Chapter Text
Something was wrong, well more than one thing. More like a series of things that didn't add up for Marinette. She would like to say that it started with Lila joining her class then subsequently turning all of her friends ageist her, including Adrien who knew about Lila's lies but just stood back and did nothing but that would be wrong because she soon realised that they didn't care for her anyway, they just stayed around her for favours because she was bad at saying no. 'Maybe it was the fact that her parents believed Lila over her' she thought as she sat on her roof terrace but she quickly dismissed it. She had come to realise that they didn't know her, they got up so early and also went to bed as soon as they closed up the bakery, she only saw them when she was leaving for school or coming back with the rare occasion that they had a day off and they played video games.
Marinette sighed, no matter how hard she thought or how hard she ran through things in her head she couldn't pinpoint what had happened, all she knew was that one day during an easy Akuma she had started off liking her team that had consisted of Chat Noir, Viperion, Queen Bee, Ryuko, Rena Rouge and Carapace then looking at them after sent her into a panic and she didn't know why. Nor did she know why Viperion was determined to keep away from her with a look of disgust on his face. Not to mention that the next patrol with the whole team was super tense, with them all avoiding her, not that she mined with how scared of them she suddenly was. Her sudden fear of them was almost as startling as her sudden fear of Adrian, Luka, Kagami, Alya, Nino and Chloe or the fact that she had just figured out that Nathalie Sancoeur was Mayura this morning when she spotted her at the hospital which meant that Gabriel Agreste had to be Hawkmoth. She had been debating all day on how to bring it up with her team when she realised that she didn't want to. They scared her and she didn't know why, but she knew who to ask. As night fell she, Kaalki and Fluff (who had simply told her that they needed to come) made their way to Luka's floating home and waited for lights to go out before entering Luka's room.
"Sass?" She whispers and after a second they slowly sliver into sight.
"Yesss guardian," They ask in just as quiet a voice.
"Is there a way for me to recall the second chances?" She asks and they flinch.
"Do you want to?"
"I don't want to if it'll hurt you, it's fine. I just want to know why I'm so scared around them now, I don't remember them doing anything so I thought that maybe something had happened in a second chance?"
They watch her for a moment then they sigh. "All you need to do is put on my miraculous and transform, since you are the guardian you will be able to see all that has transpired since you became the guardian, but I think you should do it away from here. You can't wake him up." Their last request seems urgent so she nods then slowly slips Luka's bracelet off his wrist and sneaks outside again.
"Is this far enough?" She whispers a few feet from the boat and Fluff nods. "Sass, Slither Forth." And not a second later she was on her knees, hand covering her mouth as she sobs uncontrollably.
The memories swarm her. She feels herself die by the hands of villains and by the hands of heroes, watches as people who counted on her had the life slip from their eyes and watches her teammates fall over and over again. But what was worse was that they knew who she was, they knew and they tortured her to death after every patrol and every battle knowing that she would never remember how Luka and Chat (who she now knew was Adrian) had raped her in her bedroom as well as other places. She had trusted them and they had killed her for it because Lila had called her a bully. The sky had started turning lighter when Fluff had nudged her shoulder lightly to get her attention.
"We have to leave him here for now." They whisper and if Marinette didn't already trust them completely she might have protested, instead, she nods and drops the transformation.
Sass shoots out of the bracelet and hugs her with tears in their eyes. "Am I coming back with you?" They whisper with hope.
Fluff floats their way over to them. "Not yet, you need to tell the others that the guardian now knows what is happening and that they need to get regular updates to the plan from Tikki in her classes because once she takes you guys back we won't be able to stay in Paris." To which they all nod, knowing that they would always be hunted here.
She leaves just as quietly as she came, Sass glares at Luka as she places the miraculous back on his wrist. Once she's in her room she breaks down again as the rest of the kwami's swarm her in comfort. The plan starts forming a few days later, it starts small. Her parents barely pay attention to her so she is usually left for hours on end with nothing to do so Xuppu suggests that maybe she try learning something new, Fluff drifts by and mentions that English is a very well known language and that one can never go wrong with learning how to manipulate computer programs which settles the matter and Marinette gets to work. It takes a few weeks before she has mastered both skills refuses to speak anything but English with the kwami so that she could get rid of her ascent faster and the next stage of the plan forms.
One day after Lila tries to trip Marinette up on the stairs Stompp decides that she should take self-defence lessons, she tries to debunk this because of her time moonlighting as a superhero but is outvoted by the Kwami's so she starts sneaking out once a week for them.
Later Mullo suggests that since everyone knows her style she should try something else as a way to gain income for when they leave, she stumbles upon Kagami talking to Adrien about her blind mother winning a fencing tournament and suddenly she's writing a novel about a blind teen trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. When Fluff adds casually that no one can know that it's her, Barkk convinces her to create a new identity, Marinette chooses to become Delilah Crawford from New York. Orikko reminds her to open up a new bank account under her new name so that her parents don't grow suspicious at the money coming in. When it gets to time to send her first manuscript off Kaalki adds that they could create a p.o box in New York and use her to cart things over as an extra layer just in case someone goes looking for her. It becomes a best seller when a publisher picks it up and she starts the next in the series.
Her books sell for a lot and she finds Daizzi and Ziggy arguing over manner houses in a place called Gotham after a hard day at school, they pick the one with the most privacy so that no one can spot the Kwami. A week and a portal courtesy of Kaalki later she is signing the deed to the place and then starts slowly porting over things so that people won't notice.
The last of her things were dropped off a week ago, and today the final part of their plan comes into play. All of the Kwami except Kaalki and Roarr had been dropped off at their new manner the night before to get the place ready for Plagg, Nooroo, Longg, Sass, Trixx, Wayzz, Pollen and Duusuu. Then she gets to work,
"Kaalki, Roarr, you ready?" They nod with a smile. "Well then, Roarr, stripes on. Kaalki merge." Marinette let the transformation take over. She quickly concentrates on Adrien's bedroom. "Voyage." If she had more time she maybe would have let herself be nostalgic but she's on a very short deadline so she splits and uses the time that Kaalki is eating to hack Adrien's computer and find out was his dad and his dad's assistant are. Once she has found him she loops all of the footage in the house, then slowly slips Plagg's ring off of Adrien's finger then reemerges with Kaalki as she leaves the room. When she gets to the door of the room Halkmoth is in she says. "Camouflage." She doesn't enter until her first beep so that she doesn't alert him then slowly enters. She goes after Duusuu first as she's not currently attached to the chest of a supervillain and quickly stuffs the Brooch into her bag then makes her way over to Haukmoth and silently approaches him. Once she's right in fount of his face she waits again, her hand hovering right over the Brooch on his chest. He jumps as the second beep goes off right in front of his face and she uses the momentum to rip it off his jacket then runs, She hears his scream of rage as she slams the door open and shut again. As soon as she hears the click she shouts. "Voyage." Before jumping through the portal and immediately dropping the transformation.
The portal closes just as quickly and they almost collapse in relief. Kaalki and Roarr zoom towards the food that has been laid out for them while the two new and very traumatised Kwami that Marinette just freed cuddle her and cry, Plagg immediately joins them and cries while he apologises for what Adrien has done to her as the rest of the kwami join them. After a minute she dis-tangles herself and gathered Kaalki again. "Three down, four to go." They all smile at her and then she's off, she goes to Luka first as she can't have him trying to second chance this then goes after Alya, next is Nino and then it Chloe. She leaves Kagami until last as she's never been to her home before and so she has no way of knowing how to get into her home. She portals home with Pollen, Sass, Trixx and Wayzz first, just in case she gets caught then, at the request of Fluff, takes Mullo with her. She merges before saying. "Multiple." And scouring the mansion. It takes five splits in closets but she eventually finds Kagami's room and it seems like her luck is on fire because she watches Kagami take off Longg's Choker before entering what she can only assume to be a bathroom, she splits from Mullo and creeps over to the choker. When she is in reach she snatches it up and then portals back home and just like that, it's finally over. Marinette is gone and it is Delilah Crawford who smiles at the kwami's after catching her breath. Their smiles are as big as the sun, lighting up all of their faces. They are all finally free. Now all they have to do is keep it that way.
The first week of freedom is spent trying to busy themselves with anything they can to keep their minds off their thought. The whole mansion is cleaned to perfection, furniture is bought and portal into the house and then rearranged to make the whole place feel like a home.
The second week into their new lives Fluff reminds Delilah that she should probably make sure that Marinette can't be linked to her so, with her new super-secret Layer under her home she builds and super-computer.
She spends the third week wiping Marinette Dupain-Cheng from the face of the earth.
It's during the fourth week that everyone crowds around as Duusuu's brooch is finally fixed.
At the three month mark that Tikki brings up that she was transmitted by everything that had happened in Paris and that it's very likely that if she ever needed to transform into Ladybug again that there was a chance that she could freeze up and fall into a panic attack. They also brought up the fact that Delilah had been subconsciously been hiding her miraculous earrings from her view and because of that her and Tikki's connection was non-existent at this point but that this talk didn't that it was her fault, just that they had grown and changed. All of the kwami made sure to tell her that they would still be here and that this didn't mean that she couldn't be a miraculous holder anymore, just that she was more connected to different ones than before. After she had calmed down she had been made to close her eyes while the kwami moved their miraculous into a line then she was to pick the ones that felt most right. She surprised everyone when she ended up with The Kwami of Transmission's brooch and The Kwami of Emotion's brooch. The rest of them had requested that she place them back into the box so that they could rest until she picked their next holders. She had done so with tears in her eyes.
Month four is when Nooroo, Duusuu and Delilah finally bond. Delilah still had nightmares about akumas, senti-monsters and what her 'team' had done to her, Nooroo was recovering from being severely abused by Hawkmoth and Duusuu was still slowly regaining their memories but after they had all broken down and cried themselves to sleep while cuddling it was like a switch had been flipped and they were never seen apart.
At the six month mark, Delilah and her new kwami's were able to fight just as well, if not better than before.
At the mark of her fifth year away from Paris she finally steps outside of her fenced off land. She probably would have never left her manner actually if it was not for her publisher dragging her out for pre-release drinks for her new book. This one was extra important she said because she had ended the last one making everyone think the main character was dead.
Waking up with no memory of the previous night in the bed of an equally shocked and horrified stranger while both of their hands held matching wedding bands was not at all how she thought her first night out of her home would go... Motherfucker.