Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Good is not born. Good is chosen, day in and day out, much in the way evil is. That is why so many do not fall under one label or the other, but in a myriad shades of grey, evil some times and good others. For all that Mal has chosen good on one momentous occasion, it doesn’t mean it comes naturally. Thankfully, she has some help.

“Are you ever going to stop it with the graffiti?” Ben asks as Mal shuts her locker, now decorated with a gold crown over a royal blue background. He likes this one much better than the last one, but it’s still Bad, and there’s enough heroism in his heritage for it to get under his skin.

She smiles and links an arm through his. “I don’t know, I like my locker the way it is. Don’t you?”

That pulls a smile out of him too- she likes being marked as his. He’s not supposed to like that as much as he does. “I mean, yeah, but it’s still, you know, not what we do here. We can get you as many canvases as you want to paint on, you don’t have to use your locker.”

“Why does it matter?” Mal asks, carefree smile still in place.

He stops. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Her expression slowly fades. “What do you mean?”

“Your parents, your mom- she really didn’t teach you any morals. I mean, I knew that, but it just didn’t really hit me until just now. We all grew up putting our toys away and sharing and everything, but you guys grew up on graffiti and stealing. I just…” he trails off under Mal’s scrutiny. “Let me show you.”

“Okay,” Mal says slowly.

He smiles. “Tonight.”

They meet up by her locker after dinner, when the custodial crew is making their rounds. She’s in makeup and a pretty dress; he’s in rubber gloves and an old worn button-down of his father’s. “I feel overdressed,” Mal says.

“You look great,” Ben offers.

“What are we doing here?”

He hands her a bottle of multi-surface cleaner and a brush. “We are cleaning your locker. Every time you graffiti your locker, someone has to do exactly what we’re about to do right now, and that’s why we don’t graffiti things.”

She examines the objects in her hands. “What do these do?”

Ben reminds himself that she has a villain out of storybooks for a mother and a gigantic question mark for a father, and that the Isle of the Lost has very different standards than Beauty and the Beast about cleanliness. “They clean things. They’ll help us get the most of the paint off your locker, and then we’ll repaint it the correct color. That’s what somebody does every time you graffiti something.”

“Why?” she asks.

“To make it look clean and pretty,” Ben says, “And because things like Long Live Evil aren’t necessarily encouraged in the kingdom.”

She points to the crown. “That’s your crown. You’re the king. Isn't that a good thing?”

“Because everything is supposed to match here. Because the locker isn’t yours, you’re just borrowing it, and the person who actually owns it wants it to look like all the others so next year, whoever uses this one won’t have your graffiti on it,” Ben explains, as patiently as he can. He remembers when Chad got a little sister and when Aunt Rapunzel had her first child. The little ones were always asking questions, and for all that Mal was much older than them she had about as much experience with how the kingdom worked and how good people behaved as a little child. Of course, anyone who mistook Mal for a little child would regret that decision almost instantly. She just... has some learning to do, about how Auradon works.

Mal considered the brush and spray. “Huh.”

“You asked me why you shouldn’t graffiti things.”

“Tag,” she says, scrubbing experimentally at the locker.

He shows her how to spray the wash on the locker before using the brush, and once she’s scrubbing away, he echoes, “Tag?”

“I tag things with graffiti. Especially when I did it with Mom’s symbol. It’s called a tag.”

“See? We’re both learning things,” Ben says with a smile. She grins back at him and goes back to scrubbing at the locker.

There’s a moment of peaceful and companionable silence. “This is terrible,” she says.

Ben nods. “Yep.”

“This is a horrible date.”

“I know.”

“Why are we doing this?”

“Because if we don’t, he will,” Ben says, pointing and waving at a passing custodian. The guy bows and smiles at them. “And you made this mess, so you’re cleaning it up. And I like you, so I’m helping.”

She continues to scrub. “Maybe… maybe a canvas won’t be so bad.”

“You aced Goodness 101, so maybe I can get you into art class,” Ben says.

She nods. “You’re a king and I turned my mom into a tiny lizard, so between the two of us I think we should be okay.”

Chapter Text

“So, there’s something I should probably tell you,” Mal says out of nowhere one day.

Ben looks over at her. “Okay.”

“I didn’t put a love spell on you because I was in love with you and thought you’d never break up with Audrey. I put a love spell on you because I was scheming to steal Fairy Godmother’s magic wand at your coronation and I would only be close enough if I was there as your girlfriend,” she says, bluntly and without preamble.

He blinks. “Oh.”

“And then I felt bad about it and gave you the anti-potion so you wouldn’t have to follow me like a lost puppy after me and my mother took over the world.”

“Oh.”

“Please say something other than ‘oh’.”

He thinks for a long moment, Mal’s face screwing up in worry. “Okay,” he says.

“Not helpful,” she says.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m not mad. You didn’t go from being evil to being good overnight, I guess, and putting me under your spell was back when you were still acting more evil than good. And you released me in the end, and you wouldn’t do it again, so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”

Mal blinks. “I put you literally under my spell and made you break up with your girlfriend and publicly declare your love for me after a tourney game.”

He shrugs. “I mean, it could have been worse, given your family.” She scowls. “Okay, not funny. But people can change, Mal, and just because you did bad things in your past doesn’t mean you’re going to do bad things in your future.”

“I needed to hear that,” she says, and snuggles up against him.

Chapter Text

Mal definitely hasn’t been staring at this door for five minutes. This is a good idea. A Good idea. She’s turned it over obsessively in her mind for weeks now- hell, she even talked to Ben about it- and it’s a good idea. Now she just has to do it. She used to set fires and rob people and jump off buildings in the Isle, she can knock on a damn door.

Finally, she huffs a sigh, squares her shoulders, and raps sharply on the door.

When Audrey opens it, both girls freeze.

After Ben’s coronation, they’d made their tentative peace, which was less of a peace and more like a ceasefire. White-hot hatred no longer burns between the two of them, but they hadn’t talked or anything. History hangs thick in the air between them, the enmity of grandparents and parents and last month, and neither one is sure anything can clear the air between them. But Mal knocked on the door so she can ball up enough to say, “Hi, Audrey.”

“Hi, Mal,” the other girl replies.

“I was wondering if we could talk,” Mal says.

Audrey steps back, holding the door open, and Mal walks inside.

The room is bright and airy and pink. Evie would love it here. Mal feels cornered and a little freaked out, exposed. It’s so Audrey and Auradon, and while Mal isn’t an Islander anymore she’s not quite Auradonian yet and so it’s a little weird. “I just-“ the words catch in her throat, caught in sixteen years’ worth of instinct, and she pushes them out with her newly-grown conscience, “I wanted to apologize.”

“For your mom? That’s- it’s not your fault,” Audrey says.

At least they’re both stammering against instilled hatred. Mal twists her mouth. “Not that- although, yes, I guess, but- no. I, uh.” She has been in knife fights with the sons and daughters of lesser villains and she’s disappointed Maleficent, she can do this. “I gave Ben a love potion, back, you know, before. It’s why he broke up with you that way. It- it wasn’t cool and I’m sorry.”

Audrey blinks. “Is he- still?”

“No,” Mal says immediately. “No. Not for a while. There was- it washed away in the Enchanted Lake, but I didn’t know it, so I gave him an antidote too.”

The other girl’s beautiful skin was starting to wrinkle with a frown. “Why? Did you- why did you hate me so much?”

Mal fights to keep every emotion off her face and squares her shoulders again. “I didn’t. I didn’t even think. Our parents- my mother, she sent us here to steal Fairy Godmother’s wand. The only way I could be close enough to snatch it was if I was Ben’s girlfriend, so I gave him a love potion. I- I didn’t… I didn’t know, then, to think about consequences.”

Consequences are a recurring theme with her. Learning the effects of her actions. It’s one of the ways everyone is helping her stay good. She has to remind herself, all the time, that actions have consequences and hurting people is bad. “Does he know that?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

Mal can’t help but smile a little. “I did it before I knew any better, and I wouldn’t do it again, so it’s okay. At first, when he figured out I cursed him, he thought I just had a crush on him, but I told him the real reason, you know, after. He took it really well.”

“You drugged the king.”

Discomfort churns in her stomach. “He was the prince, then, and yeah. He’s made his peace with it, but the consequences- it hurt you too. I’m sorry.”

The words trigger the other instincts Audrey’s been raised to have, instincts of goodness, of forgiving and forgetting and making peace. “That was really cruel of you, but I think you know that.” Mal nods. “I accept your apology.”

“Okay,” Mal says. She relaxes like a huge weight has been lifted off of her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Audrey says, and considers the girl in front of her with new eyes. Out-of-place, uncomfortable, awkward- but here anyway because it’s the right thing to do. The Good thing. “Do you want to sit down? I was going to study for the history test on Friday- you’re in the same history class as me, right?”

Mal nods and gingerly takes a seat on Audrey’s pale pink duvet. “It’s brutal. They keep expecting us to have learned history on the Island, and I keep saying, you know, sorry, I got Cruelty and Manipulation instead of History and Geometry.”

“I can help!” Audrey says. “I’m actually pretty good at history, because my mom slept for a hundred years so she lived through some of it and learned the rest of it really well.”

“You’d do that?” Mal asks.

Audrey gives her a little smile and nods. “Sure. So, the test Friday is going to be on chapters ten and eleven, so…” Audrey sits down on the duvet next to Mal and they both set off tentatively in the direction of friendship.

Chapter Text

She’s almost shy around his parents, which Ben would find adorable if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. The only time she’s even a little bold is when they make a sudden movement or stretch out towards him, and that’s when he sees her hands ball into fists.

Finally, his mother notices one day at tea. “Dear, why are you so quiet and jumpy? We’re not going to hurt you.”

Mal squirms under Beauty’s unrelenting gaze. “I know, it’s just old habits die hard, you know?” Beauty and her Beast exchange confused looks. “I’m not used to adults liking children, is all. I’ll adjust.”

“What on Earth does that mean?” the Beast asks.

She can’t quite meet his eyes. “It means I was raised by the worst villain in the world who cursed an entire kingdom in her glory days. I’m used to jumping at sudden movements. I’ll get over it.”

Beauty, Beast, and Ben all realize at the same time exactly what she means by that and they abruptly change the subject. But after that, Beauty and Beast go out of their way to be as predictable as possible around Mal, and only touch her for hugs and handshakes and other overtures of affection.

It’s also funny how she watches them, and watches them around him. He’s known her long enough to guess what she’s thinking, and one day he says it in her ear as she watches Beauty and the Beast dance. “Have you never seen a functioning romantic relationship before?”

She jumps a little, eyes flashing green, before she presses a hand to her heart and says, “Jeez, way to sneak up on a girl.”

“But you haven’t, have you?”

She glowers at him for a few seconds longer before she sighs. “No. Not a lot of those on the Isle.”

“No Mr. Malificent?”

“Nope,” Mal replies. “Once Jay thought that his dad must have been all of our dads and that one of our moms must have been his mom, but I shoved him into a sewer and Carlos kicked him so he’s shut up about it. But we really don’t know.”

Ben circles his arms around her waist and watches his parents dance. “Well, that’s what it looks like, two parents. They dance every time there’s a ball, and they link arms to walk around, and they kiss each other hello and goodbye. They usually agree, and when they don’t, they’re polite about it. They put each other’s needs ahead of their own.”

“Weird,” Mal says.

“Romantic,” Ben corrects.

She smiles a little and kisses his cheek. “If you say so.”

Chapter Text

Ben tries to turn the page of his book without moving a single muscle more than necessary. Ordinarily he wouldn’t bother, but there is a sleeping girl on his lap and she loses enough sleep as is. She’s always slept little and lightly, but this past week’s seemed especially bad- she’s been simultaneously droopy and wired, like she’s running off pure adrenaline, and the bags under her eyes have been growing. Any sleep she can find- even if she’s using his leg as a pillow- is a good thing, at least to him.

The book is dull but it’s for English, so it’s actually probably a good thing that Mal’s impromptu nap has essentially locked him in place for the foreseeable future with it.

He carefully turns another page with a little sigh.

It’s a good twenty minutes later (twenty long, dull, dragging minutes, because screw this book) when she shifts a little and squeaks.

He grins down at her, because her squeaks are adorable, but the grin quickly fades when she jerks a little and squeaks again. These are not good squeaks. She twists a little and mumbles something. “Mal?” he asks.

Her face screws up. “Mother,” she mumbles. “Mom, don’t.” She jerks again, almost like she’s trying to curl up in the fetal position.

No way is this sleep restful. Ben places a hand on her shoulder and shakes. “Mal,” he says, “Mal, it’s just a dream. Mal, wake up.”

She jackknifes upright, eyes glowing green and hands balled up into fists. “Mother!”

“Ben,” he says gently but firmly. “It’s just me, just Ben. You were dreaming. We’re in the library. I was helping you with math when you fell asleep on my leg. I shook you awake. You’re safe.”

All the emotion slides off her face and while he hates the scared vulnerability he hates this blankness even more. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Mal snaps.

Yeah, he should have expected that. “She’s not going to hurt you anymore,” Ben says.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mal says again.

Ben’s wholly unequipped to handle this kind of scenario, so he tries to think of what he’d like someone to do for him if he had a nightmare. He tucks Mal under one arm and presses a kiss to her vibrantly purple hair. “You’re safe.”

She growls a little (she has appearances to maintain, after all) but her fingers grip his shirt in a white-knuckled grip. So he tightens his arm around her and keeps reading, not looking at Mal but rubbing soothing little circles on her shoulder.

As he reads (or pretends to), he feels her breaths get slower and more even, but she stays tucked against his shoulder. When she stops trembling, she says in a tiny little voice, “Do you ever get bad dreams?”

“Sometimes,” he says.

“What are they about?”

He has to think about it a little, because he doesn’t dream often and they’re usually incoherent. “Being a bad king,” he says after a pause. “One time the kingdom was on fire, and everyone was looking at me, and I couldn’t move a muscle.” He frowns. “And then a giant bee was chasing me through a canyon. Dreams are weird.”

He can feel her head nod against his shoulder. “What do you do, when you have a bad dream?”

“When I was little, I’d go to my parents’ room,” he says. “Mom would give me a hug and Dad would tell me he would fight off the monsters, and I’d sleep in there for a while. Now, when I wake up, I read or something to get the dream out of my head so I can get some more sleep. I’m a beast when I’m tired.”

Mal smiles a little at the joke. “What if the dream won’t get out of your head?”

“I don’t know,” he says, “You could talk about it to someone- the other Isle kids, me, Fairy Godmother, your other friends, whatever. You could find something good to put against the dream. When I was little and I thought monsters were going to get me, when I woke up I knew my dad would slay any monsters that got close. That helped me sleep.”

Mal is quiet for a long time, processing that. “I keep dreaming she gets out of the cage,” Mal says, and they both know what “she” she’s talking about. “She gets out and she eats everyone.”

“You and Fairy Godmother spelled the terrarium with everything you’ve got, she’s not getting out,” Ben says.

“I’m afraid of that too,” Mal says in this tiny little voice and Ben literally drops the book on the ground to scoop her in the most bone-crushing hug he can muster because why didn’t he think of that before.

She buries her face in the juncture between his shoulder and his neck and he feels her start shaking again and he kind of feels like the king of assholes instead of the King of Auradon. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry she’s your mom and that’s your life and that she’s bad and that she’s trapped in the cage-“

“Not your fault,” Mal says.

“I’m not sorry because it’s my fault, I’m sorry because you’re hurting,” he says and tries to hug her even harder. “I’m so sorry.”

Mal digs her fingers into his chest, clutching at his lapels. “Why don’t I hate her?”

“She’s your mom.”

“She tried to kill you.”

“Still your mom,” Ben says. “You’re allowed to still love her.”

“But she’s evil.”

Ben rubs her back. “It’s not that simple,” he says, “We like to pretend it is because it’s easier that way, but it has never been that simple and it never will be. You can want her to be in that cage forever, or want her to be free, or both, or neither, and that’s okay.”

She takes this big deep shuddering breath. “I feel like I’m not supposed to be this messed up over it.”

“Your mom tried to take over the world. It would be weird if you weren’t messed up over it,” Bens says.

“You might have a point,” Mal admits.

He nods. “I’m a king. I know everything.”

It’s worth the flick of his nose Mal gives him to see her roll her eyes a little and smile. In a transparent subject change, Mal takes another big breath and turns back to her textbook. “Now, you were saying something about trigonometry, and it was so hideous I fell asleep. What’s trigonometry?”

Ben smiles, just a little, and goes to draw her a unit circle and list some trig identities, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. She doesn’t let him.

Chapter Text

“Can I ask you a question?” Ben asks.

Mal smirks. “You just did.”

They’re in their usual positions, Ben splayed across the bed while Mal prowls around the room hunting for music that doesn’t offend her delicate sensibilities. It is a fruitless mission she nevertheless embarks upon with gusto. “I just don’t want you to think I’m being rude or forward.”

“Must be one hell of a question,” Mal says, turning to actually face him, and oh, God, that makes it worse.

He drops his eyes. “Why haven’t we kissed yet?”

They haven’t. The first time he tried to kiss her, he was under a love spell. The second time, they were in front of the entire school, which he guesses they were the first time too. The third time they were just on an ordinary date, picnicking on school grounds. He got the hint. Still, they hadn’t really talked about it.

“I don’t know,” Mal says, coming closer and studying his face with focused intensity. “I mean, I bet it would be nice, but…” She puts her fingers on his lips, tracing them like there’ll be a quiz later. “I just don’t know.” Frustration starts to bleed into her tone.

He catches her wrists lightly in his hands. “Don’t worry about it, Mal,” he says, and he’s being entirely honest. “Seriously. I was just wondering.”

“But I should want to kiss you,” Mal says. “I like you and you make me happy and you’re good-looking-“

“Thank you.”

“But it’s just…” A little sigh huffs out of her nose and she scowls at his lips. “When I think I’m going to, you know, just do it, I can’t. I stop myself.”

He examines her. The worst thing would be if he made Mal uncomfortable or pressured her in any way, because then he’d have to exile himself to the Isle of the Lost and throw away the key. “It’s okay, some people are like that, it’s called asexuality, you don’t have to be shy about it, I still like you, of course-“

“We just don’t kiss, on the Isle,” Mal says, and it wipes away the tiny worries in Ben’s mind that the Isle was some sort of mass orgy that had been niggling at him since he hit puberty. “Or if we do, it’s not because you like someone, it’s because you want power, or you want to feel good, and I’m just-“ She huffs again. “I just don’t get it. Academically. Theoretically. I overthink it.”

“That’s okay,” Ben says.

Mal tilts her head to one side and shifts her weight so it’s more comfortably distributed beside Ben on his bed. “I think it would be nice, but I also don’t think I could get my brain to shut up enough for me to enjoy it. Should I do it anyway?”

She sounds dubious to begin with and Ben starts shaking his head immediately. “No. Don’t kiss me unless you want to. I don’t just like you because of your pretty face, remember?”

Mal smiles and runs her fingers once more over his lips. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ben says. He kind of wants to pull her closer, to taste her fingers where they lay on his lips, to bury his face in her hair and pretend they’re the only two people in the world, but he wants her to be happy and comfortable and safe even more, so he releases his grip on her wrists and smiles. “Don’t you have a music collection to viciously insult?”

She smiles and pulls her hands away, running her fingers over his cheeks as she does. “That I do,” she says, and strides across the room.

Once her gaze is averted, he exhales hard and thanks his lucky stars that the conversation didn't go worse.

Chapter Text

“Are you excited for summer break?” Ben asks.

Mal shrugs. “Well, no. Me and the others are talking about it. We probably shouldn’t head back to the Isle.”

He nods sympathetically. “Would they hurt you, because you’re good now?”

“We might fall back into our old ways,” Mal replies. “Except me. I don’t really have a mother anymore, so there’s no one egging me on except the others, but still. It’s probably best not to risk it.”

“You can stay with me, then, and the others too, of course,” Ben says. “I’ll probably have to ask my parents, but I don’t see any reason they’d say no, unless they don’t want my girlfriend living with us, but then I’m sure Audrey or Lonnie or Jane or one of your other friends would let you live with her for the summer.”

Mal smiles just a little. Ben savors every smile because of how long it took for her little smirks to turn into something real, and while the smirks are sexy the smiles are all too lovable. “It’ll be nice, having the summer off.”

“No summer breaks on the Isle?”

“Well, we didn’t have school during the summer, but nothing else really changed,” she says. “Here, it’s all yachts and beaches and shopping. It’ll be… interesting.”

Ben and Mal ran, laughing, down the halls towards where his parents were, in the sitting room. They were talking to a couple maybe their age or a little older, with creamy darkish skin that really should have sent Ben’s warning bells off.

“Mom, Dad, can we go to the beach? She has never been and I think she’ll like it.” He pokes her in the side and she laughs from her typical place at his side, holding his hand with one of hers and grasping his arm.

Beauty smiles indulgently at them. “Of course, dear. Bring a few more of your friends with you and be back before curfew.”

“Yeah, Mal wants to bring the whole gang,” Ben says.

“Mal,” the woman says weakly, and it takes Ben a half-second to place her. Audrey’s mom. Sleeping Beauty.

Mal’s gaze shifts to the woman and it’s obvious she, too, recognizes Aurora. The smile slides off her face and her grip on Ben’s arm tightens. He smiles at Aurora and says, “Yes, Queen Aurora, this is my girlfriend Mal. Mal, this is Queen Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty.”

“I know who she is,” Mal says quietly. “And-“

There’s really nothing to say.

Mal and Aurora stare at each other and there’s really nothing to say. They’ve never met, but their history is so entangled and confused that Ben’s literally opening his mouth to make some excuse to pull Mal away when she says abruptly, “I have something to show you.”

“Mal, darling, it’s all right-“ Beauty tries.

Mal shakes her head. “No. I- I think Queen Aurora needs to see this.”

Aurora shoots Beauty a look that says, quite clearly, can I trust her?  When Beauty nods minutely, Aurora stands and shakes out her gown. “All right, then.”

“I’m coming too,” Philip says.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Mal replies. “Come on. It’s in my room.”

They trot down the halls after Mal. Ben has a pretty good idea of what Mal’s doing, but even he isn’t quite sure. “You stay here in the castle?” Aurora asks eventually.

“I’m not welcome back on the Isle,” Mal says. “I picked good. They can’t forgive that.”

Her pace picks up and they’re at the door to her room in no time. She shoves it open and walks inside. It’s the room of your average teenage girl, bright purple and slightly messy, but she pays it no mind as she strides across the room towards Maleficent’s terrarium.

She picks it up gently- she’s always gentle with the terrarium, despite the somewhat ludicrous number of spells Mal and Fairy Godmother have layered on it- and brings it over towards Aurora and Philip. “This is Maleficent,” she says, and hands the terrarium to Aurora.

“Oh,” Aurora says.

“We had a staring contest while she was a dragon and Fairy Godmother says I shrank her to the size of the love in her heart,” Mal says.

Aurora peers at the lizard. “I’m surprised she’s this big.”

“I was surprised she’s this small,” Mal says, and Ben’s heart hurts, because the tiny Maleficent is proof of just how little Maleficent loved her daughter, this fierce and amazing human who has chosen to give her love and her trust to him and he is awed by her strength and falls a little more in love with her. “I just- I thought you’d like to see her like this. Both of you,” she adds to Philip. “She got her comeuppance.”

Aurora, hands trembling, passes the terrarium back to Mal, who settles it carefully back on its shelf. “You seem like a lovely young lady, Mal,” she says.

“I wasn’t always,” Mal replies, and laces her fingers through Ben’s again.

Chapter Text

The courtyard is a riot of activity as students get ready to move back in for the fall semester. Mal doesn’t have to be down here, but she is anyway, hanging a little off to the side and smiling at the few friends she’s made. The smiles are still a little stiff, but they’re far easier than they once were. Ben counts that as a victory.

Move-in day means more royalty than anyone can shake a stick at, so Ben is in the thick of the action, trying to smooth feathers. As King of Auradon (or, as he privately thinks of himself, High King), that is his job. It is a hard job.

Still, he manages to extricate himself for a quick break. His hidey-hole is a little ways from Mal’s, far enough away that fighting through the crowd to get to her wouldn’t be worth it but close enough that he can see and hear what’s going on. She’s watching the crowd move around with avid interest when Lonnie comes running up to her.

“Mal, Mal!”

“Hey, Lonnie,” Mal says brightly. “Welcome back.”

Lonnie groans. “You’re so lucky you never left. Lugging all this stuff around is a pain and a half, seriously. I wish I could have just stayed in a gorgeous renovated castle with my boyfriend all summer.”

“What boyfriend?” Mulan asks her daughter as she comes up behind her.

Ben recognizes Mulan on sight, because she’s the highest-ranking general in the mostly-obsolete Auradonian army, but it’s clear that Mal doesn’t.

“There’s no boyfriend for me, Mom,” Lonnie says, “But Mal’s dating the king, so there’s that. Oh- Mal, this is my mom. Mom, Mal.”

Mal sticks out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You can just call me Mulan,” Mulan says. “Lonnie, don’t you have some more bags to bring up to your room?”

Lonnie blinks. Her mother lifts an eyebrow. Understanding lights in Lonnie’s eyes as she says, “Yes, the bags, with my clothes- Mal, I’ll see you later, okay? Text me!” and disappears back into the crows.

The full serious intensity of Mulan’s eyes is turned on Mal. “I just wanted to let you know that Lonnie talked to me a little about your situation.”

“Really, it’s-“

“I’m your mom now,” Mulan said. “I know your relationship with your mother has to be complicated, for good reason, but I wanted to let you know that you can come to me at any time if you need a mom, okay?”

Mal opens and closes her mouth a few times before managing to say, “That’s- really nice of you, but-“

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” Mulan said. “I was involved with the decision to send the villains and sidekicks to the Isle of the Lost. At the time, it made sense. None of us even considered what might happen to you children until Ben pointed it out. I can’t go back in time and unmake my decision, but I can try to make amends. It is my fault that you were left on the Isle of the Lost with Maleficent for a mother. So now, if you need a mother, I will be there for you.”

“I- uh-“

Mulan smiled. “You don’t have to say anything. I just thought I would let you know.”

Mal nodded, quickly, like she was getting her thoughts under control. “I’ve kind of been- if I’ve needed mom-like things, I’ve been going to Beauty, mostly.”

“And Beauty is a wonderful mother,” Mulan said. “She is also your boyfriend’s mother, and there are some things you might want a mom for where that might be a problem. So this is my phone number-“ Mulan handed Mal a slip of paper, “And I am your mom now.”

Before Mal could say anything else, Mulan wrapped her in a tight hug. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Mulan said. “This is what moms do.”

With a final squeeze of Mal, Mulan was off.

Mal stared after her, even after the crowd made Mulan’s form impossible to distinguish from others. After a minute, she shook her head and made her way over to Ben.

“I think I just got adopted,” Mal said, squeezing her way into his hidey-hole.

“I saw. Mulan’s kind of a force of nature, it’s best to just go with it,” Ben said.

Mal nodded, tucking the slip of paper into her pocket. “I think I’m picking up on that.”

“Congrats on the new mom, though.”

“Thanks, I think,” Mal said. “I really hope that remains the strangest thing to happen to me today, though. Not sure my nerves can handle much more insanity.”

“It’s move-in day,” Ben replies. “More insanity is all but guaranteed.”

Chapter Text

Just because all of the villains of the days of long ago are trapped securely on an island does not mean that there is no threats in Auradon. Ben remembers this bit of advice vividly in the split-second he sees the stranger pull a gun on him.

His parents are too far away to help, too far to do anything but gasp and shudder.

The guards are on the wrong side.

There is a gun trained on Ben and he knows, briefly, that this is it for him, this is the end of the line, someone else will be elected ruler or Auradon and he kind of hopes it’s Audrey and he worries about

Mal runs in the way Auradon girls never run, feet planted firmly against the ground as she tears her dress apart with her legs, running between him and the bullet which will come any second, and he runs towards her because he cannot let Mal take a bullet from him and then

He’s thrown back as she erupts into a dragon.

He skitters backward, because there is a dragon in front of him, which roars and lashes its tail as it stares down the would-be assassin with eyes he would later learn flash bright green. The assassin, clearly braver than Ben, fires off a few shots which bounce harmlessly off the dragon’s hide before its powerful foreleg crashes down on the assassin’s head, deftly knocking him out.

The dragon screams at the assassin and blows fire and smoke into the air with another agonized yowl, and Ben is very afraid, because his brain has helpfully informed him that aforementioned dragon is his girlfriend.

As the fire dies from its snout, the dragon seems to curl in on itself, becoming smaller and smaller until he sees Mal in her party dress standing in the patch of smoking grass.

She looks around in confusion- seeing Beauty and the Beast and the crowd. Her eyes meet his and promptly roll up as she falls like a marionette whose strings have been cut, collapsing in a boneless heap.

He runs faster than he’s ever run before, too late to catch her but not too late to gather her up in his arms. His parents run over too.

“Did you know she could do that?” Beast asks.

Ben shakes his head, feeling sick and pale. “She didn’t know she could do that.”

“We need Fairy Godmother here, right away!” Beauty shouts, placing a possessive hand on Mal’s clammy forehead. “Someone get Fairy Godmother!”

No one tried to take Mal from him, which was probably wise, but for the first time, his parents weren’t flinching away from her. Beauty strokes Mal’s hair away from her forehead and Beast manages to squeeze her hand. Ben resists the urge to crush her against him, because that probably wouldn’t be good for her health.

While he waited for those long, anxious moments, he realized his parents were no longer suspicious of Mal. They did an admirable job of hiding it, because they had wonderful manners, but he could tell they were always a little discomfited by Mal, and they never trusted her intentions. But now they fussed over her the way they would over him, and he supposed if nothing else the spontaneous dragon convinced his parents Mal actually did care about him.

Fairy Godmother diagnoses exhaustion and prescribes sleep and soup, so Ben settles her into her bed to sleep it off. He doesn’t miss how both his parents kiss her on the forehead before bustling off to the kitchen to see if they can rustle up some soup.