like…” Luka, she thought, because Luka had always seen her, “…but I don’t think I ever really saw him, either.”
“The heart sees what it wants, lass,” the Captain said. She swallowed as she pushed her face into her chest, suddenly afraid to face her. “Sometimes it don’t be giving ye a say in what that be.”
“I didn’t love him,” she said softly. “I couldn’t have. And I think what I feel worst about is that I don’t feel bad about it. I know he’s hurting. I know he wants to fix things, but there was never anything to fix in the first place. And if I did love him, how could I feel that way? How could I…”
…how could I go to Luka? How could I kiss Luka when I was supposed to be kissing Adrien? How could I not see it in the first place?
…how can I trust I love Luka when I was so sure I loved Adrien? How do I know I’m not just confused again?
“Ye may not have loved him, me darling girl, not like ye love…not like ye’ll love yer someone,” the Captain said softly, her hand stroking through her hair, “but that ye can care this much about hurting him says a great deal about how ye do love him, and that be fine. Ye care, lass. He will always be someone ye cared for, once upon a time.”
She swallowed as she pressed closer to her. She took a deep breath, and then she let it go. Slowly, counting each second, just like Luka had taught her.
“…how do I know it’s real, then?” she finally whispered, her fingers twisting in the fabric of her coat. “How can I trust myself to know the next time will be real and not just…me messing things up again?”
“Oh, me darling girl,” the Captain laughed, bending over her to press a kiss to the crown of her head. She squeezed her tight in a hug that reminded her of her papa, and that made her hold on even tighter. “Ye’ll know, lass. Ye’ll know.”
She pressed another kiss to her hair, and then leaned down to her ear to whisper: “…it’s always real, me girl, until it’s not.”
She sucked in a breath, and the Captain chuckled as she held her tight. They stayed like that for a long moment, the world passing slowly around them. Another group of tourists passed through, this one louder than the last. The younger kids cleared out with their families to be replaced by older teens and people heading home from work. André continued to sing in the background, drawing happy couples to his cart. After a long moment, where the Captain honestly started to think Marinette had cried herself to sleep, there was a buzzing in the pocket of her great coat. She patted Marinette’s back and reached for it.
“…are ye feeling a wee bit better, lass?” she asked. Marinette nodded slowly.
“Actually…yeah,” she said, pulling away to smile up at her. “A little. Thank you.”
“Any time, love,” she said, smiling as she patted her cheek. “Now. I was on me way t’drink Officer Roger under the table when I saw ye here, and I’m afraid I’ll be late if I don’t get a move on. But, me dear, please…take the time ye need. Feel what ye must. But dinnae forgot there still be those who worry and care fer ye.”
Her hand was still on her cheek, and she brushed a thumb beneath Marinette’s eye as she smiled at her.
“Dinnae be a stranger, aye?” she asked, smiling gently at her. She tapped her thumb against her cheek and tossed her a wink. “I think I know another pirate who be worried sick about ye, ken?”
Marinette found herself laughing as she reached up and scrubbed at her eyes. She nodded, and when she looked up at the Captain her smile felt easier.
“Ken,” she said.
“There’s a lass,” the Captain chortled, and she patted her shoulder before hoisting herself up. She walked off down the steps, her hands stuffed in her pockets and whistling as she went. Marinette felt herself relaxing as she watched her go, and when she closed her eyes and took a deep breath in…she actually did feel a little better. Her phone buzzed again, and she reached into her purse to pull it out.
LC: no practice today.
LC: i’m ‘too moody to be fun’, apparently.
She bit down on her lip, fighting the smile that wanted to spread. She couldn’t imagine Luka being moody.
LC: rescheduled for tomorrow, if you want to come.
She checked the time and sent a quick text to her parents. She quickly gathered her things, stuffing them in her bag, and looked up as a laughing shriek echoed across the steps. Over by André, a boy had just scooped a girl up in a hug and was spinning her around. Her laugh rang out like bells, and if Marinette closed her eyes she could see metallic discs sewn into the hem of a flowing skirt, tinkling together as the skirt floated out around them. Her fingers itched for her pencil, but her feet itched with something more.
It wasn’t a long walk to the Seine, especially if you weren’t actually walking. She burst onto the street that ran along the river in a flat run, and it wasn’t long before the grinning face of her favorite boat came into view. She slowed to a walk when she saw him sitting on a crate on the prow, his back to her as he leaned against the rail. She couldn’t hear it, but she could see his guitar in his lap.
The rest of the deck looked clear. The stage was, at least. She wondered if Juleka and Rose were still below deck or if they had left after calling practice.
He tipped his head back, and even from the shore she could see the twisted expression on his face. The little furrow of his brow and turn of his lips. It…didn’t make her happy, seeing him look so…so…sad.
She didn’t want Luka to be sad.
She never wanted Luka to be sad.
She wanted…she…
“Luka!” she called before she could chicken out. He jumped, his guitar clattering to the deck as he twisted to face her. And when he saw her, his face split with a smile that, somehow, made it seem like everything really was going to be ok after all. She smiled nervously as she waved. “Permission to come aboard?”
He sook his head, chuckling as he waved her over.
“…get the hell over here,” he called, and her smile grew as she ran to the gangway. He was waiting for her when she hopped the gate, and he laughed as he caught her. Her arms and legs wrapped around him, and he hummed as he held her close. He dropped a kiss on her shoulder, almost on her neck, and she shivered against him. “I’ve missed you.”
And maybe…maybe it was that easy. Because hugging Luka – Luka hugging her -felt right. She didn’t feel confused about that. She felt…she felt…
“Yeah,” she murmured, tucking her face against his neck. “I missed you, too.”
…she felt like home.