Work Text:
Marc sighed to himself as he entered his room after a long day at school, stretching to relieve his aching muscles. Yet again, he had spent the day hopelessly pining after Nathaniel while the artist remained oblivious to his feelings. Oh well, at least he was actually able to talk to him without completely jumbling his sentences like Marinette did with Adrien.
And they were making good progress on their comic! Marc had been able to give him the completed script for the next issue for Nathaniel to take home. He couldn’t wait to see the panels the artist would make based on them. It was always magical being able to actually have visuals of the story he wrote with his own hands.
After all that, he thought he deserved a reward. Might as well start working on his self-indulgence story. Marc rummaged through his backpack for his journal, pulling it out and opening to the last page. Quickly scanning it to see where he left off, he realized something horrifying.
This was the journal for the comic.
Which meant that Nathaniel had his other journal.
---
It only took Nathaniel a couple sentences to realize it wasn’t the script for their comic. After all, it had started by detailing the complicated feelings Reverser had for his crush, something much more geared for a romance story rather than the action packed one their comic was.
But he soon found himself captivated by the words, something Marc’s writing always managed to do, continuing to read more and more to find out how it ended.
The story was told through Reverser’s point of view, the first part showing how he had internal battles about his true feelings. After all, his crush had harmed him in such a big way (Although, the ‘how’ wasn’t really elaborated on. Maybe Marc would talk about it later in the story?) but he more than made up for it afterwards! After a long while, Reverser eventually came to terms with how he felt about Mightyllustrator.
That had been another thing that surprised Nathaniel. He hadn’t been expecting Marc to use his own OC as Reverser’s love interest. If anything, he had thought that Marc would create an entirely new character for it.
Mightyllustrator also seemed to be completely oblivious in this story, never noticing Reverser’s crush on him despite how many signs the other tried to give him. Even Nathaniel was getting frustrated with him, and he was his self insert!
His exasperation seemed to be shared with the protagonist, shown clearly through Reverser’s inner monologue as he watched Mightyllustrator from a distance as he interacted with Ladybug.
It practically takes a genius to be as dense as you. Anyone else would've noticed ages ago.
It seemed like Mightyllustrator actually had a crush on Ladybug in this story, as indicated with the blushes described when he talked with her. It reminded Nathaniel of the celebrity crush he gained on her before losing it after meeting Marc properly.
Reverser was much more resentful of Ladybug than he was in their actual comic, irritated that all of Mightyllustrator’s affection was given to her. Nathaniel didn’t blame him. He’d also be upset if his crush showed romantic interest in someone else blatantly right in front of him.
Nathaniel expected the story to be mainly about romance, but it actually dove deeper into other aspects. Reverser had constant self doubt peeking through the cracks of his inner narration, feeling that he was less than everyone else on the team. Like they were the protagonists, and he was just someone in the background.
Instead of the main plot, it’s a side story.
He even felt this way towards Mightyllustrator, the other hero just out of his reach in everything they did together. The artist was much more skilled in battle since he had more experience, he was described as being much more handsome than Reverser was (Something Nathaniel actively disagreed with), Mightyllustrator was more self assured, and those didn’t even mention the romance drama going on.
Fix your habit of going on ahead.
Nathaniel got more and more into the story as he continued reading into the night, constantly on edge of how it would end. He wanted Mightyllustrator to like Reverser back just as much as the character himself! The tension grew as he grew closer to the end of the pages with writing.
His breath caught in his throat as he reached the last sentence there.
In short: I like you, so try to like me back, Nathaniel.
That was his name. The first instance of anything actually relating to the two of them in the real world. Did that mean this was Marc’s true feelings? No way, there’s no way someone as amazing as Marc could like someone like Nathaniel of all people. He was probably just using it as a stand-in for Mightyllustrator’s true name!
Yeah, that was definitely it. Nathaniel convinced himself of that answer, ignoring the way his heart fluttered at the thought of Marc liking him.
---
Marc paced around the stairs to the school, gnawing on his thumbnail as his mind ran rampant with thoughts of how Nathaniel would react. He hadn’t answered any of his texts. Would he be upset? Mad? Horrified?
Nathaniel soon turned the corner of the block, lighting up when he saw the writer. So far, so good, but Marc still couldn’t let himself relax. Especially when the redhead started sprinting towards him, grabbing his shoulders tightly as he started babbling about the story. Marc couldn’t even comprehend the dozens of compliments Nathaniel shot his way, still dealing with the fact that Nathaniel’s reaction was mostly positive instead of one of the dozens of bad ends he had imagined.
“And then I got to the end, but there was no conclusion!” Nathaniel continued to whine, “Maaaaarrrccc, you can’t leave me on a cliffhanger!”
Marc finally got his words back, stuttering out as he blushed heavily at the close contact, “I- You weren’t meant to- I didn’t mean to give you that story…”
Nathaniel backed off, and Marc bit his lip to keep himself from instinctively reaching out to pull him back, “Oh sorry, was I intruding? I thought it was just another plot idea you wanted to try.”
“M-Maybe…”
“Really?! So tell me how it ends! Does Might return Rev’s feelings?”
Marc grabbed Nathaniel by the wrist, looking him straight into the eyes, trying to convey as much of his love as possible in his next words.
“You tell me.”