Adrien woke up in a pool of blood. He blinked groggily, his head pounding as he stared into the sun that was baking him from above. Raising an arm to block out the painfully bright rays to give himself a break, he found his sleeve sticky and red.

Blood. Adrien fought for his mind to catch up to the sensations barraging him from all directions as he stared at his sleeve. Now that he recognized the blood on his sleeve, the rest of his body felt vaguely warm and damp. There was more blood… so shouldn't he be in more pain?

He couldn't remember a single thing about how he'd gotten… wherever he was. Was there an akuma attack, and he'd detransformed right after? That was the only possibly explanation. As Chat Noir, he'd lost consciousness during a fight or two, but he always remembered what happened—or at the very least, he always came to still in the suit. This time, he must've gotten hit a little harder than usual.

Adrien sat up slowly, trying to figure out exactly where he was. The sun glared at him from above, but the brick walls on either side of him revealed that he was in one of Paris's alleyways. It was tucked away, but still… had he been so out of it that he'd detransformed somewhere anyone could have just walked in and seen him?

Adrien rubbed his forehead with a groan. There was only one other thing that would know exactly what had happened to lead up to this sort of situation. "Plagg? You there?"

The tiny god of destruction zipped out of Adrien's pocket. For once, the kwami didn't start off with a sarcastic comment or a call for camembert. He was oddly quiet, his overzealous nature subdued, as he turned his green eyes onto his owner, his head tilting to the side in confusion. "Kid, where are we?"

"You don't know?" Adrien asked in surprise. He figured the kwami would at least know what was going on.

"When you get knocked out in the suit, I do too," Plagg muttered, crossing his little arms as his ears drooped down in annoyance. "But usually once the claws come off, I come back to. Not sure what happened this time."

Adrien scowled at the kwami. It wasn't worth getting frustrated with Plagg, but his headache and the uncomfortable feeling of spending a lot of time laying down in an alley made him antsy. "That's a big help."

"You want help?" Plagg snarled back, flying over to Adrien to settle in his hair. As annoyed as he got with Adrien, he still seemed to seek comfort in his owner when weird things happened. "Maybe deal with your cell. That piece of junk has been buzzing since I woke up."

Adrien hadn't even noticed, but Plagg was right. His phone was vibrating in his pocket, paused for a moment, then went crazy again. Like someone was calling him over and over again. Maybe his father was looking for him… eh, probably not. Maybe Nathalie noticed he missed a photoshoot or appointment and was calling to know why he was late. That was the more likely option.

Without checking the Caller ID, Adrien answered the phone with a sigh. Might as well get the lecture over with. "Sorry Na—"

"Adrien!" Adrien felt himself wake up more from Alya's shriek. "Why the hell haven't you answered your phone? We thought something might have happened to you too, dumbass. Don't scare us like that ever again."

Adrien wiped a damp hand over his face, fighting past the pounding in his skull to focus on Alya's voice. "What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? The Miraculous Cure, Adrien. It didn't work." Alya's words made Adrien's heart stop.

It always worked. Even if Chat was knocked out, down for the count, Ladybug found a way to get the job done. She purified the akuma, she set everything back to the way it was. That was just how it worked.

Something went horribly wrong… he just couldn't remember what.

And his lady must be so terrified, alone in the knowledge that her cure failed her for the first time in their few years of superhero work. She took everything so seriously and close to her heart that something like this, an akuma's attack that didn't get fully resolved, would break her down. He needed to be with her, support her, make her feel better.

"Alya, I don't understand—"

"It's Marinette."

His grogginess disappeared. Any sense of haziness was gone, replaced by a cold jolt of fear. No Miraculous Cure… and something about Marinette. It could only be bad news. All he had to know was just how bad.

In that moment, Adrien saw a flash of her face, smiling broadly at him with a soft pink blush dusting her freckled cheeks, blue eyes wide and sparkling. Marinette.

"Is she okay?" Adrien pressed his phone closer to his ear, his other hand clenching into a fist. The feeling of his fingernails digging into his skin helped him focus on Alya's words.

The words that would change everything.

"She's in the hospital," Alya choked back a sob, her breathing labored over the phone, "and she hasn't woken up."

Adrien listened, dumbstruck, as Alya cried openly into the phone.

Without the Miraculous Cure, any damage done to Paris, from the civilians to the buildings, would remain after the akuma got purified in Ladybug's yo-yo. That was evident from the blood he laid in, even though he didn't feel any major pain other than his headache and some aches in his muscles.

So, anyone caught in the crossfire of the akuma… would stay hurt. He knew Marinette could be brash, confident, or impulsive when she wanted to be, and her heart of gold sent her running into danger if it meant saving someone else. He'd saved her once or twice as Chat when he caught her running face first into danger to save someone else.

This time, nobody had been there to save her. Nobody to keep her safe. That was his job, and he'd failed.

He wiped his dirty sleeve against his face, breathing turning heavy as his chest heaved. "Where."

He wouldn't allow himself to cry yet. Crying wouldn't help Marinette. Crying wouldn't help anybody. He needed to be there, to see it for himself.

He needed to see just how badly he had failed Paris.

"Where, Alya. Which hospital."

Alya sniffled, rattling off the address between hiccupping sobs. Adrien didn't have the energy to say goodbye, to know anything else. He just had to see her. He stood on wobbly legs as Plagg flew to hover in front of his face.

"Can we transform?" Adrien asked. Considering he didn't remember their last transformation, or how he detransformed, it was possible he'd used his cataclysm and was stuck as just a civilian.

Plagg flexed his tiny paws, frowning at Adrien. "Sorry, kid, but I need to recharge. Unless you've got some cheese on you, it won't work."

Adrien checked his pockets, but all he had was his wallet and Marinette's lucky charm, that sent a jolt through his body from just looking at it. His emergency cheese he always kept in his button-up pocket was nowhere to be found. Had he transformed twice during the latest akuma battle? It wasn't often he had to recharge in the middle of a fight, but it happened a few times with really difficult akumas.

Adrien nodded firmly, more to strengthen his own resolve than to confirm anything else. Just because he couldn't vault over roofs didn't mean he couldn't reach the hospital where one of his best friends was laying, unconscious.

Without another word, he sprinted out of the alleyway so he could figure out exactly where he was and how to get exactly where he needed to be.

LBCNLBCN

If Adrien was in a better state of mind, he would have taken stock of his surroundings. He would shift into Chat Noir-mode in order to assess the damage done to his city, its civilians, and what to do next.

But Adrien was focused on one thing, and one thing alone—Marinette in a hospital bed. Funny, lovely, bubbly Marinette, who hasn't woken up.

The whole city could have been on fire, and he wouldn't have noticed with his current tunnel-vision. Every single footstep, every cursed breath that escaped his lungs, pushed him forward toward his own goal. The only thing that mattered.

A ten-minute sprint led him to the hospital doors, bursting through into an unfamiliar waiting room. He doubled over, dry heaving from the intense effort he'd expended to rush over, but when he raised his head, he found more than a few civilians scattered about. It seemed that Marinette wasn't the only one caught in the crossfire of the latest akuma.

In a corner, huddled together, Adrien spotted Alya and Nino sharing small chair beside the Dupain-Chengs. They weren't speaking to each other, eyes downcast. They looked… incomplete. Like they were missing someone.

Nino saw him first. Arm still settled around Alya's waist, the two stood up and crossed the room to Adrien, who was still catching his breath. Alya was crying openly, though her face looked blank. Likely from shock—he'd seen that expression on more than a few akuma victims right after Ladybug purified them. Nino was more expressive, but still distraught.

"You look like shit," Nino said.

Adrien hadn't even taken a moment to look himself over since waking up in the alley. Sleeping in an alley on a normal day would make someone look dirty, but after whatever had happened, all that blood… he must've looked like a wreck. "Akuma attack. Got a little messy." It was all he could think of saying in the moment. If he had more time, he would have come up with a genuine, decent excuse.

Nino nodded like he understood. The pair in front of Adrien looked a bit dirty as well, but that might have been more because of their current worries than anything else.

"We're just waiting for the doctor, or the nurse, or someone to come out and tell us what's going on," Alya explained slowly, her voice devoid of emotion. Definitely shock, then. Nino pressed an absent-minded kiss to her temple as she kept speaking like a robot. "We've been waiting for hours. Why weren't you answering your phone?"

That meant he'd been down for the count for longer than he thought. Hours. Marinette has been unconscious for hours. "I must've got hit or something, but I only just woke up when I answered your call."

Nino's eyes widened. He released Alya from his grasp to pull Adrien in for a bone-crushing hug. Adrien gasped at the sudden contact but returned the hug full force. He still wasn't crying, not quite yet.

"You okay?" Nino spoke solidly into Adrien's ear. The blonde nodded, stronger than he felt, as he extracted himself from Nino's arms so Alya could latch onto him again. Right now, she needed her boyfriend more than Adrien needed him.

Pulling away from his friends, Adrien approached Tom and Sabine. The tiny woman was resting her head on the larger baker's shoulder, both of them holding hands but staring off into nothing.

Ever since Adrien and Marinette truly moved passed their initial awkwardness (whatever that was, considering Adrien had never been given a full explanation for her actions) into a full-fledged, fantastic friendship, Adrien had gotten to know the Dupain-Chengs really well. Whether he was visiting in the morning for a pastry, joining the group for a big hangout, or just meeting up with Mari in her room for a few rounds of video games, Tom and Sabine always greeted him with wide smiles and warm hugs. Everything about them, their home, their family, spoke of a comfort and cozy atmosphere that Adrien severely lacked in his own home.

They didn't look warm now. They didn't look comfortable.

That meant Adrien had to do whatever he could to make them feel that way again.

"Tom, Sabine?" Adrien greeted them softly. The two adults raised their heads, glassy eyes taking in Adrien and his dirty appearance. "Alya gave me a call and I ran right over."

"Oh sweetie," Sabine murmured, standing up. She was a short woman, much shorter than Adrien after he'd continued to grow over the years, but she still managed to reach up and place her hands on either side of his face, holding him in place. It made Adrien feel younger, smaller. "How are you doing?"

He knew he looked like a wreck, but Sabine's soft words made his body tremor. No tears leaked out, but he felt it coming soon. He closed his eyes, leaning into her motherly touch. "I should be asking you that. I'm sorry I'm so late."

"There's nothing you could have done," Sabine answered, her reassuring words piercing his heart. There was so much he could have done. He was Chat Noir. He was supposed to keep this from happening. "We're just glad you're safe."

"You could have stopped for a shower, son," Tom offered, not standing yet. His legs were bouncing now, the only part of him that displayed his anxiety over the situation. "Looks like you got caught in something bad. Maybe you should have a doctor check you out."

"It's not as bad as it looks," Adrien promised. Nino and Alya had drifted back to the group, standing beside Adrien as the small group turned in on itself.

Nino placed a hand on the middle of Adrien's back, getting the boy's attention. "You could always just go clean yourself up in the bathroom. If Mari wakes up and sees you like that, she might pass out from the shock."

Adrien wiped his face with his sleeve. That was about all he was willing to do. Now that he was here, with these people he cared for with his whole heart, there was nowhere else he could go. He was not leaving this room until he was allowed to see Marinette.

After an hour, Tom left to go grab some food and coffee from the bakery. He returned with travel cups and pastries in hand. The only person that started to nibble on a croissant was Sabine, and the rest sipped their coffees and waited.

Another hour passed, and Nino had fallen asleep on Alya's shoulder. The girl's face was glued to her phone, anxiously scrolling through her own Ladyblog as she waited for tips to come through about what went wrong with the cure. It seemed that there was something even stranger about the most recent akuma attack other than the lack of Miraculous cure—nobody knew who the akuma was.

Usually, an akuma was big and flashy and announced itself to the world so that Ladybug and Chat Noir would come to the scene and the fight could begin. Yes, there was some destruction in the streets, and there were civilians caught in the crossfire that needed medical attention, but no one had a clue who the akuma was or what they really wanted, apart from the deal with Hawkmoth concerning Ladybug and Chat's miraculouses. All the public knew is that the akuma was gone, and nothing had gone back to normal.

The news was waiting for Ladybug and Chat Noir to debrief the city, to let them know what went wrong. The only problem was that Chat Noir couldn't remember a thing and Ladybug was nowhere to be found.

Adrien put his head in his hands, coffee long finished, as he resumed his waiting. Plagg was still hidden away in his shirt, and for once the kwami wasn't biting his ear off about neglecting his cheese-intake so soon after a detransformation. Instead, Plagg softly purred against Adrien's chest, offering as much comfort as he could in the busy waiting room.

"Monsieur and Madame Dupain-Cheng?" Five heads shot straight up at the words of an older man in a white coat. A doctor, finally. Sabine and Tom both stood while the teenagers stayed in their seats, grabbing each other's hands without thinking.

"How's my baby?" Sabine asked, her voice quiet and unsure.

"She's awake."

Adrien felt Nino squeeze his hand and Adrien squeezed back. Nothing else mattered—not the mystery akuma, not the failed Miraculous Cure, because Marinette was awake.

"She's still a bit out of it, but for now she's out of the woods," the doctor explained kindly. Sabine started crying tears of joy, and the doctor kept talking as Tom hugged his wife. The doctor lowered his voice to speak to Marinette's parents directly, so the teenagers turned to each other with a new energy.

"Al, she's up, she's okay," Nino said to his girlfriend, who was sobbing again. The reporter dropped her phone to the floor with a thud, throwing her arms around Nino instead. He accepted her hug, offering Adrien a teary smile. "Our girl's going to be just fine."

"She's awake," Alya murmured over and over again, her words like a prayer. Abruptly, she stood up and faced the doctor with fire in her eyes. It was the first time since Adrien had walked in the hospital that had she displayed any real emotion. "Can we see her, sir? Please?"

The doctor smiled at the three teenagers, Adrien and Nino rising to join Alya in her pleading. "I'm going to take her parents back to see her first, then you three can come separately. I don't want to overwhelm her, she's still not quite herself yet."

Alya looked like she was ready to disagree and fight to join Mari's parents, but Adrien grabbed her arm. "That sounds perfect. Just let us know as soon as we can go," Adrien told the doctor.

Alya glared at the blonde, but he kept his grip firm on her arm as the doctor guided Tom and Sabine away. "They're her parents, Alya. They deserve to see her first."

"I don't care that you're right," Alya frowned at him. "It's just—It's Marinette. And we're—"

"I know," Adrien said softly, releasing her arm with a sigh. "I know."

She was Marinette, and they were her best friends. Since Alya and Nino had started dating at the beginning of Adrien's first year of public school, the four of them had only grown closer and closer. There were a few bumps in the road at the beginning of their friend group, considering Marinette struggled to form full sentences around him, but eventually even she grew comfortable enough with him to joke and tease to her heart's content. Anytime Adrien's busy schedule didn't keep him away, he was with them.

It wasn't the same without Marinette. It never could be.

The three teenagers sat again, but more revived. Soon, they could see the fourth cog in their little machine. The missing piece of their puzzle.

Ten minutes later, the doctor returned. The teenagers moved without thinking, following the doctor out of the waiting room to see their friend. If he was speaking, Adrien didn't register the words. The anticipation of finally seeing Marinette consumed his every thought, every feeling. There simply wasn't room for anything else.

The walk could have taken ten seconds or ten minutes. Adrien didn't notice.

Soon enough, they reached a door, the doctor pulled it open, and Marinette was revealed.

All of the breath left Adrien's lungs.

Her whole right arm was bandaged up, implying some sort of sprain or maybe a potential break. Her face, usually shining with freckles and a pink blush, was mottled with bruises. A suspicious bruise settled right around her neck, as if someone had held her in place. Her skin was pale and wan, her hair limp and loose around her face.

But her eyes. They were open, wide and stunning and blue as the ocean, and they were staring at Adrien, Nino, and Alya. They were open, and she was awake, and she was breathing.

The three teenagers stood near the door, no one speaking a word as Marinette tilted her head slightly, even that tiny movement revealing a pained twinge in her gaze.

Was this when Adrien would finally start crying? He was afraid once he started, he would never stop.

Marinette spoke, so softly, yet filling the silent room. "Hey, guys."

Alya burst forward first, tears streaming down her face as a watery grin overtook her whole face. "Marinette!" At first, it looked like Alya was going to hug her, but the reporter decided against it due to Mari's various injuries. Instead, Alya settled beside the hospital bed, taking a seat in a nearby chair. The doctor must have taken Marinette's parents away, so now it was just the teenagers.

Marinette blinked at Alya slowly, then turned her head to Nino and Adrien, who were still standing. She looked a bit shellshocked from all the attention… and maybe something else. She was different, and it wasn't just the bandages and bruises. Nino smiled softly, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "Don't yell, Alya, she's just waking up."

"Mari? If we're being too loud, or if I'm too close, just tell me," Alya said, speaking quickly as her fingers drummed against the side of the hospital bed. "We don't want to bother you, we're just so happy to see you're okay. I mean, not okay, considering you look pretty beat up thanks to that crazy akuma… whatever it was. Did you get a good look at it?"

"Al, now might not be the time for reporter mode," Nino chastised his girlfriend softly. He crossed the room to stand at Alya's side, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her back slightly. Alya moved with his hand, but she was still staring intently at Mari.

Maybe asking questions like that was Alya's way of understanding, of making sense of seeing her best friend black and blue. Adrien knew where she was coming from, but he'd comforted enough akuma victims to know that they required a lighter hand.

"I'm sorry," Marinette said slowly, interrupting his thoughts with her measured words. She didn't sound like herself either… why did this feel so off? If he had his claws out, his ears would have been standing at attention, on edge.

Mari frowned at the three of them, her head tilting to the side in obvious confusion. Her blue eyes were blown wide. "What are you talking about?" A single tear ran down Marinette's cheek, but she made no move to wipe it.

Adrien walked across the room to stand on Marinette's other side, hoping he provided some comfort as well. While Ladybug handled the media circus after an akuma attack, he always spent his time comforting the akuma victim. While Marinette hadn't been an akuma herself, she'd been hurt by one, and he would do what he could to make her feel more like herself. "You don't have to talk about the akuma if you don't want to, Mari. We're just glad you're safe."

"Akuma?" Adrien felt a chill run down his spine as Mari caught his gaze, her brow furrowing. It was frustrating how adorable her confused expression was—it made it more difficult to focus on her words. "What's that?"

"How hard did you hit your head?" Nino asked drily with a laugh, playing the comment off as a joke as Alya and Adrien shared a glance. "Akuma? Hawkmoth taking advantage of the emotions of everyday Parisians? Next you'll be telling us you don't know about Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Marinette blinked. Not a thing flashed in her eyes. No emotion. No reaction. "What do a bug and a cat have to do with my accident?"

She didn't know about Hawkmoth, about Ladybug and Chat Noir, about akumas. Memory loss was common enough with head injuries, but this memory loss was specific.

The sort of memory loss his partner had warned him about years ago, when she first stepped up as the Guardian of the Miraculous.

Adrien looked down at Marinette in the hospital bed, her eyes wide and watery, as the wheels in his head started to turn. Marinette's eyes, sparkling in the sunlight. Ladybug's pigtails, ribbons flying in the wind. Marinette standing up to Chloé, confident and proud. Ladybug tripping over her yo-yo, clumsy and bashful.

Marinette, forgetting everything related to akumas. Ladybug, warning her kitty that one day, she wouldn't remember him, or their time together.

Adrien Agreste stared down at his partner, no spots to be seen, and wept.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hello all, and welcome to my new story! Warning for the rest of this note—some spoilers for season 4, so if you aren't caught up, DON'T READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH.

So certain differences between season 4 and my story is that Marinette never revealed herself as Ladybug to Alya and kept it all to herself. So, in this story, she shouldered the responsibility of being the Guardian on her own all through high school and is now a senior, so she's been the Guardian for a while. Chat was super supportive through all of this, but she still never revealed herself.

I think the rest will all be pretty self-explanatory, but I just wanted this first author's note to be a bit more info-based and the rest will just be me saying how much I love you for reading this hehe. Anyways… xoxo, happy reading!