Archive of Our Own ^beta

How… How many times has this happened now?

How many times had Gabriel Agreste been right under her and Cat Noir’s nose?!

How many times had Gabriel evaded her…

And all for this…

All for Adrien…?

Marinette shuddered to think of it, but she could understand why. She’d have gone to the moon and back should Adrien ask.

The Agreste mansion was crumbling beneath them, the only positive now was that Marinette had him backed into a corner…

But.. if he meant it… if what he was saying was true… then maybe there was another way to end this.

“There’s no such thing as a perfect wish…”

There would always be a price to pay, and if Marinette could help it, it wouldn’t be a catastrophic cause…

But… just as there is no perfect wish, there were many other solutions. They’d leave wounds far too deep, but they’d heal, and what was Ladybug but a miraculous healer?

There would always be another, more humane solution… one door closes, another opens.

“…Venom!”

And Gabriel chose to abandon all of them.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t react.

But oh, how she thought.

Marinette’s mind cycled through every last moment of her life after she donned the Ladybug earrings and became Paris’s savior. 

She walked through every minute she held out her hand to those struggling, to those freed from Hawk Moth — Gabriel’s control. She remembered each time she leant out jewel after jewel to her friends…

She couldn’t react… but the feeling coursing through her very heartbeat… was a long time coming. A dull, bitter numbness beat itself into her bloodstream and reached every single corner of her soul, and it was only then as her unmoving eyes and frozen body bore witness to the true power of the kwamis that she realized something…

She gave too much.

She always did.

To be Ladybug was to be self-sacrificing. To keep Paris free from akumatized victims, Ladybug would have to keep herself together…

Plaster on a camera friendly smile and she could continue to wear layer after layer of masks and secrets, pretending everything was okay…

Marinette felt her body jerk forwards and collapse against an invisible wall of light as she grit her teeth. Every single nerve was shaking with all the rage and pent up emotion she’d never been allowed to feel, to express, to let it all happen… all because of him…

She considered herself to be a kind, forgiving person… but…

But this… this was the thing that broke the confident and put together spirit of Ladybug… and destroyed Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s hope that there was innate good in all living beings…

What she was looking at right now…

“Marinette, make sure that Adrien never knows about the villain that I was, but instead, that he remembers the times I tried to be a good father.”

…was nothing more than a cold, heartless, monster.

“How… dare you?!” The words ripped from her throat before she could think, but Marinette didn’t care. “If this really was all for Adrien, you would have stopped long before this went too far! You would’ve stopped and actually tried to better yourself for your family’s sake!!!”

“You don’t understand, you never can. I have nothing else to lose, Marinette. I can’t live without her… it would be too difficult for me to carry on longer than I already have.”

This man’s excuses bounced off Marinette’s heart like it was a flimsy arrow hitting a suit of armor. He couldn’t sway her anymore, with or without that brooch.

“So Adrien truly meant nothing to you…!!” She hissed. “He was just another setback in your quest to feed on everyone’s fear, despair and pain for your sick little power trip!! This was never about Adrien or saving your family, this was about you getting what you wanted and you wanted nothing more than to see innocent people suffer!!! I should’ve known Hawk Moth and you were one in the same a lot sooner… you’re both MONSTERS!!” 

Gabriel’s expression hardened, and there was that same ever so malicious smile that Marinette would see on her arch nemesis. On Hawk Moth.

“You may see me as a monster now… but you won’t, not for long.”

Marinette’s heart was racing with righteous fury, so much so that she didn’t notice her legs beginning to shake from the sheer exhaustion of all of this. “I’m going… to make sure…” she breathed, venom coating her every word. “That every second of every day after this… that Adrien knows how much you despised him. To reset the world all because you couldn’t move on… You’re a coward, Hawk Moth. From the beginning to end…”

The end was here… and it laid in front of her as Tikki and Plagg’s true forms had been revealed, and Marinette could only watch in horrified silence as an incomprehensible being — the embodiment of reality itself, Gimmi, took form.

Gabriel didn’t say anything more to her, turning back to the kwami. “I want to make a wish.”

Gimmi’s many eyes narrowed, as if annoyed. “Of course you do. You humans never seem to summon me for anything else. What do you wish for?”

“Read my heart.”

“What do you sacrifice?”

“Read my soul.”

Then… nothing. Nothing? It wasn’t resetting?

One look forwards, and Marinette saw something that she knew she’d delighted in.

Gabriel was staggering backwards in fear, and looked to be coughing weakly.

The kwami of reality faced down the butterfly villain, and a deep drone echoed across the aether they were trapped in, perhaps a sigh, the entity spoke. “Your wish is denied. There are factors of reality which cannot change. I have read your heart, I have read your soul, and all I see is a being without compassion. I feel a pure heart, but it is not yours…” Gimmi directed their light enveloped beings' attention to the girl beside him.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, what is your wish?”

The question shouldn’t have been hard to answer… it really shouldn’t have… but yet, here she was. Wondering what, exactly, she wanted…

What she wanted… she wanted none of this to have never happened. She wanted to stop this before it began…

“Read my heart.”

The entity looked down at her, their face too bright to discern expression, but the approximation of saddened eyes met her.

“…understood. What is your sacrifice?”

Marinette looked over to the shaking monster in white that was Gabriel Agreste, wracked by cataclysm wounds and a breath away from death’s door… good. Let him take his last. He doesn’t deserve to live in whatever world would be reignited from this ruined one’s embers…

Marinette glared at him, then looked up at Gimmi, and spoke. “Read my soul.”

A drone, an exhalation, from the god above her filled her being, as if they were trying to steady themself.

“Are you certain this is what you wish for?”

Marinette’s gaze fell to the ground, palming the lucky charm in her pocket. This was the only way… it would be fine.

“…Yes. I’m sure.”

“So be it!”

Marinette let go of the lucky charm, and turned her head away as it hit the ground, and shattered…

And, just like that, Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s love and memories of Adrien Agreste and all her friends were reduced to nothing. Just as the universe would be.

Marinette sat up with one last snore, shaking her head as she tried to get the sleep out of her eyes.

Oh, great. She fell asleep working on something again.

She nearly smacked her head on the low support beams in her bedroom, feeling suddenly more cramped as she stumbled over to the chest with her clothes neatly folded up inside it.

Staring at the ground, Marinette felt her sense of being - her very center of existence and feeling present in her own reality, shift slightly.

She stilled in time, her heart racing a mile a minute but… why?

Why was she so scared…? What was this tightness in her chest…

Marinette looked down at her hand as she felt it trembling. This… wasn’t normal.

When she shut her eyes, she saw a brief flicker of a memory she hadn’t had before. A man in an all white suit. A deity before her. A coffin of secrets and lies. A twisted heart getting what he wants but…

But that was just a dream.

Breathe, Marinette. You’re okay.

Marinette inhaled, digging out her clothes for the day. The same adventurous vest and shorts combo. The gloves she’d made herself to save the trouble of more scraped hands at the cost of technicolor bandages decorating her fingers.

I’m okay.

Everything…

She exhaled as she finished tying her hair back into their usual pigtails, then slipped on her gloves.

Everything… is okay.

“Good morning Maman!” She said, looking down at their apartment and that strange sensation pricking the back of her mind flickered away. Phew… just in time.

“Good morning, Marinette! Did you sleep well?”

“If you mean sleeping at my desk again, then yes.”

Sabine chuckled as she made breakfast, Marinette sitting at the kitchen table and wondering… why was it so quiet in here?

She wasn’t sure why, but something tugged at her memory again, like before when she was waking up.

“So, uh,” she wasn’t sure how she could phrase what she was thinking, so Marinette defaulted to the first question that popped into her head. “What’s your plan for today?”

“Well,” Sabine began, taking a spot next to her to eat. “I have a date with Sebastian today, so the shop is yours to manage...”

Marinette blinked mid bite of a strawberry crêpe, then swallowed her reaction… which did little to hide the unamused look on her face. “Oh.” Something about that sentence felt… wrong.

“Look, I know you don’t like him all that much, but he’s a good guy, Marinette. He’s giving our family a second chance at this whole self made business thing.”

“Hmm,” she crossed her arms, letting the answer sink in. It still didn’t feel right… but all Marinette could bring herself to ask at that moment was… why? “Alright, I guess…”

“Though, since our shop still doesn’t have enough set up to open yet…” the inflection in Sabine’s voice made Marinette look back, her posture relaxed. “Didn’t you have plans with your friends today?”

“Oh! Right!!” She stood up and pushed herself out of her chair, nearly tripping over one of its legs as she scrambled for the door. “I completely forgot!!”

She nearly slammed it shut on her way out, apologizing silently to her mother as she heard the noise echo down the stairs and into the somewhat dusty storefront, still a work in progress. Thankfully she didn’t nearly knock over the beautiful, colorful orb decoration her mother found in boxes stacked behind the counter again.

Marinette could only imagine the kind of mess she’d be in if she knocked that old thing over, or luck forbid, broke it.

As soon as the anxiety and strange feelings of deja vu started to leave her, another wave of feelings she couldn’t voice — a strange pull on her mind that made Marinette think she was still dreaming, came washing over her as she caught sight of five people chatting amongst themselves.

A blonde girl in purple laughed at something another girl with a bob cut said, something Marinette couldn’t catch, until a third one with fiery hair and a glint in her eye smiled.

“Finally,” she said, chuckling. “A little longer and we would’ve barged in to wake you up ourselves, Marinette!”

“Oh, uh… right,” for a moment, Marinette felt that same unsteady feeling coursing through her heart and mind, like she couldn’t recall this girl's name or any of the others… then it slipped away just as quickly. No… no. That’s ridiculous. These were her friends, of course she’d known them. “Sorry, Alina… I guess I was just really tired last night.”

“Honestly, you need a better sleep schedule, Mar.” Another person said, playfully swatting her on the back. Ah, of course it would be Alix making such a casual comment.

“Sorry, sorry! I’ll be on time when we schedule something, sheesh.” Marinette rolled her eyes, but the snicker she heard from Alix meant that her joking tone came over well. “Remind me, what exactly are we doing?”

Kagami - the other girl in purple, looked at her with an unexpectedly bright fire in her eyes as she gestured wildly, as if acting while she spoke. “A creative competition in teams of two! Which of us can make the best art?”

“She’s half right,” Flora said, leaning over to Alina and Alix. “Oh! And Felix even managed to join us this time!”

Marinette looked over at the formally dressed boy who returned to her a slight smile, and suddenly that same unbalancing sensation like vertigo hit her like a tidal wave.

“So of course, now all our teams are equal in number.” She heard Alina say, but didn’t even notice the slightly sneaky edge in her voice as the other two teams walked out of the store. “You two have a few hours to gather materials and make what you want!! See ya!”

Aaaaand like that, they were alone. Oh dear…

Felix was the first to look her in the eye, and maybe it was the way he smiled, but he looked nervous too.

“I, uh, look forward to working with you, Marinette.”

“Yeah! S-same!” Why did the air feel so thick now? Why did this feel familiar? “Shall we… get going too?”

“If we still want a head start brainstorming, I would say yes.”

They made their way to a local craft store, and as Marinette perused the aisles of fabric to see if that would help her, she found one with a strange pattern that made her stop.

Mostly black, except for three stripes, barely spaced out until they abruptly ended at the last one. Yellow, green, then purple.

She stared at it for a long while, so long in fact that Felix stepped back into the aisle. “What is it? Did you find something?”

Marinette didn’t know why a name tumbled out of her mouth but she couldn’t think about it for long enough before a quiet “Adrien…” left her.

“Oh,” Felix’s tone grew significantly irritated. “Gabriel’s textile company is selling here now, too?”

She blinked, and squinted at a label clasped around the fabric. ‘Nanty Fabrics and Textiles Co.’ it read, in all too fancy gold and purple lettering.

“Oh…” Marinette echoed, solemnly wondering why that name came to her mind at that moment. Sure, Adrian went to their school too, but she was hardly acquaintances with him and his frequent partnerships with her academic arch enemy Amber Delanorac certainly didn’t help things.

In a weird twist of fate, Marinette felt like she and Adrian - this Adrian, could never be close.

Wait, what was she thinking? There was only one of him, there was no such thing as parallel universes, and Marinette would probably faint on the spot if she found a hypothetical universe where that could happen.

“I-It’s nothing,” she said finally, turning to face him. “Let’s go look for something else!”

Thirty minutes later, Marinette and Felix were collectively 45 euros poorer, but had two bags full of thread strewn across her room floor.

“So,” Felix began, taking a pair of scissors from her desk in case they needed it. “Where do you think we should start with this? You think we could crochet something in a few hours? Bracelets?”

Marinette hesitated to answer, nothing coming up. “Umm… I’m not sure. We could probably do crochet but I’m not sure I have the equipment for that… and bracelets? Why bracelets?”

He grinned and took out a piece of red thread, not taking his eyes off of her. “You know those charm bracelets with the tiny metal engraving things?”

It clicked a moment later. “Ohh!” She returned his smile, though hers was a bit strained as if she were trying to be nice. “Are you sure it’ll count as art, though?”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Please, if anything counts as art, it’s custom made lucky charm bracelets.”

Marinette blinked rapidly, suddenly dizzy with deja vu for the fourth time that day. Something about that word… it reminded her of something, but she couldn’t place her finger on it.

“And what, pray tell, makes it lucky exactly?”

“Oh that’s easy!” He stood up, making a beeline for her desk before stopping and looking back at her. “Just checking, do you have like… plastic bead charms?”

Marinette swallowed a cringe as she remembered her stint of hyperfixating on ‘designing jewelry’ when she got a kids necklace making kit when she was 7, the few results of which were long since thrown away. “Uh, a few, I think. In the drawer next to my hair ties.”

“Ah, gotcha! Unravel more of that red thread for me, would you? I’ll grab a handful so we can make one for everyone.”

As she untangled the string and laid it out next to the scissors, Marinette’s sense of dizzying familiarity didn’t fade away like it did this morning. One thing after another collided together like dominoes, but this last piece that fell became something that she could no longer keep to herself.

“Hey,” she began, her anxiety skyrocketing when she heard how unsure she sounded. “Have you been feeling… off, today?”

“Off?” Felix repeated, confused. “Elaborate.”

“Like… I don’t know, things seem familiar but not entirely? Ugh, I don’t…” She twirled her free hand in the air, trying to articulate her thoughts. “It’s like… you remember things that aren’t really real, or…” oh, this was going nowhere!! Marinette flattened her lips, silencing herself before she could embarrass herself further.

“I don’t know about that.” he laughed awkwardly, then kneeled back onto the floor with a small handful of beads, his face slightly curious. “Did you have a realistic nightmare last night, by any chance?”

“Uh…” Marinette turned her attention skyward, then closed her eyes as she dug through her memories. “Let me think…”

Amidst the haze, very few things stuck out to her in what she remembered of her sleep. There were little flickers of events that flitted by her, small yet still passing her vision for just long enough to draw her attention like fireflies.

What was that dream about again…? A bitter girl who lost a weather contest? An actor betrayed by his understudy thirsty for the limelight? A class of interwoven people dealing with their own struggles, their own intense emotions…?

A man taking the emotional vulnerability of others and twisting it into monstrous visages - toxic levels of emotions not talked about or healed, given form…?

A twisted ouroboros of a dream - of a nightmare - that kept repeating the same things, the beast that ate more of its own tail. Never quite done with its meal, but still continuing to eat itself. Over and over, dragging on for what felt like a decade…

It felt as though a pin dropped from within Marinette’s skull, then her center of gravity shifted and she blinked away the fog that clouded over her eyes, speaking hesitantly. “I think I did, but I can’t remember what it was about. All I know is that it felt real…”

She looked down at one of the beads she’d picked out, a small green spade, then grabbed a piece of thread to start. “Do you ever have dreams like that?”

Felix held a pink clover charm up to his eye as if he were looking through it before guiding the thread through. “Mmm, sometimes.” he picked up another bead, a little ladybug with golden spots. “I have this recurring one where all I can remember is this weird blinding light, something about a cyclops…? I don’t know what all of it means, but it never bothered me too much.”

Marinette snickered a bit. “I don’t think a cyclops with laser vision means anything but nonsense, if you ask me!”

“You don’t say!”

“Still, though… you said it was reoccurring.” She said, threading another few beads to accompany the spade. “Is there something in your life that…” She paused, trying to find the words. “That’s causing it to pop up a lot? Like your mind is trying to tell you something.”

“I mean…” he sounded hesitant to speak now, and shrugged slightly. “I don’t know… I try not to think about it, whenever I try I just get frustrated that I can never grasp it completely.”

Marinette frowned as she grabbed another few beads to put on her bracelet. “Oh… huh. Well, it’s not like it matters now, right? It was just a dream, and it’s not like we’ll have it again tonight!”

He smiled, this time gentle and soft as if her words were a balm to his worries. “That’s true… how’s your bracelet looking?”

She held it up, the green spade in the middle of golden, pearly beads, and black gemstone mimicking the shape of cartoonish cat heads lining the edges of it. The contrast between the green and gold with the red string got Felix to look at it for a moment longer. “I uh… kind of made it with you in mind, I think.”

“Me?” He sounded confused, but pleasantly surprised. A grin formed on his face and he leaned forward, raising an eyebrow. “Any particular reason?”

Uh oh... She didn’t have a reason, she just thought he was cute and this whole making friendship bracelet thing could maybe serve as a bonding moment between them!

“I, uh…” Marinette scrambled to think of something. To think of an excuse. But… no matter how many things circled around in her head like buzzards, none of the ideas swooped down to stake their claim. She couldn’t lie to him. Not now. “I’m… happy that you’re here, and.. and I hope that you like it.”

Felix smiled, then held up his end of the project. The beads he chose were sparkly and gold, rhinestones lining plastic red and black clover charm beads. “You know, it’s funny you say that… I didn’t realize it until now, but I think you’d look nice in red.”

Marinette choked on air and looked away, causing a small snicker to escape Felix’s mouth. “R-red? Me? In red? Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Maybe one of those weird dreams I can’t remember a lot of… but I think I saw someone who looked kinda like you.”

Somehow, instead of flustering her beyond belief, the comment amused her, and Marinette grinned.

“Oh, really?” She leaned forward, a devious twinkle in her eye. “Was this mysterious girl wearing red or had her hair in pigtails by any chance?”

Felix stifled a laugh and returned that little sparkle of banter. “I believe she did. With black spots all over her outfit. Her hair looked brighter too, and another thing… I think she was swinging around the Eiffel Tower or something. Weird, right?”

“Sounds like a pretty funny dream then!” She snickered a little too loudly this time, but didn’t recoil in embarrassment. She leaned into it, indulging in the silliness of what his dreams were like as they continued making bracelets for the group. “Do you remember anything else from that one?”

“Hmmm…” he thought for a moment as he threaded a bead shaped like a fox head onto Alina’s bracelet. “I think your dream self had like… a magic yoyo as a weapon or something? You kept swinging it at these weird purple butterflies, and Paris was on fire one moment and perfectly fine the next. That one was really vivid, I think. This is the most I’ve been able to recall from just one.”

“Woah! That’s like…” Marinette searched for a word, completely awestruck at the thought. Paris was destroyed one minute, but then Dream-Marinette made it better? And with a magic yoyo? How could she possibly describe that? “That sounds incredible! I know it was a dream and everything, but wow…!”

“I know!” Felix grinned, ethereal and beautiful like a model despite not setting foot on a runway even once. “It’s… miraculous, some would say.”

Something about that word struck Marinette like lightning, and another flash of memories that felt alien to her own mind crackled and echoed into her very being.

What was her dream about again?

An old man nearly two centuries into his life, handing out jewel after jewel to children fighting against a singular enemy?

A pop star pushed off her stage because of the bruised ego of the everyday mean girl bully?

Or was it… a love story on some form of a stage, its characters and setting just like props? A love story that charmed many, but exhausted others - and maybe both emotions at the same time, as they continued the song and dance of hesitation. 

By the time that dance had reached its end, many of the audience had either left or started to write their own screenplays with the same characters and ideas… whereas some carried different spirits and themes into their stories entirely.

Was everything Marinette experienced in that dream real? And, if it was, why didn’t it feel real to her…?

She shook her head. No, no, that was crazy. It was just a dream. Don’t be ridiculous, Marinette.

“You know, it’s funny… I think talking with you has made me remember more of the dream I had this morning.”

Felix crossed his arms in triumph, then held up his wrist with the bracelet she made him. “Ha! See? I told you these were lucky charms!”

Marinette rolled her eyes, then looked down at the bracelet that Felix made for her. He used the same red string she did for him, and she found herself flattered by it. “And the red string? What about that? Is that the lucky part?”

“Not completely. You’ve also got the gold.” He said, pointing at a golden, bug shaped bead. “Hey, Mar? Question. Why black cats?” Felix held out his wrist, looking down at the black cat charm she’d put in the middle. “I thought they were bad luck…”

“They’re…not, though? Maman always says they’re protectors who bring good fortune.”

He looked back at his bracelet and slowly smiled warmly at it. “Maybe you’re right… This is my lucky part, then.”

“You know…” Dare she say it? Somehow, the red string Marinette threaded into her handiwork bubbled back up to the surface of her thoughts, and she couldn’t keep quiet this time. “The red string on yours… it means something nice too.”

“Oh?”

“It means that the people who wear it are connected, and it’s also a good luck charm too.” She smiled brightly. “I noticed you used one too, so that means we’re connected now, you and I!”

“Oh! That’s great!” He shared in her smile, so warm that it might as well have melted her then and there. Felix shuffled closer, placing the bracelets they’d finished into a small bag. “I hope we can do this again sometime, Marinette. I enjoyed our time together!”

“M-me too! Yeah… me too.”

“Well, I think we’re just about done. Shall we get going?” Felix stood, turning the stretches he did on his way up into an all too majestic bow as he offered her his hand.

She took it without hesitation, wondering just how nice the universe was being today for everything that she’d ever wanted to have lined into place.

Despite the odd dreams, the hazy, unclear memories that grew fainter the more steps she took to her friends meeting spot, Marinette Cheng knew one thing for sure.

Everything was going just as it should be.

She was just a normal girl with a normal life, and she had no secrets to keep, at least not when it came to Felix. She was very much not subtle about her plans to make him happy at least once every day, and just this afternoon she’d been on the receiving end of multiple model-grade Felix smiles! Ah, there was nothing more beautiful than seeing him light up like that…

Still, some part of her felt like she was walking on air, ascending to cloud nine as Alina waved to them over a rather intricate looking paper diorama of a skateboard themed obstacle course, and Flora walked over curiously to see what they brought.

Then, the word from earlier that Felix used came back into her mind.

Miraculous.

As she handed Flora, Kagami, Alix and Alina their respective charm bracelets, all linked through corresponding colors of string and complimenting beads, Marinette began to laugh to herself about just how much fun she was having in a single day.

Her past self from a year ago probably wouldn’t believe her current self’s tales of friendship, of mysteries, or a creative partner… After so long of being outcast, after her family ripped in half before her eyes almost 5 years ago, after everything she’d been through, Marinette didn’t think that she’d ever have a group of friends as great as they were.

Miraculous, Marinette supposed, was the perfect way to describe her normal life in exactly one word.

The best part, however, was that Marinette wouldn’t wish for it to have been any other way.

She was Marinette. A normal girl, with a normal life, but oh, how miraculous of a life it was.