SIX MONTHS LATER

At four-thirty, it starts raining so badly that even an umbrella doesn't keep Marinette dry.

She has come back from university, stepping off of her usual bus and saying her usual thank you and farewell to the driver. Her flimsy collapsible umbrella (which she bought because it fit into her backpack, alongside her binder of fashion designs, laptop, and water bottle) does nothing for sideways precipitation, nor droplets rebounding from the pavement. Her hair is moderately protected. Nothing else is.

She swipes herself into the apartment building, grinding her boots on the doormat in the lobby. She shakes out her collapsed umbrella over the pot plant in the corner, winds the cord around the polyester, and pressed down on the Velcro square. Up three flights of stairs is her and Adrien's apartment.

"—you're going to have to learn to share," he is saying when she enters. He is surrounded by kwamis, his hand raised. Plagg sits on his palm, looking admonished. "Look at how small you are."

Marinette sets her backpack down by the door, stooping to untie her laces.

"You can't claim half the couch when it's TV time."

Mullo, a flash of pink and grey, crosses her arms. "What if we want to watch the show, too?"

"You weren't even interested in it until I said I liked it!" Plagg says back.

"Well, now we like it, too," Xuppu chimes in.

Plagg lifts his head to his holder, touching his paws together in a pleading gesture. "Adrien. Please. We had such a sweet arrangement at the mansion, Adrien."

Marinette and Adrien started looking for apartments in the middle of fall semester. Over the winter break, they both moved their belongings into this quaint two-bedroom, one bathroom apartment. It's only been two weeks since then, boxes of random stationery and suitcases of summer clothing still littering the living room. The second bedroom they converted into a design room for Marinette's sewing table, mannequins and fabric bolts. It's in a convenient location with a park on the corner. A short public transportation journey away is her university, the Agreste mansion, and her parents' bakery.

"I don't want to live in the mansion," Adrien says.

"Well, how about you live here, and I go live in the mansion. Then whenever you need to transform, you can call me back."

Plagg starts zipping towards the wall, and Adrien catches his little black tail. "No, you're staying here, Plagg."

Needless to say, there have been some adjustment issues. Plagg really values his independence.

Marinette walks up to the scene of the conflict and takes Plagg in her palms. "Plagg, we need you to be here. Your fellow kwamis have missed having you around—it's been, what, three-hundred years since you saw Nooroo and Duusu? Don't you want to keep catching up with them after all that they've been through?"

Nooroo and Duusu are with Roaar and Stompp at the dining table. Adrien lit a candle earlier in the day, and they are sitting around the holder soaking up the warmth like it's a hearth. Plagg looks in that direction and scrubs behind his ear. "I suppose so."

"And aside from the kwamis, Adrien and I need you," Marinette continues. "You have a lot of knowledge about the Miraculous that we are still learning from the grimoire. You're smart, and innovative, so we need you around if a new challenge arises that we cannot solve."

"Well, all this is true."

The kwami preens for a bit longer, prompting Adrien to say, "I don't want to do life without you by my side, Plagg."

"Fine," he says eventually. "But no-one touches my Camembert without asking."

Ziggy interjects, "No-one else likes your stinky cheese anyway—"

"Of course," Adrien cuts in. "It'll be a new house rule."

The two humans walk to their bedroom once the issue is resolved, hoping the kwamis won't burn the apartment down in their absence. With so much magical ability and contrasting personalities under one roof, that probability is never zero. Even though they can morph through doors, they have set another house rule: don't go into the bedroom when the door is shut.

Marinette starts removing her soaked outer layer of clothing. Adrien watches her, childlike enjoyment on his face, as she strips down to her bra and underwear and starts looking for sweatpants and a t-shirt. The wet clothes go into the laundry hamper in the closet, and the dry clothes feel magnificent on her chilled skin. "I think Plagg is worried he won't be your favorite kwami anymore."

"You think so?"

"It's like when an only child suddenly gets a whole bunch of siblings. He would prefer all of your attention, all of the time." Sometimes Marinette feels like she and Adrien are playing house together, practicing for the day they have small humans to look after. She finds that she really enjoys it, being part of a team with him.

Adrien chuckles. "Ah, well, even an ageless, immortal kwami has to learn to get along with others at some point."

They both get on the bed, and Marinette rolls into Adrien's waiting arms. He's so warm, he smells so good. It's the hardest thing to drag herself out of bed in the morning. Marinette tells Adrien about her classes, the rain that took her by surprise on her way home. Adrien tells her about his Physics coursework, though he doesn't have classes on Mondays.

"What else did you do today?" At this, Adrien mimes zipping his mouth closed, shaking his head. Marinette pouts. "Still?"

A little after fall semester started, Adrien took on a secret project. He still hasn't told Marinette a thing about it. While she was adjusting to the intense schedule of a first-year university student, he said he should find something to occupy him. After all, without modelling or school, he had a lot of spare time on his hands. The secret project occupied him through fall semester and winter break. Now that he's started university (and loves it, despite the sheer volume of assignments and laboratory reports), Marinette assumed he would finally confide in her.

"You will know when it's ready, and it'll be ready very soon."

"God. If you tell me you have a third identity, I will faint."

Adrien laughs and kisses the top of her head. "Trust me, Marinette. This secret is one you'll like."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

A week later, they are back at the Agreste mansion.

No police tape, and only Adrien has the key.

Marinette narrows her eyes. "This is your secret project?"

"Yes," he says, and does not explain further. He plans to give her a grand tour and explain everything with tangible examples around them.

As he leads her up the stairs, Marinette says, "it looks the same from the outside, so I can only assume you've renovated the inside."

She is correct, in a way. He first had the trickles of the big idea around his nineteenth birthday. This was back when he lived in the mansion, surrounded by its empty hallways and rooms. This was back when Marinette was dashing off to university every day, and so were all of his other friends in Paris, and he started thinking about what to do with the mansion and his life. Because even then, he knew it didn't feel like home any longer.

He started first with the kitchen, because not much needed to be changed. "I'm sure you've noticed by now," he says now, guiding Marinette through the islands and cooktops, "but superheroing isn't the same anymore without a supervillain."

Now that Hawk Moth isn't tormenting the city, most people don't need a superhero. They need to know where their next meal is coming from, shelter and a warm bed, and a bit of love. Without these things, people become lonely, and aimless, and dangerous. So when the mansion is opened to the public as a community centre, the kitchen will be a soup kitchen. Fully equipped for volunteers to prepare and serve meals on a large scale.

The bedrooms have been converted into different leisure rooms. One with barres and mirrors for dance classes. Another with specially-lined floors for self-defense classes. Meeting rooms for outreach and addiction clinics to take place. Adrien envisions poetry workshops and literacy workshops in the library. Marinette's eyes grow wider with wonder and admiration in each successive room of the mansion. "It'll be free for different volunteer and charity groups to book space in the mansion, so hopefully they can offer their services to the public for cheaper or even for free."

"Adrien, this is amazing," Marinette whispers.

"I have one more room to show you."

He guides her to what was once his father's atelier, now converted into a plain office. There is a large wooden desk, filing cabinets, and on the walls framed portraits of the Miraculous wielders in action. The painting of Emelie has remained, her warm smile looking protectively over the long room. Adrien presses his fingers into the canvas. A few seamless buttons depress into the painting, and the elevator chute opens up in the middle of the floor.

Marinette and Adrien slip down into the carriage, standing side by side in the narrow cylindrical space. When the lower chamber of the mansion emerges, she gasps. "I don't even recognize this place."

Instead of a dark, cold and flooded tomb, they find a well-lit and clean headquarters. Along the walls are open pods, stacked like cells in honeycomb, with different types of working layouts. A computer room, a training room with weights and weapons, a tea room, a room wallpapered pink with a bean bag and cushions. Over the autumn, Adrien had many meetings with the other Miraculous wielders to determine how their specialties could translate into the new headquarters. All these meetings took place when Marinette was busy, so she never suspected a thing.

"Just in case conventional superheroes are needed again," he says.

At the end of the walkway, where Emelie used to rest, is a control console. Adrien swipes and taps expertly on a few screens and a giant holographic map of Paris appears. There is traffic data, weather data, and they stare for a few seconds before a red hotspot pulses at the intersection of two major roads. "We're cross-referencing social media reports and police data to get live-time updates on any incidents that might need responding to. Most of the time, it's traffic accidents and petty crime, which we don't need to handle."

Adrien closes the map and opens a list of all the Miraculous wielders. Sliding his fingers down the screen on the console, the projected hologram rifles through profiles of familiar faces and kwamis. "Max and I designed a Miraculous hotline for people to call. Depending on their issue, they might need general superhero skills like speed and speed, or more specialised heroes for digital crime, mental health callouts, search and rescue, what have you. The hotline processes their request and automatically sends the job to either a specialist, or the on call hero. If no-one answers, then we step in."

Adrien clicks into the profile of Kagami Tsurugi, mere blue light bouncing off dust particles, and points to a subtitle underneath her name. Off-duty. "Inactive means they are retired wielders. Off-duty means they aren't actively holding their Miraculous. On call means they are holding their Miraculous, and they are available to respond immediately to any distress signals. Once I got your go-ahead, I wanted to survey our current team and see who would volunteer to be on call. I'm thinking one week intervals, so the other holders can get a break."

He's always known that Marinette could do anything in the world. She's a girl with big dreams and wild plans, and he loves that about her. Yes, he'd love the mansion to become a hub for Parisians, but more than that he just wants his Lady to be happy. Set her free of some of her old burdens. Let her prioritise the things she wants, like studying, seeing their friends, and her fashion career. Marinette exhales in wonder and hugs Adrien tightly. "I can't believe you. Thank you."

"You've focused on this city for so long," he smiles into her shoulder. "Now you can focus on yourself."

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Inside the apartment, Adrien cooks dinner while Marinette works on a fashion design mock-up. Her sewing machine thrums rhythmically until he calls her to eat. Later, they watch a movie on the couch with the kwamis nestled around them. The kwamis nod off one by one, and the heroes gently deliver them back to the Miracle Box.

Adrien and Marinette go to the bathroom together. They wash their faces and brush their teeth. They slip into bed and turn the lights off. Adrien holds her in their usual position, on their sides, with her face tucked into his chest, and hums.

"What?" Marinette says sleepily.

"It's nothing. I'm just grateful it was you."

THE END

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

O U T R O

thanks deeply to every reader who has picked up this book and made it to this point! Under Oath was my first taste of fanfiction and I loved the experience. writing this story taught me a lot about my strengths and weaknesses as a creator, and I can't wait to do another fanfiction one day (some day).

If you want to support me and this book, please add it to your reading lists so other people can discover it <3

until the next time,

aimee