Day 5: Victory / Defeat

Series of drabbles for 2017's Miraculous Angst Week.
Or how I spent an entire week hurting my babies

Originally posted in April 2017


"I love you, my lady."

She laughed, pulling him into a tight hug. "I love you too, silly minou. You're my best friend."

"That's not what I meant." He shook his head sadly, looking somewhat defeated. "I'm… I'm in love with you, Bugaboo. Have been for a pretty long time."

Her breath caught in her throat hearing those words. Sure, her partner had wiggled his way into a special spot in her heart over the course of the last few years. She trusted him with her life, and if it weren't for Adrien, she wouldn't need that much of a nudge to fall in love with the leather-clad hero.

Loving Chat Noir would be easier, simpler. He was there, standing in front of her, proclaiming his love for her. He would understand all the ramifications of her double-life, wouldn't mind her numerous disappearances. He was the sole human being able to understand her, their duty to the city.

Loving Chat Noir was the logical choice, and at that precise second she hated her heart for not making it.

Because there was Adrien. Adrien, on whom her heart stubbornly refused to give up, no matter how much her head knew that it was useless. Adrien, who still had her heart in the palm of his hand after all this time, not that he knew that or cared the slightest.

So reluctantly, her voice breaking and tears pooling in her eyes, she shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'm sorry, Chat. I… I can't love you back, not that way."

His shoulders slumped and he averted his gaze from hers. "Is… There's someone else, isn't it?"

When she failed to answer, her bluebell eyes heavy with guilt and regrets, he extended his staff and vaulted himself away into the night.

Wordlessly.


"You didn't even let her explain herself, Adrien."

Marinette stopped dead in her tracks as she passed a hallway she thought empty, the unfamiliar voice startling her out of her sulking. Retreating back out of sight, she witnessed Adrien standing in the middle of said hallway, tears streaming down his beautiful face, a black creature floating in front of him.

A kwami.

Chat Noir's kwami.

Realization painfully sunk in, as Adrien talked again. "What was left to explain, Plagg? She loves someone else. The love of my life doesn't love me back. That's all I needed to know."

Marinette might've thought she had made the right choice when she had let her heart win the battle, when she had chosen to love Adrien. But right now, standing in a lonely hallway, watching his retreating back get further and further away from her, it felt nothing like victory.