~.*~*~*.~
Him
~.*~*~*.~
A stifled scream ripped from Ladybug's throat.
Oh. Oh no.
Before Adrien could react the heels of her palms slammed into his side (like she was flinging away an enormous spider or something equally terrifying), throwing him from her lap.
He hit the floor hard. It felt like a bolt of lightning was striking his chest, stabbing it over and over. After he finally managed to find his breath again, he realized he'd been rolling on the floor, cheek digging into pavement as he squirmed in pain. He could hear his own voice muttering, disconnected.
"Ow, ow ow ow ow."
"Y-you, you, you're..." Ladybug sputtered on her feet, back against the opposite wall.
"Ma-urp!" Plagg flew to her with pure drama, bent in half. "Look what this kitten has done to me. I tell him not to be reckless, but he never listens and then we both suffer!"
Ladybug's eyes shot impossibly wider while Plagg nestled into her pigtails.
Adrien felt sick. Pain hissed through his teeth when he lifted onto his elbow. He touched his very bare, unmasked cheek bones and the world went sideways.
She knew. She knew.
She knew. And only one of the millions of thoughts that sprung into his mind managed to sneak out of his lips.
"Guess the cat's—"
Her head shook. "No."
"—out of the bag?"
She let out a sharp squeak. "Y-you pun a said, pid a dun, a pun you did." Her hand clapped over her mouth and she turned her back to him. "Do not Yoda!"
Adrien could only manage a weak whisper. "I can't decide if I should say cat got your tongue or not."
She whipped back around and seemed to go into shock all over again. "Chat Noir?"
He immediately sobered. "I'm so sorry, Ladybug."
Tears sprung into her eyes and her hands went over her mouth for a long moment before they slid down again.
"Adrien?"
She said his name like she knew him, more than all their chance meetings, like she was happy and sad and terrified all at once. Her head shook with feverish denial.
"I thought, I…" Adrien rolled onto his back, rubbing his face. "I thought the mask Marinette made me was still—I got it all wet and I left it—she worked so hard on it—I'm so stupid."
"No." She slammed her palms into her eyes. "No, no, no, no no. You're, no, there's no way, you couldn't—I've seen you both, I…"
Then something seemed to click. Her hands fell away from her face and she zoned onto his bare knuckles and the silver ring on his finger.
Her mask suddenly shot up with her brows. "You, you were..." Then her mask sunk low with the slow realization of probably a thousand things. "Chat Noir!"
Adrien winced, his own mind playing over all the scenarios she could be thinking of. "Yes?"
"Adrien!"
He forced himself to sit up even though every muscle protested, cheeks puffing out with pain. Suddenly Ladybug's trembling fingers were on his back, helping him. A blush blossomed under his skin. Without the suit, he felt naked.
"I know you didn't"—he gasped, clutching his ribs—"you didn't want to know. I'm really sorry."
"I just can't—you're—that means, that means—" Her hand slipped from him once he was upright and she bolted back to her feet. "I need to head my wrap—wrap my round— wrap around you—this! around this!"
Adrien bit his lip as pain and embarrassment mingled in the form of hot nausea.
Ladybug started to pace, hands flailing. "But I—you were both there when—no, you had to be—Chat was late, but—Adrien's bodyguard was a gorilla—you were together!"
"I…"
For a second Adrien thought he shouldn't admit it, that maybe he could undo everything, but she was staring at him and he couldn't hide his face.
"That was Wayhem," he admitted, breathless. "He dresses… exactly like me."
"Everyone dresses like you," she shrieked. "You're a model! You—you actually are a walking advertisement! And you're Chat Noir! How do you—when do you—your schedule is —where do you time the find?"
"I get left in my room a lot…" Adrien muttered.
Ladybug's hands flew to her cheeks and she continued her back and forth march. "That means when he—that you—when we—I almost—wait, we did—" She froze as her face went bright red and she let out a weird deflated squeal.
Her cheeks squished between her hands until her mouth puckered like a fish. Then, with a flash of panic, she squatted to Adrien's level and flipped the hood of the Marinette™ sweatshirt over his head. She yanked it down and pulled it back up again until his hair was a mess and sticking with static in every direction.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—"
"Ladybug?"
"You're Chat Noir!" She jumped backwards like she had found out all over again. "But you, you were Aspik! Chat was with us—wait no, he wasn't, you were—the locker, you—I said who I—and—did you?"
She looked shocked and mad (and maybe even delighted?) all at once and seemed to come to some semblance of herself when she scolded, "Chat!"
"It's not like I could tell you…" Adrien muttered.
"You didn't need to tell her anything," piped in Plagg. "You should have just not been found and let her choose Luka from the beginning." He patted Ladybug's head. "He was quite the brat about that."
Adrien deflated, sure the wound to his ribs had let all the air out of his lungs. "I know, I…I thought maybe, you would… I was hoping—"
"You're Adri-A—the, the—" Ladybug gestured up and down his body, eyes wide again. "Boy!"
"Last I checked." He forced his best Chat-like grin, trying to de-escalate whatever thing she was going to scold him for next.
"No, the boy."
The grin immediately fell. "Uh..."
"The boy."
"I…don't..." Whatever words Adrien had seemed to drain right out of him. He tried to find a more comfortable position now that she wasn't helping him sit up. His back hit the door of a locker and he let his head rest against it. He felt exhausted and overwhelmed and sad.
"I'm tired," he mumbled.
"You're hurt." Ladybug fell to her knees and shuffled close. She touched his forehead with her gloved fingers. They trembled across it until her palm cupped his temple.
He leaned into her touch without thinking.
"I'm the worst," he groaned and then sunk further into sadness, remembering what Plagg had told him when he suspected… His eyes were in danger of watering.
"I…" he swallowed, hard. "Do I have to stop being Chat Noir now?"
"I don't, oh no." Ladybug tugged her hand from his face, leaving his skin cold. "No, you, you're the best." Her hands flailed oddly between them. "I mean the worst—no, hot—agh—not the worst!"
"Except when he is," goaded Plagg.
Adrien let his face fall into his palms.
"Y-you're fine. Gah! You'll be fine! Let me, I just, the akuma..." Ladybug's voice fizzled out pathetically. "I have to get it."
"I know, I'm sorry I…" When he had peeked out of his fingers, he saw that she had stood, feet already pacing again. "Go, do what you do best, m'... "
Adrien stopped himself. He hadn't called her that for a long time and now probably wasn't the best time to bring it back.
"Ladybug," he said instead.
She met his eyes then, the blue behind her mask softening. "I'll fix this."
"I know." He gave her a smile, could tell she needed it. "You always do."
"Don't—don't say things." She groaned again, running her hand over her cheeks, dragging down her eyelids. "Like that." She peered at him through her fingers. "With that face."
Was she turning red? Adrien felt his own face go hot.
"Adorkable, isn't it?" said Plagg, peeking down from the top of her head. Ladybug actually glared up at him, like she was seething with some knowledge only the two of them shared. "I'm famished, do you happen to have any more camembert in there?"
Her blue eyes flickered back to Adrien as she opened her yo-yo and pulled cheese out of the magical abyss inside. Without taking her eyes off him, she reached over her head to hand it to Plagg and he dropped crumbles into her hair when he took a ravenous bite.
Adrien didn't know what else to say. Everything felt surreal and hazy.
"Didn't you say something about an akuma?" Plagg said through a mouthful.
"Right." Ladybug shook her head, pigtails bouncing his kwami loose. He fluttered down to Adrien's lap.
"Be okay," she told him, like it was a command. "Stay."
"Not a dog!" chirped Plagg.
"Plagg!" snapped Ladybug. The glare was back and she shook a finger at him as her cheeks puffed up with unspoken words. "Plagg."
"Ma-URP!" Plagg grinned. Ladybug glared harder, making him coo, "Bugaboo."
"Don't let anyone see him," she told Plagg. She gave Adrien one last look and began to back out of the locker room. Her shoulder blade slammed into the door and she let out a strange sounding chirp before turning the knob and stumbling back out into the walkway. The door shut between them.
She probably thought she was out of earshot when she let loose a loud squeak that rolled into hysterical laughter.
Adrien clutched at his side again, nausea climbing back up his throat. "Is... is she laughing at me?"
Plagg gave his knee a pat. "Oh, kid. You really are hopeless."
~.*~*~*.~
Her
~.*~*~*.~
It had begun to rain.
The dark clouds overhead let loose a dreary drizzle, filling the vanishing city with the sound of pitter-patters against wide reaching leaves.
Adrien.
Adrien. Adrien.
Adrien.
Ladybug nearly burst into laughter again as she swung into one of the few alleys left.
It was Adrien who had rubbed the chill from her arms. It was Adrien's heart beating under her ear. She'd been cuddling in the woods with Adrien. Holding hands with Adrien. Drinking with Adrien. Throwing up in front of Adrien! Almost kissing… She let out a hiccup and pressed her back against the wall.
She had fallen in love with Adrien twice.
...the girl I'm in love with…
It had broken her so completely and he had been talking about her all this time.
Ladybug gave herself a moment, just one minute to break down.
The two boys started to meld perfectly in her mind: the melancholy in Chat Noir's voice at the mention of his family, his Agreste ensemble (he asked for a freaking private jet!), Adrien's wink, his playful confidence, the way he threw himself in front of danger to protect her.
He was allergic to feathers!
Chat Noir wasn't irresponsible, he was a gorgeous gold statue! He was trying on her jewelry!
Adrien was in love with her. And she couldn't, she couldn't...
It was Chat Noir who gave her his umbrella and danced with her close, Adrien who handed her a red rose on the rooftop, who took blow after blow, who destroyed the world because he knew her name.
The lines began to blur so severely she couldn't unsee them. All of the parts of him as one. Of course he was her sweet kitty, of course he was the boy she loved… how could he not be?
A branch cracked from somewhere in the street.
Ladybug wiped rain and tears from her face and clutched her yo-yo, ready to let it swing loose.
She was alone. The akuma had to know that by now.
Ladybug thought back to the miracle box, still tucked safely in a drawer in her room in the middle of the wilderness. Even if it had been in Paris, who would she give a miraculous to now? Everyone she could think of had been found out. And now Chat Noir…
She was the guardian and she was already failing. How was she supposed to do this on her own?
Vines shot down from a broken window, wrapping around Ladybug's wrist before she could unleash her yo-yo. It squeezed, wrapping around her arm so tightly that it forced her to let go.
The yo-yo bounced against the pavement.
With a gasp, Ladybug pulled and used the force of the vine to lift her torso up and wrap her legs around the writhing plant, twisting it between her ankles until she was reaching forward and upside down. Her fingertips grazed her weapon and with another heave of her torso, she managed to snag it.
She flung it out and it wrapped around a tree limb on the other side of the street. Her body went with it, ripping the vine in two. She flung her other hand, feeling her wrist throb and ache from the force of breaking it out of the vine's grasp.
Her eyes darted, searching for Treehugger in the foliage, in the buildings, anywhere.
"Too scared to let your akuma fight in the open?" she screamed into the street where grass grew from cracks.
She perched on the tree limb. "Come on Hawkmoth. I know you want this over as much as I do," she taunted, voice going a bit shrill. "Or are you worried Treehugger's bark is worse than her bite?!"
Ladybug let out a sharp laugh which she cut short with a shaky breath. She could not lose it right now. Focus.
More snapping branches dragged her attention behind her and a shadow darted among a mass of shrubbery that had sprouted from the ends of a fire hydrant.
"I…my..." It was a small voice, a quiet hiss that seemed to stutter.
Then Ladybug saw her, the akuma.
Green arms slid with living ivy, lifting a bullhorn of wood and flowers to a mouth made of mushrooms and a tongue of leaves.
Through the bullhorn her voice came like wood crackling over a fire or leaves crunching underfoot.
"My name is Evergreen."
Vines shot from her bare toes, which seemed to be made of moss. They sunk into the earth wherever she stepped, turning the pavement into dirt and grass.
Ladybug dodged the vines with a backflip off the limb of the tree. Her yo-yo caught on a streetlight that flickered on and off, casting shadows under the foliage and lighting up the drops of rain.
They shimmered like fireflies falling to the earth.
"I think I'll keep calling you Treehugger, if you don't mind," Ladybug huffed, lowering from the light. "Sounds cuddlier."
Evergreen lowered the bullhorn and her wrists grew saplings. With a pout of her mushroom lips, she blew them toward Ladybug. They caught on the frigid breeze and Ladybug could barely see them through the rain.
One hit the building beside her and it flashed out of existence. Forest sprung up in its place.
"You're not trying to send me back to the mountains, are you?" asked Ladybug. "Don't you want to grab my miraculous first?"
Evergreen didn't answer. Her eyes were like stones set into a mossy face.
Why did she seem so much more intimidating now that Chat Noir wasn't by her side?
End it. Quick, Ladybug told herself, remembering the way Chat's breath shuddered on her shoulder, how Adrien writhed on the ground in pain.
The bullhorn had to be the object. It was too obvious. Some disgruntled environmentalist that hadn't been heard. Perfect prey.
Ladybug gave her surroundings a quick glance, searching for a way to snatch the object and destroy it. Nothing stood out but a vine-covered Agreste billboard, with only the green of Adrien's eyes peeking through.
When she turned back around the akuma had disappeared.
"This is getting ridiculous," she groaned. She swung herself to the last spot the akuma had been standing, searched and found nothing.
"Lucky Charm!" she called, spinning her yo-yo into the sky.
The charm dropped from the air, sparking with magic and spotted with red and black. Ladybug caught it in the palm of her hand.
For a long moment she didn't believe it. She wiped rain from her eyes, not sure she was seeing clearly. But the charm remained and all the breath stuttered out of her. Her head snapped up in panic.
A loud crashing sound shook the ground under her feet.
"No," Ladybug gasped. "No, no no no no."
She clenched her hand around a string of beads that, even with their polka-dot camouflage, were all too familiar.
~..*~*~*.~
Him
~.*~*~*.~
"Adrien, don't be stupid, you're hurt!"
Adrien ignored Plagg's cries as he staggered along the wall of the sewers, using his elbow to support himself. The skin on his arm was raw, scraping the rough pavement with each step as he dragged himself along. The hoodie was long gone, discreetly tucked into a locker so it wouldn't give him away.
"Ladybug could be in trouble," he muttered. "If you won't transform me, I at least need to make sure she's okay."
"You're going to be a distraction," Plagg argued, fur ruffling on his back. "Didn't you see how dumb she was acting?"
Adrien pitched forward, feeling a sudden wave of pain. It dragged him down, some sort of heaviness that made him drop to his knees.
"Fine." He sucked in a sharp breath. "You win."
"I win because I'm right," Plagg said, floating between his eyes. "What has gotten into you?"
A laugh turned into something that sounded like a cross between a cough and a cry.
"It, it might be the last time," Adrien gasped, sliding his back into the wall, feeling pitiful. "I don't want it to be the last time, Plagg."
"You were right about one thing," said the kwami, landing on Adrien's knee. "She's the guardian now. Things are different."
"You," Adrien let his forehead fall in his palms. "You know her…"
"You know the rules."
Adrien let out a low snort that turned into a cough. Pain blackened his vision for a minute and he let his head roll back on his shoulders until the back of it hit the wall behind him.
"Things are different," he muttered.
"Adrien, this is messy business and you know it. Hawkmoth—"
"What if he"—Adrien winced and found it hard to suck in a breath—"finds out first?"
"And how will you knowing who the guardian is help anything?"
Laughter bubbled in his chest until it turned into a cough. "I don't, but—I thought—ha!" His eyes squinted shut and he let out a long low breath. "She" —he wheezed— "that's the third time since…"
He felt his mouth curl into a grin. He could count the times Ladybug stuttered on one hand…and all of them were around him, out of costume.
You always know just what to say.
Oh, Chat, if only you knew me…
"She sounded like Marinette." He chuckled, shaking his head. "If Marinette is still missing, maybe..."
"No, not that again," Plagg said much too quickly. "Remember Multimouse? Not possible."
Adrien laughed again. "She called herself clumsy, I haven't heard her say that since day one. Ladybug is not clumsy, but Marinette..."
You know, the real me.
The real her…His hand scraped into his hair and when he opened his eyes the world seemed unsteady, hazy and too dark.
"They wear the same shoes," he mumbled. "They have the same history book…Tikki was at my school...all the miraculous holders are our friends...they have the same eyes."
He found himself smiling much too wide for the pain he felt. He was light and heavy all at once. His heart pounded in his ears.
"That's why—she's—she wore all those miraculous. She's s' smart, Plagg," he said, lips stuck together like glue. "She's amazing. I was right. It's been her all this time."
"Adrien, don't."
"Say Marinette is Ladybug," Adrien said, throwing his hand up dramatically. It quickly flopped forward between his knees and he gave an odd sharp laugh coated with bubbles.
"Something's wrong," said Plagg.
"Yeah there is," he slurred worse than after the wine and snorted when Plagg floated in doubles above his nose. "You can't say Marinette is Ladybug."
"Because she's not."
"No, 'cause you can't," Adrien felt absolutely giddy and he couldn't unsee it, the pigtails peeking under the hood Ladybug had made. The flustered mix of words after he'd booped Marinette's nose. "Cause Ladybug is Marinette."
"What do you know? You thought Ladybug was Chloe!"
"See? You can say that...because she's not Ladybug," Adrien said, attempting to point a finger at the two Plaggs and not able to decide which one to pick, he let it fall back on his forehead as he laughed bubbles again. "Say Ladybug is Marinette. Say her name."
"Marinette," snapped Plagg. "See?"
"Altogether now," sang Adrien.
"This is ridiculous. You're not well, Adrien. Your mind is playing tricks on you."
"Just say Ladybug is Marinette," he said with a giggle. "It's so easy…"
He remembered the flush in Ladybug's cheeks whenever he mentioned his classmate, the way she tried to distract him to think of something else, how easily she snooped through her room. Her room.
The way Marinette took charge in the face of danger, how she tried so hard to take care of everyone else, she was her everyday...
"Because Marinette is Ladybug."
Tears burst into his eyes and the bubbling burst into coughs, wracking his chest and leaving his head full. He tasted metal and wiped spit on the back of his hand.
It came back red.
"Oh," he chuckled. "That… that's bad."
He grunted and rolled up his shirt to look at the place that throbbed with lightning strikes.
"Adrien!" cried Plagg.
A black bruise had bloomed under his skin, reaching under his ribs and down into his abdomen, like blood dripping on the inside.
Adrien let his shirt roll back down. The back of his head hit the bricks again and his eyes drifted closed.
"It'll be okay, she'll fix it," he mumbled, sloppily reaching into the air to pat Plagg's head. He couldn't find him and his hand fell lazily to the floor.
"Just if…tell her I…tell her I love her…okay?"
His head rolled to the side, jolting him back awake enough to see the ceiling of the sewers crumble under the force of expanding tree roots. Water splashed up at him as chunks of cement hit the drain.
Rain poured in through the cracks, muffling sound.
Adrien felt Plagg phase into his shirt pocket.
He could barely keep his eyes open. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again he saw the akuma.
Vines reached up from the water to meet her moss covered feet. She seemed to be looking for escape, her gaze moving along the collapsed tunnel. He was right there, in the open, and he couldn't move.
When she saw him, she froze and her stone eyes went still with the haze of purple.
No matter how Adrien tried, he could not lift his head from the wall.
The purple haze of Hawkmoth's presence left and the akuma stepped toward him, tiny trees growing in her green palms.
He let out a giddy snort. Fog filled the corners of his vision, seeping in.
"Son...of a...beech."