Author's Note

I was approached by the amazing ktreereads some time ago to take a story they had written and tackle it from Chat's perspective, creating two sides of the same narrative. I was flattered at the ask, and even more amazed once I read the source material – Stronger Together – and have to admit to a bit of trepidation at creating anything that might take away from such a strong, beautiful, Marichat experience.

What follows is my attempt to do justice to the ask – hopefully this is what you were looking for, kt!

Please be warned: this story deals with individuals suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. In an effort to make the story realistic, our characters will be dealing in realistic terms with the aftereffects that triggers can have on their lives. The intent is to respectfully portray individuals struggling to put their lives back into order, but that often includes extremely low moments and very rough patches on the way toward recovery. If you suffer from PTSD, please know that people care for you much in the way Chat cares for Marinette – and also know there are professionals out there who can help you get through this. Not all superheroes wear masks and cat ears, but they are superheroes all the same.

And as always, I have no ownership of these amazingly intriguing characters, nor any other part of Miraculous.

I've never forgiven myself for not being there when the accident happened.

While there was no way I could have anticipated something so random happening to someone I cared for, it was such a mundane reason why I'd not been out and about as Chat that particular afternoon. No, instead of roaming to the rooftops of Paris, I'd been stuck in a budget meeting – a damn budget meeting! – for the summer advertising buy, a Sisyphean exercise at best as Father had been overruling most of my suggestions anyway. While I'd been modestly successful at exerting influence over some parts of our fashion empire, certain decisions remained firmly in his hands, even if we could never see them from his webcam.

My phone had started buzzing halfway through the meeting, and I'd silenced the first seven calls; on the eighth, I was concerned enough to finally duck out of the boardroom to take the call from Nino in a semi-private portion of the corridor – at least, as private as a glass-walled office could be. I was completely unprepared for the sight of his emotionally flushed face, and the news he quickly relayed sent me staggering to the glass wall as though someone had physically hammered me in the chest with both fists. He'd barely given me the particular hospital she was in before I disconnected and ran full-tilt for the stairwell to the roof.

Marinette's been in an accident, dude. She's hurt bad, Nino had said.

Smashing through the door to the roof, I called for my transformation and had barely become Chat Noir before hurling myself into the sky.

The firefighters had to cut her out of the car! Her father was with her, he's fine, thank God…

I had to blink my masked eyes to keep my feline vision clear, for Marinette had become more than just a friend to me. As Chat, I'd spent countless hours hanging out with her at her family's bakery; after we both graduated from University, I'd started to alight upon the balcony of her apartment, which I'd dryly noted was purrfect for nocturnal caterwauling. She'd rather drolly informed me the wrought iron railing, while evocative of her rooftop patio, hadn't been a factor in selecting the space, though her continued acceptance of my increasingly frequent visits belied the truth of the matter.

I don't have the specifics, but Sabine told Alya her arm was fractured in multiple places.

It had taken a significant amount of time to make peace with Ladybug's rejection of me; Marinette's steady friendship had been a rock, one I'd been able to use as a way of re-centering my universe. Slowly, Marinette had wound her way around my hurting feline heart – and I was pretty sure I'd begun curling myself around hers. Despite all of the signs, though, my experience with Ladybug had created some hesitation on my part to push forward to the next step; what we had was special in its own right, and I'd spent countless sleepless nights worried that if I told Marinette how I felt about her, it would end as badly as it had with Ladybug.

Now I was wondering if I'd waited too long.

We're going over now. But traffic is still snarled from the accident.

I landed on the rooftop of L'Hôpital Américain de Paris, silently thanking the kwamis that the paramedics had chosen to take her there. It was one of the top orthopedic centers in Paris, and if Marinette were hurt as badly as Nino had indicated, it was the absolute best place for her to get care. Scurrying across the pebbled rooftop, I located an emergency stairwell and yanked the door off its hinges; as it clattered away from me on the rooftop, I hurled myself down one flight after the other, headed to the ICU on the fourth floor where Nino had said she was. Finding the door to the requisite floor, I only hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat before I burst through and badly startled the duty nurse behind a massive horseshoe-shaped desk. If there had been paper charts, I'm sure they would have been everywhere.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," I demanded, my paws gripping the countertop hard enough there were tiny dents in the faux wood from my claws.

Impressively, the nurse held her ground. "Only family may visit patients in the ICU," she said. "Are you family?"

My tail swished angrily. "Which… room?" I growled as my masked eyes narrowed.

She blinked. "435E. Keep your voice down while you're in there."

I nodded a fraction of a second before galloping down the hallway on all fours, leaning on my feline reflexes to avoid colliding with anything in the crowded hallways and paying little heed to the staring medical personnel. Ladybug would likely have a few words with me for such actions, but at that moment, I didn't care. Masked green eyes caught and rapidly discarded door placards as they whizzed by before I came to an abrupt stop at number four-thirty-five-E. Standing slowly, I slid the glass barrier open and entered the darkened room.

My feline senses were overwhelmed by the space: it was small and cramped, making me immediately uncomfortable. The air was filled with the noise of the medical equipment and the astringent smell of the hospital cleaning materials inappropriately mixed with the exotic spices that were Marinette. The curtains had been pulled against the late day sun, but with my night vision, it didn't matter, for I could clearly see my friend huddled against the mattress of the hospital bed.

Her arm was at an awkward angle, one that brought an uncomfortable queasiness to my stomach. It was still shrouded in the field splint added by the paramedics and was carefully laying upon a stack of pillows. The bed was tilted slightly, and Marinette's beautiful hair was all muddled around her. The IV in her other arm snaked off the side of the bed, along with the pulse/oxygen gizmo that illuminated her index finger in a red halo.

But it was her pale face, slack in repose, that caught in my throat and had me immediately by her side. As much as I wanted to curl around her form on the bed, I opted instead to cradle her head against my chest and gently brush back her hair. My feline sense of smell could pick up the faint odor of the painkiller/sleeping aid she'd been given, but I already deduced from her slow heartbeat that she was out and would be for a while.

"Oh, Mari," I said quietly as I carefully untangled her hair with my claws. "I'm here now," I whispered.

The door slid open and masked eyes snapped to the intruder; I was surprised at the warning growl that escaped me. A doctor in scrubs appeared and slid the door closed behind him. "The head nurse told me you were in here," he said without preamble. "Her father hasn't left her side since their arrival – he came in with the ambulance. We just managed to convince him to get a cup of coffee a few minutes ago." He paused, looking me up and down. "How do you know the patient?"

"She's a friend," I replied honestly. "I only just found out she was hurt."

"You're not family?"

"No." I paused, knowing I was wearing a concerned expression on my masked visage. "I understand if you feel uncomfortable telling me anything."

The doctor smiled, his white teeth offsetting the olive complexion of his skin and dark hair. "Where I come from, my forebears worshipped a deity that resembles you closely," he said softly.

"I'm not a god, Doctor," I replied. "Right now, I'm just a scared man in a catsuit."

"I'm Dr. Rameesh," he said, putting a hand to the bicep closest to him, "head of the orthopedic section here. Your friend's arm was severely injured in the accident, with a compound fracture in her ulna and several smaller fractures in her radius."

I'd been a top student in Biology and immediately understood why the head of the department was overseeing the case. My masked eyes widened in concern. "Can you-"

"Yes, Chat," he nodded. "But it will require serious surgery, which we've scheduled for OR-1 first thing tomorrow morning. With time, and physical therapy, she should recover most of the use of her arm."

"Most?" I narrowed my masked eyes, for I was well aware Marinette was in the coveted House of Gabriel internship program, open to a select few applicants straight from University. I'd tried to keep some distance, owing to my own status as son-of-the-founder, but had surreptitiously ensured more than a few of her ideas had made it to Father's desk. Feline eyes flicked to the splint again, knowing it was embracing her dominant arm. "How long will it take to recover?"

"We'll know more after surgery."

"I'd like to stay with her if I can."

"We don't normally allow pets in here," Dr. Rameesh said with a smile.

I glared at him.

"It's irregular," he continued, still smiling, "but I don't see any harm to her having some company. I'll let the nurse know we'll be hosting a special visitor." He looked over to Marinette. "Three seconds," he said softly.

"Three seconds?"

"That's apparently how long it took for their car to wind up in the ditch." He looked to me. "How long for her life to change."

I turned my masked eyes toward my friend, looking at her anew and wondering how this was going to affect her; I'd seen so much as Chat over the years that I knew exactly what the doctor was saying. Tragic events had a way of seeping into the soul of the wounded, and very few survived unscathed. Reaching down to her hair again, I made a silent promise that I would be there with her, every step of the way.

I didn't know how I'd be able to do it, but I'd find a way.