Standard disclaimer: I do not own Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, and am not affiliated with them in any way.
A/N: There's some things that happen in this chapter that might be a bit triggering for some people. Nothing too bad; I tried to leave out the worst of it, but yeah, that Y-7 rating from the show is not here anymore. In my defense, if anyone was hit by a dozen-odd mind-altering bugs and forced to kill a family member (no matter how evil or twisted they might be), and they showed up all happy-go-lucky the next day, they might just be a psychopath. Adrien is not a psychopath, which is why he now has to deal with… consequences. No, I do not believe that anything that happens here will generate an "M" rating. That's why I had to stop writing the first version.
If you guys don't like darker fics or where this is going, I won't say anything if you stop reading and just say,
"they defeated Hawkmoth and lived happily ever after, the end."
'Cause, yeah. That's, uh… totally what's gonna happen in this fic. *whistles innocently*
Consequences
Chapter 2: … of Nightmares.
He was out on all fours, racing through the darkened streets. The wind sang in his ear as the thrill of the hunt rushed through his veins. Ahead of him, a desperate wail reached his ears, making him grin. His prey knew it was no match for him.
His speed.
His strength.
His power.
A metal pole, a pitiful little makeshift weapon, swung at him inelegantly. He swatted it away and hissed. To any normal human, it might've been a danger. To him, it was simply an annoyance. Not even worth taking out his own baton to duel with. Sure enough, it went clattering to the ground with one hit. Its wielder let out a cry as its last, pathetic defense was breached. It turned to run, only to stumble and fall to the ground.
He licked his lips. Finally. His favorite part.
"N-N-No-nononoo, please don't hurt me!" his prey screamed, holding out its hands as if it could hold off the predator in front of it. He snickered, preparing to spring.
A high, thin laugh stopped him in his tracks and he grinned again, relaxing as his partner took her rightful place by his side. Delight flooded him as he saw his prey go white at the sight of Her. Oh yes, isn't she marvelous? Power and poise personified into one magnificent package. A thrill went down his spine as she laughed again. There was no hope left for his prey.
"I see you've met my Cat," she said archly, running her fingers through her beloved's hair. He leaned into her touch until he felt her nails dig painfully into his scalp. He didn't dare hiss at Her, so he turned his displeasure to the prey in front of him. It was shaking now, poor thing. Probably couldn't run anymore. This would be easy. He flexed his claws.
"No, please! PLEASE!"
"Take him."
He sprang forward.
Adrien woke up with a yell, drenched in cold sweat and bile already rising in his throat. He dove off the bed, so tangled in his sheets that he fell to the floor instead of making it to his bathroom on time. It didn't matter. His stomach rebelled completely, emptying its contents right there on the floor. Somewhere in between heaves, Plagg managed to bring him a wastebasket. He took it gratefully, shaking in-between bouts of nausea.
"I won't even bother asking if you're okay," Plagg said, as Adrien finally wiped his mouth. "Since you're obviously not. I'll just remind you that you've got a hot shower and a bottle of mouthwash right over there that you should probably make use of. It'll help."
"Thanks, Plagg," Adrien said shakily, getting up to clean his mess. Dumb luck (or Plagg) had somehow managed to keep all his bedding away from the splash zone; all it took to clean up was an absurd number of towels that went right into the wastebasket. Then he took Plagg's advice and stripped out of his sweaty clothes and into the hot shower. It did wonders to calm him.
Right up until he swore that the hot liquid running down his hands was blood.
Adrien quickly turned off the shower and leaned against the wall for a moment to steady his breathing.
He toweled himself dry and then made liberal use of the mouthwash, trying to ignore his shaking hands as he did. Plagg, ignoring their usual "no kwamis in the bathroom" rule, floated down to sit on the counter next to him. Adrien was grateful for the company.
"Bad?" Plagg asked. Adrien nodded.
"Please tell me I didn't actually kill anyone tonight, Plagg."
"Well, technically…."
"Plagg!" Adrien whimpered, burying his head in his hands as the memories of what had happened this night came back.
"He's alive now, so no harm done!"
"No harm done?" Adrien repeated incredulously.
"We won in the end, kid," Plagg pointed out. "It can only get better from here."
"I don't think that's totally true," Adrien muttered, rubbing his temples. "Something is definitely wrong with me. I feel off. And that dream…." He shuddered. "I don't think I'm going back to sleep anytime soon." Plagg studied him for a moment.
"Well, then, what are you waiting for?" his kwami asked. Adrien raised an eyebrow at him, but the kwami just rolled his eyes. "Go see her. Well, put on some clothes first, obviously, unless you think you're ready for that—"
"Plagg!" Adrien exclaimed. "It's late, and she's…" he trailed off. "Her family is…."
"You can either go now, or we can argue about it some more and go later," Plagg said. "But we both know you're going to end up over there." Adrien shook his head at his kwami and left the bathroom. He didn't need to go bother his partner over something so stupid as a bad dream! He'd just get some fresh pajamas and go back to bed. He'd be fine. He was totally fine. It was just a dream….
He stopped in the doorway; his eyes landing on his cold, dark, lonely bed, in the middle of an empty room with shadows that looked like prison bars all over it.
A few minutes later, Cat Noir barely noticed the wind whipping through his hair, as quiet as his namesake as he finally reached his goal. He lifted her hatch and dropped down, barely rustling the blankets. If she was sleeping, he didn't want to disturb her, but God, he needed….
Two big, beautiful, bluebell eyes greeted him from where she was already sitting up in her bed with her lamp on, talking to the kwami in her hands. Relief flooded him at the sight of her and he felt his whole body relax, just by being in the same room.
"Couldn't sleep?" Marinette asked quietly as he closed the hatch behind him. He shook his head.
"Bad dreams."
She closed her eyes and bit her lip. "Me too," she whispered.
"It's the residue akuma magic," Tikki told them softly. "You weren't able to get it all out of your system because you were focusing your Lucky Charm on something else."
"And the Cosmic Reset Button?" Marinette asked with a weak laugh.
Tikki gave her a pointed stare. "You weren't really focusing on getting rid of the akumas at the time." Marinette swallowed and looked away. Tikki sighed and patted her wielder's hand. Then she looked up and gave Adrien a smile. "Talk through it. Secrets won't help you right now. And Adrien, release Plagg. You both need to rest. We all need to rest."
Adrien nodded and obeyed the tiny, pink kwami, (glad he'd remembered to put on some pajamas first,) and Plagg quickly flew down with Tikki to the lower level. He saw that they had made a little cloth nest on Marinette's chaise, Nooroo fast asleep inside it, not even stirring as the other two kwamis joined him and curled up into one big kwami ball.
"How is he?" Adrien asked, his voice still scratchy.
"Better. Tikki agreed that he just needs time," Marinette replied. He glanced at her, feeling awkward. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't be disturbing her….
"In my dreams, your eyes were purple," she said quietly.
"Yours were red," he replied automatically. Then he blinked and looked at her, seeing his own alarm reflected on her face. He sucked in his breath, not wanting to think about the implications of this. But the thoughts came anyway.
"Dark alley next to an abandoned warehouse?" he asked softly. Marinette gulped.
"Yes."
He felt the bile rising up again.
Screams, and darkness, and that horrifying joy.
What had all those akumas done to him? To them? He hadn't expected to be totally unaffected after everything that had happened tonight, but... But if they were truly having the same dream…. Chills broke out over his body as he tried to control his trembling. What could it mean?
Was that their future?
"Adrien, you're shaking," he heard Marinette's voice, but couldn't look at her. "It was just a dream." Adrien felt her hands on his arms, pulling him over to her. He didn't resist, crawling across the bed until he was lying beside her. He took a deep breath as he focused on her thankfully-heavenly-blue eyes, which were searching his own and smiling when they found none of the madness from before. Finally, he allowed himself to relax, resting his head on her shoulder as she pulled the blankets over him and wrapped him in a tight hug. He returned it gratefully.
Awkward as all hell?
Check.
Doing stuff (like coming into a girl's bedroom in the middle of the night!) he was probably gonna kick himself for later?
Check.
Knowing his reasons were stupid?
Oh, check.
Did he need to be hugged right now?
Check. Check. Definite check.
"Your laugh was terrifying," he mumbled into her shoulder. "Let's not ever do that, okay?" Even in his arms, she shivered.
"You save me and I'll save you, kitty," she agreed.
"Done and done," he said. He looked up at Marinette's face and reached up to brush back some stray hairs that had come out of her ponytails. The action brought him closer than he'd intended, but he wasn't sorry, and she wasn't pulling away….
"Rest, you two," Tikki's voice called up to them. They both quickly pulled away, blushing.
"Thanks, Mom," Marinette muttered. She rolled her eyes. Adrien covered his face with his hand to stop his own laughter. Ok. Maybe now wasn't the best time to be exploring how strange their relationship was.
"Goodnight, Adrien," Marinette leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead. He felt warmth flow through him at the sweetness of the gesture. God, she was so wonderful. And she was here with him now. He was so, so thankful she was here with him now….
"Goodnight, Marinette," he murmured back, settling her back into his arms as they both relaxed. In moments, they were fast asleep.
Her high heels clicked against the cold marble of the floor, and she smiled at the sound. It sounded like the ticking of a clock. Like counting down the seconds until the inevitable destruction of her enemies. It was glorious. Why had she not indulged in heels before? She no longer needed to worry about tripping, or being clumsy or unconfident ever again.
Now she practically floated along.
Now power sang through her veins, filling her with energy. If any piece of the stone beneath her feet had dared to try and make her stumble, it would be decimated by her mere presence.
Just like everything else.
The clicking continued as she neared her goal.
A broken man sat slumped in his chair. The door to his office had long been ripped from its hinges, and she strode through the frame to face him. The lights were all off. She didn't know if they'd been broken when he was defeated, if he'd turned them off in a vain attempt to hide from her, or if the light itself no longer wanted to witness his shame. It didn't matter. She brought her own hard, cold light with her. There would be no more hiding.
Finally.
Justice.
She savored the word like sugar on her tongue.
He looked up and paled at her arrival, but made no move to fight or escape her. Unlike the shadow guarding him.
"NO! Ladybug, stop!" Cat Noir shrieked, leaping in front of the man and brandishing his baton at her. "I can't let you do this!"
Her enemy was still hiding behind others, she thought with a sneer. And his champion this time…. She rolled her eyes. As overly-dramatic as always. And using bad B-movie lines. They were both completely predictable.
"Move, Cat Noir," she said in a bored tone, not worried in the least at the baton leveled at her. He wouldn't hurt her. He couldn't hurt her.
"I won't!" he declared, sinking even deeper into his crouch. "This isn't you!"
"Isn't it? Not me?" she asked, feigning surprise. She rubbed her fingers together. "How strange. It certainly feels like me…."
"You know what I mean," Cat Noir growled. "You're being controlled!"
"No, Cat," she breathed, "for the first time, I am finally free!"
"Free?" he repeated incredulously. She curled her lip at him.
"You honestly thought I wanted this?" she indicated her suit with disdain. "A floating bug the size of a rat, suddenly telling me what to do all the time? How to behave? You thought I wanted the duty and responsibility of saving Paris from monsters daily, while maintaining my normal life on top of it? I'm a teenager! I shouldn't have had to worry about anything more hazardous than chemistry homework! Instead, I risked my life daily, and for what? For him to turn around and do it again! And again! And, even if I do everything right, the city is safe and the monster is cured, I still get judged and rated for my performance by anyone out there who thinks they have a right to voice an opinion!
"'Why didn't you come faster, Ladybug?'" she said, changing her voice to be high and mocking. "'Why didn't you save my husband first, Ladybug?' 'You shouldn't have used your Lucky Charm like that, Ladybug, this way would've been so much better!' 'People say you're the cause of this akuma, Ladybug, what do you have to say to that?'"
"When—?" Cat Noir's eyes were round in horror.
"'Why aren't you and Cat Noir together yet, Ladybug?'" she added, her tone turning icy. "'Are you just leading that poor boy on?'"
"I never—!"
"That's the point, Cat Noir," she said, her eyes glittering. "Neither of us asked for this fame. We simply, literally, had it dropped in our laps. And it's entirely HIS fault." She pointed at the man behind him, still slumped, defeated, in his chair. "Now move, so I may exact my revenge."
"You'll have to go through me! You'll have to kill me first!"
"You say that like it's a deterrent," she scoffed. "You, above everything else, have got to be the most annoying thing that has come into my life with these damn earrings." Cat Noir visibly flinched at her words, looking like she'd slapped him.
"My lady, you don't mean that…," he said softly, sounding like he was pleading.
In answer, her yo-yo shot out, winding around his neck and baton. He cried out in alarm, bracing his arms to hold his stick away from himself so she couldn't choke him. She jerked it forward, sending him sprawling to his knees as he tried to claw at the wire.
"Don't I?" she asked archly, enjoying the distressed look on his face as he looked up at her.
"Marinette, stop, it's me!" Cat Noir cried. To her surprise, he de-transformed. Now Adrien stared up at her desperately as the yo-yo string fell limply around his neck.
"Adrien, no!" the man behind him shouted. She didn't even spare him a glance, staring instead at the boy in front of her.
"I know you," she said slowly. Hope filled his eyes for a moment. Then she grasped her yo-yo string more firmly and jerked it tight. Without his baton to prevent it from going all the way around his neck, all he could do was grasp at it with his fingers, trying to gain some slack.
"You're the strutting little peacock who likes to turn girls' brains to mush and lead them on with an innocent smile!" she snarled.
"My lady—" he gasped.
"Ladybug, stop!" the man screamed, finally shooting out of his chair to dart to their side. "Please, take me! Punish me! I'm the one you truly want to hurt!"
She finally allowed her gaze to fall on the man. "Don't worry, Hawkmoth," she said with a sweet smile. "You're next." She jerked her arm back.
Marinette woke with a scream, and then kept screaming. She felt a pair of warm hands go around her, holding her close, while a familiar voice murmured in her ear.
"Just a dream, my lady. It was just a dream. You're fine. I'm fine. Nothing happened…."
She cried out again and clutched Adrien desperately. He was okay! Thank God!
"I'm sorry!" she sobbed, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! That wasn't me!"
"Marinette, please, try to breathe," she heard Tikki say nearby. The kwami sounded worried. "Whatever happened in your dream was not real, you have to remember that—"
"Tikki! Oh my—, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! You aren't—! OH MY GOD, AM I REALLY THAT HORRIBLE?" Marinette cried, pulling away from Adrien. He let her go easily, and she scrambled to sit up and get away from them. Shaking, she clutched her head in her hands, pulling at her hair.
"Marinette, I told you before, it's just the residue akuma magic—" Tikki tried to say.
"I'M A MONSTER!"
"What?" Adrien cried. "No, of course you're not! It was just a dream!"
But he was drowned out by the sound of Marinette's parents barreling up the stairs.
"MARINETTE! Marinette, what's wrong?" her father shouted, looking like he was going to take someone out with the rolling pin he had in his hand. He froze when he saw the blond boy in his daughter's bed, trying to hold her. Both Adrien and Marinette felt the blood drain out of their faces. They sprang apart.
Oh… shit.
"Papa, wait, this isn't what it looks like—"
"I swear, sir, nothing happened!"
"Explain. Now," Tom growled, his eyes not leaving Adrien's. Adrien went white and his hands came up in surrender.
"I-uh, um… bad—bad dream?" he said uncertainly, biting his lip. He and Marinette both winced. That was a poor excuse, even to their ears. "We didn't do anything, I swear! We just… um, slept… in the… same bed?"
"Mr. Dupain, this is our fault," Tikki said, swooping in between the teenagers and Marinette's angry father. "It's a side-effect of our magic; Ladybug and Cat Noir will heal faster and more thoroughly if they are together."
"They have to sleep together?" Tom looked horrified. "They're just teenagers!"
"No, no!" Tikki said quickly. "That just—"
"Well, if you want to get down to it…," Plagg drawled.
"SHUT UP, PLAGG!" Tikki, Marinette, and Adrien all yelled at the same time.
"Oh, dear," came the voice of Marinette's mother. Sabine sounded like she was trying not to laugh. "And what do we have up here?"
Tikki said something to her in Chinese that Marinette couldn't follow. Even Adrien looked confused. But Sabine just blinked as comprehension dawned on her face.
"Aww, well, that's much less fun than what I was going to tease Marinette about," she said, pouting a bit. "Especially with such a cute boy in her bed." Marinette flushed. Her mother shot her a pointed glance. "Though you and I are still going to have a talk later, young lady."
"Yes, maman," Marinette said meekly.
"All right then, come down for breakfast, all of you. Adrien, that includes you. No sneaking off now. You must be starving."
Adrien opened his mouth to protest, but instead his stomach gave a very loud growl. He flushed. "I—uhh…. Yes, ma'am," he said quietly.
"BREAKFAST!" Plagg screamed in joy. "Oh, I love it when the parents are in on the secret! The snacks get so much better!" He and Tikki scooped Nooroo up from the kwami nest and headed downstairs, obviously intent on feeding their still-sleeping friend. Marinette's mother giggled a bit when they passed her. Then she looked pointedly at the rest of the people in the room.
"Tom. Put the rolling pin away," she huffed. "They obviously didn't do anything. They still have their clothes on."
"Mama!" Marinette cried.
"But, Sabine—" Tom protested.
"Hush, you. It's just yin-yang magical healing mumbo-jumbo," Sabine said, patting her husband's arm. "Honestly, I should've seen this coming a while ago. And look at him, he looks much too confused to be guilty." Adrien opened his mouth to protest, but Marinette was relieved to see that he quickly closed it again. No sense digging himself a deeper hole.
Fortunately, Sabine just shook her head and winked at them as she pushed her reluctant, glowering husband back down the stairs to the kitchen. Marinette and Adrien both let out a long, deep breath as soon as they were gone. Marinette stared down at her trembling hands.
"Princess?" Adrien called softly. She looked up at him thought watery eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but choked on it and buried her face in her hands, bawling.
"I-I-I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!" she sobbed.
"Hey, no," he said firmly, pulling her back into a hug. "We are not blaming ourselves for anything that happens in our dreams. Otherwise, I'm guilty of… literally—" He gulped, unable to continue that sentence as he held her tighter. "I'm still here, safe and sound. Nothing happened."
"But it felt good!" she confessed, sobbing harder as he awkwardly rubbed her back. "I felt relieved. Happy. Like I was actually… justified in doing something—saying something like that—" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "It's not me!" she insisted, looking up at him. "I don't really feel that way!"
"I know," he assured her.
"And Tikki—" she turned, looking at where her kwami had disappeared. "She must hate me now…."
"I doubt Tikki could hate anyone," Adrien said softly. "Certainly not someone like you."
Marinette looked like she wanted to argue, but then both their stomachs growled at the same time, making them flush even deeper from embarrassment.
"Ok, your mom has a point. I'm really hungry," Adrien confessed. "When was the last time you had a meal?"
"Yesterday morning," Marinette admitted. "Mom and Dad tried to get me to eat something when we got home last night, but I was too tired."
"Food?"
"Yes, food."
End Chapter 2.
A/N: I feel the need to apologize for this chapter. So, um, yeah… I'm gonna go hide in a dark corner for a while. Sorry.
If you think I'm overdoing things a bit and you've never had a nightmare that leaves you scrambling for the bathroom, you are quite blessed, my friend. I hope it stays that way. Yes, I beg the cinnamon rolls for forgiveness every time I see them smile innocently on screen.
My name is WaRC and I'm a bad, bad person. I do bad things to characters I love. And I put pineapple on pizza. I understand if we can't be friends because of this.
Feel free to review with all your hate, love, or rotten tomatoes. Whichever.
