The second Marinette saw the sewing shears gleam in the faint lighting of a street light, she knew they were in more trouble than she had expected.
Mark raised his hands menacingly, shears held in a tight-fisted grip that threatened to come down on Chat Noir at any given time. Shears she knew he had sharpened a few days prior. Shears that were deadly blades.
When she saw Mark lower his arm, aiming for Chat Noir's heart, pure rage washed over her. She surged forward, shielding her partner from his impending doom with her body. Arms crossed in front of her, she backed up against Chat Noir, pushing him out of the trajectory of the blades.
The shears cut through the tender flesh of her forearm, tearing out a startled cry from her. Chat Noir's entire focus was drawn to her and her wound, a low growl rumbling from his chest. Marinette was faintly aware of a deep sting in her arm, of Chat Noir fussing over a bleeding wound and of Mark taking a few steps back, obviously overwhelmed by the unexpected turn of events.
Everything went too fast.
Chat Noir bared his fangs toward Mark and lunged forward, calling out his Cataclysm.
Mark's fist collided with her partner's side, his sewing shears disappearing in between his ribs.
"You. Leave. Her. Alone," Chat Noir growled, lifting his Cataclysm-charged hand toward his prey.
Mark whimpered pitifully, like the poor excuse of a man Marinette now knew him to be, and escaped the hero's iron grip only to awkwardly stumble away from them, distinctly limping and sobbing.
Marinette watched, helpless, as Chat Noir paused to look at his side. He finally noticed the sewing shears sticking out from between two of his ribs, and his eyes rolled back.
He stumbled back, his Cataclysm-charge hand hitting the bridge's banister, and, as the railing for the bridge disintegrated, his limp body toppled into the ice-cold water of the Seine.
The anguished screamed that was ripped from Marinette's throat couldn't be helped, and Tikki's magic suddenly washed over her. She transformed instantly and dived into the river, a single and obsessive goal in mind.
She had to get to him. At any cost.
She had to save her kitty.
She didn't question why she was transformed without having called for it, didn't stop to check if they had any unwanted witnesses.
She dived into the filthy waters of the Seine, desperate to get to her partner. She ignored the fire in her injured arm as she used it to push herself further into the water, focusing entirely on the dark sinking figure a few feet away from her.
Her lungs soon burned from the lack of oxygen, and her muscles hurt from the inhumane effort she was deploying, reaching for the man she loved with every fibre of her being.
Ladybug's fingers wrapped around his wrist, at last, pulling his sinking body toward her. She linked her left arm around his midsection, trying to ignore how lifeless he felt in her grasp, and propelled both of them up with every ounce of energy she had left.
They broke through the surface with a loud gasp on Ladybug's part, air blissfully filling her lungs. She took half a second to gather herself, desperately clinging to her partner's body. Her yoyo shot to a lamppost on the shore, reeling them both to safety as every muscle in her body was hurting, burning, and the wound in her arm was pulsing painfully.
Ladybug reached the side of the river, Chat Noir's motionless form still held up to her heart, and she pulled him on the shore with a loud grunt. He was breathing, thankfully, but still unconscious. The shears were still sticking out of his ribs and shone menacingly into the light of nearby street lights, making Ladybug's blood run cold in her veins.
There was no time to lose.
"Plagg," she begged, "please, let go of his transformation. I can't bring him to the hospital like this."
Her own transformation faded, and Tikki quickly zoomed toward the bridge where the fight had occurred. A second later she was back, dropping a phone in Marinette's hand. "It fell during their brawl. I didn't want Mark to come back and find Chat Noir's identity because Adrien dropped his phone."
"Thanks, Tikki. Why won't Plagg drop the transformation? We're wasting time," Marinette cried, staring at Chat Noir's desperately closed eyes, at the somewhat and unsettling grey tone of his skin.
"Because the suit is protecting Adrien. If he drops it, then he won't be able to lessen his pain."
"But if he doesn't, Adrien will die!" Marinette almost screamed, by that point not minding the slightest if anyone heard her. She pulled out her phone from her pocket, unscathed from her dive into the Seine all thanks to the lifeproof case Alya had insisted she'd buy, and promptly called for an ambulance.
While she was talking with the dispatcher, the magic finally agreed to relinquish its grip on Chat Noir, leaving him with a bright green flash. Plagg fell on the ground with a soft thump, clearly exhausted, and Marinette scooped him up into her purse. Tikki instantly rushed to check on her partner, zooming into the bag with worried eyes. Knowing that Tikki would take care of Plagg, Marinette focussed all her energy on Adrien.
The emergency dispatcher enquired about the wounded state, and Marinette all but shouted in the phone, "There are scissors planted in his side, can you please hurry?"
"Help is on its way, mademoiselle, please try to stay calm. Is anyone else injured?"
"I've got a cut on my arm but I don't care. He's all that matters," Marinette cried, cradling Adrien's head in her lap.
"The ambulance is only a few blocks away now, mademoiselle. Don't worry, we'll take care of your friend. If the scissors are still in, you must not pull them out, leave them in, they're preventing they're preventing bleeding. Is he conscious?"
She took a good look at Adrien, taking in how limp he was feeling in her hold, how his face was twisted in a pained grimace. His wet hair was glued to his forehead, but his gorgeous green eyes were stubbornly closed.
"I don't think he is," she reluctantly stated. "He must be in a lot of pain though, and I'm really worried about him."
The dispatcher sympathetically, "try to keep him as comfortable as possible. Help is almost there. Can you hang on?"
Marinette bit back a sob.
This was all her fault.
Had she been more wary of Mark, had she listened to Adrien's wish to come and jog with her, things would've gone down so differently. If only she hadn't gotten wounded, distracting Chat Noir from his opponent. If only she had seen the sewing shears before Mark could use them…
"The ambulance should be there now, mademoiselle. Are you seeing it?"
Words spoken into her phone startled her out of self-loathing, and she reluctantly tore her eyes away from Adrien's face to scan her surroundings. Sure enough, an ambulance had pulled up near them, and paramedics were pulling a gurney out of the back.
"They're here," she almost whispered in the phone, as if she couldn't even believe it.
"Perfect. They're going to take charge from here. Alright, I'm gonna hang up now, okay?"
Marinette stared at her broken partner, her heart caught in her throat, and whispered, "Thank you."
She looked up at the men who were busy setting up the gurney and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Please hurry!" She put her phone away in her pocket, cradling Adrien's motionless form to her chest.
"Don't you dare leave me alone again, Adrien," she whispered in his ear as the paramedics rushed the gurney to them. "We'll talk about all this tomorrow, understood, Minou?"
Both kwamis cuddled against each other into her purse, exchanging worried glances, as Marinette reluctantly surrendered her partner's inert body to the paramedics, letting them lay him on their gurney. One of them tried to take a look at Marinette's bleeding arm, but she insisted they start moving before they looked at her arm and climbed into the ambulance behind Adrien.
The ride to the hospital was silent at most, the steady beeping of Adrien's heart on the monitor being the only thing breaking the quietness. Marinette allowed a paramedic put a temporary bandage her arm to stem the bleeding until they reached the hospital, while her other hand clinging to Adrien's fingers tightly. She wanted him to know that she was there beside him, that he wasn't alone, even if he had yet to regain consciousness.
The ambulance finally burst into the E.R. parking lot, all sirens blaring out, and before Marinette could comprehend anything, Adrien was rushed out of the vehicle and behind a heavy metal door. She tried to follow him, heart and mind going wild with worry, but a nurse stepped in front of her, giving her a kind but stern look. "I'm very sorry mademoiselle, but both of you took a plunge into the waters of the Seine with open wounds. I'm gonna have to treat you before I let you go to his side, do you understand?"
Marinette's eyes filled up with hot tears, and she choked back on a sob, "But- I need to be with him, he- he needs me. He took that hit for me and..." She wasn't able to finish her sentence, mixed emotions wildly raging inside her. Her heart was bursting out at the seams with love for her partner, her best friend, and her mind was reeling with horrible scenarios - all of them leading to Adrien being taken away from her.
The nurse's expression softened upon seeing the tears streaming down Marinette's cheeks, and he smiled gently. "They are taking him into surgery to remove the scissors from his ribs. Since he's currently heavily sedated, he won't even know if you're there or not. I think he'd prefer you getting your own wound treated as you wait for him to get out of surgery. I promise I'll let you know when they transfer him to the recovery room."
Marinette nodded weakly, following the nurse to a nearby examination room. He sat her up on the exam table, and foraged in the corner of the room for a minute, searching through a drawer of various ointments and bandages. "Okay, your name is Marinette, right?"
"Yes…" Marinette breathed so weakly she was sure there was no way he could've heard her.
But he turned around to smile at her warmly, hands full of medical supplies. "My name is Matthias, and I'll be the nurse taking care of you tonight, alright? Is there someone you'd like me to call that could bring you clean and dry clothes? Or if you're feeling up to it, you can call yourself. This wound doesn't look too bad, odds are it won't take me long to patch up and then you can go to the waiting room for information on your friend. But I'd hate for you to wait in gooey clothes, and no one loves our nightgowns. They've fallen out of fashion somewhere around the dinosaurs era."
That managed to pull a faint, but definitely there, smile from Marinette as she nodded weakly. She held out her arm toward Matthias, allowing him to disinfect the wound with alcohol-dabbed pads.
"What happened to you?" he eventually said softly, applying some greasy goo onto the cut.
Her eyes instantly filled up with tears, but before he could retract his question, she whispered, "Some thug attacked us. I… I saw he had a weapon, and I tried to protect Adrien, but I only managed to get cut and distract him. He… He was stabbed anyway… I failed him…"
Matthias paused, roll of bandages in hand. "I don't think you failed him. You willingly got half of your arm butchered for him, and he's in surgery for you. That's devotion, right there."
There was a moment of silence, in which Marinette watched him bandage her forearm, lost in her thoughts. As Matthias cut the roll of bandage and secured the end of it under the other layers, she faintly whispered, "He's my everything."
The nurse lifted startled eyes toward her. "We'll do our best to give him back to you then. I'm going to see how things are looking for him, and bring back some antibiotics for you to fight the Seine's nasty bacterias that are currently having a party in your blood. Why don't you call your relatives while I'm gone?"
Marinette nodded again, reluctant to let him go. That kind nurse and his idle chat had kept her sane, had prevented her from thinking too much about Adrien's current state of health. Who knew where her exhausted mind could take her thoughts without the welcome distraction?
Unaware of his patient's thoughts, Matthias slipped out of the room, and Marinette found herself alone with the kwamis.
Tikki zoomed out of her purse and pushed her phone into her hand. "Text Alya, Marinette. You know she'll come and help you out. She'll probably bring Nino along so that Adrien won't be alone."
Mechanically, Marinette took the small device out and composed the most emotionless text that she had ever written in all her years of existence.
[Marinette] Adrien got stabbed and fell in the Seine. He's in surgery. Could you and Nino bring us clean clothes at the Hotel Dieu Hospital? There's a spare key glued under the door number of our apartment. Please bring something warm, we're both freezing. Thanks.
Without waiting for an answer, she turned off her phone.
She couldn't deal with any questions.
Not yet.
Matthias came back at that moment, a vial of pills in hand and a radiant smile on his face. "I got news for your beau. The surgery went smoothly, he's being transferred to the recovery room as we speak. You'll be able to see him very soon."
Marinette suddenly felt as if her heart had started beating again.
