Marinette and Nathaniel sat in the back room of her studio, it use to be a meeting room, but she like to meet with clients in her office so she turned it into a break room and let her artist friends borrow the space too. Though today neither of them were doing art, Nath had his graphic book spread out on the table. He'd gotten rejected by yet another publishing company. "I just don't understand Mari, nobody wants my book." He sighed and sat on one of the many bean bag chairs in the room.
"Did this one at least give you a reason?" Nath refused to let her read it, so she couldn't really argue for or against his book.
"They all give me the same reason Mar, they all hate the ending." He gives another frustrated sigh and goes and starts to collect the pages of his book, whatever work he thought about doing, he'd clearly changed his mind on.
"I know you don't want me to see it, but can you ay lease tell me how it ends? Maybe I can offer a reader's perspective?" She sits on the other end of the to make it clear she's not going to force him to show her anything.
He takes a deep breath, stops sorting. "The story focus on three main characters, the hero, the villain and the 'damsel in distress'. Except, the damsel in distress is the main character. Which they all love, they like that is focus on this girl who lives in a world plagued by supper villain attacks, it makes the read feel relatable to the Parian struggle and a good way to look back and not forget. Rather than focusing on the hero role again, it focuses on the fear we all dealt with. The hero and the villain both have civilian identities and the villain is a redeemable character as a civilian, the reader doesn't know he's the villain, he's a minor antagonist for the hero in the hero's civilian life and he is the girls love interest because she sees him as redeemable so there for the reader does too. The hero is her best friend and he's in love with her, as a hero he flirts with her and makes a show of saving her. She suspects him, so does the reader. Anyway, as the story progresses and during the final battle both hero and villain identities get revealed to the girl, the villain loses the girl's heart is broken and the hero doesn't get the girl."
"Oh, so they want a happy ending where the girl goes with the best friend?" She quirks an eyebrow.
"No, they actually want the villain to give up his ways for the girl. But I just don't think that's realistic. If you change for someone else that change isn't real, what if they break your heart? Do you keep the change? Or go back to your olds ways only worse now because you're jagged?"
"I can see that you took inspiration from our heroes." she smiled, her life as Ladybug had inspired so many people's art. She kinda loved it.
"Ya and those two didn't get a storybook ending, defeating Shadowmoth wrecked their relationship. Even hero's don't get happy endings all the time." he sugged and sighed.
"Is this gonna be a one-off or did you have a trilogy in mind?" She'd never heard him talk about whats his next project would be, though writing a book was likely harder than planing sewing projects,
"Duology, actually." He put his copy back in his envelope and sat with Mari.
"Do you include plot points for the second book then? So they can see the point of your ending?" He gave her a look that said duh.
He poked her nose, "Of course I do silly, they just want me to change the course of the book entirely." He rolled his eyes. "And I won't do it." he sighed and looked away, "This would have been so much easier with Marc and I's book."
"I'm sorry." That was all she felt like she could say.
"Mar... we've been over this, it really wasn't your fault." He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a light hug.
"And I still don't fully believe you. Marc doubted your love for him after I showed up in your life again." Adrien blamed her for his father's action somehow, it had ended their relationship. Both as heroes and civilians. Six months later she and Luka had been dating, they'd gone to America with Jagged Stone for Lukas music and she had gone to design school, she didn't finish as she was getting work from Jaggeds friends, and school was honestly getting in the way. With both Luka and her parent's support she left. She had managed to make quite a name for herself. She used PeggaBug to come back to Paris every few nights so Paris still felt safe. Alya would send her word if she thought something was going down and Paris needed Ladybug to diffuse the situation. She wasn't worried about a new miraculous villain popping up, she had given the box back to the other guardians and had created a charm bracelet the connected to different Kwamis, each having their own charm, easy to access all while keeping them safe.
"Hey, you'd just move back from America broken-hearted, mutual breakups can still hurt, two months later Nino and Alya had moved to Italy for her new work placement. You just happen to run into us at the craft store. You needed friends who didn't work for you, if Marc was uncountable with our friendship, he could and should have said something. He knew who I was when we started dating in middle school, he always knew I was attracted to both. No other girl was ever a threat, but because I liked you first even though it was years ago now, he doubted and his doubt, consumed him." He leaned back giving her space.
"Still." She never felt convinced.
"Mar, we may publish that book yet, we worked on it for years. Letting our skills get better and it still is a good story. Maybe someday when we both have new lives, we can be friends and publish that book, but right now we both own a professionally printed version of the book to share with our friends and families, and that is enough for now. And it's been a year, it hardly stings anymore." He shrugged and stood up like he was getting ready to leave.
"Wait Nath, please, let me read a copy and give it to Peggy." She caught his hand stopping him from leaving.
"Mar, I can't use your connections. It wouldn't feel right, I would hate for people to think I only made it cuz I used my well-influenced friend's connections." He glanced down at their hands.
She didn't let go, "But no one would know, this is how Peggy and I play this game, I show her something a friend of mine is working on, and if she thinks she knows someone in the bis who would take it on, she throws a card into whatever I brought to show her and I never know if she did or didn't unless my friends tell me. Her work as Jaggeds manager has kept her well connected." She intertwined their fingers, "Please let me help you, you are passionate about your story." She smiled at him, begging.
Using his other hand he rubbed the back of his neck, "You've done this before?" He hadn't heard any of his friends give Mari credit over the years.
"Well the first was Jules, but that was honestly by accident. Jules had sent me some prints from one of my shoots to approve, and Peggy had asked me about it, I told her about Jules and how she needed an agent, then Jagged called me over and when I gave Jules the prints back there were three business cards in there. That's how Kitty section got signed too, though Luka helped a bit seeing we were touring with Jagged, but he knew with Jagged he'd never get his own fame. I also helped Nino and Alya get their first big breaks that way too. I like to use my benefits to help my friends, so please let me help you." Her smile was so sincere, how could he say no?
"Alright, I'll get you a copy tomorrow. I have a few left to send to publishers. I keep my original closely guarded, I did it by hand, the publishers get a scanned copy." She finally let go of his hand.
She smiled, shot up and clapped her hands. "Thank you! Thank you!" She hugged him. He embraced the hug too and they stayed like that a second longer than they should have. They both stepped back, "Well um, I should get back to work, I'm sure Cathey is waiting for me with a few missed calls, I have a meeting with jagged tomorrow, get me that copy by 10 tomorrow and I'll do my best to have it back to you tomorrow night. I'll drop it off after my fitting with Luka."
"Jagged changing styles again eh? Isn't that like the sixth change for this tour?" He teased
"I'd rather he get it out of his system before he's in pain touring." She rolled her eyes, she loved working for the man, but he could be a lot sometimes. "Or if you wanted you could come over for dinner tomorrow and I could give you the book back then?"
"You know that always ends up with us cuddling till one of us falls asleep." He opens the door for them.
"Have I ever complained before?" She teased back.
"Alright, 6?" He waved to her receptionist.
"You know it." She giggled and watched him leave.
"Miss Marinette are you sure he's not your boyfriend? He seems quite smitten with you and you quite smitten with me." Cathey the older woman who could be her mother, who worked for her.
"Cathey... We've been friends for years, he liked me when we were kids, his ex left him because I showed up in his life and made him question things he'd never questioned before. I would feel wrong dating him." She looked down and played with her charm bracelet. Nath was one of her few friends she never gave a miraculous to, maybe that also why she liked sending time with him, she held litter reminders to her old supper hero life, or maybe because he never showed up in her nightmares, where she failed and Shadowmoth caught her friends. She really should see a counsellor, but that would require telling someone else her secret.
"I don't think he sees it that way..." She hummed. Marinette didn't respond and just collect the notes from the pile and headed to her office.
The next morning she was late to work Cathey gave her a smirk as she walked into her office, the envelope that she was sure held his book, had a pink rose her favourite tied to it. A note was attached, This should give your staff something to talk about. ;) But seriously thank you Mar, I'll bring dessert tonight.
That boy was smooth, that was for sure. Boy or girl, his partner was going to be lucky. Why did that thought kinda sting? She shook her head and went to look through her planner, she had no meeting till Jagged, so setting an alarm and locked her door, a sigh her employees knew as leave me alone I'm inspired, sure she was reading but whatever.
His book looked was amazing, his writing wasn't as strong as Marc but with the right editor, it could be good. The story was strong. She noticed how much like Chat Noir the hero was, only unlike many other authors that used Chat as a model hero, his charm and charisma is viewed as a character flaws by everyone around him. Mari giggled, before she knew he was Adrien she felt that way about Chat, and Nath had never been the biggest Chat Nour fan. Sue the girl in the story looked a lot like her, only her colour of choice was purple, not blue and her personality was a lot like Ladybugs. She couldn't help but laugh, how had Nath not figured her out yet? And The villain was a different version of his Evillustrator costume. Mari had to admit she like the darker look, Nath had pure intentions back when he was evilized.
Her alarm went off and she let Penny look at the book while she was talking with Jagged. She didn't look in the book she wanted to be surprised. He came for dinner took the book and never said a word.
A month later he took her out to eat at a fancier restaurant. They had dinner and chatted about everything under the sun. They flirted more than usual and Nath insisted they get dessert. As they left the restaurant Nath handed her a letter. "Open it." He smiled.
"Okay..." She carefully opened the folded paper. "Nath is this what I think it is?" She squealed.
"If you think it's an offer to take on both my graphic novels you'd be right!" She smiled and hugged him, and for a moment they stayed like that. She looked at him, he was only a few inches taller than her but she gently pulled him to her, giving him time to back out, and she kissed him.
As they separated, Nath kept his forehead pressed against hers, "I knew someone would take your book on Nath, I knew it."
"I guess I just needed some of that Marinette Magic." She went to back away but he kissed her again. He kissed her like was never gonna get another chance again. "Come home with me?"
She nodded, "I will. I want to, I want this, I want you. I have for a while, but I felt bad about what happened, you loved him, Nath."
"I did, and I always will, just like you with Adrien and Luka, but the past can't define you, I don't and never have blamed you for the breakup and honestly neither did Marc, he knew it was his own insecurities, and I couldn't not be myself to clam those insecurities. I want you too, so please let's give this a try." She took his hand in hers and let him lead her home.