Chapter Text
The first time Luka Couffaine encountered the devil incarnate that was Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he was ten years old. It had been an ordinary day, for the most part. It was summer, and he had spent most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon lounging on the Liberty's deck, bored out of his mind. He was absent-mindedly noodling away at his guitar and didn't even register he was no longer alone until the girl spoke, causing his fingers to slip and an awful discordant thwang! to echo from the guitar in his lap. He flinched at the horrendous noise and looked up to find a girl standing before him. He didn’t recognize the girl; was positive he had never seen her before. He leaned around her to look towards the gangplank which was where he had left it against the wall after his mother had left for work. How had she...?
" Excuse me," the girl said, exasperated, as if this weren't the first time she had tried to get his attention. He dragged his gaze back to her and raked a quick glance over her. She was small. Much smaller than him. She looked like she was maybe five or six years old, with blue black hair that had been cut into a rough pixie cut. Like someone had taken a pair of rusty kitchen shears and done a poor at home hack job. She wore overalls that were ripped at both knees, with a striped tee-shirt underneath, and her cheeks were ruddy and smudged with dirt. Her big blue eyes were narrowed, lips twisted up in consternation.
"Who are you?" Luka finally asked, still a little dumbfounded. "And... How did you get on the ship?"
"I'm Marinette. And I jumped, how else? You were ignoring me when I called out," she huffed, planting her little fists on her hips and leaning in to glare at him more fully. "You know, it's very rude to ignore people. What if I had fallen into the Seine trying to get up here?" She was very well-spoken for a five year old. Marinette's face darkened even more, and belatedly Luka realized he must have spoken that last part out loud.
"I'm seven , dummy," she snapped, indignant. Luka gave her another once over, unconvinced.
"My sister is seven and she's like two feet taller than you."
"Well, Maman says I'll grow eventually. I'm just a late bloomer," she muttered defensively. Luka still wasn't convinced but he wisely kept that to himself and instead set his guitar aside and stood up. His Ma wasn't home and as the oldest, he was in charge, so he supposed he ought to figure out what to do with the girl. Something told him his Ma wouldn't be very pleased if he made her walk the plank. He didn't even know if the girl could swim, so as tempting as the idea was he shoved it to the back of his mind and filed it away for later.
"What are you doing here?" He finally asked, looking down at her from his much greater height.
"I'm here to see Juleka, obviously," Marinette rolled her eyes as if that should have been obvious. Luka knew most of Jules' friends, but he had never met this one before. Maybe she was so obnoxious that Juleka didn't want to bring her around much. Luka was sorely tempted to just tell the interloper that his sister wasn't home and kick her off the boat the same way she had boarded (as soon as he figured out how, exactly, that was). But if she really was Juleka’s friend, and she found out he had kicked her off the boat, there would be heck to pay and he didn't want to deal with two crazy seven-year-old girls being mad at him.
"I'll go get her?" He offered questioningly, instead of telling her to take a hike like he really, really wanted to. He looked around and then frowned at her suspiciously. "Just don't touch anything, okay?"
Marinette crinkled her nose, squinted her eyes, and stuck her tongue out to blow a raspberry at him. It was like dealing with his 3 year old cousin, Mattie. He was just as gross and unruly, except he had the excuse of being three years old. And a boy. Girls were supposed to be sweet and nice and clean and smell like flowers. This one smelled like an odd mixture of bread and dirt. Rolling his eyes, he chose not to dignify her actions with a response and instead headed below deck to the room he shared with his sister. She was on her bed, reading a book, and looked annoyed when he poked his head inside.
"Your friend Marinette is here," he growled. Juleka looked up at him, one brow arching at his gruff tone.
"Who pissed in your cheerios this morning?" She questioned, marking her page and setting the book aside before she hopped to her feet.
" Marinette ." He said succinctly, ducking back out of the room before she could think to tease him. His sister was almost as annoying as her friend was. Almost , but not quite. Heading back upstairs, he had to quicken his pace when he heard the unmistakable sound of his guitar being tortured . He found Marinette in the seat he had vacated, guitar in lap, her grubby little hands plucking at the strings with no rhyme or rhythm. She looked up at his approach and grinned, showing off the large gaping hole where one of her front teeth was missing. She held out the guitar expectantly.
"Can you show me what you were doing before? I tried to do the fingering thing you were doing-" she mimicked plucking the cords the best she could though her form and finger placement was all off. "-but clearly I'm not very good."
"No. I told you not to touch anything!" Marinette momentarily looked wounded and then she glared right back at him as if he were in the wrong here.
"It's just a silly instrument. You don’t have to be rude!"
"It's not just some silly instrument its-"
"-his baby ," Juleka mocked, appearing at the top of the stairs and bouncing her gaze between them curiously. "Don't take it personally, Mari. Brothers are weird ."
"I'm glad I don't have siblings. Yours is rude. How do you even live with him?" She stuck her tongue out at Luka again before trotting across the deck to join his sister. Juleka smiled, amber eyes sparkling with amusement as they turned to head below deck. He could still hear them ribbing him all the way down the stairs until the slam of the bedroom door disrupts his ability to hear them any longer. Rolling his eyes, Luka resumes his spot and tries to get back to his guitar noodling, but every so often he can't help but drift his gaze to the gangplank, trying to determine how such a tiny girl managed to jump up and scale the Liberty.