Work Text:
Rose is the first.
Rose isn't going to be the last.
Anarka knows that from the start. She never even tries to convince herself otherwise.
She knows that even as she watches her daughter try on and discard a dozen different excuses for why Rose's sleepover has extended from two nights, to four, to a week, and still shows no signs of ending. Anarka knows that as she watches Juleka go to her brother for advice, and as Luka helps both girls clear out Juleka's trundle bed and find space for anything too important to throw away.
Rose is the first to stay, but she's not going to be the last. Not by a long shot. Not when Anarka knows damn well that Rose never asked them to do this, and yet Juleka and Luka are both instantly determined to build a space in their lives for her.
Luka starts stowing whatever the girls can't find or make space for under his own bed. Luka hasn't got the space himself, and Anarka sees him carry out some of his own things late that night and hand it off to Juleka's drummer friend.
Anarka remembers him because she's been trying to get him to take the old drum set off her hands, but Ivan keeps turning her down with a longing mixed with a reluctance that's made her wonder. It's not that much of a surprise that he says he can't bring home drums, because Anarka's pretty sure a lot of parents do object to the noise (Anarka's not sure why anyone who objects to loud noises is parenting at all, but hey, not her problem), but something about his objections has never seemed totally right.
Ivan's starting to show up a little more often than seems reasonable or normal himself, but he doesn't comment as he takes Luka's old sheet music and band shirts and even the pirate ship comforter her son has hauled out every winter for years. Ivan does look a little uneasy as Luka tries to fold in the edges of the heavy blanket to make it easier to carry, but he doesn't ask why Luka's giving it to him.
From the way his eyes flicker between Luka and the Liberty and the way the line between his eyes deepens, Anarka suspects that Ivan only intends to safeguard her son's belongings until he can give them back.
Anarka isn't entirely sure herself what she's supposed to do about her kids moving Rose in with whispered plans and furtive glances, so she pretends not to notice for as long as she can get away with. She doesn't mind having Rose at all, it's hard not to love the girl her own daughter is so clearly more than half in love with already, but she definitely doesn't know then what she's going to say when Rose's parents inevitably come looking for her.
Except that Rose's parents don't. Come looking for her, that is.
Days turn to weeks turn to months and Rose has yet to leave the Liberty.
Luka and Juleka have stopped even trying to hide it. Anarka goes in to the school and changes Rose's address over to the ship and no one protests or questions her.
No one stops her. No one contests her changing Rose's address, even though Rose is hers by circumstance and not by blood and Anarka has the vague idea that someone probably should be stopping her.
She's not honestly sure this isn't technically kidnapping at this point.
But no one seems to care, and Rose is so very much hers, her crew and her family, Rose is one of her kids now. So Anarka starts signing as Rose's guardian and stops waiting for anyone to fight her on it.
(She almost wishes they would. She'd enjoy winning).
It's only a couple months after Rose herself has started referring to the Liberty as home and stopped half-hiding behind Juleka or Luka whenever she sees Anarka that Marc shows up.
Marc is unexpected in a way that Rose never was. Marc is, if Anarka's following correctly, a friend of a friend- one who suddenly, desperately needs somewhere to stay.
"So," Anarka says, priding herself on keeping her voice casual, lounging over the railing with the best air of nonchalance she can muster and carefully not looking anywhere near Rose. "Marc, right?"
Marc presses towards the railing with Juleka and Rose hovering at their back in a way that's probably not conscious on any of their parts. Marc also doesn't say anything.
Anarka sighs internally and gives up on keeping up a pretence. By the way Rose had stayed scared of her for so long, it had hurt more than helped the first time, anyway. "We don't have a ton of space, kid, but there's a pull out couch in the main cabin and plenty of space on the deck." Technically there's a spare bunk, because it's not like they'd really needed the stuff she was storing in it- it was mostly sentimental, and the money from it's gonna be more useful than the memories, and it's not like she'd sold the memories- but technically the spare bunk is for Rose.
Rose isn't going to use it, but it's the only extra room Anarka has. She's trying to promise herself that she'll wait to offer it to anyone who stays longer than a week.
She's not too sure she's gonna manage that.
But they also didn't have a pull out couch before the past year, and judging by her kid's expressions they hadn't realised that was why she'd insisted on replacing the couch in the first place. She has a momentary glow of validation, remembering how frustrated Luka had been with her 'wasting' money on a new couch when he knows better than the other two have realised yet that they don't have that money to spend.
Anarka's good at music and ships. She's not so great at finances, but the kids are already shaping up to be much better at them than her, which is an old weight off her shoulders. She doesn't regret her now-ancient deal with Luka to homeschool him, but this was an area she'd always been afraid she wouldn't be up to teaching. Possibly the others in their homeschool network have picked up her slack, but she thinks her son's probably just smarter than she is.
His face when he sees the couch unfolded and made up into a bed for Marc is still pretty damn entertaining, though.
She does end up offering the spare bunk, but Marc doesn't end up staying long. They don't need to, not the way Rose does, because unlike Rose there is family that comes looking for them.
Anarka refuses to give them back until the aunt that shows up convinces her that she's a good enough person for Anarka to trust with Marc, but it's clearly a very different situation than Rose. By the time Marc does leave with their aunt Anarka's satisfied that they'll be happy there.
And that if they aren't, they know where they can go.
And if Anarka has a much harder time saying goodbye to them in the first place, no one has to know.
(But she thinks that's when her first three kids start to catch on).
Nino only stays a week, long enough to weather his parent's unexpectedly vicious divorce. He looks haunted and hunted the whole time and sleeps out on the deck every night the weather will let him and she checks repeatedly that his parents haven't been having an unexpectedly violent divorce, but she's satisfied that Nino's going to be safe by the time he leaves again. Maybe not as happy as Anarka would like, but safe, and like Marc before him he knows he can always come back.
That's around when Anarka has to start reminding herself that Rose notwithstanding, she really can't just keep these kids who are hers-but-not-hers.
She's definitely gotten herself into too deep. She's definitely in too deep to get herself back out.
She can't regret it, not when desperate and distrustful kids don't stop showing up.
Ivan brings Luka's comforter back with him and leaves it behind when he goes.
Kagami won't be until much later, but she brings more than blankets with her. At first she's not there much, and she adamantly refuses the spare bunk and never stays the night, but eventually Anarka starts to realise that Kagami might well be on her way to becoming one of the Liberty's more permanent boarders.
By the time Hawkmoth's begun displacing people, temporarily and not, word's spread through all Anarka's kid's friends that the Liberty is somewhere safe for them to go. There are still friends Anarka doesn't see much of- it's worrying that no one seems to have met Kim's parents, and that Alix seems to spend more nights in the museum after it's closed than can possibly be reasonable or healthy or, probably, legal- but Anarka's lucky there aren't more kids than there are aboard when she's akumatised.
(Which was probably a matter of time, and as proud as she is of her kids she's not sure she wants to consider how much harder they are to akumatise than she was).
By the time the city's gotten disturbingly used to weathering Hawkmoth's magical bullshit (the other homeschool parents would like her to stop saying that, but look, calling it anything serious is only legitimising the bastard and also it's not like the kids aren't all learning new and interesting curses with every akuma the rat's ass sends out), Anarka's gotten used to the Liberty's revolving door.
And then she finds Chat Noir passed out on their floor one night.
Anarka pauses, one foot through the door, and blinks into the main cabin, not completely sure she's seeing what she thinks she's seeing. She hasn't gone out drinking since Luka was born, but this feels like the kind of half-reality she'd stumbled home from the bar to a few times in her youth. She means it when she says anyone's welcome but...
Shit, the kid's not even on the couch.
She doesn't walk closer, because she's seen more than one kid snap awake and afraid at an unexpected approach, but she leans into the doorframe and studies Chat Noir and the room around him.
He's alone, which immediately strikes her as the weirdest thing about the whole tableau. Her kids bring friends and acquaintances home all the time, but they never simply leave them alone. Rose especially wouldn't be letting someone sleep on the floor by themselves. Either she should be here, or Chat Noir shouldn't be.
Chat Noir probably shouldn't be.
How on earth does Chat Noir not have a place of his own to stay? Anarka's always suspected that the heroes are too young, but even if Chat's been displaced somehow, she doesn't see how his partner wouldn't have swept him up immediately. The whole city's seen the way the two of them fight together, and Ladybug fights too well and too hard with Chat Noir (and for him) for her not to take him with her, if he has nowhere else to go.
Which means... that Ladybug doesn't know.
Anarka winces, leaning harder against the doorframe as she feels that line of thought out carefully. Ladybug doesn't know. If Ladybug doesn't know, then she probably doesn't know who Chat is. If she doesn't know who Chat is, it's because she asked him not to tell her, because Anarka refuses to believe that Chat doesn't want to. Chat Noir belongs at his partner's side just as surely as she does at his, but he clings to it in a way his partner doesn't.
Anarka stiffens as a terrible thought snakes through her mind.
Maybe Chat needs it in a way his partner doesn't.
That scared thought uncoils itself and laughs, lashing a worry deep throughout her, because Anarka's always opened her home to anyone who needs it but this is a kid who fights supervillains as a day job. This is a kid who risks his life over and over every day and cracks jokes while he does it.
This is a kid, and he's curled up in a tight little ball on Anarka's floor like he doesn't deserve the couch.
She still leaves him there, reluctant as she is to do it, because she'd learned with Rose and later Ivan that pulling anyone from their sleep never ends well. If Chat Noir starts sounding like he's having a nightmare, she'll- figure something out. Shaking him's not gonna be safe, obviously, but throwing things probably isn't either. Loud noises are an option but likely not a good one. There probably isn't any good option.
Anarka settles on hoping he doesn't have any nightmares.
He's gone with no sign he was ever there by morning.
She might think she'd dreamed the whole thing, if she didn't run across him again two nights later. (And if she didn't have a level of insomnia that makes that unlikely).
Chat's in the crow's nest this time, huddled into a tiny ball of miserable catboy, and his usually silent bell lets out a soft, bright sound whenever he moves. He's shivering hard enough for it to be ringing pretty often, too.
From the way he tenses as she makes her usual evening check, he's not asleep this time.
But Anarka's weathered this before.
All her kids are different, and she doubts Chat's an exception to that, but from the way his ears track her movement she thinks he's going to be more like Nino was than like Rose is. So Anarka doesn't say anything that night, stepping carefully around him as she makes her final round of checks, and by the way he goes distressingly limp when she makes her way back out of the crow's nest (much faster than she normally would) she probably made the right decision.
She briefly spots him on the deck the next night, so. Probably.
She thinks he's still hanging around, but he gets a lot harder to spot after that- at least, until she finds him in the main cabin again a week later.
He's awake this time, and alone again, and seriously, how is he always alone? Her kids should be swarming him. Anarka herself stays back until she knows how a kid's gonna react, because none of them are showing up here because they've got a good relationship with the adults in their lives, but her kids don't do that. Rose especially doesn't do that, and Rose isn't missing because anything's wrong with her, Rose is fine, she's not ill or anything, Anarka has checked repeatedly. (Anarka has never figured out what she's supposed to do if Rose is sick, because surely then someone's going to notice that Rose isn't supposed to be hers. Probably. Maybe?)
But if Rose is fine, then this is something Chat Noir's doing on purpose.
It's driving Anarka up a wall and it's not something she can interfere with unless she wants to break not just Chat Noir's trust, but the trust of everyone else she's offering a haven to.
So even though it's killing her a little inside, she leaves the main cabin alone and ducks past Chat Noir.
Or rather, she tries to.
He doesn't look up, but his ears flick in her direction and he flinches with his whole body. She always hurts to see that; she always hurts worse when she realises it's become familiar.
Chat's voice is low and hoarse when he says, "Sorry."
It's the first thing he's said to her since she'd found him on the ship.
It had been the first thing both Marc and Nino had said, too.
Anarka desperately wants these kids to stop apologising to her.
She's had practise at this now, though, so she stops and leans herself against the wall where Chat can see her. "You don't gotta be sorry, kid."
He looks up at her through his mask, claws fidgeting in the Carapace throw Rose has draped over the couch. Anarka's not even sure where Rose found a Carapace throw. Luka's replaced his old pirate comforter with a Ladybug blanket, too, and Juleka has a Chat Noir blanket and Rena Rouge pillowcases, and it's not like Anarka even has spending money to give her kids so she's not at all sure how they're managing this.
At least Chat Noir seems to appreciate it.
At least Chat Noir is on the couch, this time.
"Sorry anyway," the hero in question says, eyes dropping to the floor in a way that never fails to drop Anarka's stomach. Seriously, she knows she kinda, well, asked for this when she opened her home in the first place, but just how many kids around here have been treated this badly? How does this happen? How does this keep happening?
How has everyone missed it happening to Chat Noir?
"You don't gotta be," Anarka repeats, instead of giving voice to any of the shouting inside her head. "Meant it when I said everyone's welcome. You're sure a part of everyone last I checked, kid."
Chat's claws twist further into the throw, freezing the moment they start to prick through. Anarka tries to figure out if she can reach the fidget toy box without risking getting too far into Chat's space.
Probably not. Damn. She can see one of the spinners she intentionally leaves out all over the place, but that isn't gonna be any help if Chat doesn't know he can use it.
Nooot the most pressing matter right now, though.
"You know," Anarka starts, cautious, but hell, she saves this one for a reason. Chat Noir maybe technically hasn't made it the week she's promised herself, but he's also Chat Noir, so she figures he's earned a pass. "There's a spare bunk, if you ever need it."
Chat jerks like she's thrown a spinner at him after all.
Too blunt, then. Too late to fix that now.
"Was supposed to be Rose's, after a while," Anarka continues on, as blithely as she can. "But that's pretty clearly not gonna happen. Doesn't even use it if her and Juleka are fighting, not that they ever do that for real long." Wait, was that threatening? Did that sound threatening?
Why hasn't she ever taken some kind of parenting classes? She should have for Luka and Juleka, and then she should have taken more when she started picking up more kids, so why hadn't she?
Too late for that now, too. She only ever thinks of it in moments like this one, when she's trying to offer a haven to someone else's kid. To a kid who's supposed to be someone else's, anyway.
Anarka should probably have done something when Rose's parents didn't come for her, but- but Rose's parents didn't come for her. They'd never bothered. Anarka has never had to fight them for Rose, because they'd never even bothered to try.
And Anarka can't track them down and demand to know what the hell is wrong with them, why they could ever have given up Rose, because if she did-
Anarka may figure that they aren't Rose's parents, not when she hasn't heard a whisper of them after actual years of Rose living on her ship, but the law may well figure differently. Anarka's better off keeping all their heads down about that one. She's a risk taker, sure, but she's not going to risk Rose.
She's not ever going to risk any of her kids, even the ones she'd only had for a few weeks.
(She's not going to get akumatised again. She's not going to let herself fall for that terrible heady mix of exhaustion and adrenalin that leaves her vulnerable to being akumatised again).
Chat Noir looks at her, but it's the briefest flash of green before his eyes flinch away. His ears are down and flat, his claws are still buried in Rose's throw, and his tail is held stiffly still. Anarka's not sure that Chat Noir really reflects feline body language, but she's pretty sure anyone who's spending that much time running around dressed like he does is gonna start to emulate it whether or not they mean to.
Which is good for Anarka, since it's a lot easier to read than a lot of humans are, even with all the practise she's now had.
So she knows not to move any closer, she knows that, and she curses herself out roundly inside her own head when she catches herself taking a step into the room anyway.
Chat Noir doesn't bolt, not like Marc would have, but he's tense in a wary sort of readiness that she'd have attributed to battle if he weren't. Well. Here.
She stops, one foot still hooked back outside the door. She tries to study him without looking like she's staring at him, but that's a little hard when she's definitely staring at him.
He doesn't have any of the more obvious signs some of her other stray kids have had. His clothes are sorta a non-issue and sure don't tell her anything, and if he has any actual injuries either they're hidden under his suit and mask or they've been healed by Ladybug by now-
Anarka pauses.
Because healed injuries are still injuries.
Anarka doesn't move, but now she's fighting not to. She winces at the swell of guilt that follows fast on the realisation she should have had months ago. Whatever else is going on in his life, she sees Chat Noir fighting for his life almost every day. Sometimes he gets hurt, or his partner does, or they both do.
Sometimes when he's fighting for his life he loses, and his partner has to bring him back.
Honestly, Ladybug probably looks just about as exhausted as Chat does right now.
But Ladybug's not the one on Anarka's couch. Ladybug's not the one she has a chance to help right now.
Anarka finally completes the motion into the main cabin, alert in case something startles Chat Noir more than she already has. "The other kids didn't stick around long enough to keep the berth, either, so it's free right now, kid. You need somewhere safe, go ahead, no questions asked." Anarka tilts her head, sliding a fidget spinner off the nearest flat surface so that it skids along the floor towards Chat. "...Oops. Anyway, you wanna pass this offer along to Ladybug, too? Not, uh, not actually all that sure which of the kids talked to you, but I dunno how clear they made the 'everyone' bit." Wait, does Luka even know Chat Noir? Juleka and Rose do, because their class is a worse trouble magnet than the Liberty herself, but why would Luka-
Chat Noir's eyes had been briefly tracking the fidget spinner, but he jerks his gaze back up to her just as it falls over.
Distantly, Anarka thinks that he looks scared. He looks scared of her.
She tries to think back through what she said, but she doesn't know what she said anymore, it was gone as soon as she'd said it. Even if she knew it word-for-word, that still doesn't mean she'd know what part of it would scare Chat.
She's not too thrilled about seeing the kid scared at all, though. Kid's a superhero, there shouldn't be a whole lot she could say that'd scare him short of shouting his real name, and it's not like she knows that. She doesn't want to know that. She doesn't even share her own, generally. Her own kids don't know it. She definitely doesn't need or want Chat's, and his superhero identity has very little to do with her feeling that way.
Chat Noir swallows, still looking at her but in that way that means he's not meeting her eyes. He's staring at a spot just past her instead; Anarka knows that trick from all the times she's used it herself, from the time she'd taught it to Luka and the time she'd taught it to Rose. Either one of them had then been the one to teach Juleka, or Juleka's the one who turned out not to need it.
"Ladybug doesn't know." The kid's claws have punched through the throw. Anarka hopes he doesn't notice. He seems likely to take it kinda hard, and although Rose is pretty attached to it Rose is also not going to value it over Chat Noir. None of Anarka's kids would ever do that. Anarka would never do that.
Ultimately, things are just things, even things she likes. She'd abandon all of it in a heartbeat if it was a choice between that and any of her kids.
(Which is unwise, and poor planning, and short sighted, and all the other things that mean she hasn't spoken to her own parents in decades).
"I kinda figured, kid, since she ain't here with you." Anarka nods towards the fidget spinner on the floor, keeping a tight rein on her movements so that they aren't too sharp or too fast. "You want that? We've got like a dozen, Rose keeps finding more." It's mostly true, Rose does bring home at least half of them.
Chat Noir blinks. He looks bewildered. "What?"
"Fidget spinner. You want it?" Anarka shrugs, pretending disinterest as she props herself carefully against the wall. "We've got plenty more, won't miss one."
He swallows again. "You're offering me a lot."
Somehow, she doesn't think that's about the fidget spinners.
"Yeah, kid," she says, softer than she means to. "Figure you of all people deserve it. Stay whenever you want, hey? Offer's not got a time limit or anything."
She has to leave then, because she sees the way he's stiffening again and the way his gaze is getting more frantic and darting to the exits more often, including the exit she's inadvertently blocking.
She doesn't stop seeing him.
He rarely comes inside, and he's definitely not taking her up on the offer of a berth, but he's still around and he's starting to let her see him more often. She starts to think he's not coming inside not because he's not comfortable with it, but because he doesn't want to be inside. She has to start checking the crow's nest whenever the sky starts to look a little less than friendly, and she finds his hearing's good enough that she can stand on the deck and comment on the weather and he'll move somewhere safer.
But he keeps coming.
Kagami's visits start to increase in frequency and length, and Luka starts bringing Adrien and Marinette home more frequently- not that Marinette is likely to need to stay, thankfully, at least Anarka knows for sure that that one'll be fine- and Chat Noir doesn't stop showing up. He stops showing up quite as often, and she hopes like hell that only means he's found another safe place to stay, but he's still around.
He started showing himself around the rest of her kids, at some point. He's starting to get pulled into the life of the Liberty more, and it's already too much like Rose before him and even Adrien and Kagami now.
(And that's a tangle that Anarka is dreading. That's sure not going to be a Rose situation; she's lucky their parents haven't already noticed the way their kids are slowly stealing away to the ship. Once they do, she's going to have one hell of a fight on her hands, and she's still trying to figure out who else she can quickly recruit to her side. Chat'd probably help, and he has the clout, but he's also a kid who's also straying onto her ship, so she really doesn't want to have to do that).
Chat's still not great about coming inside, for whatever reason. That's fine by Anarka. Nino never had been, either, and she never had learned why.
Nino's started coming back, and she's also not too sure about that. She doesn't think it's his parents, this time. She tries a little desperately to keep her questions from being prying or desperate, especially when Chat's around, but Nino doesn't act the way he did when it was his parents.
And then she realises he's showing up with Chat.
He comes by with Adrien and Marinette and sometimes Ivan too (Nino and Ivan's time on the ship had overlapped, if just barely), but he shows up most frequently with Chat Noir.
So does Marinette.
She's starting to think that so would Rose, if Rose didn't already live here.
The hero's got more friends than he seems to know.
Anarka... manages. Her kids who aren't her kids who aren't staying bring food and games with them, and those who can sometimes leave food behind, and she is not too proud to accept that when her crew looks likely to expand again shortly. Her pride's not worth her kids, anyway.
Marinette brings bakery boxes, and Alya starts coming around and starts bringing whole dinners and starts having long conversations with Marc that result in the kids designing pronoun pins and then Marinette comes back with supplies for those, and Nino starts to sneak in things like extra clothes and bedding when he thinks she's not looking.
Like she won't notice the clothes are either Chat or Adrien sized.
Like she's not gonna notice when Marinette starts doing the same, except that she also brings clothes for Kagami.
The kids look guilty, though, when they think she's seen. She can guess why they would- she might have explicitly told Chat Noir he was welcome, but not most of the others, and Nino never has seemed to believe her when she told him his welcome wasn't temporary- but she kinda hates it anyway.
Anarka gives in and calls up her help.
"We're not going to fit," Penny tells her, wearily. Anarka likes to think the weariness is from dealing with Jagged all day.
Sure, it's nine in the morning, but Anarka knows Jagged. She's not ruling it out.
"We'll fit," Anarka says, calmly. "The couch in the main cabin can take two, and the kids are more'n willing to share the berth, and you know my cabin's got the space, Pen."
Penny's silent, but Anarka can hear the hitch in her breath. She waits.
"Yes," Penny finally says, more than half a sigh. "Don't get too excited, Anna. We haven't asked Jagged yet."
But from Penny's resigned tone, they both already know the answer.
"Don't really use that name much anymore," Anarka says, instead of thank you. Instead of and then what.
Instead of sorry it's taken us all so long.
Penny's wince is audible. "Sorry, Anarka." She pauses. "Always was a little jealous of that."
"You wanna change yours, just ask the kids to use your new one. Trust me, they'll be right on board." She thinks of the pins they'd made and how animated a discussion Marc and Alya had gotten into, the glitter that had gotten everywhere and that they're still finding, the way Rose hadn't settled on a pin for hours even as they all teased her because Rose knows her pronouns, she'd just been stalling until Alya had picked theirs. "They're... they're real good kids, Penny."
The voice on the phone is warm. Smiling. "Of course they are, Anarka, they're yours."
Jagged's on board, because of course he is.
Jagged's literally on board, because Anarka's frankly bad at planning and also because it makes the fight easier for them and harder for everyone else.
Even if the fight's now more annoying on all sides. Anarka could definitely do without the crocodile but eh, the kids always wanted a pet. They can figure that out with everything else.
Because, as much fame and fortune as Gabriel Agreste and Tomoe Tsurugi have-
Jagged Stone's got more.
(In the end they have to fight not just the kids' parents but also Hawkmoth and Mayura and sometimes each other, if they don't dodge a butterfly quick enough, but it's worth it because she gets to keep all her kids. She gets to keep Chat Noir, and that means Adrien's one of hers, and then she gets Kagami too. She was never going to lose Rose in the first place. She even gets- well, Jagged and Penny and Fang do all want to stay.
... she's going to need a bigger boat).