Chapter Text
Color was hard to come by in Marinette's life.
There was a time when she thought that maybe her soulmate was dead, they never existed in the first place, or they simply didn't live in Paris.
Two of those assumptions were tossed when she saw a leaf with a few fingerprints on it float by one day.
When Marinette was young, she was told about soulmates. Her parents were soulmates, as were all of her friend's parents. It was hard to not hear about them.
She got told the story after school one day when they were learning about colors. The teacher was going over primary colors, listing off objects that belonged to each category. Apples, stop signs, and hearts belonged to the red category. Everyone in her class nodded along. The sun, pencils, and bananas were apparently all yellow. A few people giggled and asked how anyone knew the sun was yellow if you weren't supposed to look at it. Water, blueberries, and pants were put into the blue category. Nino raised his hand and asked why sometimes the water in the Seine was blue and sometimes it was grey. Their teacher just smiled and said that was a discussion for another day. It was time for lunch.
Marinette went home crying because she didn't know what color was. All she saw was grey and black and white. Her parents sat her down and told her a story.
A long time ago, a magic was bestowed upon the human race. It allowed people to find their true soulmates by seeing color wherever their soulmate's skin touched. And if you touched your soulmate's skin with your own, the whole world would light up and nothing would be grey anymore. This was called the Find, and many people spent their whole life searching for it.
After that, Marinette developed a habit of running around outside with no shoes, shorts, and tank tops on. She bumped into people on purpose, dropped her things so she'd have to pick them up and brush the ground, and wandered the city, dragging her fingers across walls and fences. She liked to imagine that if her soulmate ever walked by, they'd see her footprints in the grass, the marks her fingers made along buildings, and maybe even marks on people's legs and clothes from when she bumped into them. Something about it made her giggle.
When her twelfth birthday came and went with still no color, Marinette gave up on her foolish childhood behavior. She started wearing shoes and acceptable clothing. She stopped acting purposefully clumsy (although it didn't completely go away. Some of those stumbles and drops weren't fake) and didn't wander the city for fun.
That fall, while she was out on her balcony drinking tea and watching the sunset, she noticed a flicker of something she'd never seen before. Intrigued, she set down her tea and stood up, looking out beyond the landing and studying everything closely. A few seconds went by before she saw it again. There, floating in the breeze, was a leaf. She never would have noticed it if not for the dots of color along it. Gasping, she reached over past her railing to grab at it, making a few swipes before she finally caught it. She didn't know what color it was supposed to be, since science class taught her that leaves during the fall could be any color. Rushing down back into her room, then down to her parent's room, she burst in, waving the leaf.
"Mama! Papa!" Her parents, who were both reading quietly on their bed, looked up with startled expressions, never having seen their daughter act this way before.
"What color is this?" They glanced at each other, at the lead, then back again. Sabine smiled softly before looking at Marinette.
"That's orange."
"Orange," Marinette repeated softly, tracing her fingers over the fingerprints.
"I don't know girl. Are you sure they even exist?" Marinette rolled her eyes. They'd had this conversation a million times over the past few years. Alya had known almost immediately after joining their school that Nino was her soulmate. It was pretty easy when he was basically the first person she'd interacted with when she got to school that Monday morning. Marinette had never seen a Find happen before, so when Alya and Nino suddenly jumped and started looking around the room in wonder, then at each other, it took Marinette a minute to comprehend what she just saw.
"Yes, I'm sure they exist. I have my leaf, remember?" It was Marinette's most treasured possession. She had cast it in resin and set it next to her bed to look at every day. The only reminder that she had a soulmate.
"Yeah, but, Marinette..." Alya trailed off, not wanting to start this fight again.
When the final bell rang, Marinette slowly packed her bags to head home. While she knew she didn't need her soulmate to live, it was hard being the only person in class who didn't have a soulmate. Even Chloe had one, and she made sure everyone knew it. She was tired of being the only person who didn't know what people were talking about when they said the sky was a beautiful color that day, or how excited they were for the Bastille Day to see the fireworks, or that they couldn't wait for Christmas and go looking at lights.
She was so caught up in her self-pity that Marinette almost missed it. There, right in front of her on the steps to the school, were tan handprints and smudges. It was clear that someone had fallen on them. And there! A few paces away, a poster for a perfume had a couple streaks of blue. And over there! The park grass had a few green patches on it. Her soulmate had been so close to her today. They were real, they existed, and they were somewhere in Paris.
Marinette felt like she was floating on air for the rest of the day.
It was too early for her mind to handle this. The few places of color the day before had been a beautiful and welcome surprise. Today there was even more, and suddenly, Marinette felt sick and dizzy. She had gone so long without color, without a soulmate, that she didn't know what to do now that both might be in her life very soon.
It was clear her soulmate just transferred to Collège Françoise Dupont. Everywhere she looked in the courtyard, there were handprints, swipes, fingerprints, and smudges of color. They were here, and they were close.
Alya took one look at the expression on Marinette's face and squealed. She shook her best friend and told her to describe what she saw. Marinette pointed out the trail of color that lead up the stairs, so Alya took her hand and dragged her up them. The trail led right to their homeroom and the two girls exchanged glances before Alya shoved Marinette through the door.
There was only one person in the room. A boy she'd never seen before, who sat in the previously empty chair in front of her's. Marinette gulped and stepped forward. The boy looked up from the paper he was writing on and smiled at her. She just stood there, stunned.
"Hey! I'm Adrien. I'm new here." He stood up and held out his hand in what was clearly a friendly gesture, but Marinette knew that once she grabbed it, she would never see the world the same way again.
Taking a deep breath, she held out her own hand. "I'm Marinette. Your soulmate." And she grabbed his hand.
It was nothing like she'd ever imagined it would be. There was a bright flash, blinding really, before color started to flood the room. It wound around, snaking under chairs and up the walls. Around light fixtures and behind shelves. In between paper and windows outside to light up the world, one color at a time, filling the space. It was beautiful.
She looked back to the boy to find he was already staring at her. She made eye contact with him and gasped.
"Your eyes are beautiful," they both said, smiling after.
"I liked seeing your patterns around the city," he said quietly. "It made me believe I could have a good life one day." Marinette smiled softly, letting go of his hand only to grab it again to tangle their fingers together.
"I found a leaf you touched. It kept me going for a long time."
Adrien smiled and pressed his forehead to hers.
"You gave me the world," he whispered.