#spazzcat

He fiddles with his cuffs, a nervous flutter in his chest. He’s been in the public eye since he was a child, and it only got worse after the Hawk Moth reveal. He should be used to this.

“Dude.”

Warm hands cover his, turn them face up and slide their palms together. The grip is reassuring.

“I can’t do this.”

Nino squeezes his hands, just for a moment. “It’ll be fine.”

“They could have picked someone else.”

“You volunteered.”

“I had to,” Adrien mutters. He closes his eyes. “I had to, I just--they said it needed to be someone worth something to Earth, enough for the symbolism to mean something. I’m Chat Noir. I’m not just a celebrity, I’m a hero. If not me, it would have been some... some civilian royalty in a country that doesn’t even really have a role for their monarchy anymore, maybe, or--”

“Breathe.”

Adrien pitches forward, head falling onto Nino’s shoulder and staying there. He can feel his shoulders shaking, but he tries to ignore it. Nino’s hand rubs up and down his back, solid even through the layers of his suit.

“This is stupid,” he mumbles. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Still time to ditch the ceremony,” his best friend jokes.

(Best friend and... well. It’s too late. They’d taken the plunge and it was somehow still too late.)

“Not without causing an intergalactic incident,” Adrien says. “Why did I agree to this?”

Because nobody could talk you out of it, Nino doesn’t say. “Because you care too much about the world and everyone in it.”

It’s probably true. Adrien straightens up when the door opens, turns and meets Marinette’s eyes for only a moment before his gaze skitters away, lets her fuss over his tie and his hair and his heart.

“Are you two okay?” she asks. It’s too late, but she’s trying to keep them in one piece where she can. Alya hovers at the doorway, Kagami and Chloe peering over her shoulder from the hallway behind her. Marinette ignores them, eyes darting between the boys, one hand almost forgotten at his collar, and Adrien almost wonders how he found himself in this situation.

His lady always did try to take care of him.

“It’s a bit late to be asking that,” Adrien says, for what is nowhere near the first time, but hopefully the last. “I don’t suppose now’s the time to make a joke about taking the bullet for you one last time?”

“A terrible time,” she scolds, and there’s mingled pity and affection in her eyes. “Especially since I’m already married, silly cat.”

She holds up her hand and flashes the ring like trophy, and Kagami’s flush behind her is enough to warm Adrien’s heart. It’s just a moment of distraction from the mess he’s gotten himself into, but it makes him feel better. Their own marriage is new enough that he knows the girls are still giddy over it, or would be if this Voltron situation hadn’t crashed down on their heads just a few weeks after they’d tied the knot.

“Always getting there first,” Adrien jokes. It falls flat, and he thinks Marinette might be ready to cry. “Anyway. I’ve got a bride to make some vows to. Ready to give me away, my Lady?”

Marinette smiles and nods, eyes shining, and holds out her arm. “Let’s go.”

-----

“You’ll outlive him, you know. It’s not forever.”

Allura pauses in the frantic rearrangement of her skirts to stare at the man she thought was her friend.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Lotor says, in what seems to be a joking scold of a tone, but it’s still not right.

“That was incredibly inappropriate!” Allura sputters. She whirls to Coran. “I-I’m not wrong, that was very much not the sort of thing one says to a bride. It’s very...”

“Morbid?” Lance offers brightly, the way he rarely fails to do when given the opportunity to undermine Lotor’s reputation, such as it is. “Rude? Bitchy? Completely--”

Hunk has a hand over Lance’s mouth. He smiles tightly. “Ignore them both.”

She was planning to.

“Your own husband is to be as short-lived as mine,” Allura mutters, sending a look sideways in the direction of the prince of space. “Unless Haggar did something, I suppose.”

Lotor smiles, soft and eyes closed, utterly practiced in every motion. “The witch pushed all her magics into him. He was to be her greatest weapon, after all.”

“You know,” Shiro says, knocking his ankle into the leg of Lotor’s chair. “You could do without talking about me like I’m not here.”

Lotor looks up, beaming. “You’re the one that married me.”

“Against my better judgment, yes.”

Allura clenches her jaw and looks away when Lotor tilts his head enough to rest against Shiro’s dress uniform. It’s not either of their faults this is happening. It’s not their fault their marriage, born of affection and camaraderie and companionship, gave way to people insisting she marry someone of this the planet’s twinned space.

It’s not their fault, but she resents them for it anyway.

“We’re on in five,” Pidge says, tapping at their watch. “Um. Any last words?”

“She’s not dying,” Keith grumbles, and Allura almost doesn’t hear the elbow that drives into his side.

“This is stupid, and I don’t want to do it,” Allura declares, smoothing her skirts down one last time. She lifts her head, holds her chin high, and takes Coran’s arm. “But I will do as needs must.”

-----

He thinks she’s very pretty, for a woman he’d rather not have tied his life to.

She thinks he’s quite charming, for a man she’d rather not have culled her love for.