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The first thing Luka said, after all the crying and shaking and holding, was, “Let’s go home.”
He always had the habit of not speaking much, except when he really needed to. If he could substitute music for words, he would. But whenever he did speak, anything and everything he said would resound in Marinette’s head for days. Things like, it sounds like you have something like this in your heart, or you’ve been the song playing in my head since the day we met. Or now.
You can be yourself with me, you know. Just yourself.
Marinette couldn’t remember what that even meant, or the last time she’d ever actually been herself. Just herself. Maybe it was all those months ago, when she’d saved Master Fu from that oncoming car. Maybe it was after her first couple of missions as Ladybug, when something stirred inside her and said, This is who you’re meant to be. But the more she thought about that, the more she started to conclude that maybe that wasn’t really herself. Maybe it was only someone the people around her wanted her to be, needed her to be, without ever realizing that they were asking it of her.
It took her ages to finally let go of Luka, to allow herself to only be tethered to him at the hand, but even now, she decided, she wasn’t really herself. Some part of her started to wonder, as she pressed her thumbs against his ring and wristbands, whether he ever felt like this too. If it was a teenager thing, or a superhero thing, or an unfortunate combination of both.
If it was both, she thought, then this sucked. Massively.
She made it a point, at least, to help him gather up his things; he’d dropped them for her sake, after all. It almost physically pained her to pick up his guitar—black acoustic, not quite as shiny as it must have been once upon a time—and to know that some of these old chips and scuffs were because of her. Her hands brushed his when she passed it to him, and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to feel a jolt in her stomach because of him. Or if it was okay to feel anything at all.
“It’s okay,” Luka said, running his fingers down the fretboard, his hand over the curves of the body. Wasn’t that hand just brushing her hair out of her eyes? Wiping her tears? Rubbing the anxious, tired knots out of her back? Why did she want to feel it again so badly? “It’s seen better days.”
Then, she thought, she and this guitar of his had something in common. A couple of somethings.
Luka needed both hands to walk the bike to the bakery, and to lock it to the lamppost just outside, but he let his fingers twine with hers as soon as he was able. He kept them there, callused but warm, while she unlocked the door, while she passed through the bakery and the upstairs apartment, until they settled on her bedroom floor and even after. Neither of them spoke. Marinette wasn’t even sure if she wanted to speak. If she had the dignity left in her to do it.
Still, he passed his thumb over her knuckles, and gave her hand the gentlest squeeze, and said, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Numbly, she shook her head. All things considered, she probably said enough out there at the park, and all she could probably say now was the same old thing. I’m tired, I’m tired, I’m tired. Of what? Chasing after the same childish pipe dream when the reality of it stared her down into silence? Holding the whole world on her shoulders, only for it to crush her anyway, and roll away without any chance for her to pick up the pieces? It wasn’t as though she could tell him, even if she wanted to.
“You don’t have to,” he said once the quiet had gone on long enough. “If all you need is someone here with you, I can do that. And if what you need is someone to help bring you back from some awful thoughts, then I can try to do that, too. And if… if you need someone to hold you until the feeling goes away, then I can do that, too.” He paused, his hand twitching around hers, and the words started to sound thick in his throat. “Maybe it’s selfish, but I want to be what you need right now. If you’ll let me.”
The thought only brought the tears back in full force, welling in her eyes but never quite making their way out. “I don’t have the time,” she said, cursing her voice for cracking, and cursing herself for wanting all three. “There’s too much I have to do, and if I don’t, then—then… everything will be ruined, and my fault, and I can’t—I can’t waste any more time, Luka. I can’t. I need to go, and…”
All those responsibilities came flooding in again. Master Fu. Adrien and Kagami. Chat Noir. Chloe’s parents. Chloe. Mayura. Hawk Moth. All of them building on each other, all of them taking up so much space in her heart that it felt fit to burst, all of them proving exactly why she really would have been the prime victim for Love Eater. She was about to get up and go—somewhere, she didn’t even know where—swaying though she was, when Luka reached for her hand again and held her in place. She didn’t think she’d ever seen his eyes so blue. Or so sad.
“Since when is taking care of yourself a waste?” he asked.
Marinette staggered. “Huh?”
Luka didn’t move from where he was sitting, but he gave her hand a tug, and then another, and he made sure his eyes were on hers the whole time. “How do you take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself?”
Somewhere inside her, she knew he had a point. Maybe her body knew it more than her mind, because in an instant she sank to the floor again, staring at him—or maybe staring through him. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to do that.”
If Marinette squinted, she could see the parts of his heart that broke for her sake. “C’mere,” he whispered back, nudging his guitar aside and pulling her into his lap. There was something so unassuming about how he did it—how he coaxed her closer, promised her safety with no words, didn’t dare make a sound and let all her sobs seep into his clothing instead. He didn’t even shush her; he only cradled the back of her head and told her nothing could get her now, nothing was going to get her the way it got him, and all the tension in his body—the stock-still lock of his bones that she knew so well from her own night patrols—made sense. Soon enough, he started to rub wide, sweeping circles into her back, tangled his fingers in her hair and stroked it until each elastic fell to the floor. Occasionally, they’d brush the nape of her neck, and she’d shiver and cling a little closer, and he’d hold on a little tighter, and if she could hazard a guess at his expression, she’d think he was smiling. To himself, or at her, for every reason and none at all.
When Luka pulled back, he really was smiling. Just the same dreamy kind he gave her when he asked what she thought of her song. It almost made her want to look away, almost made her feel like she wasn’t worthy of it.
Her brow furrowed. “What are you looking at me like that for?”
“I’ve never seen you with your hair down before,” he murmured, still threading his fingers through it. “It’s beautiful.”
Marinette didn’t bother tying her hair back up. It was fine just the way it was. Maybe she could even get used to wearing it this way.
Maybe she could even dye it.
They didn’t share many words between them in the moments that followed; she was just oddly conscious of the fact that she’d been in Luka’s lap this whole time, that her legs were still wrapped around his waist and that he, surprisingly, had no objections to it. She didn’t want to let go, not really, but there was something infinitely comforting about how he held her face in both hands, simply watched her and drew his thumbs over her cheekbones. Like that was all anyone ever needed to do to calm her down. If it was, this was her first time realizing it.
“There we go,” he said. He must have done this a million times before. Maybe with Juleka. Maybe with other girls. “Still tired?”
Marinette wished she could do anything else but nod. Part of her even wished she could dish out a little white lie, the usual I’m okay to get everyone’s eyes off of her and to get herself through the rest of the day. She just couldn’t do it now. She’d have to start doing it again eventually, but not now. Not here.
Luka offered her a sympathetic smile, brushed her hair out of her eyes again—he couldn’t stop touching it—and stroked away a leftover tear. “It’s the kind you feel all the way down to your bones, huh.”
Another nod. She could practically feel her soul starting to give way.
“I sort of know the feeling.” The light in his gaze dimmed just a bit, but the smile never left his lips. “Say… do you remember what I was doing the first time we met?”
Marinette quirked her lips, her voice a little rusty when she spoke. “Playing?” she guessed. “Making fun of my nerves?”
He winced, noticeably, for which she apologized, which he waved off in turn. But then he hefted her out of his lap, and he looked like he was regretting it, and she knew she was regretting it. He fished his guitar pick out of one pocket, and his phone out of another, and with her permission he helped her cross her legs and fit the pick between thumb and forefinger.
“Close your eyes,” he said, his own drifting to his phone screen, “and let yourself relax. And don’t say anything.”
Of course.
He’d been meditating.
The words that tumbled from his lips sounded like a script, a series of gentle commands to draw her attention to her own breath, to the slackening of her shoulders and her weight as it pressed against the floorboards, to the hands she was allowed to press to her heart, one by one. He gave her directions to let her thoughts float past her—that she might catch one, and thank the thought for existing, and then let it go on its way again. He told her, for minutes that really did feel like minutes, that she was allowed to feel nothing but herself, the center of her body, every breath as it filled her—one, two, three, four—and as she held it in her chest—five, six, seven—and as it left her again—eight, nine, ten. Every little sensation from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, every strain of tension leaving her body, every shiver making its home in her spine. Everything, she was allowed to feel.
It didn’t wake up anything in her bones, but it felt like every word found its way inside her, lifted her limb by limb until she could stand again, if she really wanted to.
She didn’t want to yet. She could wait a while longer, she thought.
Eventually, Luka told her to bring the emptiness in her mind to a close, her body back to the real world; his voice rumbled deep in his throat, buzzed somewhere in her chest, when he murmured, “Open your eyes, Marinette.”
When she did, it was almost like coming out of a dream, except this time Luka actually was here, and he had that same whimsical expression on. The kind that said he could watch her with her eyes closed for a long, long time. And the more time she spent like this, the less she thought she’d mind it. “How do you feel?” he asked.
For a while, Marinette couldn’t bring herself to look anywhere else. “Empty,” she admitted. “Like I don’t know what to do next.”
“It happens,” he said, “and it’s okay. You don’t have to know yet. Just come back to Earth.” His gaze softened, like some part of him wanted to say, come back to me, instead. “You look a little better.”
She was still holding onto his pick, and she passed it from hand to hand, too fatigued to really toss it around. “Luka,” she said; she couldn’t remember ever stumbling over his name like this. “There’s so much I have to do.”
“I know.” He shifted closer, until their knees were bumping, until he could pry the pick from her and let her hands rest in his. They were still warm; she’d swear they did more to ground her than those scripted words did, for all his good intentions, for all the research he must have done for his own comfort before he extended it to her. “I know you do. But not yet. Just… just stay here. Just be you. Nobody else but you.” He swallowed—this close, she could see it in the dip of his Adam’s apple—and his hands came to frame her face again, and when his forehead bumped against hers they both held their breath.
“I’ll stay like this if I have to,” he said, the words half-shaky as they fanned out over her lips. “If it means you won’t go anywhere yet. If it means you get to be you for a while. If—if it means…”
He trailed off, and the silence felt right.
If there was anything to be mindful of—if there was anything he could direct her to feel—it was the sudden pounding of her heart in her throat and in her head. The heat that flooded her face and made her dizzy. The way her eyes went wide before they screwed shut, and how her lips formed a tight, firm line, and how all those shivers came back and reminded her, we live here now, he helped us move in. And if there were any thought to grasp onto and let go of in the course of a few seconds, it was how, if he tilted his head just so—if he just moved his hand to her back, and if she let herself just relax again the way he’d told her to, and if they said each other’s names just one more time—he could kiss her worries into a few seconds of hazy oblivion.
Luka didn’t kiss her then, and maybe it was just as well. Except she felt the want of it tingling in the roots of her hair, the need of it burning from the cheeks down, long after he let go. He didn’t ask anything of her—he rarely ever did. He only continued to keep her company on her bedroom floor while the feelings and fatigue drained from her, until the only thing that lingered was a strange jealousy of the guitar he was cradling in his lap.
“You wanna hear Billie Eilish sound like Green Day?” he said with a cautious grin; he was probably trying to divert their attention from the residual feeling of being so dangerously close. Marinette couldn’t tell if she was grateful for it, or if she wished he hadn’t done it so soon. He played a descending scale to try and distract her again, a seductive, steely bass line that sounded too pop punk for its own good, and when his fingers danced up the fretboard, she had to shrug off the feeling that that had been her arm once. That that could be her spine, again.
She would have laughed if it felt right to, but at least she could manage a somewhat amused smile. “That’s okay,” she replied, and then, “Can I… ask you something instead?”
“Yeah, anything.”
Marinette braced herself, though she wasn’t sure for what. “How long have you been working on that song?”
Luka looked only mildly taken aback, and he cut the sound. He didn’t need to ask which one she meant. “Since the day we met,” he admitted after a moment. “It’s like I told you. You’ve been stuck in my head ever since then, and I just… wanted to get you right. It was what you deserved, you know?”
“I… Sort of.” Her stomach lurched. All those days. All those notes. Every little thing he must have hummed under his breath. Did he ever think about playing it under her balcony? Or taking her somewhere special, where only she could hear it?
He started to play those semi-familiar notes again, the melody he’d stopped to play her on her way out of the bakery. She didn’t know how he came up with this stuff, but maybe it was just better to let the magic be itself. Especially because, as the notes progressed, he sank more and more into himself, until the music trailed away from him. He held the guitar for dear life, looked totally blissed out, like he might have kissed the thing if it would have been decent to. “I think I’ve got it now. I got it.”
There had to be some kind of science to it, but Marinette was too acquainted with magic, and the repercussions of science trying to interfere, to give it much thought. “You did?”
“I think,” Luka said again. “It might be a little rusty—I’ve never played past this one part.” He smiled up at her through his lashes. “You’ll forgive me if it sounds kinda lame, right?”
Marinette was caught between telling him she’d probably forgive him for just about anything, and telling him that technically, she owed him for all this. The words came out garbled instead—which they hardly ever did around Luka—and she settled for jamming her hands in her lap and trying to will away the blush she was sure was rising up to her ears.
He gave her an amused little laugh, which sounded as sweet and as dreamy as he always tended to be with her, and then drew all his focus to the guitar. That was the script. That was the thing that grounded him. His gaze was fixed, resolved, as if his whole life banked on getting this down. He was right, though—it did sound a little rusty the first time around—but he more than made up for it with the fingering, the look on his face, and he looped it a couple of times more before he decided he was satisfied.
“Perfect,” he said, once the last of the music echoed and faded. “It’s perfect. I get it now. I know what I needed.”
Marinette blinked. “What—what did you need?”
Luka tilted his head, as though she should have known all along. “You.”
Her breath caught in her throat again, and this time she didn’t even bother to speak; the words wouldn’t have come out anyway. The most she could get out was a strangled confused noise, which still thoroughly embarrassed her to hear.
“Well…” He gave the guitar one last reverent stroke, over the body, over the neck—Marinette could swear she could feel every inch of it—and set it aside. Instead, he settled for thumbing the curve of his ring, over and over. “I think I was… I think I heard this song based on what I thought of you, and how I felt about you, and not on who you really were.” He chewed his lip, looked down at his hands. “I think there was only so much I could hear of your heart until now. And now I think I hear all of it. And I can play it back to you.” A faint smile crossed his lips. It probably wasn’t for her, but a small part of her could hope. “Do you know what I mean?”
Marinette was pretty sure her heart stopped altogether. “Yeah,” she said, and it sounded breathless. Like he’d taken it all away from her. And then, “Can I ask you another question?”
This time, the glitter in his eyes really was for her. She was certain of it. “You can ask me as many questions as you want.”
“Is…” She paused. “Did Love Eater go after you?”
Luka gave her a matter-of-fact shrug. “I think most anyone who knows you would have been one of their victims.”
“But did they—”
“Yes,” Luka said. “But they didn’t get me.”
“But they could have.”
“But they didn’t.”
“Is that why you’re so determined to make me happy?”
“Of course it is,” Luka said—blurted out, more like—and both their eyes went wide.
They were quiet for a while after that, and it was hard to tell if it was uncomfortable. Marinette sat still. Luka didn’t pick up his guitar again. They only looked around at the decorations—the splashes of pink, the photos on her mini bulletin board, the pull cord for her giant yearlong calendar—and tried to figure out what to say. But that was the thing about thinking about exactly what to say, and exactly how to say it. You ended up never saying anything at all. You only carried it from occasion to occasion, wondering when the right time would be, only to realize the right time had passed a long time ago.
“So.” She was the one to break the silence, which seemed to surprise the both of them. A long time ago, she decided, was now. “You…” It shouldn’t have been so hard to start a sentence. Or restart a sentence. She opened her mouth to try again. Closed it. Opened and closed, again, like a fish drunk on air. “Oh,” was all she settled on. Which, in her opinion, was an entirely dumb thing to say, because she’d gone on with her life for weeks and weeks knowing that Luka Couffaine was, probably irrevocably, in love with her. And she’d gone on those same weeks and weeks starting to wonder if she might be feeling the same. Not irrevocably, but—but something. The way every feeling began.
Luka rubbed the back of his neck and hadn’t looked anywhere but at the floor for the last several minutes. “Look,” he said. “Marinette, I—I really don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. That… that I’m only here, and that I’ve done all this, because I want something from you.”
Marinette bit her lip, swallowed down the butterflies that surged at the sound of her name. “Maybe you don’t want something from me,” she said. “But you feel something for me.”
“Well… yeah. Who wouldn’t? I mean—” He winced at his own words. “I mean… not that that shouldn’t make you feel special, I just—”
“What do you sound like?” Marinette asked.
Luka opened his mouth to speak, a confused frown on his lips, but had nothing to say except, “What?”
“You’ve been talking about me all this time.” Her fists clenched in her lap, out of nervousness instead of anger. “Knowing me, and what I sound like, and whatever’s in my heart—”
“Like I said, you deserve to be you—”
“Well,” Marinette interrupted, or reclaimed. “What if I want to know you, too? What if I want to hear what’s in your heart?”
“You just heard it,” Luka said, with the same impulse as before, as though she should have known this too, and then he paused again.
And so did she.
And then she said, “What?”
Luka took a deep, dragging breath, and let it out slow. “I said… I said, you just heard it. Well, some of it. And if you want to hear more of it sometime, then—if you want to hear more of me sometime, then. You’re more than welcome to. Just let me know.”
Marinette had to blink again just to buy some extra time. “Oh,” she said again. “Well. I.” She cleared her throat. “Maybe I do want to. Sometime.”
“Oh,” Luka said. “Well. Cool.” His words were as halting as hers were, but he managed to make them sound even more casual. Like it was normal to be nervous. Still, it disappeared in moments, and he traced the outline of his guitar to ground himself again. “You should probably go, huh.”
Marinette sobered, either at the thought of leaving him behind or at the remembrance of everything that was still waiting for her. Master Fu, wherever he was. Hawk Moth and the Miracle Box. Chloe, the Bourgeoises, her parents, those stupid cocktail umbrellas. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “I should go.”
“Hey.” Luka tipped her chin up with a finger; he was back to his earnest smile. “Whatever you have to do, go do it. Everything will be here when you get back.” He sounded more steady now, and his gaze didn’t falter once. “I’ll be here when you get back. Right where you left me. Playing that same old song.”
“I don’t want to go.” It was hard to choke the words out—hard to admit to wanting at all. She’d already had so much, taken so much; who was she to want more than that? Who was she to start tearing up all over again, shaking in the hands like she’d never done any of this before? “I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t—what are you doing…?”
He was holding her hands again, sliding them carefully up her arms to squeeze her shoulders. “One last thing,” he murmured. “One last meditation. Think of it like I’m… giving back something I owe you. Nothing big.” He held her face in his hands again, and the mere mention of meditation made her eyelids grow heavy, flutter shut. “Just some words,” he said. “Just some words for you to repeat.”
Marinette swallowed hard, and wondered if he could feel it. “Okay,” she said. “Give me your words.”
There was a hitch in their silence, and then the warmth of him as he pressed his lips to her cheek. “May you be safe.”
Maybe the hitch was in her breath all along. Or in her lips, as she kissed the air beside his ear. “May I be safe.”
She thought she felt the traces of a smile on her skin. She definitely felt him brush her bangs away and kiss her forehead next. “May you be healthy.”
“May I be healthy.” Her voice was fit to crack, but she spoke the words anyway. Wished them for herself, for him, for the people around her, everyone who’d ever had to suffer. Everyone who ever got to love.
When she opened her eyes, just a sliver, he was inches from her face, bumping her nose, eyes half-lidded. “May you know peace,” he hummed.
She only got as far as May I— before he slanted his mouth against her own. The kiss was soft, and warm, wanting without being selfish, needing without being too greedy, and somehow part of her wished he would be both. He held her by the back of the neck, and her hands found his face, and he whispered the words into her mouth whenever they parted, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you know peace, blessing after blessing, until he kissed the words to her, and she pressed them back. Until he held her so close that she could only think, you and I, and he could only say, you and I and us.
Luka was shivering when he let himself go. She was because she wished he hadn’t.
“Go,” he said, catching his breath, and only indulged her once or twice more. “Go, Marinette, go. Just promise me something. One thing.”
“I know,” she said, prying her arms off of him, daring to stay close still, buzzed with the feeling of temporary relief, of wanting, of being wanted, too. “I’ll come back. I’ll find everything right where I left it.”
Luka smiled, and Marinette felt it on her lips and in her gut more than she actually saw it. “Something else.”
“What?”
He reached for her elastics, combed his fingers through her hair before doing her the courtesy of tying it up again. Readied her for battle, probably barely realizing it himself. “If you run into Ladybug again,” he said, “tell her I’m rooting for her.”