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"Wanna talk about it?"
Marinette opens her eyelids when she hears Adrien's voice. Her head against his chest, she lets herself be lulled by his heartbeats. "I don't know," she answers against his skin.
Adrien's hand is lost in her hair, caressing it with infinite gentleness. His presence and his warmth are almost enough for Marinette to forget the outside world. Almost.
Because there is an entire world in her mind. A world full of pain and tears and fear. A world she can't escape to—not anymore.
Marinette feels her head raise up and down at the pace of Adrien's deep breath. "It's just…" His voice is devoid of any confidence.
Marinette frowns against his chest. "What?"
"No… no, nothing." His hand twitches in her hair.
She's not a stranger to Adrien's behaviour. To the way his caresses don't go further than her shoulders. To the way he did not put his arm around her waist when she jumped into his arms. To the way he tries, despite everything, to keep his body at a certain distance from hers.
It's not out of fear or hesitation. It's out of respect—respect for the boundaries she'll impose on him, whatever they are.
Marinette sits up, glancing at him. For a second, she can see the suffering in his eyes.
She knows exactly what is torturing him. "He didn't… didn't…" Marinette feels her throat tighten. Clenching her fists, she swallows back her sob. He will not have this power over her. "Neither today, nor ever."
"Mari—"
"But he did… he did touch me." Tears sting her eyes, but Marinette ejects them with a blink and wipes them with her hand. "It could have been worse. I guess." That's what she has kept saying to herself for hours. That it could have been worse.
"You have the right to be angry," he whispers.
"I know. I know, but… If I let go… I don't know if I'll be able to stop."
"Then don't," he says, grabbing her hand on the mattress and intertwining her fingers with his. "I'll be here, alright?"
Marinette nods, her lips pinched, trying at any cost to repel the sob hampering her throat.
"If you want to be angry or sad or everything at once. Or nothing at all. I'll be here anyway."
Her forehead falls back against his bare shoulder. Adrien's hand settles against her nape and Marinette lets her tears run down his skin. "Thank you," she whispers.
Seconds pass, turn into minutes. Tears stop pouring. Marinette matches her breathing on Adrien's, soothed by his heartbeats and by the feeling of his respiration against her skin.
"Mari?"
She hums, her forehead still on his shoulder. He seems to hesitate for a few seconds. Enough for Marinette to look up at him.
"Why didn't you tell me?" There's no reproach in his voice. Only simple curiosity. It's a real question.
"Because you already had so many issues with your father, and… I wanted to spare you, I think. I thought I could handle it on my own… I didn't think it would get this bad."
His green eyes are buried into hers.
"And I told myself that you couldn't do anything more, anyway. And, honestly, I was scared of what he'd do if you knew…" He — pronouncing his name out loud is too unbearable. But Adrien perfectly understands. "But I was mostly scared of what you could do," she confesses. "I…" She clears her throat, trying to get rid of this suffocation feeling. "I have nightmares. Often."
Marinette closes her eyes for a moment. The painful realisation on his face is too unpleasant to watch.
"Nightmares… about me?"
She shyly nods.
"Tell me."
His words are a surprise enough for her to open her eyes. There's obvious pain in his eyes—Marinette feels her heart squeezing in her chest. She agrees with a movement of her head, swallowing back the lump shaping in her throat and lets herself fall on the mattress.
Landing on her left side, Marinette gazes at Adrien moving alongside her.
"It's usually the same thing. I see you—as Chat Blanc—and your eyes… they're so blue, every time." Frozen blue. "And the world… everything is destroyed. There's no one." The silence—the world is so quiet when it's devoid of humans. "And you seem so… sad. Even more than right now. I can't sleep because of it—because I know I'll see this sadness in your eyes if I fall asleep."
It's strange to put words on this part of her life. She never talked about it to anyone—not even Tikki.
A breath raises her chest. "It's hard to separate my nightmares from what really happened—from what could have really happened, at least. But…" She doesn't want to lie to him—it never leads to anything good, even with the best of intentions. She knows it now. "I've got this picture… like statues, underwater. Except that it's real people. Cataclysmed."
His eyes open a little wider at the mention of his power.
"And I saw myself, too."
"I used my Cataclysm on… you?" His voice is nothing more than a quiet whisper, but Marinette hears it down to the depths of her soul.
"It didn't really happen."
"If Bunnix had to come find you, it did happen. And even if it's just in your head," he resumes when she opens her mouth, "it's still real, in a way."
Marinette understands what he means. Maybe it didn't happen in this dimension, maybe it didn't happen at all—maybe she completely imagined the whole thing—but for her, in her nightmare, it's real. Real enough to wrest her from hours of sleep and make her anxious at the idea of falling asleep.
She slowly nods, her eyes meeting his. They're roaming over her face, along every visible part of her skin—there isn't much of it, given the hoodie and the sweat pants she's wearing—as if they want to imprint every centimeter of it.
"Don't beat yourself up," she whispers.
The contraction of his jaw is slight, but Marinette is sufficiently focused to notice it.
"Adrien…" she murmurs, seeing his Adam's apple bobbing at the pace of his difficult swallowing.
He's looking down, preventing his gaze from meeting hers. "It's just that…" His quavering voice makes Marinette's throat tighten. "You have these nightmares because of me, and Adam—" A sob avoids him to go on. "I should have done something, Mari. I should have."
And, all of a sudden, he's staring at her, green eyes clouded by tears.
Marinette feels her heat squeezing in her chest in a quite different way than it has been doing all day. It has been caused by anger, frustration, despair. But what she's feeling inside her, right now, is nothing more than an immense sadness.
"You know," he resumes, without wiping off the tears running down his cheeks, "Lila sent a picture to my father."
Surprise is added to sorrow.
"He showed it to me, the other day, right before your birthday. It's… it's you and Adam."
The only moment for Lila to have taken a picture of them is the day everything fell apart, when he revealed the existence of this video to her. And she sent it to Adrien's father. Probably to nullify Marinette's honesty to Adrien—and to make a good impression, in passing.
It's so like her. That ball-licker.
"I knew something was wrong. I knew it, Mari. But I… I just... did nothing."
"Adrien…" she sighs.
"I know him. I have known him for a while now. I know what he does. I'm… I'm sorry, Marinette."
Her hand settles on his wet cheek. "That day, when Lila took the picture," she whispers, "he did nothing to me. He didn't touch me, Adrien. Okay?"
"But, today—"
"It's not your fault. It's not your fault," she repeats when his lips open again.
He nods, even if she doesn't see any belief in his eyes.
"It'll be okay," she whispers, caressing his skin. "It'll be okay."
It'll be okay, she says to herself again.
Perhaps if she keeps saying it, she'll believe it in the end.
"I'm gonna promise you something," he says with a more certain voice. His fingers touch her hand brushing his face. "I will never be akumatized."
She wants to believe it, she wants to so much.
It's this crazy hope that makes her nod.
"Never," he whispers, kissing her palm.
There is such a confidence in his voice, such a certainty that Marinette believes him. She believes him from the depths of her soul, from all the hugeness of her heart.
The next days pass with a crazy speed for Marinette. Handling school and heroes duties has never been an easy thing. But it has hardly ever been this difficult.
Between the ending semester, all the tests going on and on, the constant anxiety of what she'll do next year, the concern in her parents, Nino, Alya and Adrien's eyes—in almost everybody's, actually—and the usual missions as Ladybug, Marinette is totally overworked.
And all this is without counting on her new obsession: defeat Hawk Moth.
Alya told her that she's draining herself so much because she doesn't want to think about her real problems. Marinette answered that the most real of her problems is definitely Hawk Moth.
That's true.
More or less.
Hawk Moth threatens her whole life. He threatens every second of peace—even if they've become rare, these days. He threatens every person she cares about—Marinette still has nightmares full of fears and crying and scenarios where Hawk Moth knows her identity, and thus all her loved ones. He threatens her relationship with Adrien—after all, being with him is still incredibly dangerous, even if she's no longer sure that not being with him isn't at least as much.
But, mainly, he threatens her future. What's the point of working her ass off to have good grades, what's the point of using every minute of her free time to draw and create new clothes, what's the point of giving herself so much to enter her dream school at the other side of the world? What's the point of all that, when she doesn't even know if she won't be forced to transform the next minute?
She can't take it anymore. This permanent sword of Damocles above her head. If Marinette is sure of one thing, it's that she won't stay frozen when Hawk Moth terrorizes Paris and endangers her future.
She's going to fight.
So, for a few days, Marinette does all she can to unmask her enemy. During the day, she gathers as much information as possible, and at night, she interprets the proofs she already has. It's a fiddly and exhausting work. But Marinette needs to keep herself busy. Otherwise… she can't allow herself to consider the alternative.
"Do you remember something when you were akumatized?" she asks Alya and Nino on their lunch break.
She has touched her meal even less than Adrien—which is saying a lot.
"Not really, no," Nino answers.
"You sure?"
"Uh…"
"We know he's a man. We know his voice, but we can't recognize it if he's not transformed because of the jammer. We know he wants Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculouses to fulfill a wish, but we don't know what wish. Personally, I think he must be—"
"Marinette," Alya cuts her off. "Easy."
Marinette looks up from her investigation notebook to glance at her friends. Nino seems to analyze the words that just came out of her mouth. Alya seems concerned.
"A wish, you say?"
Adrien seems at least as exhausted as she is. His eyes have lost their sparkle and she hasn't seen his smile for a while, now that she thinks about it. Marinette nods.
"He must be desperate to have tried so hard all this time."
Marinette repeats her gesture—he just said what she has in mind.
"You sure that's it?" Nino steps in.
Looks converge to him.
"I mean… he wants to join the two Miraculous to fulfill a wish, alright. But maybe there's something else behind it."
"Like what?"
"Power," Alya answers.
Marinette has thought about it, of course.
Someone so morally despicable has probably thought about it, too.
After all these years, Marinette has already told herself that perhaps his wish is decent. Perhaps he has a real reason to do what he does.
But, no. His motivations could be the purest ever; for him to be able to hurt so many people, to threaten the life of a whole city and to mentally control humans beset by their feelings, it completely nullifies the aim behind it.
In Marinette's eyes, that is.
"What would happen to the Miraculouses if he joined them to enact his wish?" Nino asks.
Adrien's attention is on her.
"They'd be destroyed. That's what Tikki told me."
An unpleasant shiver runs down her prospect of knowing these jewels reduced to nothing—and all the more so Plagg and Tikki—is unbearable to her.
"You think he knows it?" Adrien asks her.
Marinette shrugs. "I don't know. Either he knows, or he thinks he'd have all the three Miraculouses in his possession. In both cases…"
"We're fucked," Nino completes.
Indeed, if this event is made to occur… They would be completely fucked.
Of course, there would be solutions. If Ladybug and Chat Noir wouldn't exist anymore, there still would be tens of other kwamis ready to give their powers. There still would be the superheroes of the rest of the world.
But, a world without Ladybug and Chat Noir, a world without the Miraculous of Creation and Destruction, a world devoid of this balance… Marinette doesn't know what a world like this would look like.
"It's not gonna happen," Marinette says after a few quiet seconds. "He will never have our Miraculouses."
It's not debatable. In her lifetime, she will never let Hawk Moth get hold of her earrings or Chat Noir's ring.
And if she trusts the burning glances of her friends, neither will they.
The night has fully fallen on Paris when Marinette hears someone knock against her window. Knowing very well who that someone is, she puts her pen and the notebook between her hands aside, sitting up to reach her window.
Fresh air enters the room at the same time as Chat Noir. He lands on her mattress with all the feline grace that characterizes him, and Marinette doesn't need to ask to know something occurred.
"Hey," he whispers, gently kissing her cheek.
She feels herself shiver—and it's not because of the coldness of December. "What's up?" she asks when he lets his back fall against the wall that is adjacent to her bed.
His eyes don't seem worried, rather mostly confused. "My father talked to me."
Marinette's body tenses up in a common movement, from her jaw to her fists.
The headteacher informed Gabriel pretty quickly—Nathalie told it to Adrien. But he hasn't, until here, got things straight directly with his son. Neither about the video, nor about Adrien's lie—perhaps he thinks it's true, actually—and nor about their relationship.
Of course, the matter with Adam has been spreading—they're in high school, after all. Versions differ according to the person. Some say that Adam is jealous of Adrien because he's with Marinette, others say that Adrien is the jealous one. Marinette herself has heard that she has been the one to get between them—she almost laughed when hearing that.
But no one—except the concerned ones—knows the true story. The scratches on Marinette's body have fooled nobody, obviously. Stares are still full of pity when they settle on her, now. But the story of the video remains secret, and Lila is clever enough to keep it to herself.
Thankfully, Adam is gone. His assault on Marinette, racist slurs—that had already happened before, to a few students, by the way—and repeated fights have brought him to be simply expelled from the school.
Marinette is endlessly relieved, of course. She's not sure she would be able to bear his smirk, now—his face is already haunting her nightmares too much for it to pursue her in real life.
But it doesn't stop rumors from spreading.
Now, there's no remaining doubt over the nature of Adrien's and her relationship. And they don't want to hide it, either—they don't have the strength anymore.
"He wasn't pissed off," he says, pressing the back of his head against the wall. His face tilts to her and Marinette immediately loses herself in the sparkling infinity of his eyes. "He got it straight. That it wasn't a lie. About… you know."
Marinette slightly nods.
His voice is betraying his relief. The fact that his father knows he's not capable of doing such a thing seems to reassure him. It's the very least, Marinette thinks.
But then she remembers it's about Gabriel.
"I don't know… it was weird. He was weird. He seemed off."
"And about us? He didn't tell you anything either?"
"No. It's like… like he gave in." Relief moves on to worry.
Marinette puts a comforting hand on his knee. "Tell me what you think." She knows there's something tickling his brain—something he's not sure he dares say out loud.
"It's just… I tell myself that he was so mad before, because he cared, you know? Even if it's stupid, saying that you took advantage of me, at least it meant he cared about me…" A bitter laugh escapes his mouth. "What the fuck am I saying…"
Marinette gets closer to him, until her head is against his shoulder. She feels him relaxed against her. "I get it," she whispers. "It's okay to think that way. He's the one who makes you say all this." Her hand leaves his knee to caress his forearm. "You're looking for affection in all he does. Despite everything, you still want to see the good in him—you still want to believe he acts like this for a good reason." She looks up at him and meets his slightly furrowed brows—as if something just brushes his mind. "It's why I love you," she murmurs. "Because you always see the good."
Even when it's not here, she thinks.
The thinking twisting his face turns into a moved smile. Marinette smiles back, wondering the last time she smiled—really smiled. But her face gets closer to Chat Noir's, and suddenly, it doesn't really matter anymore. Nothing really matters anymore, actually, except his hot breath against her lips and the touch of his nose against hers.
She doesn't let him have the time to hesitate, and kisses him.
She's not sure when was their last kiss—their last real kiss. Not more than ten days ago, she's sure of it, but time passes in an odd way, as if it's expanding.
But, once again, her thoughts go up in smoke when Chat Noir intensifies the pressure of his lips. Marinette sighs right against him, her hand sliding from his forearm to his shoulder. His muscles roll under her fingers when they caress the leather of his suit.
Chat Noir's hands fall to her lips and Marinette feels her heart jump in her chest—even after all this time, she's still feeling the passion of their first times.
Soon, she ends up on his thighs, her knees on either side of his hips. Their lips detach when they catch their breath.
"You okay?" he breathes while his thumbs brush imaginary circles against her waist.
Marinette nods, lost in the eager darkness of his eyes. A few strands of hair fall before his forehead half-covered by his mask. They have done way more than kissing, on many occasions, yet the impression of the unknown doesn't want to leave her. Perhaps it's because it's Chat Noir.
She has kissed him only twice as his heroic self—thrice, if you count the time she doesn't remember. Once, it was a quick kiss, even though she slightly let herself go, and the other time, it had been a passionate kiss, of course, but rapidly interrupted by a surprising realisation, to say the least.
Today, nothing stops them. Neither akuma, nor identity reveal. They're alone in her room, with all the intimacy that this implies.
Marinette feels a wave of desire splash against the bottom of her stomach. "I'm okay," she whispers, pushing her pelvis against his even more.
A smirk curls up Chat Noir's lips which get closer to hers again.
Soon, they lose themselves in the intensity of their kiss again. The warmth and the softness of his mouth against hers make Marinette sigh. Her right hand mimics her left one and goes up on his shoulder, using the hardness of his muscles to grab onto something.
A powerful shiver makes goosebumps run along her arms when Chat Noir's claws caress the strip of skin between her pyjamas bottom and her shirt. His tongue slides against her lips, which Marinette opens almost immediately. Her heart is hammering in her chest when her tongue meets his.
Her hips automatically ground against his. Her movement surprises her as much as Chat Noir, if she goes by the growing pressure of his claws against her skin—without ever hurting her.
One of his hands slides underneath her shirt and goes up along her back, making her shiver even more intensely. Panting, Marinette removes her lips from his.
Every feeling is increased, as if she has been physically asleep for days and all her nerves are waking up at the same time. It's his mask caressing her nose. It's his hot breath brushing her face. It's his claws gliding along her spine. It's the warmth between his legs.
Marinette sucks on a breath when Chat Noir's lips start kissing her neck. His hair tickles her skin and his mouth is burning against her carotid. The hand on her waist helps her to deepen the wiggle of her hips against his while the one on her back dangerously drifts to her chest.
Marinette automatically passes her tongue over her lips when Chat Noir's lay at the hollow of her neck. His fingers stay against her ribs.
She knows it's not to make her beg, like he usually does—not today. He is simply waiting for her green light. "I'm okay," she whispers with a shaky voice, feeling his mouth go up along her skin.
"Sure?" The tickling of his breath against her ear makes her shiver.
"Sure."
His lips quickly meet hers when his hand settles on her breast, swallowing her own moan at the same time as his own.
His claws are light against her skin, his caresses endlessly soft. He redoubles of gentleness: because he's Chat Noir—there are his claws, though it's mostly the fact that his strength is increased once he's transformed—but mainly because of what happened with Adam.
His name pops in her mind. Marinette feels her heart speed up—and it's not from desire, this time. No, she thinks. She's not going to let him infiltrate her thoughts.
Everything suddenly speeds up. Chat Noir's lips leaving hers to fall against her jaw. His claws brushing her nipple, making her shiver against him. The hand against her waist playing with the elastic of her pants.
Marinette should stop here. She should move back and look him in the eyes. He would understand in a second.
But Adam's picture is increasingly clear in her head and she cannot let him win. So, to prove to herself that he has no power over her, Marinette slowly grinds her hips against Chat Noir, meeting the hardness between his thighs.
But it's not Chat Noir under her. It's no longer golden hair, but brown strands touching her skin. It's no longer the claws which she trusts with her life caressing her, but nails which repel her. It's no longer the hot and reassuring breath of her partner brushing his cheek but the animal growls of Adam.
It's no longer loving and cautious fingers venturing inside her pants, but a perverted hand.
No, she tells herself again. He's not Adam. He's Chat Noir.
He's Adrien.
A sob full of rage escapes her.
Chat Noir's hands and lips back away from her body in a heartbeat. "Mari," he breathes. "You… you're crying?"
At the moment he says those words, she feels a tear run down her cheek. But she shakes her head, looking down. "No," she whispers.
But she is. She's crying. Crying from frustration and exhaustion.
"M'Lady…" His voice is soft. He's so soft, so perfect.
She doesn't want to apologize. Because she has nothing to feel guilty about—she knows it. But words shape on her lips anyway. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" he gently asks, letting his fingers run in her hair.
She's still not looking at him. "I don't know." She's not sorry for not being able to go further—she's mad. Because she wants to. She really does. "It's not that I don't want to—"
"I know," he cuts her off, grabbing her chin between his fingers. "I know," he says again, tenderly raising her face to him.
He smiles at her in such a comforting way that Marinette feels herself loosen and her heart lighten.
"When you're ready. Okay?" His hand goes to find hers to carry it to his lips. This movement makes his pelvis slightly move against hers.
"But… What about you?"
She feels him smile against her palm. "I'm alright," he answers. "I'll survive, Mari."
"You sure?"
Her tone is more amused now. And Chat Noir doesn't miss the smirk starting to draw on her face.
He rolls his eyes, his lips still against her hand. "Wouldn't be the first time."
Her lips curl up even more. "True."
A few months ago—close to a year now—when they began their seduction game, they teased and pushed back each other's boundaries. Thankfully, desire isn't visible on the outside for her—one of the only benefits to being a woman, according to her.
But it's not the same thing for Adrien. The thought makes her laugh. It's not that funny, but it feels so good to feel joy spreading in her heart.
"Sorry," she says between two bursts of laughter.
"You're not at all," he smiles.
Marinette lets her head fall against his torso. "Not at all," she whispers against his breastbone.
His laugh makes his chest vibrate and Marinette closes her eyes, smiling. She feels good. She feels safe, really safe.
It hasn't happened for a while. And she doesn't want it to stop.
"So," he says, fingers plunged in her hair, "how long?"
Marinette frowns, but doesn't move for all that. "How long…?"
"You know…" she can hear the smile in his voice, "how long have you been falling under my irresistible chat-arm?"
She can't restrain her laugh. Chat Noir neither.
She has missed his puns—even though she'd never admit it out loud. "I was hoping you'd forget," she confesses.
"I have a very good memory. Especially when you have had feelings for Adrien since forever…" These are the exact words of her dad.
Marinette raises her face, enough to look him in the eyes. "I don't mind telling it to Chat."
He nods, still smirking. It's easier to talk about the birth of her feelings towards Adrien to Chat Noir, and he seems to understand it.
It's stupid, somewhat, because they're the same person. But a part of her still has trouble associating them—deep inside her, Marinette knows that even if she sees him transform in front of her tens of times, she still wouldn't believe it one hundred percent.
They're the same, yet so different.
"Well," she starts, "remember the first day of ninth grade?"
"How could I forget," he smiles.
Indeed.
How could he forget?
"I hated you, at first."
"I know."
"But you talked to me, that day. You told me something very personal, even though we didn't know each other, even though I didn't even give you the benefit of the doubt. You were kind and patient and attentive to me. And you gave me… your umbrella."
His eyes are sparkling with emotion and his grin turns to a moved expression.
"Except for Nino, I have never had boyfriends before you. So… it was weird. At first, I thought that was why I felt all these things every time I saw you. I thought it was because it was new and maybe I felt that when I became friends with Nino."
She sees amusement dancing in his eyes.
"It turns out that it was more than that, okay. And from the moment I realized I was completely in love with you… it was a little bit complicated to…"
"Communicate?"
Marinette feels her cheeks warm up and a smile curls her lips up. "Yes. Communicate. It was the first time and it was strong and it was sudden and I was a little lost. Especially since… there was a little complication."
"What complication?" Chat Noir asks, his brows frowned.
She finds him adorable like this: confused and blushing.
"I'm sitting on the complication," she whispers.
"Ah," he blurts out before meeting her in her laugh.
"So… it didn't really help."
He agrees with a nod meaning: oh, I know. Marinette often forgets that he has lived the same thing on his side.
"Alya and the girls often helped me to confess to you, but… it never worked out."
"Indeed."
"The more I wanted to tell you, the less I got to, and the more I was telling myself that what I felt for Chat was way more than I was implying." A sigh escapes her mouth. "I was completely lost. Then, we started to get closer, to really become friends. I could say actual words to you, I could even talk to you like a normal person!"
Her enthusiasm isn't exaggerated at all and this seems to amuse Chat Noir.
"It was a huge step for me," she says, raising an accusing finger to him.
"I know it was, my Lady," he smiles, grabbing her finger.
That time seems so far away now. Not being able to pronounce a correct sentence is completely unnatural today.
But she still remembers the mix of anxiety and excitement she had felt a few years ago.
"The closer I got to Adrien, the more I realized my feelings about Chat Noir," she keeps explaining. "The contrast was actually very disturbing. Because, on one hand, it was love at first sight, you know? Literally. And in the other, it was…"
"Slower."
"Yeah."
"I know," he says, letting his head fall against the wall.
His gaze makes her shiver.
"It was pretty much the same thing for me," he sighs, intertwining his fingers to hers. "Love at first sight with Ladybug." Green eyes fall to their joined hands. "It took me a while to realize I was in love with you, Marinette," he says.
His throaty voice and the words coming out from his mouth make her quiver again.
"Longer than you for Chat, I guess."
"Really?"
He hums. "I… I tried so hard to make my love for Ladybug mutual that… I felt dumb. And unfaithful."
"Me too."
He looks up at her and a smile draws on his face again. "We really did things the hard way, didn't we?"
"We totally did," she answers, feeling herself smile, too.
She kisses him, in a tender and quick way.
"Would you do things differently?" she asks, moving back. "If we could start all over?"
"No." He hasn't even considered it.
"You thought about this before?"
He nods. "It was hard. And we suffered a lot. And I'd do some things differently, of course. But, between us, I'd change nothing."
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing at all," he whispers, kissing her cheek. "It taught us a lot of things, in the end. Plus, we fell in love twice. Don't you think it's amazing?"
Oh, he's endlessly cute. "I'd change nothing, either," she murmurs, blushing. "Especially last summer."
Chat Noir starts laughing. "Especially last summer," he says back, pulling her against his chest.
Marinette closes her eyelids, feeling his lips against the top of her head. Seconds pass and she lets herself be soothed by his breathing and by the caress of his fingers along her hair.
This feeling of safety continues to build up around her. And this little voice in her mind telling her that from the moment he's here, this feeling would be here, too.
"I'll sing," she whispers, her voice hoarse, "at the Christmas show."
Chat Noir's hand stops running along her hair for a second. His hold turns only stronger. "I'm proud of you," he breathes.
Marinette feels a tear bead at the corner of her eye. And for the first time in days, it's not a sad or angry or desperate tear.
It's a joyful tear. A relieved tear.
Deep inside her, what makes her heart beating, it's life, it's hope, it's strength.
Adrien doesn't know where he is.
It's dark, so dark that a normal human wouldn't see a thing—but he's not a normal human. Even though he's not transformed, he possesses the nocturnal eyesight of his alter ego.
Suddenly, when he looks around him, again, a figure comes up.
Marinette.
The anxiety that has begun to squeeze his heart instantly turns into relief. His heartbeat speeds up in the best of ways shen a slight smile straightens Marinette's lips.
She seems… peaceful.
Adrien gets closer to the hand she's raising towards him. Closer, closer, until it's only millimeters from reaching her fingers.
When his skin touches hers, darkness changes into blinding light. His eyelids instinctively close. When he opens his eyes, Marinette has moved away from him. And she doesn't seem peaceful anymore. Her smile has vanished, moving on to a terrorized expression.
Adrien initiates a move towards her, but his body is frozen. He looks down at his feet, thinking that something, anything, is keeping him from moving. But there is nothing.
The only thing that is paralyzing him is himself.
A shiver of disdain runs down his back when he looks up again: Adam is facing Marinette. From where he's standing, Adrien can see everything perfectly. From his smirk, to his finger brushing Marinette's cheek. From his tongue wetting his lips, to the hand at his belt.
A burning rage takes hold of Adrien. All of his muscles are tensed, but it's impossible to move them. His legs stay frozen, frozen, frozen.
"Marinette!" he cries out.
No reaction. Her eyes stay on Adam.
Does she actually hear him? Do his vocal cords fail him, too? Perhaps the name he hears himself yell is only in his head.
His heart is hitting his rib cage so fast and so hard that the sound of his pulse against his temple and that of his panting are the only audible noises.
In front of him, the nightmare keeps going.
Adam's finger leaves Marinette's cheek to reach her neck and slide down her clavicle. His belt is undone, revealing a bump at the level of his crotch. Marinette seems to notice it, too, because her frightened expression splits enough for her face to look angry.
Her hand grabs Adam's wrist when his forefinger runs underneath her shirt. His sick smile just grows bigger when her nails sink into his skin. When Marinette raises her knee, Adam grabs her thigh and presses her against the closest wall.
It's at this moment that Adrien notices they're in a locker room. The same one where he had found Adam and Marinette. He can't let this happen twice.
His eyelids close and he focuses every neuron in one and only aim: make his legs move. Move, move, move.
"C'mon," he groans, feeling sweat flowing down his forehead. "C'mon!" But there's nothing to do. He can't move a centimeter.
He opens his eyes again. If his muscles would work, his whole body would start to quiver.
Marinette's shirt is gone. Her torso is completely naked—apart from Adam's hand now grabbing her chest.
He still doesn't hear anything except his own despair, but Adrien can imagine Marinette's sobs when her tears run down her face.
Adam never stops smiling while his hand is still holding her thigh. His lips move, saying words Adrien can't quite understand, but that Marinette is perfectly discerning, if he trusts the panic freezing her face.
Adam suddenly lets himself go between her legs, Marinette's thigh still pressing against his hip. Adrien feels his blood clot in his veins when he realizes that Adam's pants are lowered, just like Marinette's, enough for him to…
He yells. He yells so loudly he feels like his vocal cords are exploding at the same time as his eardrums. Tears and sweat run and he keeps yelling. His eyelids close because he feels like he's dying.
But the very same picture pops in his mind: lips pinched and the tensed body of Marinette, Adam's smirk and always rougher movements.
Suddenly, it's not Adam anymore.
It's him.
It's him, with a white leather suit and eyes bluer than ice.
Chat Blanc.
Adrien wakes up with a start.
He can't breathe. Every breath gets stuck in his throat as coarse as sandpaper. His eyesight is blurry, so blurry he doesn't know where he is.
Adrien, Adrien, Adrien, he hears in a loop. Always louder.
"Adrien!"
Nathalie. The one who's calling him, it's Nathalie.
A gentle and cold hand is against his burning cheek. Adrien blinks until he can see the woman kneeling at the foot of his bed.
She isn't wearing her glasses and her hair is down from its usual bun. He has never seen her so worried.
"It was a nightmare," she whispers.
A nightmare. Everything he just saw wasn't real—and will never be.
Yet, his whole body is sticking with sweat and his throat is painful, as if he had really yelled like he was dying.
"I heard you," she explains, as if she just read his thoughts.
Her room is on the other side of the mension.
He had yelled loud and long enough for her to wake up. How much time did she take to get him out of his nightmare? Plagg had probably tried, too, from the moment his cries began.
Adrien feels like he has yelled for hours.
Nathalie removes her hand and Adrien is surprised to think he would prefer the contact to be longer.
"Sorry," he breathes.
Talking is extremely unpleasant. Adrien passes a shaky hand through his soaked hair and sits at the end of his bed, his elbows against his knees and his face between his hands.
Breathe. In and out.
It was a nightmare. It wasn't real.
"Adrien…" Her voice is shaking.
The inflection of her voice surprises Adrien enough for him to look up at her. Her large blue eyes are sad.
"I know what happened with Marinette," she confesses.
Adrien looks down again. He looks at a drop of sweat running down his bare torso.
"It wasn't your fault. None of this is your fault."
Perhaps she sees guilt in his eyes.
Or perhaps she knows him well enough to guess his state of mind.
"I know I'll never replace her, but…"
Adrien feels his heart squeeze in his chest.
This her—she's his mom.
And when he plunges his gaze inside hers again, yet, it's exactly what he sees: this worry, this sadness, this love. These are the feelings of a mom.
He doesn't know if it's Nathalie or him who starts the hug, but he loses all of himself in it. Her coldness is oddly warm and Adrien lets his tears run, comforted by the perfume of this woman who has raised him, no matter what.
yep, pretty heavy, too.
let me know what your thoughts are! about mari and adrien's discussion, about their relationship, about mari's recovering, about adrien's, too...
i'm done with the translation of chapter 14—prepare yourself, guys, it's... pretty harsh, i'd say.
the problem is that with uni and everything, i have a very little amount of time per day/week to do translation. i choose to do that instead of writing, because i want you guys to know the end of the story, but it's kinda complicated. chapter 15 and 16 are really dense, like more than 20 pages words, more than 10 000 words each... oops (i'm not sorry lol)
so, i do my best but don't except me to update you every week, it's what i wanna say!
anyway, have a good day and take care!
lucie