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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 5 months

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Bound, Epilogue

Previous part

Marinette and Tim had been having an average day. A slow, quiet day, if you will. It was the middle of summer, and therefore the bakery was getting less customers than usual – no one wants a hot meal when they’re already being roasted alive by the sun. They had decided to close up shop an hour early, since no one was coming in anyway, and spend a little extra time resting before they went to bed at the completely normal and average time of 5pm.

Alas, they had one more job before they could officially turn the sign in front of the door from Open to Closed: delivering a birthday cake.

How dare that child be born seven years ago. How rude of them. Didn’t they know Marinette and Tim wanted to sleep?

But fine, whatever, they supposed they could do their job.

Frankly, it wasn’t that big of a deal. The house they were taking it to wasn’t even that far away. Neither of them would have minded it at all… if it were not for the walk back.

It had started drizzling. Honestly, they had thought it was a godsend on such a horrible day, but perhaps it had been a literal godsend. A sign.

“So, what’s for dinner?” Tim asked, looping his arm around her shoulders lazily, dragging her into his side so he could hold the delivery bag over their heads like a makeshift umbrella. If they tracked too much rainwater into the bakery, they’d have to clean it up, and they did not want to bother with that.

“I was thinking we should just buy some ice cream and not tell my parents.” Marinette sent him a teasing grin. “You know, one day you’re going to have to learn how to cook.”

“You don’t want that,” he said, his nose wrinkling.

“Mmmmmaybe not. You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

Tim rolled his eyes at her. “No, I’m lucky your parents took one look at me and said ‘I do not care whether you two get married or I have to adopt him myself, that is now my son’.”

“Yeah! Because you’re pretty.”

He snickered. “That is definitely not why.”

“True, I guess.”

He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. If she was agreeing this easily, then she definitely had another idea lined up. And, lo and behold, her eyes were gleaming with mirth.

“It’s because you’re a wet cat of a man.”

“Well, aren’t I lucky you’re a cat person, then,” he said, grinning cheekily.

Clearly, she had not been expecting that one, because her face gained a red tint and she snatched the delivery bag out of his hands to use as a fearsome weapon. Tim only laughed as she swatted him with the plastic bag. In his eyes, it was still worth it.

They were snapped out of their own little world thanks to the screeching of tires.

Their heads snapped to a nearby intersection.

The rain, though relatively light, had been enough to make the roads more slippery than expected, and a car had skidded far too close to hitting an old man. Thankfully, some blond guy had reacted in time to get him out of the way.

Tim and Marinette had, as nosy people often do, tried to get a good look at what was going on as they passed. Nothing interesting, really. The younger of the two was worrying over the man’s health, which seemed fine other than slightly scraped up knees and hands, certainly better than it could have been. The old man was assuring him he was fine and trying to collect all of the things that had fallen out of the blond’s bag when he had half-tackled him out of the way.

It was because Marinette’s head was turned towards the pair that Tim almost missed the horrified expression that stole across her face.

“Fucking – you!” she said, pointing at the old man.

The old man didn’t seem all that abnormal to look at. Stringy, gray and white hair and beard. A myriad of smile lines and age spots. His cane looked as if it had been fashioned out of an actual stick, probably custom-made, which was not surprising considering his height. The most interesting thing about him was the Hawaiian tee, which was remarkably loud.

But the old man seemed to recognize Marinette, too. He didn’t look confused at having been called out, he looked wary.

Marinette tugged the bag out of the old man’s hands and started sifting through it, her expression… well, Tim hadn’t seen that kind of existential terror since they had cut their String. He couldn’t say he had missed seeing it on her face.

“Mari?” he asked, resting a hand on her shoulder gently.

She didn’t even seem to notice. She pulled out a small, black box with a strange red design. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Do you recognize this?” she asked the blond.

Said blond had gone remarkably pale. He shook his head slowly, and Tim thought, vaguely, that he looked kind of unsure.

Marinette didn’t seem to notice. She scowled and shoved the box into the old man’s hands.

His hands closed around it quickly – not in the way people instinctively took things you pushed into their chest, but instead as if he had been expecting to take it back.

“What – what is that?” the blond asked.

Marinette hesitated here, her gaze darting up to meet his. And then she blinked. “Holy shit, aren’t you that guy from the perfume ads?”

The blond blushed and tugged his baseball cap lower over his face, a blush creeping up his neck.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of Tim’s eyes drew his attention away from the pair, and instead to the atrociously bright red of a Hawaiian shirt turning the corner. He hissed a curse and took up the chase.

The old man was surprisingly fast, for someone supposedly in need of a cane. Tim wasn’t a vigilante anymore, but he was by no means out of shape, and yet his feet pounded against the pavement, his eyes constantly flicking around in search of the flashes of too-bright red, always just barely catching sight of it in time to watch it turn a corner.

And then he saw the man disappear into an alleyway. One which, unless Tim remembered wrong, was a dead end.

He wasn’t wrong.

He swung around a pipe to get inside faster, and found the old man at the end of the alley, not the least bit out of breath.

Tim, however, was exhausted. So, forgive him for being slightly rough with the elderly when he grabbed him by the collar, shoving him against the wall. The old man’s smile hadn’t disappeared in the slightest, and Tim’s hands balled tighter in his shirt, frustration eating at him.

Despite the rain, the man wasn’t wet in the slightest.

“Who – what are you?” he hissed.

"Just someone who wants to right a wrong."

"That makes no sense."

The Old Man tipped his head back and laughed. Too far. Slowly, he unraveled before Tim’s eyes, his form spilling away into red fucking string that slipped between his fingers no matter how hard he tried to get a hold on it.

Tim stared at the only thing that remained of the man. A tiny bow tied around his thumb.

He swallowed thickly.

It wasn’t connecting him to anything, so he was probably safe to assume that this was what was left of the original String, and yet the fact that he could suddenly see it did not bode well.

He rushed back the way he’d come.

Marinette and the blond were backed up against a random building, people clamoring for the blond’s attention. Apparently, Marinette was right about him being a minor celebrity – perfume ad guy, Marinette had shown the video to him a while back because apparently he, as a Parisian, had to see it at least once or else he was a ‘fake’.

He was pretty sure the guy’s name was –

“Adrien!” someone squealed. “Can I have an autograph?!”

Adrien looked a little overwhelmed. Understandable, really.

Tim glanced around, and realized they weren’t backed up against just any building.

He clambered up the fire escape and then let himself in via the skylight. A few flights of stairs later, he was fiddling with the lock on the door.

Marinette dragged Adrien inside by the wrist, and Tim slammed the door shut behind them, triple-locking it. Usually, they only bothered with one or two, but considering the crowd… well, it was best to be safe.

Marinette reached up and turned the sign over the door to ‘Closed’.

Adrien sunk to the ground, groaning. He took off his hat so he could run his hands through his already messy hair.

Tim took the moment to look at Marinette’s pinky. She, too, had a tiny bow wrapped around her finger, but she wasn’t bound to anyone. Not to Tim, and certainly not to the random blond guy beside her.

The lack of a Red String of Fate didn’t quite put him at ease. If it wasn’t that that had been 'righted', then what was going on?

“Sorry about that,” Marinette mumbled, sitting beside Adrien.

“Well, you did save me from – I don’t know – a bomb? A tracker? Whatever that guy put in my bag. So I did owe you. Now, I think it’s evened back out.”

Marinette snickered. “I guess that’s fair.”

“We can make you owe us again,” Tim said, walking to tap his knuckles against the glass case containing everything that hadn’t been sold that day. Usually, they’d eat some and donate the rest, but hey, they had company for the foreseeable future. Might as well pawn some food off on him. “What’re you in the mood for?”

Adrien smiled faintly. “Got anything with passionfruit in it?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Awwwwwwww.”

Marinette was watching Adrien out of the corner of her eyes, something inscrutable on her face.

“Mari?”

She jolted to attention, something soft stealing over her face. “I could make some passionfruit macarons, if you’d like that.”

Adrien’s eyes lit up, but he was quick to shake his head. “No, I can’t make you do all that…”

“We’re going to be stuck here for a while,” she said, pointing at the crowd still standing outside the door. “We might as well have something to do.”

Adrien nodded hesitantly. “I guess…”

“Great!” she said, hopping to her feet smoothly.

She held a hand out to help him up.

Adrien smiled as he took it.