A/N: TRIGGER WARNING! This will contain content including self harm, depression and attempted suicide. If ANY of those things trigger you in ANY WAY, then do NOT, I repeat do NOT read this.
Don't Hurt Yourself
Marinette laid awake in bed staring up at her skylight, tears rolling down either side of her face. Chloé had been crueler towards her than she usually was that day, and as much as Marinette tried not to let her words get to her, they still slipped their way into her heart and crushed it. Her spirit along with it. So now, there she was. Crying silently in the night so she didn't wake up Tikki -who was sleeping somewhere in her room, she wasn't sure where- or her parents. The pain Marinette felt that seemed to envelop her from head to toe was starting to suffocate her and she found it was becoming difficult to breathe and her chest tightened. She slowly sat up in her bed, her chest heaving as her breath came out in short, heavy pants. From the ground level of her room, something twinkled in the moonlight that shone through her skylight and caught her eyes. She whipped her head towards it and began descending the stairs that led up to her loft bed. She walked over to where her desk was, and saw what had caught her eyes.
Her scissors.
While she normally used them for cutting fabrics and occasionally school projects, she stared at them and thought of the other things she could do with the scissors before her. So, with a shaky hand, she slowly reached for the scissors and grabbed them off of her desk. They were cold at first, but warmed as she clasped her fingers around them. Her legs felt like jelly as she walked back up the stairs to her bed and sat down, crossing her legs. She set her arm on her knee and looked at her wrist...it was perfect. Not a single mark or scare in sight. It was untouched, pure in a way. Marinette wanted nothing more than to change that in that moment. So, she opened the scissors in her right hand and felt more tears fall down her face as she pressed one of the scissor blades down onto her left wrist, and quickly sliced to the right. She hissed at first as she felt the pain, and a single sob escaped her. She had never thought she would be someone to do this, yet here she was.
However, as she watched her blood ooze from the cut she had made, she felt a strange sense of relief wash over her. It suddenly got a little easier to breathe. Her heart pounded hard and fast in her chest, a little frightened at the reaction she was having, but that didn't stop her from bringing the scissors back to her wrist and repeating the slicing motion not even an inch below the first cut. More tears escaped her as she felt a weight lift from her shoulders as more relief flooded her body. She let out a quiet sob and she continued to use the scissors to cut into her wrist as if it were a beast that needed to be slaughtered. Silent tears fell down her cheeks as she watched her blood leak down her arm and drip onto her comforter, staring at the red substance in awe. A voice in the back of her head told her to stop, that what she was doing was stupid and wasn't going to solve anything...and Marinette decided she didn't like the voice. So, she shoved it away and took a deep breath before pressing the scissor blade to her wrist again. She was about to make another cut, when she heard a small voice call out to her.
"Marinette, what are you doing?!" Her Kwami cried out as she flew over to her chosen. Tikki looked down to Marinette's bloody arm, then to the scissors in her hand and then finally up to her broken eyes.
"I don't-I don't know what else to do, Tikki." Marinette told her Kwami, her voice cracking. "I try not to let Chloé get to me, I really do, but I just...can't. I can't ignore her anymore. What she says is true, and I know it."
"Marinette, don't say that!" Tikki said. "Every bad thing Chloé says about you or to you is absolutely, positively not true! You are the exact opposite of what she says!"
"God, just shut up!" Marinette exclaimed, although quietly as she didn't want to alert her sleeping parents that anything was wrong. "You don't have to lie to me, Tikki! I hate liars! Chloé may be cruel, but at least she's honest."
Marinette pressed the scissors blade down to her wrist again and made another cut.
"Marinette, stop!" Tikki pleaded. "Please! Don't do this to yourself!"
"It makes me feel better, Tikki." Was all Marinette said -not even sparing a glance at her Kwami- before making another cut. Sobs began to flow from her mouth and her body began to shake as she made more and more cuts on her wrist, not knowing what else to do to deal with or handle or...fix what Chloé had finally broken in her. She was lost...broken.
Chloé had finally won.
Adrien couldn't sleep. All he could think about was Marinette, and the look he had seen on her face as Chloé grilled her with insults and bullied her. He hated the look he had seen, and he didn't want to see it again. Chloé had gone too far this time, and he knew that. He just wished he knew what had gotten into her.
"Plagg, do you think Marinette's okay?" Adrien asked his Kwami, who woke from his sleep with a groan.
"Kid, if you don't get some sleep soon, you're going to fall asleep during class again." Plagg grumbled, closing his eyes again. "You can worry about it more in the morning."
Adrien knew Plagg had a point, he couldn't be caught falling asleep in class again. The last time it happened, his father had had a very...stern talk with him. He knew he should sleep, but he couldn't. He couldn't shake the feeling he had in his gut that something wasn't right. He sat up quickly in his bed, threw the covers off of him and swung his feet over the bed. He walked over to where he kept the camembert for Plagg, grabbed a few slices for his Kwami and walked back over to his bed.
"Plagg, wake up." He said, nudging his Kwami with his finger. Plagg groaned again and tried to shove Adrien's finger away, but Adrien didn't give up. He held the camembert in front of Plagg's nose and the Kwami's eyes shot wide open, waking him up completely.
"Camembert!" Plagg cheered and quickly took the slice from Adrien, eating it in one gulp. Adrien handed him a couple more and waited for him to finish eating before calling on his transformation and leaping out his bedroom window. He used his staff to project himself up onto a rooftop and quickly began making his way towards the Dupain-Cheng bakery. He silently landed on Marinette's balcony and walked over to the skylight that led to her bedroom. He had intended on just looking in through the skylight window to make sure she was alright and sleeping -considering it was four in the morning- but his heart dropped when he looked down into her room.
There, sitting up on her bed, was Marinette. She was crying, had scissors in one hand and was using them to cut herself on the other. He looked at her wrist with wide eyes. He couldn't even count how many cuts he saw, and the amount of blood oozing from her body was alarming. Without thinking, he threw the skylight open and dropped down onto her bed.
"Stop!" He cried out as he landed in front of her. Eyes wide and voice desperate. He grabbed hold of her right wrist, halting her from being able to cut again. She let out a gasp, and looked up. She couldn't believe who was kneeling down in front of her, and even blinked a couple times to see if he would disappear, but he never did. So that meant he was really there, and she had been caught. She felt more tears pool in her eyes as she realized that her partner had just caught her doing such a vile thing, and shame came over her.
"Princess, what are you doing?" He asked her, shaking her slightly. She looked down to her lap as another sob escaped her, she felt embarrassed and ashamed. She felt afraid. Of all people that could find out she was cutting...of course it had to be her partner. "What's got you so upset that you think you need to do...this to feel better?"
Marinette shook her head and a whimper escaped her. She couldn't tell him. He would think she was weak, and stupid. Her eyes clenched shut as another sob escaped her, her breath coming to her in short gasps.
Cat Noir's heart broke as he watched her fall apart. He had never seen Marinette this way, she was normally so happy and giddy, but he knew that even the happiest of people could be feeling the greatest of pain. His heart shattered even more as he realized that Chloé was most likely the cause of this. He used his free hand to cup her face and lift her gaze to meet his, and he almost started crying himself when he saw just how broken she really was. Her bright blue eyes didn't have their usual spark and light in them anymore. Instead, they were filled with pain and sadness. He hated it. He hated seeing her like this.
"Marinette, please." He said, dropping his nickname for her. "Talk to me. What happened?"
She sniffled and tightened her grip on the scissors. She hadn't been done. She still needed to cut. Not all of the insufferable pain she was feeling was gone yet, and cutting seemed to be the only thing that got rid of it.
"Let go of me." She said quietly, speaking for the first time since he arrived. Her voice rose. "Chat, let go of me. I'm not done yet, I need to-
"No." He growled, tightening his grip on her wrist as she went to pry it from his grasp. "No, you don't get to move until you tell me what's going on."
Marinette's eyes widened as she looked up at her partner. She had never been on the receiving end of his growls, and something churned in the pit of her stomach as his grip on her wrist tightened.
"What. Happened?" He asked, slowly. Marinette swallowed nervously, feeling tears prick her eyes as she remembered what had happened that day.
She had been walking in the hallway with Alya, listening to her go on about another theory she had about who Ladybug could be. Marinette listened intently with a smile on her face as she watched her best friend gush over her alter ego, and she wasn't paying attention to where she was walking. Therefore, she ended up running into somebody and caused them to spill their very hot coffee all over themselves.
"How...dare you!" She heard the voice yell, and internally cringed.
Chloé.
"This is designer!" She hollered at her.
"I am so sorry, Chloé." Marinette apologized quickly. "I wasn't watching where I was going, it was an accident!"
"Accident?" Chloé scoffed. "If anything here was an accident Marinette Dupain-Cheng, it was you! And not a happy one!"
"Chloé, back off." Alya cut in. "She didn't mean to spill your coffee."
"Oh, but I'll bet she did!" Chloé went on. "Little miss Maritrash here just can't stand the fact that some people are of higher class and have more money than her and her idiot baker family!"
"Hey, leave my family out of this!" Marinette said, growing defensive.
"You don't get to tell me what to do!" Chloé screamed. "You are so going to pay for this Marinette Dupain-Cheng you worthless, useless, pathetic excuse for a human being!"
Marinette stood back back, stunned, her eyes wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but Chloé beat her to it.
"No! You don't get to talk!" She screamed. "Do you have any idea what my father would say if I told him you ruined my jacket! I could have him permanently expel you from this school!"
"Okay, Chloé, seriously, back off." Alya warned. "It's just a jacket, and since you have so much money why don't you just buy a new one?"
"This is one of a kind!" Chloé fumed. "And this idiot klutz here completely and totally ruined it! Just like she does everything else around her!"
"Chloé, stop, this isn't funny." Nino said, stepping in and coming to Marinette's defense. Marinette couldn't say anything, she could only stare at the blonde girl before her who continued to tear into her.
"You think just because you're the class representative that you can just do whatever you want?" Chloé seethed. "Think again, Maritrash. I am going to ruin you, like you ruined my jacket!"
"Chloé, you're going too far! Seriously!" Nino told her. "Back off already! Marinette apologized."
"A silly little apology won't fix my jacket!" Chloé screamed. "Face it Maritrash, you're nothing! You honestly think anybody would buy or want to wear those stupid designs you have in your sketchbook, huh? You think people would actually take interest in that utter shit?! Well, think again, because I come from a world full of high class designers who I have wrapped around my finger. If I tell them your designs are awful, they'll believe me, no questions asked."
"Chloé-" Alya started, but Chloé interrupted her.
"You will never make it in the fashion industry, and you will be stuck with your low life parents in your low life bakery for the rest of your life! I will make sure of it!" She told the bluenette, and then stomped off angrily. Sabrina following her closely, not even sparing a glance at the other girls.
Around the corner, Adrien stood pressed against the wall, having heard the entire thing. He rounded the corner to ask Marinette if she was okay, but stopped when he saw the look in her eyes. Alya put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't listen to her, Marinette, she's just-" She began to say, but was cut off when Marinette shrugged her shoulder away from Alya's grasp and hurried away, Alya ran after her and called out her name.
"Marinette, wait!"
"Marinette!" Cat Noir calling her name drew her from her memories and back to the present. "What happened?"
She let out a shaky breath and leaned forward, resting her forehead on Cat Noir's shoulder. He quickly sat down -never loosening his grip on her wrist in the process- and used his free hand to bring her closer to him.
"There's a girl in my school..." She began, her voice hoarse. "Her name is Chloé...she's the mayors daughter and she's made it her job to make my life a living hell."
Cat Noir brought his free hand up to her hair, and gently ran his claws through it, hoping to make her feel a little more comfortable.
"Is she the reason you're doing what you're doing?" He asked, even though he already knew the answer. He felt her nod against his shoulder.
"Yes." She whispered. She was so quiet he almost didn't hear her, but his enhanced hearing he had when transformed allowed him to hear the quietest of things.
"What did she say to you?" He asked her. He felt her body shake as another sob escaped her, and his claws slightly clenched in her hair.
"Sh-she-she called me worthless. Pathetic. Useless." She told him slowly. "She...she insulted my family...who have done nothing to her and I...I have done nothing to her. I don't know why she hates me so much!"
Another round of cries and sobs racked through her body and she pulled away from him, trying again to tug her wrist from his grasp.
"Chloé and I used to be friends! Best friends! And then one day we just...weren't. I don't know what happened. I don't...I don't know what I did to make her hate me!" She cried out, tears leaking from her eyes and falling down her face. "Please, Chat, let me go! Let me go! Please, let go of me!"
Cat Noir felt tears of his own prick his eyes as he watched her break down even more in front of him and try to pull her wrist away from him, but he blinked them away. He had realized now that this wasn't sudden. She had been bottling this up for years, and now it was spilling over. Leaving her alone to deal with the aftermath, becoming a casualty in her war within herself.
"Princess, Marinette, listen to me!" He said, pulling her close to him again, causing her to stop her efforts of freeing her wrist and look up at him with her big, sad, bluebell eyes. Her chest heaved as she panted, not breaking their eye contact.
"You are not worthless." He told her. "You are not pathetic, and you are not useless."
Marinette finally blinked, her lower lip quivering as she stared into his green, cat like eyes.
"You, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, are beautiful." He said. "You are smart, you are talented, and you are brave. Marinette, you are so many amazing things, the list goes on and on. All of the things that this Chloé girl said to you? They aren't true. They never will be."
More tears threatened to slip from Marinette's eyes, but she figured Cat Noir had seen her cry enough tonight, so she held them back.
"Don't hurt yourself, princess." He whispered softly. "Not because of her, or anyone else. She's not worth it."
Cat Noir hesitantly released his grip on her wrist, and she glanced down at her bloody wrist before looking back up at him. Cat Noir gripped her wrist again and held it up to the bloody scissors were in front of both of their faces.
"This right here," He began, glancing at the scissors before looking back to her. "It's letting her win. Don't. Let. Her. Win."
Marinette's blue irises stared into his green ones for what seemed like forever, until she finally let the scissors fall from her hand and the tears from her eyes. The scissors landed with a soft thud on her bed and Cat Noir pulled her into his arms, sighing with relief. He held onto her tightly, his claws finding their way into her hair again. Marinette snuggled her face in the crook of his neck as she cried once again that night, clinging onto Cat Noir like he was her lifeline with her arm that wasn't all cut up. They duo didn't know how long they sat there in each others arms, but neither one of them cared. The comfort of knowing that Cat Noir was there for her made something in Marinette's stomach flutter, but she told herself it was leftover anxiety from everything that had happened.
Cat Noir was the first to pull away from the embrace, and he gently grabbed her wrist that she had cut. She winced when he touched it and he retracted his hand slightly and looked up at her, asking for permission. She nodded slowly and silently, and he gingerly took her wrist in his hands and looked it over. After a moment, he looked back into her eyes and gave her a small smile.
"Let's get you cleaned up, yeah?" He asked, gently. She reluctantly nodded before allowing him to lead her down the stairs of her bed. They quietly exited her bedroom and made their way downstairs to the main bathroom, which thankfully was far down the hall from her parents bedroom so she didn't have to worry about the sudden burst of the light turning on waking them up. Cat Noir closed the door quietly behind them and asked if her family kept a first aid kit anywhere. She knelt down and opened the cabinet under the sink, pulling out a white, plastic box with a big red cross on it and handed it to him. Her hands shook as she held it out to him, and didn't seem to stop shaking after that, no matter what he tried to calm her down. She sat down on the lid of the toilet seat and he knelt down in front of her, opening the first aid kit and taking her wrist into his hands once again. He took the supplies he needed from the box and began cleaning the blood from her arm and cleaning out her cuts. She hissed and winced as he cleaned them and put medicine on them, he apologized but she waved him off, telling him it was okay.
Twenty minutes later, Marinette and Cat Noir were back upstairs in her room changing her bed sheets since she had gotten blood on them. Marinette's left wrist now sported white bandages that Cat Noir had tenderly wrapped around her arm to help the medicine set in and help start the healing process. Marinette knew her mother would ask about the blood on her blankets when she washed them, but Marinette already had an excuse ready for when that question came, and silently thanked whatever god that was out there that she was a girl. Cat Noir had cleaned her blood off of her scissors, but then he tossed them in the trash and said if she needed scissors so badly she could just buy new ones. He said something about not wanting her to be reminded of everything that happened whenever she looked at them, and she gave him a small smile.
They finished changing her bed sheets and Cat Noir looked away as he waited for Marinette to change her pajamas after she realized she had gotten blood on them too. Once it was safe for him to look, Cat Noir led her back up the stairs to her bed and held the comforter up until she got her legs underneath it. She laid her head on her pillow, and Cat Noir tucked the blanket around her. He could see her eyes drooping already, and was about to leave when she called his name.
"Chat?" She said quietly, and he turned to look at her once more. "Thank you...for being here."
He smiled at her, and then surprised them both by leaning forward and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"I'll always be here for you, Princess." He whispered to her. "I promise."
She smiled at him, and shuffled under the covers until she was comfortable. Cat Noir stayed and watched her until he heard her breathing even out, indicating she had finally fallen asleep.
"Sweet dreams, Princess." He said quietly, before exiting through the skylight and making his way back to his own house.
He dropped his transformation as soon as he flew through the window and collapsed onto his bed. As tired as he was, he knew he still wouldn't be able to sleep. He didn't know how he was going to face Marinette at school. As Adrien, he wasn't supposed to know about the cuts that littered her wrist, and he didn't know if he was going to be able to make it through the entire school day without asking her how she was doing and if her cuts were feeling any better.
"Kid, if you keep thinking so hard about it, your head is going to explode." Plagg said beside him, and Adrien sighed.
"I want to help her, Plagg." He told his Kwami. "I want to help her as Adrien, but I'm not supposed to know about anything. I'll have to ask oblivious."
"I know, kid." Plagg said, sighing. "It sucks. I get it, but sadly this is part of the job."
Adrien sighed heavily. "Yeah, I know."
"Get some sleep kid." Plagg told him, turning over to go to sleep himself. "After tonight, both you and that Marinette girl need as much of it as you can get."
Adrien finally complied with one final sigh before pulling his covers over his body and closing his eyes.
He was asleep in seconds.
A/N: So, I was going to make this whole thing just one really long one shot, but then I thought about it and I'm just going to make this a two shot, (it might become a three shot though). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first part. Review maybe?