AN: It's been a very long while, and I'm so terribly sorry about that! Life happened, as it does. To those of you who stuck around so very patiently and continue to enjoy this story, thank you, thank you, thank you :')

And also an enormous thank you to jesuisunjardin, kwamikwami, larvesta, chiumonster, lunecake, 12hues, qookyquiche, maaarble, and goonlalagoon for the gorgeous, stunning, spectacular art! (Check out tumblr or AO3 for links!)

(I also recommend re-reading chapter 5, as I've rewritten a bit of it to fit better with the story!)

It takes Marinette a few weeks to find the time to visit her parents' place for the weekend. She has sleep to catch up on, a dozen clients to tattoo, a myriad of teases and questions from Alya to answer (or dodge), and an uneasy curiosity growing in the pit of her stomach to poke at.

Her overactive imagination feeds her curiosity without reserve as her thoughts inevitably turn back to Adrien, soaked in sunlight and covered in flowers. For how soft he seems, she doesn't know why his touch is so sharp upon her nerves. Why his presence lingers in her skin long after, a buzzing that sits close to her bones.

It's a little familiar, that sensation. Growing up immersed in gymnastics and track makes fatigue a familiar friend; pain, even more so, though it was never cuts or bruises or blisters that bothered her. Sometimes, an ache would build, then knot in an elusive hiding place on her body. Marinette spent hours absentmindedly prodding her muscles and joints, seeking bruises she couldn't see but only feel.

They were never where she expected them to be. It'd be the spot beneath her wrist bone. The spot on her side, right along a rib. The spot on her shin, off center. She was always covered in them, phantom black under the flushed red of her skin.

Adrien's impact leaves a similar mark on her, somehow. Visiting him sporadically at the flower shop in the past few weeks helps prod different spots in her, but a recent influx of clients wanting new tattoos keeps their meetings brief and their friendship confined to texts. It's not the same, but the distance helps her think.

She'd find the spot, wherever the curiosity has planted itself within her.

"Something the matter, Mari-berry?" Tom's easygoing voice breaks through her thoughts effortlessly. The childhood nickname transforms her to a kid of six, small pudgy hands mushing fondant like clay, instead of a young woman with strong, capable hands currently slamming bread dough relentlessly into submission on the kitchen table.

"A lot on my mind, papa," Marinette admits, grimacing as she unsticks her fingers from the goopy pile of dough. "It's just been a busy month."

Tom levels a considering gaze at his daughter, before taking in the number of pastries crowded on every available surface of the kitchen. Three intricately decorated pies rest on the small round table like plates set out for dinner. Cupcakes frosted to look like roses bloom across the plains of the countertops. Even little turtles made of matcha bread with chocolate crackled shells peek out over the top of the microwave and the fridge.

Marinette only ever baked so much when she was stressed or thoroughly preoccupied with a problem. Her hands could never stay still for long.

Tom asked, "Anything you want to share with your old pa?"

"You're not old," Marinette counters immediately, the words jumping out from age-old habit. The trick works though, and Tom's answering chuckle prompts a smile to rise on her face. She sprinkles more flour onto the kitchen table, picks up the slab of dough, and slams it down again. As she folds the dough over and lifts it up to smack down, she adds, "It's nothing, I think. Won't Louis and Camille need you downstairs?"

"My assistants can manage ten minutes without me, especially when you look like you're beating the air out of your dough instead of adding it. What has that bread ever done to you?"

"Nothing," Marinette mutters. "Absolutely nothing."

The frustration in her voice is much more telling than her words. Sensing that he was getting close, Tom guesses, "If it's not the bread, is it about your tattoos?" As Marinette's head shoots up to stare at him, eyes wide like she's been caught in headlights, he laughs, "I might not've noticed when you first got your ears pierced, but I can sure see the new ink on your shoulder."

Marinette's hand lifts automatically to cover the white anemones capping her shoulder. Her fingers press down on the deep blue centers, feeling for that bruise.

"I feel all- jittery," Marinette admits, searching for the right words. "Like... like I've got growing pains again."

"Maybe you'll finally be taller than me," Tom chortles, merely laughing away the blob of bread dough that Marinette smears onto his cheek. "Growing pains eh? Maybe your body is getting used to having new tattoos?"

"I've never heard of that happening before." Marinette's frown focuses on her pile of dough as she throws it down in thought. "Did you ever get pains?"

"Not that I can recall," Tom says. He hums and strokes his mustache as he thinks, planting his elbow solidly on the table to bare the pillar of his forearm.

No one has tattoo sleeves quite like her papa. Marinette's childhood is stitched onto his skin in outlines of dragonflies, astronaut dogs, twirling dancers, dinosaurs, and masked heroes. His tattoos came to life in a completely unique way. Under the patient colouring of her markers and wandering narration of her imagination, they'd become so vibrant that they seemed to move. They never actually did, but Tom would bear her artistic masterpieces with such pride and humour that it never mattered. He enjoyed entertaining curious customers with the stories she made up.

The drawings sit on his skin now, still and empty. Marinette always wondered how his tattoos would react if his soulmate ever did touch them. Would they colour themselves in with his soul, like she once did for him with her markers?

She wonders if they'd ever find out, but the curiosity is faint and fleeting. Tom loved her colourings as much as any effect he'd get from a true soulmate. He called her artistic efforts perfect, and perfect his tattoos have always been to her ever since.

"Your first tattoo never gave you any trouble?" Marinette asks.

The tattoo sleeves came after she was born, but the laurel leaves inked across his collarbones were Tom's first. These are solid black, stark and strong against his skin- a tattoo he'd gotten on a whim, but grew into as he realized his ambitions as a successful baker and pastry chef.

"Nope," Tom chuckles, tapping his collarbone. "I remember this one. I wanted to be outside with my friends instead of sitting in that chair waiting to be stabbed over and over again by a tiny little needle."

Marinette bursts out laughing, lifting fingers covered in flour and bread dough to poke at his arm over and over in a mocking imitation.

"It's not that bad!"

"It took forever," Tom sighs dramatically, playing up the memory. "Master Fu was slower than a turtle. So no, I never got pains, but I sure was scared of growing old in that chair."

"If you'd gotten old, Master Fu would've been a fossil," Marinette laughs. She slaps the ball of dough down on the table, applying the proper amount of force this time.

Tom nods in approval. "It would've matched his tattoos at the very least."

He watches Marinette knead the dough, hands ever in motion, before motioning for her to move over. As she relinquishes her task with a puzzled expression, Tom takes over, expertly folding the dough over and continuing the process.

Before Marinette can protest the loss of her bread, Tom says, "Anyway, if it's tattoo problems you're having, maybe try talking to your mom." Correctly interpreting her stubborn silence, he comments, "You can't avoid the problem forever."

"I'm not avoiding," Marinette protests. "I'm… I'm thinking."

"About?"

A frown furrows Marinette's brow as she looks up at him; in the blue of her eyes, he can see a dozen thoughts soaring by, her mind somewhere far away where he can't reach.

"About why something hurts," she says slowly. Then, quietly, like a thought she meant to keep to herself but escaped in her exhale, "Why do I hurt?"

It's jarring and not just a bit upsetting that the normally cheerful and confident shine to Marinette's bright eyes are shadowed by an uncertainty and just a hint of fear that Tom doesn't understand. It makes her look paradoxically both much younger and older- and for a frightening moment, Tom doesn't recognize the young woman in front of him.

Who is his little girl growing up to become?

"If what hurts?" Sabine asks, her voice floating ahead of her steps as she comes down the stairs from Marinette's old bedroom. The question had been at the tip of Tom's tongue too.

A ripples of emotion pass through Marinette's face as she tries to define her issue, but in the end, she simply points to her new tattoos. The pleading look Marinette gives Sabine is one Tom hasn't seen since Marinette was a little girl, forever asking her parents for answers to the million and one questions she had burning in her precocious mind.

"I see," Sabine says gently. Tom's glad at least one of them apparently does. He can't make heads or tails of what Marinette's trying to say. "Who is it?"

Marinette reddens. "A new friend." She reddens even more, the freckles staining her nose like sunspots, as Sabine smiles knowingly.

There was a leap of understanding taken that saw Sabine to the other side where Marinette was waiting, but Tom is still stuck across the divide. He glances between his two girls before decisively collecting the bread dough into his hands.

"I'll finish this downstairs." He motions with glob in his hands as Sabine and Marinette look over to him. Confusion creases into the corners of Marinette's puzzled frown but it's Sabine's single nod that encourages him to leave rather than stay. "I can't help with your pain, but I can definitely help you with your pain."

Laughter lights the room as Sabine chuckles and Marinette groans good-naturedly at his pun. Tom leaves on that note, carrying Marinette's lighthearted smile with him rather than the fear that had turned her into a stranger. His faith in Sabine's ability to help her though, is absolute. He knew it the moment she walked in the room and only needed to ask a single question.

Just like Sabine, to get right to the heart of the matter.

"So, a new friend," Sabine comments as she fills the kettle with water for tea. She delicately maneuvers around the dozens of baked goods Marinette's crammed onto every available surface. "It wouldn't happen to be someone from the Catmint Print now, would it?"

Marinette looks more resigned than surprised at her mother's intuition. "Alya told you, didn't she."

"I don't need Alya to tell me there's someone special when you've always come back from that store with a smile on your face and more flowers than you paid for. But not just a smile," Sabine observes, reaching over and cupping Marinette's cheek gently. "You're uneasy about something."

Sabine's hand falls away as Marinette moves to take a seat by the counter. Marinette's fingers find the peonies tattooed on her wrist, smoothing over them thoughtfully.

"Why do we need tattoos?" Marinette eventually asks.

The kettle whistles into the air, giving Sabine a moment to think about her answer as she pours two mugs of tea.

"It's to let the soul breathe," she says slowly as she sets a mug down in front of Marinette. "A tattoo is like opening a window."

"A window works both ways," Marinette points out as she wraps her hands around the ceramic. "You can reach out and someone could reach in."

"Yes," Sabine concedes. "That's how we find our soulmates. In that way, tattoos are also an invitation."

"For a human connection," Marinette clarifies.

"Yes."

Quiet falls over them as Marinette turns a thought over in her mind.

"So what does it mean," she finally says, "if someone doesn't have any tattoos?"

"Oh, that's simple," Sabine smiles as Marinette takes a sip from her mug. "They haven't got a soul then."

"Wha-!" Marinette chokes, nearly spitting her tea out. She groans as Sabine starts laughing.

"My darling, you think too much here-" Sabine knocks on Marinette's head "-and not enough here." She taps Marinette's heart and smiles fondly.

"You and papa," Marinette finally laughs, shaking her head. "I'm gonna get you back good for that someday."

"Someday," Sabine chuckles indulgently. "But someone who doesn't have a tattoo? Like a child?"

"No, my age," Marinette corrects. The cup twirls in her hands as she thinks.

"Hmm." Sabine taps her chin in thought. "I've only heard of very rare cases like that. Like I said, tattoos let your soul breathe- and I mean that literally. It balances out the yin and yang within the body and self. We take the dark within us- the yin- and give it light and colour- the yang."

"The souls are dark?" Marinette asks as she sits up straight and leans forward with vivid curiosity. "This sounds a little like magic."

"Maybe," Sabine laughs. "It's what I learned from Master Fu, and he from his teacher, and what has been passed down from tattoo artist to tattoo artist throughout generations. This is why what we do is so important, this balancing, even if other people may not realize it. It's a necessity, but it's also a gift. Whether or not it's magic, it's ultimately about the yin and yang within ourselves. And with each other. We are social creatures after all. Our most powerful relationships transform us."

"It's why our tattoos can move?"

"Precisely," Sabine smiles. "What can the dark do, but give the light a place to shine? And what gives shape to the light, but the dark? When you find that balance, that's when you make a home of yourself."

Even when coached as a lesson, Sabine's words fall as soft and familiar as a storybook tale. Marinette's childhood was saturated by the stories Sabine used to tell her. Some were myths, some were made up, some were read from books, some explained her tattoos, but they were all masterfully and artfully told by Sabine. If imagination had a voice, young Marinette always imagined it as her mother's.

The graceful lines of Sabine's hands lead up to her arms, bared by her t-shirt. If Tom's tattoos were Marinette's childhood colouring book, Sabine's were her picture books. Circles the size of large coins march a straight line from Sabine's wrist to shoulder, each encapsulating an exquisitely rendered scene from Wenzhou, China.

Marinette remembers visiting Wenzhou once when she was little, but her own memories are merely faint echoes of crowded streets, long ferry rides, and relatives plying her with more food than she could consume in several lifetimes. But even if her own recollections are hazy, each of Sabine's tattoos are as vivid and dimensional as miniature dioramas; looking at each scene really does feel like peering through a window into another world. Marinette can almost hear the overlapping cries of vendors yelling across the market of bright, delicately inked fruits and vegetables on her mother's arm, or smell the warm salt of the impossibly blue waters of Nanji Island as they lap against the rocky cliffs. The tattoos of the lush green mountains of Wuyanling appear soft as a watercolour dream, but Marinette knows them to be truly like that thanks to Sabine's stories, her memories.

The tattoos are of a different time and place of the same woman who makes Marinette crêpes when she's sick, who exchanges quick volleys of jokes and well wishes with the easy fluency of one born and raised in Paris, and who strolls along the Seine and tucked away back alleyways alike, utterly at home. And despite the life built upon the tattoo shop then the bakery, Sabine's tattoos are an everlasting reminder of her heritage, keeping her memories close and fresh as the day they were collected, no matter how long ago.

Marinette understands then, what her mother means when the soul needs to breathe through their tattoos. All that history, all that life in her soul should have the chance to shine through somehow, somewhere.

A frown crinkles Marinette's brow as she remembers her original problem. "So, if you've got no tattoos…"

"If there's no outlet," Sabine muses, "I suppose there's no telling what could happen."

A chill runs a light finger down Marinette's spine. Lightning, she remembers. A sudden possibility alights in her mind, one she's never considered.

"Could- could a soul make its own window?" Marinette suggests slowly. "Like… break out?"

Now Sabine frowns, worry clouding her expression. "I don't know. I've never had an experience with something or someone like that. Master Fu might be able to help you more." She watches Marinette twirl her cup faster and faster, tea rising over the lip and breaking upon its edge. She stops the frantic motion with a gentle hand. "You should keep an eye on your friend and make sure he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else around him."

"I felt him. It," Marinette blurts out. She releases her mug and juts her wrist out, pointing at the peonies sprawled over her skin. "Here. I felt- something, like, something coming through me and trying to find a way out."

"Is that why you got these too?" Sabine asks, her hand rising as if to touch the silver and blue anemones peeking out from the apron straps on Marinette's shoulder. Her fingers stop just shy of contact. "To provide another outlet? To help him?"

Profound shock eclipses every other emotion in Marinette's expression.

"I…" she starts, but trails off as her thoughts scatter. She finds them again as she remembers her fingers sunk in cool earth, of enveloping sunbeams and accidental static electricity, of the difference between perfection and happiness.

Her emotions have been a mix, a constant surprise around Adrien, but her actions have always been clear- even if they didn't immediately seem so to her at first.

"Yes," Marinette says simply. The realization, the admittance tastes strange in her mouth. She doesn't know what to make of it. "Whenever we touch, it's like…"

A sharp bang of the front door opening strikes between their conversation, making them both jump. Marinette's tea finally succeeds in sloshing over the edge and splashing down over the countertop as she starts.

"Like that," Marinette whispers.

The faint approach of footfalls is overshadowed by Sabine's hum as a look of intense thought creases her face.

"That's not how a soulmate is supposed to feel right?" Marinette rushes into the pause. "But that's also not how a normal person should feel either."

"No," Sabine answers thoughtfully. "It's not. And he didn't touch your tattoos?"

Marinette shakes her head. "He didn't have to."

"But you felt him." Sabine frowns. "So how did he get in like that then?"

"You speak friend!" The earlier interruption pokes his head in, the wide smile on his face undimmed by the shadow of his baseball cap. "And enter!"

A stunned silence greets Nino as Marinette and Sabine start, unprepared for his sudden appearance.

"Uhh." Nino's eyes widen sheepishly as he takes in the spilled tea, Marinette's preoccupied expression, and the thought creased deeply into the lines on Sabine's face. "Bad time?"

"Nonsense." Sabine recovers smoothly, rising up from her chair and coming forward to peck his cheeks in greeting. She bows around a familiar basket hanging from his arm. "You know you're always welcome here."

"Thanks," Nino grins, stooping down to kiss her cheeks back. "By the way, Tom asked me to ask you if you could come down and help him decorate the special order? I'm assuming he means the thousand and one tarts that's invaded the back kitchen."

"Oh dear. I better go," Sabine sighs, setting her cup down in the sink and wiping her hands. She levels a measuring look at Marinette, still clearly turning over the problem in her mind. "We'll talk later, ok?"

"Yeah," Marinette answers distractedly, her gaze locked on the basket swinging innocently from Nino's arm. "You should save papa before he stays up all night decorating them to perfection."

"He does like to get things just right," Sabine laughs. "Make yourself at home, Nino."

"Thanks," Nino grins as he sets the basket down on a patch of bare counter space. As Sabine heads down, he turns to Marinette and adds, "You definitely get the perfectionism from your dad."

Marinette narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. "Thanks?"

Nino merely raises an eyebrow and looks meaningfully at the rose frosted cupcakes, the matcha and chocolate turtles, and the large pies overcrowding the kitchen.

The thought of telling him that the quantity of baked goods is a result from overthinking rather than perfectionism dances at the tip of Marinette's tongue, but she lets go a good-natured laugh in defeat instead.

"Anyway… 'speak friend, and enter'?" Marinette asks, an eyebrow quirked as Nino slides into a seat next to her at the counter.

"Adrien and I binged through all of Lord of the Rings this weekend," Nino explains. He reaches up to rub tired eyes, knocking his glasses askew in the process. "The extended versions, too. I totally forgot so many details in the movies. Did you remember that orcs are born from that gross goopy mud? Although, speaking of…"

He snags a used mixing bowl and collects a chunk of cookie dough with the swipe of his finger. He looks at Marinette and pauses, a finger in his mouth and an uncomfortably knowing twinkle in his eye. "Are you wearing Adrien's apron?"

"Don't insult my baking like that," Marinette evades, trying to laugh the jibe about orc goop off instead of answering his sharp observation. "Especially if you've just come here to mooch."

"I would never," Nino deadpans, bringing hand over his heart in mock hurt. As if he didn't spend most of his childhood and adolescence gleefully chowing down every treat Sabine and Tom always left for him, Alya, and Marinette to consume after school. He quirks a smile. "You're definitely wearing Adrien's apron. It's got the flowershop logo on it."

Marinette's cheeks heat up and she hastily stands and bustles to the sink, grabbing a dirty mixing bowl to scrub clean.

"I just haven't had the chance to return it to him," she defends, not meeting Nino's eyes. His gaze is always the one that catches her unaware, at times she never expects so can never prepare for. "And it's the only clean apron I've got at the moment."

"Uh huh." The dryness of Nino's tone isn't one she can fight against. Sometimes, Marinette thinks he knows her weak spots better than even Alya. He softens and relents. "Though speaking of, Adrien asked me to bring this back to you."

He nudges the basket on the countertop with his elbow, uttering a soft "Oh shi-" as he accidentally knocks a turtle off the edge. He catches it just by the tip of his fingers as he lunges for it, saving it from a crumbly demise upon the floor.

Marinette pauses, bowl and sponge dripping from her hands, before setting them both down in the sink and wiping her hands dry on her apron. A small sound of surprise escapes her as she draws the basket towards her, finding it heavier than she expected.

NIno comes up, turtle in hand, and watches expectantly.

The lid folds back under Marinette's hands, and a soft sea of blue and purple lupines greets her. She plucks a single stem up, watching as the tall spike waves up with the weight of the numerous blooms spiraling around the long stalk. The blooms at the tip remain closed still, still green and growing, graduating into full bloom towards the lower end of the stem. Marinette's fingers hover over the fully opened flowers at the bottom, just shy of touching a violet rich and vibrant enough to taste.

She lowers the flower to place on the countertop and changes her mind halfway, tucking it instead into the pocket of her apron. When she closes the lid of the basket, her hands are shaking. The mashup of her emotions churn in her mind, whirling faster and faster and faster until-

"He bugs me," Marinette blurts out.

Nino freezes mid-bite, the turtle pastry dangling precariously from his fingertips. He looks, wide-eyed, at Marinette. "Uhh…"

"No no no, ugh, that came out wrong." Frustrated, Marinette runs her hands through her short hair until it stands on end. "I like Adrien. A lot! Like, maybe indecently sometimes. Wait, maybe that's too much info..."

"I'm getting mixed messages here."

"Arghhhh!" Marinette groans. She topples forward until her forehead clunks down on the countertop. "Shouldn't this, whatever this is, be easy for me to figure out? Or like, simple at least? He's a great guy and a great friend."

Slowly, as if not to startle her, Nino says, "I mean, I've known Adrien long enough to tell you that he's got issues like any other person." He takes off one of the turtle's legs in a large bite. As he chews, he continues, "But all things considered, he's really chill."

"He is!" Marinette rolls her head so her cheek rests on the counter as she looks up to Nino. "That's why I don't get why I'm so jumbled around him?"

"You like him?" Nino suggests bluntly, taking off the turtle's head next. He snorts as Marinette puffs her cheeks and petulantly blows flour off from the countertop up at him. "You've never been very subtle or smooth when you've liked someone, Mari. You're usually barely coherent."

"Thanks Nino. I knew I could count on you to lift my spirits and help me out. Where would I be without you," Marinette deadpans.

"I could channel Alya instead and use your cell to phone Adrien so you could ask him out. Right now."

"Oh god please, no," Marinette laughs. "You're the worst."

"Maybe I'd be doing you a favour," Nino shrugs. He finishes the rest of the turtle with a decisive chomp and reaches for another. "You think too much in your head sometimes. You should just go with the flow."

"You know I don't do improv well. I'm a planner."

"You're an overthinker. Still a perfectionist either way," he teases. After a moment's thought, he starts laughing. "Yeah… you really don't do improv well."

"That was one time," Marinette protests loudly as she guesses what's on his mind, "and we were both like, thirteen! Asking you out through a phone call was Alya's idea."

"Was rambling on about homework for fifteen minutes in the beginning her idea too?" Nino raises a brow, a shit-eating grin on his face. "I loved the part where you called me a 'cool dude'."

"I was nervous!" Marinette throws her hands up. "I panicked!"

"My favourite bit," Nino chuckles, "was when you phoned back right after hanging up because you forgot to actually ask me out the first time around."

"No wonder you said no."

"Hey, I panicked too! Alya gave me such a hard time about it…"

"Yeah, she really ripped through you afterwards," Marinette laughs, remembering. "That's ok, our timing was never really right. We always kept missing one another. And then you and Alya found out about each other…"

"Hey," Nino interrupts, voice gone soft. "Alya might be my soulmate, but that doesn't make what I felt about you any less real or any less… well, less. I always felt really lucky, that you liked me too." A faint smile steals over his face as Marinette leans over and pecks his cheek. As she draws away, she feels the what-if strung between them, hanging for a weighted second. It slips away when he continues, "I know Adrien would feel like the luckiest guy too, if he knew how you felt about him."

"I don't even know how I really feel about him," Marinette points out, sighing as she leans down on the counter with crosses arms. The lupine presses against her hip as she rests against the counter, suddenly making her self-conscious of who's apron she was conspicuously wearing.

"Don't you?" Nino looks pointedly at said apron. "C'mon now."

Marinette chews her bottom lip in thought and resists the childish urge to pluck out a lupine and jab it into Nino's face, more to evade the whole conversation than anything else. If only it was as simple as merely liking Adrien.

"Alright," she says. "Maybe I do. You've known him for a while, don't you find him easy to like? And I don't mean because he's a famous and ridiculously good looking actor or model or something. There's something… else to him."

A thoughtful look steals over Nino's expression as he helps himself to another shortbread turtle. He plays with it between his fingers as he slowly pieces his thoughts aloud. "You know how some people are really attractive, but the more you talk to them, the less attractive they seem to get? Like there's just no substance underneath. Maybe they're rude, or bigoted, or whatever. And then there's sort of the opposite. There're people who only get better the more you get to know them, like their personality shines through and their face becomes something... else. Something more." He looks at Marinette and says, easily, "Adrien's probably one of the most beautiful people I know."

"... dang Nino," Marinette breathes. "Are you sure you guys aren't soulmates?"

"Nah," he chuckles. "Well, at least not for me. We checked. Can't say for him though since he hasn't got any tattoos. Although…"

The way Nino's brow suddenly furrows as a question enters his expressive eyes has Marinette leaning forward and prompting him with, "What?"

"Well, you know my tattoos. And you know what happens when Alya touches them."

"Mmhmm," Marinette hums. His first tattoos had been just two simple thin lines running parallel down his back, years ago when they all got their first tattoos. Since then, he's come to her for an expansion, turning two strings into a geometric symphony across his back and down his arms in sweeping curvilinear lines that run the entire expanse of his back like a music staff given wings. They reach down to his forearms, looping over and over until they converge and end in a single point on his wrists.

She'd teased him on how he turned his compositions into math like a nerd, but even though she suffered multiple hand cramps and fierce headaches from the intense concentration of maintaining so many clean lines, she thinks his tattoos may be one that she's proudest to have done.

"The strings vibrate. I've seen it."

"Yeah." Nino runs a hand over his head, as if bracing himself, then taps the visible ink on his arm. "But that's only half of it. I hear it, in my head, the different notes and sounds that Alya can bring out when she touches my tattoos. I guess like synesthesia. But the thing is, I sometimes hear- I think I hear echoes when I'm around certain people, like you or Adrien. But it's nothing definitive, it's just… a resonance. And that frequency can sometimes change, like it's being tuned. Like when I first met Adrien, nothing. Now I get… it's weird, it's like a dissonance somehow, but it's still something. It's like my tattoos are telling me, there's a maybe."

Marinette frowns. "A maybe? Soulmates are a sure thing Nino. Either you know, or you don't."

"All I'm saying is, maybe things can change," he argues. "I like to think it can, anyway."

"Like away, but soulmates are fact. They're predetermined. That's not something that just changes."

"Who says they can't?"

"Like, everyone."

"Well I volunteer as tribute then, to be the first to prove you all wrong," Nino chuckles. "I know what I hear. What I feel. Even now, sitting here next to you, there's- something." His fingers ghost over the lines on his forearms, as if playing them like an instrument.

"Maybe you're reacting to something else," Marinette frowns.

"Feel free to check me yourself, and see where we stand," he offers with an easy grin. "I promise, no matter what my tattoos do, nothing will change unless you want it to."

She's fairly certain she knows the answer already, and the temptation to actually know makes her fingers itch. Still, she shakes her head and emphatically replies, "No."

Nino shrugs, easy-going, but doesn't quite let her off the hook this time. "I know you don't like anyone touching your tattoos but… why again?"

"I don't want to know," Marinette frowns. "I don't want something that's supposedly predestined to be confirmed. I want to do things and choose people my own way."

"I get that," Nino comments thoughtfully as he helps himself to a cupcake. Instead of immediately biting into the delicate flowers iced on top, he carefully traces a petal with a gentle finger. "But I don't think that's entirely it."

"What do you mean?" A strange, sinking sensation twists in her stomach, the sort of gut feeling that tells her she won't like what she's going to hear.

"I think," Nino says, looking up and squarely into her eyes, "that you don't like being vulnerable."

The words come at Marinette like a blow. She takes the punch, even as it bruises her pride with its truth, and rallies back, "Who likes being exposed? So many people get hurt that way."

"Yeah- like you," Nino points out.

His simple observation hurts, like pressing a bruise she never realized she had. She's spent so long thinking of others, of drawing boundaries so she wouldn't hurt them, that concern for her own well-being hides so cleverly and carefully behind those walls. She doesn't like to admit that selfishness has a part in feeding the roots of her actions.

"And what," Marinette frowns. "You're M. Invincible now, are you?"

"Oh hell," Nino laughs, of all things. "Mari, I'm always scared. My imagination has enough running around in there to make me anxious all the time. I'm always vulnerable."

"That sounds terrible," Marinette retorts. "I'd hate feeling like I couldn't do something about that."

"So your way of 'doing something about it' is to keep everything a secret? That doesn't make you invincible either. What makes you think that someone like Adrien's not feeling the exact same way?"

"Annoyed?"

"Scared."

The lupine in Marinette's apron pocket bows into her hand as she reaches for it. Her hand involuntarily closes into a fist as she grips its stem. When she brings it up to light, she can feel the purple petals staining her palms like phantom bruises. Adrien's marigold apron suddenly feels strange on her body, like wearing a skin that's not quite her own. But in some ways, it's similar, familiar in a way she's always known. They both know how to hide behind their jobs, the duty of it.

It's a defensive position, at best. But the game Adrien plays these days is very different, open among the flowers and under the sun. And maybe that's all happiness really is: something heady, encompassing, and ultimately ephemeral. Even sunshine can't last forever.

Her hand unfurls, revealing fewer stains among her fingers than she expects. The lupine falls to cover her entire hand, its tip pointing away like a compass. She doesn't need much imagination to wonder where- or who- it'll take her to.

"I guess the risks wouldn't really be worth it," Marinette murmurs, the weight of Adrien's kindness balanced in her palm, "if you didn't have something to lose."

AN2: Please check out tumblr/AO3 for tattoo links for Tom, Sabine, and Nino!

It's been nearly a year! Dishonour on me, my cow, etc etc etc. Two big things happened: I graduated, and I got a job! It's been crazy fun and intense and exciting, but incredibly time-consuming and energy-draining. A the end of most days, I cook lunch, walk my dog, then fall right into bed.

Regardless, a million, million, million apologies for how long this chapter took! This story was always lowkey slow cooking in my mind no matter how busy I got, and tbh, I think a long simmer was what I needed for this story to go through. For both plot and personal reasons. I do realize that the long chapters and long wait between chapters makes this slow burn painfully slow, but I hope you're enjoying the ride nonetheless :') The unbelievably sweet, supportive, patient, and encouraging comments kept this story alive for me, and continues to do so when I'm sitting in front of a blank page thinking, I can't do this. But I can, and I will, because this story is still wonderfully fun for me to write, and because it's such a joy to find it makes other people happy- even now, after so long :')

(Now here's hoping I can get chapter 7 out before Christmas!)