Broken Hero

Chapter 1 – How do I tell him?

"Ugh what am I going to do Tikki!" Marinette said exasperatedly with her head in her hands. "There's no way I do my duties as Ladybug if I can't even walk!" She groaned and sank in her chair and frowned at her foot. It was in a cast and elevated onto her couch.

"A broken ankle is a broken ankle Marinette, you can't do anything with it or you'll damage it more!" the Kwami lectured her, "Ladybug is going to have to be out of action for a while."

"But what if an Akuma attack happens? How am I going to purify it? And what will Chat Noir do without me?" Marinette froze for a second as her eyes widened, "Tikki how do I even tell Chat Noir that I'm injured?! We don't know each other's identities and I can't be Ladybug to tell him!"

"Calm down Marinette, I said you can't use your foot as Ladybug, you can still transform and call him on your yo-yo." Tikki said putting her tiny hand on Marinette's cheek to calm her down.

"But doesn't Chat Noir also need to have transformed for that to work?"

"...yes he does." Tikki said realising it might be more difficult than she thought.

"And he most likely won't transform until there's already an Akuma" Marinette said looking down solemnly.

After a while of saying nothing and just thinking Tikki spoke up sheepishly, "I guess you could just keep calling him and hope he eventually picks up?"

Marinette looked at her Kwami in ridicule but then seeing the seriousness in her expression stopped and seriously considered the option.

"Ok Tikki, you're right. Spots on"

Tikki was instantly sucked into Marinette's earrings and she was covered in magical polka dotted spandex once again, but still sitting in her chair with her leg raised, although her foot was no longer in a cast. The transformation takes away all her clothes so the cast must have been included in that too. She had to be extra careful as it was easy to move her foot and hurt it doing so whilst she was like this.

She took her yo-yo from her side and opened it up to try and call Chat Noir. He didn't answer.

"Great"

Ladybug sat in her chair for hours. She was mostly sketching designs in her book or on her phone. Occasionally she would have to de-transform when she could hear her parents coming up to check on her. Throughout this time, she would try to call Chat Noir every 15 minutes just in case he had transformed. 4 o'clock became 6 o'clock. 6 o'clock became 8 o'clock. 8 became 10 and 10 became midnight. He still didn't pick up.

At 1 o'clock Ladybug was just about to consider de-transforming and going to sleep when she got a call on her yo-yo.

"No way!"

She looked and sure enough Chat Noir was trying to call her. She scrabbled to put a blanket behind her so that he couldn't see and recognise her room behind her in on the screen and then hit answer.

As the call connected her screen changed to see Chat Noir not looking at the screen but staring soulfully into the sky, from what she could tell he was on a rooftop and he hadn't noticed her picking up.

But he called her. What was going on?

[A/N]

So this is the 5th time I have re-written this same Author's note as I keep changing my mind about this story and each time I do is too far ahead in time for what I had written the last time. Hopefully I still cover everything relevant:

Basically, when I started writing this story (in late November last year) I had an accident that resulted in a sprained ankle that burdened me for 4 weeks. The first week was a really rough time for me not in terms of pain but emotional baggage that having an un-usable leg caused me. Every time I needed to walk across the room or go up the stairs or stand/sit I had to go through immense effort just to do so to the point where it became depressing to think about. (I didn't want to go through the turmoil of moving but I also didn't want to be stuck in 1 place).

However as my ankle slowly got better, the doctor's instructions were to lightly use it for walking (still with the assistance of crutches) so that it would not heal in the wrong position after not using it for so long. This gave me so much more freedom and I started to feel better about it all. This was also helped by the support of my wonderful friends and mother who helped me as much as they could so that I didn't need to struggle.

(I have a whole new level of respect for people with permanent disabilities and anyone who cares for those people as I never properly understood what it was like until this.)

Basically the reason this is important at all is that during this time I really wanted to write some fics as I finished Murder at Agreste Mansion about a month before and had been trying out ideas for some MariChat fics (that didn't really go anywhere) in the gap. (Specifically MariChat because I had done LadyNoir and Adrienette already and I wanted to do the other parts of the square (and Ladrien honestly doesn't resonate with me at all despite it being the one where they both like the other)). I had put this aside and started with the idea of putting Marinette in my situation (mostly to vent my feelings) but also as it turned out to be an interesting idea as Ladybug would be MIA. Then I got the idea to use Chat Noir in a way that allows for a (fairly) natural integration of MariChat in a couple chapters from this one. (At least I hope it feels like that because I have changed it so many times already and I want to commit to it so I can actually post this for once).

As I have mentioned I have re-written this so many times (I started 4 months ago) and I feel bad about holding it off so I have decided (not for the first time) to just commit and upload this chapter so that I can't keep taking it back and changing it. This will give me the push to get the rest of it out too as the only thing that would make me feel worse about not posting a story is if it's half posted already. But I do have some good ideas for how I want this story to go but I do want to address how I will be pacing it: I decided not to aim for a chapter to have a set length but to end each time it feels like a 'scene' has changed. This however makes some really short and some really long so even if it might suck on a few days I am going to be posting 1 chapter a day regardless of length as it gives me time to perfect them and make sure there are no continuity errors. (Also I am currently 8 chapters in already so if I keep the lead I can go back and change earlier but un-published chapters to make something work better).

Thank you so much if you have read this far because the A/N is longer than the chapter itself so I wouldn't be surprised if people skip it. I believe I have said everything I need to now and I don't want to make this any longer so finally:

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy the rest of 'Broken Hero', a Miraculous fanfiction by LinguineReturns.