It ends with him in the hospital, a concussion, three broken ribs and a father in jail to account for. Marinette is not much better, a broken leg and a series of stitches littler her body. They get side by side beds, and the world knows Ladybug and Chat Noir have defeated Hawkmoth and Mayura, and Marinette's parents know their identities.

There is no hiding anymore, and Plagg and Tikki cuddle up to them, drained but relieved, and there is no sacrifice, no wish. Just one last Lucky Charm, one last Cataclysm, ultimate powers joined and-

As certain as the sky is blue and the Earth goes around the sun, Adrien is Marinette's soulmate.

That doesn't mean she loves him.

Adrien is barely eighteen, and the world knows his father was Hawkmoth. He's left with a sinking company, no Nathalie to help him through it, and a mansion he never wants to see again.

Sabine and Tom take him under their wings. They give him their spare room, help him arrange for a funeral five years too late, and sit with him through it all.

Marinette holds his hand all along, her presence a reassurance to him. They fall asleep on her couch after nightmares leave them yelling for each other in the middle of the night, and their tears are warm when they fall.

There are days in which his anger gets the best of him. He snaps at everyone, paces around his room, growling and tugging at his hair, and however goes near him gets all the worst of him.

He manages to keep Marinette away from it, and it's not hard.

Luka is the calm before the storm, is the way the sea can change in a minute from calm blue to raging grey. He's the rock to Marinette's weight, the support for her shoulders. There are no snaps with him, no bubbling anger beneath the surface, no rage against the world. He's cool, not the red iron Adrien has become.

He's also Marinette's boyfriend, which is the best outcome Adrien could ask for. Luka being her boyfriend means there are no jealousy fights, no need for explication as to why Adrien and Marinette orbit towards each other, of why their lives are so intimately intertwined there is no knowing where one begins and where the other ends.

Despite the fact they're so close, Marinette and Adrien are a mockery of a dance, in sync the whole time but also just a step out of it. Where Marinette goes, Adrien follows.

And yet, she falls out of love with him just as he falls for her. She starts a relationship that makes her happier and calmer than he has ever seen her, and he's left pinning after her just as he had once for her masked self.

They get into university, and share a flat in the middle between their campuses. His days fill themselves with labs and classes and she pills up her room with sketches and rolls of fabrics.

It's effortless, living together. They maneuver around their tiny kitchen like a well oiled machine, know when the other needs a pick me up better than they know when they need one themselves, and chores are never funnier than when they do them together, blowing soap bubbles to each other's face and smearing whatever they're cooking on their cheeks and noses.

She moves out for her last year, and the flat she gets with Luka is smaller, one room, and even if he's welcome there anytime, he suddenly feels like a stranger around Marinette.

And there are no secrets between them, haven't been since Marinette had decided he's the one for me and come clean with her identity to Luka.

And as always, without hesitation or seconds thoughts, Adrien followed.

He can't put himself between them. There is something about the life they're building in that tiny flat, among Luka's instruments and Marinette's designs, he can't even shake it off when the world is dark and Marinette offers him tea, the last of her tears dry and voice almost normal and not the mess it was when she called him.

As much as he's welcome anytime, couch yours to use, no worries, man, Paris' rooftops feel more like home than that apartment or his, empty and cold.

They still have silent conversations. She doesn't love him, not like that, but the years since Hawkmoth's fall haven't erased the ease of their relationship, the understanding that came from too many hours battling, relaying only on the other, that came from frightening nights and nightmare days, from seeing disaster and death and reverting it all back.

Luka doesn't understand, he couldn't, because he was not there when Hawkmoth's transformation fell, when the chamber opened, when his mother's face was revealed to him, bathed in the warm light of the thing that had kept her alive for so many years after she was beyond any real salvation. Luka's nightmares are different, of futures reverted and opportunities lost, of bad decisions and death, loss and desperation all mixed together, and Adrien understands, Aspik understands better than anyone after months stuck in a five-minute loop, watching her fade away, being captured, killed, gone. But it's different, and all of them know it.

He knows Luka doesn't resent him, because he's a decent man that loves his partner with everything he is, who understand that there is something between Marinette and Adrien that no one can take away from them, that there is something in the way they simply are that will not fade away. He knows that Luka knows he would never get in between them

Adrien sometimes hates him for that.

He sees her, the way she looks at Luka with constellation in her eyes and love in her soul, and maybe they are the artists, they are the ones that made creation their living, but he's no stranger to it, he's the one that made his mother sit him down and teach him how to express himself through notes that flowed from his fingertips.

"Hey, Nette. Luka" he says, sliding into the seat in front of her in the small restaurant they decided on and giving her the most convincing smile he can muster up. It's been years since she has noticed anything amiss in it.

"Adrien!" she smiles, all family and no romance, all the love she had been pouring out switching to fondness born from time spent together years ago.

"Hey, man" Luka says, arm thrown over Marinette's shoulders in a casual way that only came after so many years together. They're almost as in sync as she and Adrien once were, so in tune to the other that when one moved the other followed without thinking about it.

"So, what was so important that you needed me here?" and Marinette bits her lips like when she's so excited she can't wait to tell a secret, scooting over the edge of the seat and basically vibrating from the emotion and Adrien thinks oh.

"We're getting married!" Marinette squeals, showing off the elegant ring on her hand, eyes wide and smile on, happy and excited and beautiful and

Oh.

"Marinette, that's so great! Congratulations, you both!" he stands, even if his legs feel weak, and he takes her into his arms and spins her around, and her laughter is everything he could have hoped for her.

"Oh, mon chaton, are you crying?" Marinette asks when they pull away, she takes his face into her hands and brushes away the tears he hadn't noticed with her thumbs.

"I'm very happy for you" he says, and it's not a lie, not really, even if it's not the whole truth. And Marinette laughs and hugs him again, and he tries to enjoy those few seconds where she's in his arms and her perfume surrounds him, once a smell so comforting it had filled his senses when he fell asleep beside her on her parent's couch, on their couch and then never again.

"Congrats, Luka" he says, and hugs him with the whole slapping back things men do.

"Thanks, Adrien" Luka smiles, and when he looks at Marinette, there is nothing but adoration in his eyes.

"Tell me everything" he says, sitting back down and leaning back. Tomorrow, he will drown himself in his feelings, will cancel on Nino and Alya and leave Marinette and Luka to break the news to them for themselves, will ignore all of Alya's calls, too tired and hurt to answer her nagging of why did he know before her, the hell, Agreste, I'm being the maid of honor and witness and you knew before?!

"You shouldn't be doing this to yourself" Plagg sits by his hand, quieter than ever. He sounds older than ever, weary. The screen in front of him is the only light on his apartment, the light green background from the dinner hall website blurring as he tried to stay up.

"She's my best friend and she's busy, I have time, I don't see why I shouldn't" he takes off his glasses, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. The clock says 4:23 am, but lately time had started to lose a bit of meaning.

"You're tearing yourself apart, kid. You're planning a wedding for the girl you love, and she's not marrying you"

"I want to see her happy, Plagg. That's the end goal, it always has been" he finishes scheduling the visit for a day both Marinette and Luka can go, and decides that four is a good number of places for now. Oh, how he wishes for the efficiency Nathalie had arranging all his extracurriculars so easily.

But that is a can of worms he refuses to open up tonight. He hasn't thought about them for years now, not beyond maybe I should visit and deciding against it when the wounds opens and bleeds as new again.

"Adrien" and that makes him look up into the green eyes of his kwami, the black of his fur blending easily with the darkened room "You need rest. Marinette can ask someone else"

"But who else knows her like I do?" he says, because Alya's suggestions had been a little over the top, and Marinette had been so hesitant to say no Adrien had just decided to take matters into his hands and leave Alya to help run things smoother. Marinette had trusted him blindly, knowing he would take into account both their opinions, knowing he knew her better than she knew herself.

And isn't that the problem?

Luka knows that Adrien is devoted to Marinette. He might be quiet, slow to anger, but that doesn't mean he can't see the things that are in front of him.

Adrien would do anything in a heartbeat for Marinette, and she would for him. Death is not too high a price, not to them. Not after what they've been through.

Luka also knows that Marinette loves him. He knows that she once loved Adrien with all the passion of her first love, that she had looked at him like he was perfect and had gotten her heart broken in return. He knows that she still loves him now, even if it's different, perhaps even more unconditionally now that she knows he's her partner.

And that's something he can't fight against. Even if he's a holder, even if Sass is never too far from him, even is the miraculous on his wrist is a heavy burden to bear, it's not heavier than the ones they bore.

Countless times he's woken up to an empty bed, to hushed sobs on his kitchen counter and whispered reassurances that he was gone, it was over, it wasn't their fault, he didn't want to redeem himself, to let go of an impossible dream with too high a price, and it was not his fault.

Identities hadn't been a secret for years now, and he can see their alter egos in the way they interact when the world is quiet and theirs.

You couldn't deny they were soulmates, two parts of a whole that balanced each other out, Creation and Destruction, Bad Luck and Good Luck, a dynamic so natural and essential he had no business in it.

But Marinette loved him.

He knows it's not healthy to Adrien. He knows and Marinette knows too, even if she can't see the way he looks at her, the way he had since they were in college and had been too blind to notice what everyone else did. It's not healthy the way they sometimes have to let him crash on their couch, where he sleeps restless and jumping, calling for Marinette and people who were no longer by his side.

Adrien was a good friend, and he never tried anything out of place, probably couldn't even bring himself to think about it.

But Luka is no fool.

The wedding is beautiful. Every detail is accounted for, everything thoughtfully arranged to the like of the broom and bride. Marinette is gorgeous in MDC original, and she tears up when Luka says his vows.

Adrien does too, his place behind the groom the perfect spot to see the way her smile lights up her face when the ring slips smoothly into her finger.

And despite the months he spent making everything perfect, the sleepless night he suffered, he can't bring himself to enjoy it.

He stays by the bar, looking as the love of his live dances with her husband, head on his chest and serene smile on her lips. He already had his piece with her, a soft piano tune that he won't ever be able to play again, and she had looked beautiful when she smiled and thanked him.

"Adrien, my boy. How are you?" a warm hand places itself on his shoulder, and when he looks over, he sees Tom Dupain looking at him.

"Happy for her" he answers, not even trying to smile. He could never fool them, not when they had seen him on his lowest time, when they knew what was once his biggest secret. He takes a swing of the whiskey on his hand, chosen specially because a hangover is the least thing he'll need tomorrow, when work couldn't be set aside.

"You deserve to be happy too, Adrien" Tom hugs him, brings him close to himself and Adrien lets himself sink into the fatherly love Tom had never prohibited him from.

"I am" he says, but it tastes like ashes. A couple tears escape, but there is no shame, not with him.

"Oh, my boy" Tom rubs his hand up and down, big and warm against a back that bore scars of battles fought and lost to protect his daughter, a back that supported a bond that was just a little screwed.

"I can't stand it, Dad. But I can't pull myself away. That would hurt worse" and Adrien doesn't mind the slip up, not when it hasn't been the first or the second time he has called this man his dad, not father, not when that word meant hands clasped behind back, eyes disappointed from atop stairs, scheduled meals and a secret as big as Paris.

And when Marinette comes closer, first giddy and happy and then worried, he and Tom smile and talk about weddings making people emotional.

Marinette buys it, she has no reason not to.

He tries to draw the line when she tells him she's pregnant. He decides it's too much, that even if he had been taking advantage of how Luka and Marinette allowed him into their home before it happened, before he knew it would be too painful for him, he won't put himself in the middle of their family. He won't.

He reads up everything there is on pregnancy, what to expect and what he should know and what to do in cases of emergency until his ads are only pregnancy related. And the tiredness provides a good excuse. He can't tire the mama to be too much, he laughs, and even as they're talking, Marinette seems sleepy, so he resolves never to bother her again in the night.

Two days later, he wakes up from a nightmare, his father's face illuminated by his mother's chamber, blood dripping down his own face and Marinette lying motionless a few steps ahead. A memory. He rushes to his bathroom and throws up, and his dry heaves and sobs mingle until he's chocking, desperately gasping for air that won't make its way inside, feeling vomit go up and up into his nose until it comes out, and he's left boneless resting on the side of the toilet.

He feels Plagg's hands patting his face dry, pushing back his bangs and toweling off the sweat that beads in his forehead.

He doesn't go back to sleep, and the cup of tea he makes for himself goes cold in his hands.

"Have you thought about names?" Adrien asks, hands on Marinette's bump. Despite his pulling away, there is something deep down that will always call him to her, a pull he can never fight completely.

"I dreamed to call my first girl Emma, a long time ago. But it doesn't fell right, not when I chose that name for-well, it just doesn't"

"Was that back when…when you were in love with me?" he asks, carefully, ignoring the way his chest clenches and his eyes water. Beneath his hand, her baby pushes against him.

"Yeah. Yeah, it was back then. I imagined this whole future for us, with three children and a hamster and-well, it's silly, now"

"It's not" he shakes his head, and brings her closer to him "I'm sorry"

"It was never meant to be, Adrien" she chuckles, hands around his waist.

For a moment, he lets himself dream. He sees their three children, a girl with his hair and boys with hers, of little feet hitting the ground as they chased after Tikki and Plagg and laughter and love and life breathed into wherever home would be.

"What were the names?"

"For our kids? Louis, Emma and Hugo Agreste" she laughs, pulling away and standing up, probably to the bathroom. Her kid liked to place herself on her bladder.

"You were wrong" he calls when she's far enough, and she turns to him but doesn't walk back.

"About what?"

"They would have been Dupain-Cheng. Not Agreste"

The smile she sends him is equal parts sad and amused.

He wonders if she knows he still loves her.

Luka comes home to Adrien sitting on his couch, elbows resting on his knees and eyes so far away it takes a couple tries for him to focus again.

"Marinette is sleeping" he says, already going to the window that connects to their balcony. It's no surprise to Luka, knowing it's well past midnight and she had been tired lately, sleeping whenever she could find a good enough position.

"You're not staying?" he asks, and as much as he thinks Adrien might hate him, he should remember he's his friend too.

"Nah, gotta get early to the lab. Night, Luka" and Adrien doesn't wait for an answer, throwing himself down the balcony without calling for his transformation first.

Luka is halfway to the window, his scream stuck to his throat when he sees the green light that means Chat Noir took Adrien's place. He places his hands on the railing, leaning forward until his head is on level with his arms and taking a deep breath.

He meets Annika two days after she's born. It's the earliest he can get there, a convention in London placed strategically two weeks before Marinette's due date, and who knew the baby could come early? Certainly not him, dubbed baby expert by Marinette.

Part of him tears itself apart for not being there for her, not supporting her when she needed him, in a moment where she would have been vulnerable.

But another part of him reminds him that he's not her partner in this, that Luka belongs by her side where Annika is involved, not him, not him, not him.

"I tried to get here as soon as I could" he says, and it's not really the truth but it's the closest thing Marinette will get.

"She's been waiting for you, Uncle Adrien" she smiles from the hospital bed, waiting for the doctor to give her the okay to go. Tikki's magic does wonders for the recovery.

Sabine hands him a swaddled bundle, and after he notices the hand stitching in the blanket, he notices just how beautiful Annika is.

Maybe not everyone would say that of a wrinkled, bloated baby, but Annika is beautiful, and he's not ashamed of the tears that fall when she coos and buries herself on his chest. There is some black hair peeking under the little knitted cap on her head, and he's sure her eyes will be blue if she opens them.

"Hi, Baby Annika" he whispers, bouncing her with an ease he didn't know he had "Hi there. Aren't you beautiful? Yes, you are. I love you"

And the worst thing?

He's not lying.

When he looks up, Marinette has tears on her eyes.

"You're a natural" she says, and he tries not to think of wasted opportunities. He wonders if she's thinking the same, if the eight years since everything ended have taken their toll on what they think and feel.

"Only the best for the little lady"

He becomes a supportive Uncle. By Annika's fourth month, he's as adept as her parent in changing her diaper and feeding her and getting her to sleep. She seems to enjoy his company and singing and senseless speeches that get her to calm down.

She's her mother's daughter and things that work calming Marinette down work with Annika as well.

And every time the baby looks at him, Luka's eyes stare from her face.

He's not sure what starts the argument. Probably some idiotic thing, but Marinette has been so tired and on edge lately it's not hard for him to let his frustrations get the best of him. She likes having him around, one of the few people she listens regarding raising Annika and how to manage her home, and he can't take the way she liked to include him into her life.

Once upon a time, that would have all he asked for. Would have over the moon to have any part of her she would give him.

He's tired of that.

He can't remember what she tells him before he's exploding, words pouring out of his mouth

"And I love you! I love you okay? And yes, we're two parts of a whole. We complement each other, we're soulmates. There is no denying that, there are no take backs. We're bonded beyond anything imaginable, and we knew what we were getting into, the night we took down my father. But we made our choices, Marinette, and you can't expect me to be here, inside your home, while you're building a life with another man. You love Luka, Marinette. You don't love me, not like that. He's wonderful to you, and you're wonderful to him. Please, let me stay away from it"

And then a whimper, followed by a cry.

"Your daughter is crying" he says, if only to remind her that he has no place there.

He takes his coat and leaves without looking back.

He passes Luka on the way out.

"Hey, Adrien! You're already leaving?"

"Luka. Marinette...she's...she's going to need you" he says, not daring to look into his eyes, and pushes past him in rush to get away.

It's not the first time Luka has had to pick up the pieces of what Adrien destroyed.

His feet take him to the bakery.

Sabine takes one look at him and lets Hélène take charge of the counter, ushering him inside their home.

"You're going to hate me" he mumbles when Sabine leads him into the couch, and grips her hand like a lifeline when she offers it.

"I couldn't hate you, Adrien" she smiles with that motherly love she has to offer to him, the same smile he had been deprived for years.

" I hurt Marinette" he says, and feels Sabine go stiff beside him "Not physically, I could never lay a hand on her. But I said things I regret, and I hurt her" his lips start to tremble, and despite being twenty-seven years old, he feels like a child.

"Adrien..."

"I don't know what to do" he cries, letting himself fall into Sabine's embrace "I'm sorry" he whispers against her neck, over and over again as he cries. She runs her fingers through his hair, rocks him back and forth with whispered assurances, and Adrien feels himself fall apart one last time.

It ends with a one way ticket and leaving half his soul behind.