when the water rises
sequel to 'that's the worst part about endings'
dedicated to SieberSounds on AO3 for their spinoff of the first part
Her hands are freezing. Her fingertips, like ice, trace paths on his cheeks, eyes wide and uncertain. Her lips are parted, but she makes no sound and his eyes close. Their gaze is broken as he does, but her eyes remain open.
It has been too long and he doesn't know how he missed it for so long.
There is nothing but silence and surprise between them and each breath hangs heavily in the air. The chill is almost tangible and he shivers unconsciously. Her hand retracts and then there is space between them.
Her hands tuck to her sides and her lip curls in. She looks mostly just confused, but also hurt and disoriented. He gathers what courage he has and reaches for her. Her hand balls up and she pulls it away.
A car screeches by on the nearby street. It is the first in a while thanks to the nature of the meeting. The night is dark and cold and she glows yellow under the artificial light of the lamppost. The wind of the river carries cold gusts to them and he pulls his hand stiffly back to his side. The rain falls in thin droplets, but it is getting worse.
He's been alone and confused and unhappy for two years. His apartment was too big and empty. His nights were too quiet and boring. The streets of their city were too clean and put together. Their phone calls, brief and few, only made him lonelier.
He never knew how much he lived off of the thrill of the chase and adventure until it was over. It had come to a grinding, screeching and very confusing halt, which ended with him losing two of his dearest friends.
He had known it was coming in one case and he had made the decision to let the other go. Even though by conscious choice, his chest was dull from a kind of numbness, which transitioned into a sharp ache.
As she turns to leave now, hands jammed into pockets and head bowed nervously, he can't stop her. His feet are rooted to the ground, but he calls out to her. His voice sounds unsteady and almost desperate, but she doesn't pause.
"Marinette!"
She doesn't even slow down. He doesn't move to follow her. She didn't want him to, so he doesn't. But, his heart aches and he wants so badly to follow her. He refrains. They're adults now. They have lives and if she doesn't want him in hers, he won't push her.
When he thinks about Before he can think only of the fallout. It started wonderfully and brightly and he thought it would last forever. Plagg was the one to break the news to him. He was going to lose his dear friend and he was going to lose his lady.
The chill of the night cuts through his thin jacket and he winds it more tightly around himself. He's tired of running and he's tired of being exhausted and confused and lonely. He runs one hand through his hair and glances after her into the gloom. He should be getting home; he has a job to do tomorrow.
His job, he reminds himself, is different than it once might have been. He started school in Applied Math and Physics, but eventually he switched to business. The change had been at his father's insistence and it's a bitter memory now.
Gone. It seems like an apt word to describe everything in his life right now.
Nino is gone with Alya. His father is gone and behind bars. His mother has been gone for so many years. Plagg is gone and he will never see him again. Ladybug is gone and has been for two years. Marinette is gone and he knows that it's his fault.
His feet drag over the worn stones of the pavement. Many people have walked here hand in hand and just as many have walked here and looked up at the lights in wonder. The symbol of his past stands tall above him. It is a glowing and painful reminder. Its lights cast strange shadows as they flicker on and off in a rhythm. The tourists find the Eiffel Tower enthralling, but he just finds it sad.
It makes him think of better days, perched up top with the wind in his hair and a smile so wide that it hurt his cheeks. He thinks of happy conversations and jokes and laughs, but he also thinks of teary confessions and harsh reminders and farewells that still make his chest hurt. He thinks of blue eyes, soft and understanding, painted behind a red mask.
Then he thinks of the same blue eyes, sharp with confusion and hurt, illuminated by the dim yellow glow of a street light. Adrien runs a frustrated hand through his hair. He's not quite sure how he missed it so completely.
He eventually leaves the park, unwilling to dwell any longer on his thoughts.
It doesn't take long before he starts visiting places again. He did it right After, but he hasn't done it since. There were too many painful memories associated with it, but now he's all right.
Notre Dame is the first place on the list. The church is as big and grand as it's always been and he can remember smashing through the stain glass window one too many times. They were just lucky that the cure worked. That could have been a pain to try and explain.
As usual, the church is full of people. He keeps his head down and respects the religion of the building, but remembers his own history of the place. Plagg used to really like coming to the church. He said it was pretty Miraculous.
The walk from Notre Dame back to his apartment is long and takes up a good chunk of his morning, but he gets to relive his adventures every time he does it. He passes the market and on a hunch, slips inside. The owner smiles at him. Adrien manages to take one glance at the dairy section before there's a sharp pang in his chest.
He buys a roll of camembert even though he hates the cheese. He admits it isn't as bad as it once was, but he still hates the smell. He arrives back at his apartment and doesn't even put it in the fridge; it goes straight into the garbage.
He knows that he's still living in a shadow of his old life and he's not happy. Adrien used to be the kid that when he was asked what he wanted to be when he was older would just say happy. But, now that he is older, he sees that being happy is a lot harder than he originally presumed it would be.
He wastes the rest of the day staring out the window at the Eiffel Tower. They used to attend school there and Adrien has no interest in going back there for a while. He doesn't know if she'll go back, but she's been so inconsistent in his life, maybe it's just best if she stays away.
When he's standing in front of their old school, he knows that he was wrong. He misses her. He misses Before. He misses Nino and Plagg and the days where he could go home and hope to catch a glimpse of his dad. Even though he was detached, it was better than being a crazy maniac who wanted to destroy his own son.
He rubs his hands together and stares up at the doors of the building. He idly wonders if any of his old teachers are still working there. He discards the idea of visiting as fast as it comes. It would just make him more wistful.
His assistants have been frustrated with his lack of progress since they met and he doesn't blame them. It seems every day just turns into another tally on the list of unproductive days. He moves on from the school, but now he's missing the weight of a friend in his jacket pocket.
A couple more unproductive and wistful days pass and he eventually finds himself lying on his couch, finger hovering above the call button on his phone. She's smiling in the picture and they look alike, they really do. He doesn't press it.
He was the one, that night on the tower, that didn't want to know. He was scared that it would change everything and he was scared that he'd lose her. The memories he had of her should have been enough, but they aren't.
He throws his phone off the couch and lets out a groan. He lies still for a moment, unwilling to move, but then the dial tone of his phone buzzes. He rolls and looks at it where it lies on the floor. He has called her. The button pressed when the device hit the floor. He scoops it up quickly, but before he can cancel the call, she answers.
Her voice is small and almost unsure and his shoulders crumple.
"Marinette," he murmurs.
"Adrien," she says slowly.
They sit silently on opposite sides of the phone for a while, listening to each other breathe.
Adrien listens to the loud crash on her end of the line before she squeaks and he muffles a laugh. She's the same and he wishes, so very much, that everything else would be the same too. She apologises in a hushed voice and he laughs now.
Then there's quiet again, but he's made up his mind. He's already lost her twice, and he's not losing her again.
"Come over?" He words it like a statement, but his tone assures her that it is a question.
"Fifteen minutes," she replies quietly.
She's there in ten. She's drenched and standing, dripping, on his doormat. Her hair is darker because of the drizzled rain, but her eyes still pop. He offers her a hand and her freezing fingers slide into his. She steps in and slides out of her shoes.
He hugs her, tight to him, and just breathes in her scent. She smells like the rain, but also faintly of vanilla and baked goods and flowers. She trembles in his arms, but buries herself into him in return.
They end up curled on his couch, two mugs of hot chocolate long drained on the coffee table. Their heads are at opposite ends of the couch, but their legs tangle somewhere in the middle. It's still quiet and neither have said much the whole time.
Eventually, the silence seems to be killing her. His eyes study her face and she twists her fingers anxiously.
"Do you miss him?" she asks.
"Who? Nino?" He avoids the topic. He knows exactly where she's going with this topic.
"Adrien," she starts.
"Marinette, if I had wanted to talk about it, I would have said yes back then." His tone is sharper than he intends and he sees her swallow hard.
"I'm done avoiding this," she counters firmly. The waver in her voice is well hidden and he almost misses it.
"And what if I'm not?" This time he intends for there to be sharpness, but it just comes out sad.
"Then we should talk," she says again. "Adrien, we spent 8 years of our lives helping people."
"I know," he mutters. "And the last two have been the hardest."
Marinette studies him. He avoids her gaze with his own eyes, but he can feel her tracing his face anyways. "I'm sorry Adrien."
"You have nothing to apologize for Mari," he assures her. "I was the one who said no then, and I'm the one saying no now even though we already know."
Her toes poke his calf lightly and he looks at her. She looks sad and a little confused and he's sure he looks about the same. They don't need words to communicate; they never have. He leans back and stares at the ceiling, extending his legs onto her side of the couch. She copies him and they become nothing more than a tangle of limbs.
Adrien studies a spot on his ceiling. It was there before he moved in, but it's a part of his apartment. Sometimes he just zones out looking at it, trying to imagine what it looks like. Today it looks like a butterfly and that just makes him sadder. He looks back at Marinette and she's still looking at him, concerned.
"How is your father?" she asks carefully.
Adrien sets his jaw. "I wouldn't know," he replies.
"You haven't," she pauses, surprise lighting her eyes, "been to see him?"
He looks away deliberately. The window seems as good a place as any, and Adrien stares out into the gloom. "He doesn't deserve it," he explains fiercely.
Marinette's cold hand brushes his calf as she touches him gently. "Adrien, he's your father."
"He's crazy!" Adrien snaps, whipping to look at her. "He tried to kill both of us, multiple times and he almost destroyed the city!" His voice is sharp, angry and cold.
Marinette flinches away from him and Adrien realizes that he must sound exactly like his father. Slowly he rubs his temples, trying to block out the negative emotions. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes he snaps. The tension, built up from two years of avoiding, can be suffocating. It's times like these that Adrien remembers the final fight and the swarm that surrounded him. The darkness had been tempting and overwhelming, but her light brought him back.
He still remembers how she had screamed her voice raw for him. His heart aches whenever he thinks about it. Her pain had been deep and horrific and it wasn't even her being hurt. Adrien knew then that she cared deeply for him and it intimidated him. It still does.
"Mari," he starts softly. Marinette looks at him and lets down her walls. He must look like himself again and less like an empty shadow. "We need to talk."
"Alright." Her voice is soft, gentle and reminds him of their youth. "Where should we start?"
"I," Adrien pauses. "I don't know."
Marinette takes a deep breath and Adrien finds himself taking one afterwards. "How about with what we already know?"
"You are Ladybug," he supplies.
She nods. "You are Chat Noir."
"Was," he corrects. "I was Chat Noir."
"Why am I present tense and you past?" she inquires. Her eyes burn into his.
"Because you are her. You have her hair, her eyes, her smile, her character and her sense of right and wrong. You will always be Ladybug to me," he explains. His throat tightens. "I am not Chat Noir without Plagg and I am nothing like him."
"Adrien," Marinette breathes out sadly. "You are as much Chat Noir as I am Ladybug. Your personality, your charm, your determination and your protective streak all come from him, and Chat's bursts of intelligence and loyal side come from you. If I am still Ladybug, then you are still Chat Noir, with or without our Kwamis."
The conversation has gone in a loop. Adrien recalls his sharp tone from earlier when asked about his friend and he bites back a sour response. His breathing speeds up and his head is swimming. He looks at her and she's still staring straight into his soul. Her hair is still damp from the rain and he clings to that. It makes her more human and less goddess.
"You miss him," she notices. This time there is no question. She already knows the answer and her eyes are both piercing and soft at the same time. "I miss her too," she offers.
Adrien nods slowly. "Her name was Tikki?"
"And his was Plagg," she confirms.
"At least you had Alya too," he points out. "Sometimes Plagg was all I had."
"You had Nino, Adrien. You also had me."
Adrien meets her eyes again. They're blue and they both freeze and warm his soul. He sits a little straighter on the couch, pulling his legs back towards him. She just blinks and lets him adjust. He studies her again. She's slender and her features are the same as what he remembered with a slight bit more maturity.
Her nose is round, like a button, and her lips are thin, but delicate. Her cheeks are smooth and he's reminded of her Chinese mother and how much they look alike. Her eyes are blue and they come from her father. Her face has a delicate, but permanent flush that makes her look like a doll. She's beautiful.
"Adrien?" she says worriedly, interrupting his thoughts. He blinks several times to come back to the present and her brow creases. "You were staring at me. Was that on purpose?"
He gives her a tentative smile. "Something like that," he replies.
Marinette flushes further. When he was younger Adrien had been so taken with Ladybug that he hadn't noticed anyone else at all. Yet, sitting here across from Marinette, with her admittance to the alter ego and her gentle china-doll beauty, he doesn't see her as Ladybug anymore. She's his friend Marinette and she's Ladybug too, and there's a part of Adrien deep in his gut that warms at the thought.
The other part of him is confused because of these feelings. In their last four years as Ladybug and Chat Noir, through university, Marinette had practically lived at his apartment and even then he was too blind to see her for who she was and to love her for it.
Adrien doesn't know a lot about love. TV dramas and anime give him unreal ideas, but he discards them. His father had loved him, in some twisted way, but his father hadn't really loved since Adrien's mother disappeared. He supposes that the closest he's come to real love is what he felt for his partner. That was eight years of trust and friendship mixed with a childhood crush.
"You're spacing out again," Marinette informs him, waving a hand in front of his face. He blinks dumbly at her and she rolls her eyes. "What were you thinking about anyways?"
Adrien figures he could tell her the truth, or he could lie straight through his teeth. Even as Chat Noir, he was never a very good liar. "I was thinking about how beautiful you are." Marinette freezes. Adrien takes his cue to continue. "I was also thinking about how stupid I was to never notice this before when we almost lived together."
Her cheeks blossom a dark pink and she quickly casts her eyes down. "Adrien, I don't blame you for that. I still don't understand where you're coming from," she says firmly.
"No," he replies. "I'm allowed to admit my stupidity because I caused you pain. Last year, Alya phoned me and told me everything, except the Ladybug part. Thinking back to that night, there is nothing I would like more to forget than the shattered look in your eyes when we didn't reveal."
Marinette finally meets his gaze again, but hers is hiding shame. "I loved Chat Noir," she admits. "I also loved Adrien."
His heart aches and he has to wonder: does she still? The thought of putting her through that pain when they were young is bad, but the thought of going through that pain now is horrifying. A thick breath hangs between them for a moment before Adrien gathers his courage. "Do you still?" he asks, laying his cards out for her to see.
Marinette's blue eyes are sharp and attentive, but there's no malice or uncertainty when she replies affirmatively. Adrien sits up so quickly he almost knocks the both of them off the couch. Marinette sits up at a more controlled pace, but she understands where he is going.
A window in Adrien's apartment rattles from the rainstorm, but he just leans forwards and brushes his fingers ever so softly over Marinette's jaw. Thunder crashes and they press together as one. The rain pours down and Adrien decides he's never letting her leave him again.
Chat Noir and Ladybug are no more, but Adrien and Marinette share the same scars and the same love and that is enough.
Author's Note: So I never got to wrap up everyone's favourite cat-themed hero's side in this verse. This was the sequel to 'that's the worst part about endings' and it's a little angsty, but there's some fluff at the end. It's mostly just Adrien moping about Plagg and Ladybug and Marinette and how dumb he was not to realize everything sooner. I just started two more one-shots, and surprise! They're both angsty. One is Pokémon (Gary/Misty/Ash love triangle) and the other is Scorose. Look out for those and I'll be working, hopefully, through writer's block since I have to get my piece for the Big Bang finished! Sand should also see completion soon. Chapter 7 is halfway done, and the bones of chapter 8 have been laid out.
PRODUCTIVITY!
But also, I'm going back to school next week. So maybe not?
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-Nicole