Chapter Text
Six months pass before the majority of the trials come to an end, and the Wayne boys have long since returned to Gotham City, though their friendship remains strong.
Marinette follows the trials with great intensity, all the while dreading some last minute curveball on Gabriel's part.
None comes.
"A man, in every sense, defeated," the news calls him, while going into eye-watering detail of his rise, reign and fall.
The police find Emilie Agreste in eternal cryostasis beneath the abandoned mansion and as horror ripples through Paris anew, they comment that the eerie tomb was filled with more life than all of the man's home put together.
Inevitably, as all things in this case have done, this leads attention back round to Adrien, his name and face splashed across every news site in the country.
"The poor boy" is what some call him, while others prefer "likely conspirator" or names to that effect. Some people - more than Marinette would like to admit - dismiss his pains, scoff at his therapy and his attempts to put his life back together. "Poor little rich boy", they call him. She hopes none of them are people she gave up her strength to save.
On 17th June, she stands and watches in full Ladybug garb as Gabriel Agreste is sent down for life.
She's at Adrien's side throughout, in the crowded courtroom, a hand on his shoulder in solidarity while on his other side stands the woman who used to be Mourning Star. He's shaking as the gavel goes down, but Gabriel never even glances in their direction, so she moves to hold his hand instead, a dearly needed anchor to reality on this most surreal of days.
All of the French press is there, crammed into the room and the halls, and swarming outside; she knows they all saw.
Two days later, this same pattern repeats for Nathalie Sancoeur, but on the day Lila Rossi is sentenced, Adrien doesn't bother showing. Neither does Elise, the press, nor the pulsing crowds. Lila's ultimate audience consists of the judge, Ladybug, and her own weeping mother. Her glare as she is led, handcuffed, from one of the lesser courtrooms, might have months ago stopped someone's heart.
And then that's it. The Hawkmoth Trials are an an end.
Marinette sighs, nodding to the judge and slinking out via an exit in the back of the building. Someone is waiting for her there.
"Is it done?" Lynx Maleun asks.
"It's done," she confirms, and then the tension drains from his strong shoulders.
"It took them long enough."
"Trials always take time," she points out. "They gave her twenty five years to life." They stroll away from the exit, as casually through the grimy back alley as others might take a jaunt through a meadow. "She was so high on her powers that in the frenzy of those last three days, she attacked people out of her suit as well. People who died. She won't walk free."
A satisfied smile curves his lips; he looks happy enough to burst into song. The idea is significantly unnerving.
Through the streets, past crowds of people who have almost no idea who they are - though the Marinette start-up is predicted to one day fill the void Gabriel left behind, and some do recognise the visage of Bruce Wayne's son - Marinette thinks they are finally free to be happy.
"Clark and Diana called," he tells her. "They were very pleased with the results of the trials. Asked me to pass on their congratulations."
Marinette, who could swear she saw a Barry West-style flash of red towards the start and end of Gabriel's sentencing, smiles. "You must be excited to see them all again. Five months is a long time to be separated from your entire family."
He scowls. "Hardly my entire family when Richard kept flying back for 'surprise visits', is it? Besides, I don't get excited, Marinette."
"Oh no, excuse me. I forget you're from Victorian England sometimes."
He huffs a laugh despite himself, stern expression dissipating. "My flights are booked. My apartment's going to be emptied out for me while we're in Spain. There's not much left to do now."
"No, I guess there isn't."
She falls silent and begins worrying her lip between her teeth. From her side there's a soft sigh, and then Damian's pulling her to a stop in the middle of the street, and enfolding her in his arms.
"Everything's going to be fine," he whispers, and smooths his hand down her back.
She fists up his jacket and burrows her face into the material, which smells so much like him, and feels the weight of everything finally hit her - or lift from her shoulders. The sensation is so immense that she isn't quite sure which it is yet.
They stay like this for a while longer, until she gathers up the strength to pull away from his embrace.
"Come on," she says, her voice a little thick. She picks up his hand and drags him off. "I want to make sure Grayson is fully settled in with my parents."
"And then patrol?" he asks.
Melancholy grips her heart. "Yes, Damian. One last patrol. You and me."
And all of Paris, she thinks. They pass a shop window that has a Ladybug and Lynx Maleun display in it; a quaint, handmade thing. This city is with them wherever they go, and that's just fine.
It's not a great day for Adrien. He lies in bed for an hour after he wakes up, and only moves when Elise and Louis make him. But they cheat, luring him out with French toast which they know he loves.
The TV is conspicuously off when he emerges from his cave and neither of his foster parents say anything about it, but he knows what day it is. Lila Rossi has been sentenced, and that means the Hawkmoth Trials will be declared over.
For the general public, that might be true. For him, they're never going to end.
"Adrien! There you are!" Elise's voice is over-bright, and her smile is strained when she presses a cup of coffee into his hand, brewed just how he likes it. He looks down into the coffee for a moment, then into her face. Mourning Star's ghost haunts it today. It's done that a lot recently. "Louis made a late breakfast for us both. Isn't he a sweetheart?" She pushes him into a dining chair and busies herself with folding towels until Louis takes her gently by the arm and seats her opposite Adrien.
"You're both in need of a pick me up," he declares. "Adrien's all packed for Spain, Elise and I are ready for Bordeaux... We're going to have a good summer." He pauses. "Or, failing that, we're going to have a good Autumn. My point - good times are coming."
"I agree," Elise says, smiling her widest for him until he quietly tells her that she doesn't have to pretend for his sake. She turns her gaze on Adrien, sat silent. "We've survived, and we're going to keep doing that."
"Agreed," he manages to croak, and then takes a sip of his coffee, a bite of his toast. It really is very good. That's something. "I'm going to Orange Grove later," he tells them. "See my friends."
Elise nods. "That's fine. I've an appointment with my therapist in the afternoon, and then..."
"Then we can get together anything last minute we need for Bordeaux," Louis supplies when she comes up short. "We're all busy today. Busy's good."
"Busy's good," he repeats tonelessly.
He tries not to think about those last moments in the Agreste manor. Tries, tries, tries. It's useless, really, but he lives in hope that one day he's not going to think about it at all. About Him, or his mother, dead, beneath the manor for years.
"Adrien!"
He jumps, blinking, to find that when he was lost in his mind, his hand has slipped, and his coffee is spreading across the wooden table. Elise and Louis are watching him through eyes sad and alarmed respectively.
"S-Sorry," he stammers, leaping up to fetch some kitchen roll. "I've got it."
Louis is staring at him now, and he knows what's coming. "Are you sure you're ready -"
"Yes! Yes, I'm ready for a break. Need it. I can't stay here right now." He shakes his head and takes a moment for himself, just to breathe. "I need to be with my friends."
"So go to them," Elise says softly. "I love you, sweetheart."
The smile he gives her before he goes to dress is mostly genuine. "Love you too, Elise."
Nathaniel is the only one around when he arrives, but that doesn't matter. The redhead is surprisingly open about his recent therapy, and Adrien finds his heart growing lighter to speak so frankly with someone other than Elise, or Doctor Blanchard.
As Nooroo and Trixx convene around a small plate of snacks, they settle at the kitchen island. The talk is mostly inane to begin with, which is just fine.
"Do you know what the international call rates are like from Spain?" Nathaniel mutters, scrolling through his phone. "I need to be able to call home."
"That's the condition I've been allowed to go under," Adrien says, scratching at the back of his neck. "The doctor says I can go wherever I like, so long as I make myself available for phone calls at least once a week."
"Mine said the same thing," Nathaniel admits. "And also, I'm supposed to call her if I ever just need to talk. Time of day doesn't matter. That's the one part Marc disagrees with. If I call him at any time of day when the sun isn't up, he's going to walk to Spain just to shank me."
"I'm not sure about the rates."
"Ah, young love," an aged voice chuckles, and they turn to the front door. It's Master Fu, come to see their progress. "Are you all ready for the off?"
"I think so," Nathaniel says, glancing around uncertainly. His eyes widen a fraction. "I feel like I'm forgetting about things I don't even own."
Adrien gives a half-hearted smile. "What if we actually need a kitchen sink though?"
Master Fu is still chuckling. "I'm sure you'll all survive the trip. Now, Nathaniel, I was hoping you might give me a minute alone with young Adrien here."
The Fox makes himself busy checking the security around the skylight of the hideout, and so Master and ex-student are alone. Adrien is immediately tense, but he waits to see what Fu has to say.
"I'm sorry." Adrien's mouth drops open, but Fu is just getting started. "I am... most sorry for everything, my boy. You should have never had to go through the things that you have, and I am man enough to admit that much of the blame lies on my own shoulders. I should have known better than to recruit so young, not now that there is no Guardianship to assist in your growth and training."
"It's - okay, Master Fu," he breathes, but the words sound insubstantial, even to his own ears. It isn't okay, and it never will be. "I forgive you."
His eyebrows raise. "Do you?"
"One day," he adds after a pause. "Everything is too close. I can't think about it yet."
"'One day' is, I fear, more than I even deserve, my boy," Fu says, eyes crinkling into a sad smile. He offers his hand out to shake. "I see you still wearing the Butterfly brooch. Keep it," he says when Adrien moves to take it off. "I think Nooroo deserves the holiday, if you're willing to take him along for the time being."
The lilac kwami, who Adrien has just realised has been watching the whole exchange, does perk up a bit at the suggestion, and Adrien has actually found that the little guy makes for good company. Misery loves it, he supposes.
"I can do that," he nods, managing an almost real smile for the old man.
The front door opens, and Marinette and Damian step inside. Tikki and Plagg zoom into the open space, the Luck kwami swooping upon Nooroo immediately.
"I told you he'd still be here, sugar cube!" his old friend cries smugly, and Adrien laughs as Plagg barrels into him with all the force a two-inch-tall God of destruction can. He's a little worried that Damian might be possessive over the kwami who is technically his now, but the Wayne boy looks perfectly content. "Good to see ya, kid! How're ya holding up?"
"I'm hanging in there," he says, smiling genuinely as Plagg nuzzles his face.
"You're a champ, that's why!"
"Hello, Master Fu," Marinette laughs, watching the exchange fondly. "Here to check up on us?"
"Among other things," he says. "I know that you two were planning to patrol tonight, but before you leave for Spain, I'd like to speak to you privately, Marinette." Adrien catches Fu's eye and nods approvingly.
"Sure, I can drop by your place tomorrow morning!"
"We were going to order in for dinner," Damian, who caught Adrien's look but didn't comment, says instead. "Do you two want to join us?"
"Sure," Adrien says, beginning to grin for real as Plagg and Nooroo flit about his head and Tikki rolls her eyes at them. "I'll have to let Elise know I'm not going home though."
Master Fu declines and makes his excuses. Their last night at Orange Grove for the foreseeable future is spent in a comfortable, if not slightly sombre, silence.
When Adrien does go home, Marinette turns to the kwamis with a warm smile. "Well," she says, and they jump to attention. "What do you say to one last patrol through Paris, for old time's sake?"
Tikki laughs. "I doubt it's our last, Marinette! Now might be the time for your rest, and you've earned it a thousand times over, but trust me, this city's always going to need it's Ladybug."
There's a short silence as Plagg stares Damian down. "You're just okay, kid."
"Oh, thanks a lot," he huffs as Marinette gives a watery laugh. "Plagg, Claws Out!"
"What will we do with them?" she asks her kwami with faux-exasperation. "Tikki, Spots On!"
For the first time in months the people of the city gape and point, crying out in joy when they see Ladybug and Lynx Maleun cross the rooftops of Paris.
The duo race and bound and laugh; they help a few cats down from a few trees and wave to many civilians.
Eventually, against apricot summer sky, they come to settle atop the Eiffel Tower, and somehow, everyone who sees them knows this is the last time they will witness such a sight.
They stop and too settle down; on the bridges and benches, in the trees, wherever they can, and for a brief, precious moment, the city comes to an almost-standstill, as it shares one last precious moment with the heroes it barely deserved.
It's a hot, sunny afternoon in Brittany when Chloe and Kagami stride down the boardwalk, heading for the harbour where the Queen Bee is docked. Chloe's very official captain's hat is offset by her impractical skirt and strappy sandals, whereas Kagami is dressed almost painfully sensibly; shorts, t-shirt, visor cap.
"I shouldn't let you onto my ship looking that plain," Chloe says without much heat. "But today's special, so I'll let it slide."
"Gracious of you," she says wryly. "Why is today so special?"
"Because Rossi won't be walking free any time soon," she says, slipping her phone into her bag. "It's moving day. She might even be settling into her new home as we speak."
"Good," Kagami says, tipping her head back slightly to feel the wind sift through her hair. "It's about time she was locked up."
"Hey Nathaniel!" Chloe barks as they near the yacht docked in the harbour. A familiar head of red hair pops up over the side. "Help us up!"
He scrambles to do so, and the girls find they're the last to arrive. Everyone else is already aboard, milling about and buzzing with excitement.
"It's good to see you've all made yourselves at home," she drawls, staring at Nino who's sat with his feet up on the cream bench at the stern of the ship. He flushes a bit and slowly lowers them to the ground.
"Calm down, Chloe," Marinette says, lugging an icebox out from beneath deck. "You're the one who insisted we take this trip, remember? We'd better feel at home if we're spending weeks on board."
"Dupain-Cheng," she says, nodding. "You don't look terrible."
"Thank you, Bee. I try my best."
Her best is very good, to say the least. Chloe stares enviously at the halterneck she's wearing, wondering where she got it from, before she alights upon the Marinette stitched into the hem and makes note to ask her for one.
"Are we ready to go?"
"When you are!" Marinette says brightly. She puts her hands on her hips and looks around. "I can't think of anything else we need to do."
"That's because we've done everything, Nettie," Luka says patiently, emerging from below deck as well.
Chloe straightens her posture imperceptibly but doesn't say anything, because a smile is threatening to curve Dupain-Cheng's lips and Chloe won't put up with her knowing looks all summer.
"Are you sure though?" she asks, wringing her hands the longer she overthinks.
"Yes, Marinette," Kagami says, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Enough fussing."
"Actually," another voice from below breaks in, "there is one more thing to do."
Damian is the third one to come up from below deck, slipping a pair of sunglasses on as he steps into the sun.
"I knew it," Marinette gushes, pressing her hands over her lenses. "What was it? Is it our passports? Do we have enough water? Oh Tikki, we left it all behind didn't we -"
"Lila!" Damian crows over her rambles. "We forgot about Lila."
Her shoulders deflate. "Oh. Oh yes, I knew it was something."
Nino, standing to the edge of the group, looks confused. "What does Lila Rossi have to do with this?"
"We haven't told you?" he asks. "She's being transferred to her new home today; we thought we'd send her a little parting gift."
"What? I don't get it, dudes."
Kagami calls, "Adrien! Where are you? It's time to go!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" he replies, but none of them can see him. "Yes, Elise, I promise to look after myself." He appears from the captain's cabin, phone pressed to his ear. He hurries down the stairs to them and holds up his free hand to prompt a moment of silence. "Yes. No excessive drinking, I swear. Yes, I'll look after Nino."
"Hey," Nino says quietly; Chloe shushes him.
"I promise. I promise." Another pause. "Love you too. Thanks, Elise! We will!" When he hangs up, he says to them, "Elise says hey, and also we all have to be responsible -"
"And look after ourselves, and not get into any trouble," Marinette finishes, smiling. "I got the same speech from my parents."
"As did I from my brothers," Damian mutters, clenching his jaw slightly. He clears his throat. "Shall we?"
"I'm going to enjoy this," Nathaniel says, as they head over to the seats by the stern.
Luka hangs back with Nino, who asks, "What are you doing?"
"Shut up and hold this," he says, shoving his phone into Nino's hands.
"What do you want me to do with it?" he asks, incredulous.
"Film," he and Chloe say simultaneously.
When he sits down beside her and throws his arm over the back of her seat, Nino has to wonder about them, but Kagami asks, "Are you ready?" so he shakes his head and presses record.
"Ready."
Marinette, at the centre of the ensemble, puts on a big, false smile and looks into the camera.
"Lila Rossi!" she begins, and her friends all chorus the same as Damian passes around just-filled champagne flutes. "We're just checking in before we head off to Spain."
"Big plans for the summer on our end," Nathaniel says, as if discussing the weather, which is frankly perfect. "I'm not sure what the summer holidays are like in prison though..."
"Neither am I," Kagami says, "but I'm certain they don't involve beaches or cocktails, so we'll have to be sure to take plenty of photos for our good friend Lila to enjoy from her cell."
"She's been such a good friend to us, it would be rude for us not to," he agrees; they clink their glasses together.
"Yeah, and you know, if you have any other little friends who want to come and play..." Adrien begins, a smirk playing at his lips.
"Just say the word," Damian finishes, smirking outright. "It's been an absolute pleasure."
"Ha! Enjoy prison, bitch." Chloe's eyes flash victoriously. "These drinks are all on you! We wouldn't be here on this yacht drinking them, if it hadn't been for you and your bullshit."
"Not much fizz in prison," Kagami agrees, leaning closer into Adrien with an increasingly sly expression. "So you'll have to take our word for it."
"Now, we have to be off," Damian says, making a show of checking his watch. "We can hardly spend all day talking to you when Spain awaits."
"So have fun," Adrien says, "and uh - I don't know, send us a postcard?"
"From prison?" Marinette muses. "I don't think they make those. Check the gift shop when you arrive, Lila. Bye now!"
"Goodbye!" "See ya!" "Bye-bye!"
Everyone waves, and in the last second before Nino stops recording, Marinette winks into the camera, raises her glass in a final, private toast, and downs the last of her champagne.
"Nice," Nino chuckles, sending the video file off to the right source. "Very nice you guys."
"Right!" Luka cries, jumping up with his own champagne still in hand, "lets get this boat moving! Chloe, give me a hand."
"What, you've never gone yachting before?" she complains, following him nonetheless.
He steals the captain's hat from her head as she passes him and they vanish into the captain's cabin together. Moments later, they feel the engines strike up and Marinette stretches, catlike, in her seat and throws her head back.
Damian looks down at her with an amused smile. "That was very audacious of you," he says.
"Eh, she deserves it." With the sun's rays beaming down on her, the sea's winds blowing through her hair and the champagne's liquid courage humming in her veins, Marinette would tell the Joker to fuck off to his face right now. "It felt good."
"I can think of other things that feel good," he muses, and watches with amusement as Nathaniel eases himself away from them with a face red enough to match his hair. He goes to join Nino, as their boat pulls away from the harbour and begins its creeping journey across the azure sea.
"Tell me all about it," she says, nudging his side.
"Relaxation suits you," he says instead, tucking a loose lock of hair behind the temple of her sunglasses.
"Ditto." She clinks her empty champagne flute against his half-full one. "You like the glasses?"
He takes them from his face, examining the shades and in particular, the little Marinette, inscribed in gold on the side. This is unnecessary; he spent an hour staring at them when she first gave them to him ("These are officially my first accessory," she cried proudly), and he already knows he never intends to have a pair by anyone else.
"I like the glasses," he nods at last, sliding them back onto his face. "Where is everyone?"
They're alone at the stern of the ship; Chloe and Luka are steering (at least that's what they're supposed to be doing) and Kagami and Adrien vanished below deck not long after they finished filming the video. Nino and Nathaniel, the only non-couple on board, have paired off as well, mostly to complain about the couples around them and their own significant others.
"They can look after themselves," she says.
"Lila's jailing really has mellowed you out, hasn't it?"
She shrugs, trying to look nonchalant. "I'm breezy."
"Well I think it's good," he says. "It's about time you let yourself relax. You say I'm bad."
"You are! You wouldn't know rest and relaxation if it hit you with a batarang."
"What am I doing right now?" he asks, gesturing around at the boat.
"Irritating your girlfriend," she says, pretending to grumble. "Keep it up and I'll change my mind about September."
He stares at her. "No, you won't."
"Won't I? Moving to Gotham City's going to be a lot of work after all."
"You said you wanted to meet Titus, and Barbara, and - and you're bluffing, I know it." Confidence restored, he smirks at her. "Gotham awaits, Marinette."
"I can't wait to see her again," she says, smiling softly.
A short silence falls as in the distance, the harbour gets smaller and smaller. Finally away from prying eyes, the kwami emerge from their hiding places and convene together. Nooroo in particular seems to enjoy the feeling of the wind on his face.
Marinette watches them dance and play, and that feeling of melancholy takes her again.
Her team, her people, are going to be split up after Spain; with she and Damian in Gotham, and Luka's band beginning to tour France, that's three of them gone immediately. Kagami's going to one university, Nathaniel to another, one that specialises in art, which leaves Chloe the last wielder in Paris.
"I'm going to shadow Daddy," she declared in May. "The least I can learn from him is his business."
A sudden lump comes to Marinette's throat. "Everything's going to change now, isn't it?"
Damian follows her chain of thought easily. "Yes. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, I think it is."
His fingers thread through hers and they remain this way until the sun has moved through the summer sky a good deal, turning it from celadon to a darker lapis shade.
The coastline of France has long since been swallowed up in the great blue, and lights are lit aboard the ship to help guide the way as one by one, their friends rejoin them on the deck.
"Okay," Luka sighs, easing himself down with guitar in hand. "Who wants to hear Wonderwall?"
They all groan and throw things at him until he stops, and when Kagami chucks an empty Sprite can at his head and it perfectly bounces off, landing in a nearby bin, the shock on his face sends Marinette into a spiral of giggles, which become increasingly out of control as the others join in.
"The look on your face, dude, " Nino wheezes.
"Yes, can you please learn to control yourself?" Chloe asks. "I can't have people thinking I'm friends with an idiot."
"It's a bit late for that," Nathaniel says, and barely ducks in time when Luka whips an empty can at his head.
"I don't think this is what Elise had in mind when she told us to keep out of trouble," Adrien says, but he's smiling too, alive in the eyes for the first time in months. He goes to share a wry smile with Marinette, but she isn't paying any more attention.
Her laughter has died down as she and Damian press their foreheads together, muttering sweet nothings, and Adrien turns away to give them the illusion of privacy.
"Our friends are idiots," Damian tells Marinette, quite gravely. "It may be terminal."
"That sounds serious," she says, playing along even as she tries to force down a smile.
"Yes, indeed, I fear there is nothing I can do for them." In the background, Luka is goading Kagami into coming at him, top speed, with her sabre; Nathaniel is betting on whether or not he survives with Nino, as Chloe throws back her head in disgust and Adrien tries to make himself invisible. "We'll just have to live with it, I think."
"But I don't want to go among mad people!"
He barks out a laugh. "Oh, you can't help that, habibti. We're all mad here."
"Does that include you?" she asks, tracing her fingertip in gentle patterns across his cheekbone.
He leans into her touch. "Yes, I'm afraid to say it does."
He closes his lips over hers to seal the deal, and they staunchly ignore the sudden eruption of cheers and wolf whistles, and the can that bounces off Damian's head.
They entwine themselves together and there drift into the blue, willfully oblivious to their friends antics, and to the spray of the sea against their skin, the salt, tangy and sharp in the night air, in their nostrils and on their tongues.
The sky is infinite above them, the sea is endless below them, and their friends are laughing beside them, and though there is room in this bubble for no one but Marinette and Damian, that's okay as well.