Chapter 29 - Dark Romance
En licked his lips as he watched her. She was alone, the others busy elsewhere and he had been waiting long enough.
Fine, she didn't want him? He'd have her anyway.
Checking no one was around, he went towards her, his whole form shifting until it resembled that of a blonde boy, handsome enough to maintain a former modelling career. He didn't care if he was wearing the form of the enemy, he just needed to use it for a short while.
Marinette was sat on a bench, going between looking at her phone and jotting something in a note book. He stood before her. "Mari." He said, his voice a perfect imitation. "Can I talk to you?"
"Sure Adrien." She grinning as she put her book down and stood up. "What's up?"
He smiled and pulled her away from the bench and back into the wall, pressing her against it and leaning down towards her, his mind go glad he was finally going to win. She didn't object; why should she? To her eyes, he was her boyfriend, the love of her life. The one she wanted. As she was to him. Without pause or invitation, his lips touched her and the groan he gave was loud.
Oh she was good.
He didn't hesitate in grabbing her shoulders tight and pushing her further, pressing himself onto her, leg between hers, mouth open, tongue devouring her lips and mouth. He groaned louder, feeling her arms around him and begin to push him away but her struggle just made it even better.
He kept going, feeling her resistance slip with each push until she caved and just accepted him. He smiled, pulling away. "Got you." He whispered before returning to the kiss, moving his hands up and down her body, none to gentlemanly but he didn't care. He needed to touch her.
Suddenly he heard something break, glass from the sound but he ignored it. He couldn't, however, ignore the force of someone shoving him away from the woman he wanted so much, and pushed him back with enough force that he staggered. Growling he looked up to see Annamarie stood between himself and Marinette with a fierce look on her face, one arm out stretched to the side to protect her stunned friend behind her.
"Do… not touch her." She hissed loudly.
"Annamarie?" Marinette whispered. "What… what are you doing?"
"That's not Adrien." She snapped, stepping towards the imposter. "I just left Adrien in the library."
The other girl gasped as she looked at Adrien but he just smirked and turned his gaze to Annamarie, his eyes filled with anger towards her. "Clever girl." He said then waved his hand in the air, making himself vanish into smoke.
Once he was gone, Annamarie turned to her friend and grabbed her just as her legs gave out. "It's alright, it's alright. I'm here."
Marinette clung to her and took in a few deep breaths. "What… what just happens?"
"I don't know." The other said with a shake of her head. "I… I'm not sure but… I think… that might have been Shenfa. And I have no idea what he was doing to you Mari." She swallowed and looked at her closer. "But I don't think it was good."
"Hey, what happened?" The two teens turned to see their classmate En walking over to them, careful to avoid the broken glass on the floor. "Marinette, are you alright?"
The two teens looked at him then at each other, Marinette forced herself to smile and nodded. "It's alright. It's nothing. Don't worry about it."
The young man frowned then nodded. "Alright." He said with a smile. "Say, Annamarie, I wanted to ask you something… you're a dancer right? A ballerina?"
"Yeah, I'm part of the Paris Young Ballet Company."
"Forgive me if I'm wrong but… before you dance, it's said to be bad luck when you say 'good luck' right? So you say 'break a leg' yes?"
Confused by the conversation, Annamarie nodded. "Yeah, that's right."
"Well then, I hope you break a leg." He chuckled, twisted his hand so to attach the curse to her.
Although she frowned at him, Annamarie nodded slightly. "Thanks." She said, even if she didn't mean it. "Mari, we better get this glass cleaned up."
"Yeah." Marinette swallowed as she walked past the boy and headed past to try and find something to clean up the mess from Annamarie had made.
As her friend walked away, Annamarie frowned at the darker boy. "See you around En."
The darkness in human form smirked at her as she turned away. "I'm sure you will Annamarie."
Scanning the web page before her, Annamarie let out a deep sigh. It was 3 am, the apartment was completely silent and dark apart from the hum of the laptop and the light it omitted. The teen broke the silence with a yawn, shaking her head to try and stay awake.
"Annamarie?" A soft voice called from the far side of the room.
The light from her laptop was casting an eerie glow over her as she looked at the speaker. "Adrien? What are you doing up?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
She forced a smile. "Just doing some work, trying to narrow down Shenfa's movements and plans but so far… nothing."
The blonde frowned but it became sadder with each second before hurrying over to her, almost collapsing down onto the sofa with her, burying his head into her neck as he hugged her.
Shocked, the dancer just kept still until she began to hear choked sobs and his back went up and down in sync while she picked up his mumbling of 'I'm sorry' over and over between gasps. Realisation came to her as she sighed and began stroking the back of his head, playing with hair. "Oh Adrien…" She sighed. "And here was me thinking you had forgotten what today was."
"Mari has." He whispered as she held him. "But… I can't. Not today. Today… today's date will forever be seared into my memory."
Annamarie sighed loudly as she brushed his hair back. "Adrien… you have to let it go."
"It was my fault… it's my fault you… you… you were…" He stopped, sniffing loudly into her shoulder.
Her hand continued to brush his hair back, trying to calm him down. "Adrien, we were at war, it was the middle of a battle…"
"I should have protected you. It's my role to keep you safe." He squeezed her tighter. "And I failed."
Composing herself, Annamarie took a moment before sighing. "Adrien… it wasn't your fault. Look, I was akumatised; I became the thing we are meant to stop and I attacked you and Marinette… but none of that was your fault. It was Hawk Moth who changed me and it was Hawk Moth that did it to me."
"He could have… have killed you Pea." The other said, shifting so he was hugging her but in a more comfortable position, putting her laptop down beside it. "My father… could have… could have killed you."
She winced, remembering the beating she had taken but tried to keep herself calm, for Adrien's sake. "Adrien…" she started but then stopped, thinking over her words. "Adrien, none of us knew Gabriel was Hawk Moth. We had no way of knowing back then. And your father… while his methods were wrong… his motives, to bring peace and create a safe world for you and Sophia… they were pure. But at the end of the day, he was still your father."
"I wish he wasn't."
Quickly the teen clipped him around the back of the head. "Don't ever say things like that." She scolded him. "Your father loved you, he would have done anything for you Adrien."
"He was a monster." He mumbled, leaning back slightly off her and rubbed where she'd hit him.
"He was human and flawed. None of us are perfect Adrien; not you, me or Marinette are perfect. Not even the kwami."
His eyes lowered a little and he was clearly struggling to keep his emotions in check but his friend reached out and held his cheek, lifting his head but his eyes remained lowered. "Adrien, look at me." When he slowly lifted his gaze, she stared at him and smiled. "Adrien, I'm alive. I'm shaken and changed forever but I am alive." She held his cheek a little tighter. "You saved me. You saved me Adrien. You, Marinette and Sophia saved me. Never forget that." Her thumb moved to wipe away some of his tears. "You. Did. Not. Fail."
He let out a small sniff. "Peacock…"
"Instead of worrying about what could have happened to me, think about all the good that did; I met Niji and Dawa, which helped me go through the change. And we wouldn't have gained the strength to fight back and defeat him." She rolled her eyes. "So, no, you didn't fail to protect me because I am still alive. Never forget that."
If her little pep talk helped she wasn't sure but there was a smile on his lips now. "Thanks Pea. I guess… I guess I needed to hear that."
"Anything else you wanted to talk about?"
The blonde shook his head, then looked tenderly at her. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"I made my peace in Tibet." She sighed, moving the laptop away completely. "I just can't sleep."
"Well… why don't we stay up together?" He gave her a cheeky grin. "I'm sure we can do something together, alone in the dark."
Annamarie rolled her eyes and looked away. "You're awful." She sighed.
The next morning, Sophia, Frou and Plagg came down into the lounge, planning on getting some breakfast before returning to the task of narrowing down Shenfa's location, pausing when they heard a soft snore coming from the sofa.
Creeping closer, they peeked over before covering her mouth to stop the laughter. Lying back to back on the sofa, fast asleep while every now and then they would twitch and kick each other, leading to a returned action. The trio looked at each other, grinning before backing off, leaving them to sleep.
A/N: So I've been having a really, really tough time recently. So bad that I almost... well, lets not go into what I almost did. But needless to say, if it had happened, you wouldn't be reading this.
Gonna try and update quicker. Only 6 chapters left! Hope you liked this one!
