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matchaball · 6 years

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satellite call

AN: Hello hello @xiueryn (I can’t tag you for some reason ;o;)!! I'm your secret santa, for the discord secret santa exchange :D I heard you like aus, and I heard you like unusual aus, so hopefully this story is right up your alley haha. It's based off this prompt:

When you wish upon a shooting star, it’s actually a satellite, and your wish has been recorded and cataloged. An agent has been assigned to your case.

(Also I certainly didn't listen to Sara Bareilles' Satellite Call nonstop while writing this...)

Happy reading! Hope you enjoy! <3

( AO3 )

When Adrien wishes upon his first star, he is just shy of nine.

He wishes for a new bike, to replace the one he’s outgrown. The thought comes and goes without any real weight, and he’s not terribly disappointed when the new bike never comes.

He has a bedroom stuffed and stocked to the brim with anything and everything he could ever want. He has his favourite foods, the coolest fashions, and every volume of Sailor Moon. He has his parents who love him, wholly and unconditionally.

He doesn’t need anything else; he’s already got happiness right at his fingertips.

Adrien is eleven, when he wishes upon his next star.

Everything changes in an eyeblink. Loss carves a hollowed home within his ribcage and trails after his footsteps in lieu of the warmth of his mother’s laugh, of her kind smile. His father moves brusquely ahead, and Adrien think he’s trying to escape the vacuum that rushes to fill his mother’s absence. There is no escaping that numbness that creeps under his skin though, that makes every emotion and movement feel weighted with lead even as the world whirls on by.

Grief makes Adrien’s wish powerfully clear as he looks up to the night sky. There are no bedtime stories told anymore, but his mother’s voice still rings in his mind. He follows it without a second thought, and wishes with all his might that her voice might return, that she might come back.

(He knows the truth, he knows better- and yet. And yet.)

Time moves on, and she never does. His mother’s stories were always filled with hopes and dreams coming true, but reality teaches Adrien of empty wishes and the cold distance of stars instead.

Adrien is twenty, when he wishes upon his last star.

It happens late one night when he's out sitting on the rooftop. Insomnia keeps him awake and drives him from the cavernous confines of his room. He comes up to breathe and hopefully ease his heart a little of the aches and pains of loneliness he’s quietly carried ever since his father locked him in a meticulously structured, rigid schedule of activities.

The chill of the air and vastness of the night sky help a little. Light pollution usually casts a glare against the deep blue, but it’s a little clearer tonight, a little darker and softer. Still, there aren’t many pinpricks of light to pick out.

So it catches Adrien by surprise when a star emerges from the darkness and suddenly soars by, leaving a silver tail as thin as a spiderweb that vanishes before he realizes it. His heart jumps after it before he can think, and his wish escapes in his exhale.

“I wish,” Adrien whispers after that shooting star, “I had a friend.”

His words seem to hang in the air for a single, breathless moment. His heart stutters, takes a wild leap into belief- and then the warmth dissipates.

Adrien sighs as he rests his head in the cradle of his arms. He had known it was a fool’s hope, but still- he had hoped.

Light snags his attention from the corner of his eye yet again, and it's the only warning he gets before the ring of his cellphone shatters the silence. Panic blinds him to everything else as he makes a desperate lunge towards his phone, and when he nearly knocks it off the rooftop in his haste, his heart leaps to his throat. Nathalie might wake up and discover him on the rooftop if the cellphone didn't shut up, but she'd definitely find Adrien if the cellphone took a swan dive off the edge and took Adrien’s only source of light for his way back down. The ringtone continues to sing cheerily as Adrien fumbles to hit answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello!” a bright voice chirps on the other end. “This is a courtesy call to let you know your wish has been recorded and catalogued.”

The greeting is so absurd, so out of the blue, that Adrien bursts out laughing.

“Wait, what?” he snorts. “Is this a joke?”

“Rude,” the voice sasses back. “At 2:49am this morning, you wished for a friend right?”

Her words effectively shut him up. The laugh dies in Adrien’s throat as suddenly as it had come, and he’s left gaping instead. He flounders for an answer somewhat more coherent than stunned silence.

“I mean… yeah,” he says slowly. “I wasn’t- is this real?”

“Very real.” The voice is distinctly feminine, steady with practiced patience. Her next words gentle as she seems to understand his hesitance. “Would you like to be told when your wish is being processed?”

“Hang on, are you actually granting my wish?”

“If it’s within our power, then absolutely.”

“Oh man,” Adrien chuckles, running a hand through his hair as he tilts his head up to look at the night sky. The shooting star is long gone, but he scans the darkness for even the tiniest glimmer of who he could possibly be talking to. “Kind of wish I’d wished for something less silly now.”

There’s a pause, and like any vacuum, Adrien’s mind races to fill it with all the anxious thoughts. He’s just about to stammer out a laugh in hopes that he can pass it off as a weak joke, but the voice on the other end speaks first.

“I don't think it's silly,” she says, soft and sure. She hesitates, then adds, “I’m Marinette.”

“I’m Adrien,” he returns. “But I guess you already knew that.”

“Yup.”

“... am I technically allowed to know your name?”

“Not really,” Marinette laughs. “It’s against the rules, but for you I'll make an exception.”

A tiny, powerful seed of warmth blooms in Adrien’s chest at Marinette's small kindness. He can't help but grin as he cranes his neck up towards the sky, imagining the velvety darkness to be her hair, the stars her eyes, looking back.

“So how long until a wish is- you said processed?” he asks, mildly curious.

“Depends,” Marinette says, thoughtful. “I- uh. I haven't processed many before.”

Something in her tone tips him off and he sits up straight, a laugh bubbling up in his chest. “Am I your first?”

Her noise of frustration unlocks his laughter, and he can't help but be endeared by her grumblings at his guess.

“That's ok,” Adrien chuckles as he flops onto his back. With her voice right by his ear, he can almost imagine her right with him, just two warm souls under the cold, dark sky. “You're my first too.”

Marinette laughs. “Here's hoping we both get what we want.”

“Hm?” He perks up in interest. “What do you want?”

“If I tell you,” she says, uncharacteristically grave, “I'll have to kill you.”

The absurdity and exaggeration in her voice sets off another round of laughter between them, and Adrien can feel his cheeks begin to hurt from how much he's been smiling.

“I'm all yours then,” Adrien declares. “But before I die, I wish for you to tell me your wish.”

“That's your last wish?” Marinette giggles. “You make my job so easy. Alright. My wish is to make someone happy. Which I know is like, comically simple and way too broad. It's kind of like a little kid wishing for world peace, but I dunno, I can never think of anything specific, and specificity can be kind of overrated anyway, not that there’s anything wrong with being specific-”

“It's perfect,” Adrien says simply, effectively stoppering Marinette’s rambling. “And you’re definitely in the right place to make that wish come true.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” she admits. “Thanks Adrien.”

“For stating the obvious?”

“No, silly. For- well. I dunno. There's something about you,” Marinette says slowly, a note of curiosity in her voice. “Something- different. Maybe I’ll figure it out, in time.”

“Like I said,” Adrien chuckles, “I’m all yours.”

“You really are,” Marinette laughs. “I should start processing your wish.”

There’s a question in her words, a thread that unravels into two paths that he can take. One trails off into goodbyes and then that deafening silence at the other end of the line, with no certainty of when he’d hear her voice again. And the other...

“Do you…” Adrien hesitates, then chooses. “Could you maybe stay and talk? Just a little longer?”

“Sure,” Marinette replies, and he can feel the warmth of her smile in her voice. “I'll stay.”

“Do you ever think about leaving?”

Silence answers Adrien as Marinette thinks of her answer. This time, he doesn’t panic at the space between them. Instead, he settles comfortably back on the rooftop and scans the cloudy sky for a hint of any stars, of her.

He’d been tempted to write the initial experience off as a dream- a crazy, wonderful, perplexing, surreal, fantastic dream- but his call history tells him otherwise.

The thing about receiving phone calls though, is that one can call back.

“Sometimes,” she finally answers. “I miss my family. I miss papa’s bread and maman’s dumplings. I miss my bed.”

“You’ve never gone back and visited?”

“Well, I only just started here kind of recently, so I’ve only visited them once.”

Another pause bubbles up, and this time he can sense her hesitation, of something left unsaid.

“...and?” Adrien prods gently.

“...and I don’t think I will,” Marinette sighs. “They don’t know I’m up here, doing this. They shouldn’t know. It’s… it’s complicated.”

“Oh.” Curiosity hooks its claws into him and doesn’t let go. His want for respecting her privacy struggles against it until he compromises with, “Won’t they worry if they haven’t heard from you in a while?”

“I can call. Clearly,” she laughs. She must sense what he doesn’t say, what his curiosity clambers to know, even from miles, maybe lightyears away, because she clarifies, “It’s easy to exploit wishes, if you know they can come true.”

“I still don’t really know if mine will come true,” Adrien teases.

“Yes, you do.” The calm and absolute certainty that Marinette pins on him is direct and honest in a way he doesn’t expect. “Or, you don’t know it, but you believe it. You believed in the star that you sent your wish up to. The people who do that, those are the ones whose wishes we answer.”

Adrien’s head spins a little at her explanation. The whole basis sounds so profoundly simple and innocent that he feels a bit like a little kid again.

“Wait,” he backtracks. “‘We’? Are you in like, a giant spaceship? Multiple spaceships? Is there a galaxy of people working with you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Marinette laughs and laughs and laughs. “It’s just… uhhh, let’s see: me, Tikki, Plagg, Nooroo, Duusuu, Pollen, Trixx. The seven of us.”

“How the heck do you answer all the wishes you get?”

“Well, like I said, it’s hard to get one through to begin with but- you wished upon a star, and it’s a star who answers.”

“You answered,” Adrien points out, unable to resist a little teasing. Curiosity still kneads his muscles, making him restless along the rooftop. He rolls up to his feet and starts pacing as he turns everything over in his mind.

“Ok, so technically it’s a star who answers,” Marinette grumps. “I’m in training, cut me some slack. But yeah, I’m just human.”

The word choice stops Adrien in his tracks, has him slowly pivoting and craning his neck up to look skywards once more.

“You aren’t joking,” he says slowly. “They’re… actual stars.”

“Long story,” Marinette sighs, “and I’m not the best person to tell it. You should talk to Plagg or Tikki, if you want the full scoop.”

“Oh yes,” Adrien barks out a laugh as he runs a shaking hand through his hair in disbelief and wonder. “I’ll just look through the phonebook for their number later.”

“Smartass.” He can practically hear her eye roll at the other end. “But, hey, listen. We’re always looking for the right person to join us in granting wishes, if you want.”

The invitation in her words is such a tempting thing. To be able to make a difference, to do something on his own, to be free; but despite his selfish reasons, the hope in her voice is what tugs at his heart and what he follows.

Adrien hesitates. Thinks of his father, and how he’d manage. Remembers they haven’t talked in person in literal years, communicating only by phone or email.

There is no reason for him to stay, and one powerful reason for him to go.

He looks up, and thinks of Marinette.

“Really?” Adrien whispers.

The bright hopefulness in Marinette’s laugh races along the soundwaves connecting their phones, and threads a knot around his finger to follow. “What do you think about leaving?”

Saying he’s leaving is one thing; doing so is something entirely different.

The first problem hadn’t been his father, funnily enough, but his assistant. She’d merely blinked when Adrien stammered through a fairly weak and lame excuse of wanting to go traveling abroad for a year.

She hadn’t said anything in response to his rambling, only looked at him. Nathalie had worked with both father and son for years and was practiced in seeing right through the bullshit. With just her level gaze, Adrien faltered, and spilled the truth.

And to her credit, she didn’t immediately call for a psych eval or dismiss him entirely. Skepticism still pulled her mouth into a frown though, so Adrien simply handed his phone to her, Marinette already on standby at the other end of the line, and waited.

The conversation was brief, and Nathalie said maybe only three sentences to her. He counted. But whatever Marinette told her was convincing enough to smooth the frown furrowing her brow and for her shoulders to relax.

When Nathalie ended the call, she had stared at the phone in her hands for a moment, as if digesting the reality of what she’d just been given. Adrien understood that all too well.

She pushed her glasses up and nodded briskly at him then, as she handed his phone back.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nathalie promised, and they both knew she meant Gabriel. Gabriel, and the revolving door of activities pinning Adrien in place for as long as he could remember.

Adrien had no idea how she’d take care of it, but if there was anyone who could work miracles, especially around his father, he believed it could be Nathalie.

The second problem…

Adrien checks his phone for the third time that night as he sits up on his rooftop once more with a stuffed backpack resting against him. Marinette had given him a time and place and said she’d meet him there. Butterflies clamber in his stomach in the meantime as time ticks by and crawls closer and closer to when she’ll finally appear.

A dozen questions and more turn over in his head as he waits. Where are they going? How will they get there? How will she reach him, up on this rooftop? Was this a mistake?

“Hey stranger,” a voice interjects behind him. Her voice, as familiar as anything, still catches him by surprise, and Adrien nearly pitches over the edge of the rooftop as he hurries to stand and turn around to finally see her.

“Whoa!” she exclaims as she wraps a strong hand around his arm and yanks him back to balance. Even through his sweater, he can feel the heat of her palm, the physical presence and undeniable reality of her.

Still, he’s slow to raise his eyes to see her. And when he finally does, his breath catches in his throat.

He is a romantic, he’ll be the first to admit, but still, there really isn’t any other way to describe the darkness of her hair, so much like nighttime, with its shine of deep blue. There really isn’t any other way to explain the clarity of her eyes, as bright blue as a summer sky. Even the faint smattering of freckles dusted along her cheeks and nose makes him think of stars, of constellations, and if she hadn’t told him quite emphatically before that she was human, he’d believe her if she told him she was a star as well.

“Hi,” Marinette smiles shyly as he continues to stare.

“Oh!” Adrien laughs nervously, and scrambles to remember all his etiquette lessons. “Hey.”

Nailed it.

Luckily, Marinette saves them both by gesturing to his bag. “Got everything?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He rubs the back of his head in thought as he mentally runs through everything he packed. Some clothes, toiletries, books (specifically, Sailor Moon), and, by request, Ultimate Mecha Strike X. Marinette said they’d provide the rest, but he had never needed much anyway. “How did you get here?”

“Tikki dropped me off,” Marinette explains, though it’s not much an explanation at all. A smile plays at her lips as she picks up on his curiosity. “Plagg’s picking us up.”

“To where?”

“To up there.” Marinette points up, at the wide, expansive sky, at the few stars glimmering against the darkness. “To our satellite. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

The way she says it, home, with affection and warmth and belonging, stirs such a profound longing in him. He hadn’t found much a home here, on earth, but maybe because this is why. Maybe because she is why. He had wished for a friend, but a home is what he’s always looked for.

And Marinette feels like both.

“Are you ready?” Marinette asks softly, her hand offered to him.

“Yeah.” Adrien takes her hand and stands. His gaze turns skywards, to the velvet black night and the glittering stars that await them. “Let’s go.”

#mlfanfiction #miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrienette #fanfiction #xiueryn #sorry for being late!! hope you enjoy it :)#merry christmas!!#matcha writes

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