Note: The last two chapters have changed a lot! ^-^ Thank you for the reviews, favorites, follows, and for reading this story so far. ^-^
Ladybug swung out of the apartment and made her way toward the Louvre. She landed on a building near the museum. Ladybug opened her yo-yo to look for Chat's green paw print on her map.
"Looking for a certain clawesome cat, m'Lady?" Chat winked at her with his weight on his bo staff, and she groaned.
"Look, I know you don't want to see me and I don't really feel up to seeing you, but we have an akuma to fight. So less flirting and more fighting." Ladybug blurted out how she felt and Chat Noir almost fell off of his staff.
"What?" His face fell and his ears went back on his head.
"I know you don't want to be around me." Ladybug rubbed her upper arm and looked away from him.
"Why would I-" A burst of flames flew towards them and Chat yanked her out of the way in time.
Ladybug's eyes went wide and she breathed hard, as Chat clutched onto her, on the ground, below the tall building.
"Let me go, please." Ladybug pleaded and Chat let her go.
"Look…" Chat sighed and yanked her from another set of flames.
"Can we, please! Talk about this later?" Ladybug begged and swung her yo-yo to get to a better place.
"Chat Noir! Ladybug! Bring me your miraculouses!" Inferno yelled and pointed his flame thrower at them.
"I-" Chat chased after Ladybug.
"Not now, Chat!" Ladybug scolded him and he stopped and let his shoulders slump.
Ladybug swung her yo-yo and tried to wrap it around the flame thrower, but she missed.
Inferno let out a sinister laugh and aimed at her. Chat's ear perked up and his lips parted. He watched Ladybug cover her face with her arms and Chat ran and leaped in front of her. He wrapped his arms around her and the flames licked up his back. Chat let out a loud yell and clenched his teeth in pain, as the flames burnt his neck.
"Chat!" Ladybug called out and held him tighter, as she glared over him at the akuma.
He hissed in pain and the Akuma laughed hysterically. "Give up yet? Seems your kitty is damaged goods."
"Shut up!" Chat let her go and looked at the Akumatized man with acidic green eyes and he swung out his bo staff and let it extend at his hip. "I'm not done with you yet!" He ground the words out through his teeth and let all of the anger from the past week flow through him.
Ladybug watched him leap and swing his staff at Inferno. She had never seen Chat so angry and determined. Something about it seemed wrong and off. She didn't know if she liked it or feared it.
"Chat…" Ladybug's eyes became saddened at the sight of him fighting.
She watched, as Inferno, flicked flames along Chat's arms, shoulders, and back. How Chat's staff rang out against the flame thrower. How his jaw was set tightly and how he growled between his teeth in anger. She shook her head to try and focus. She had to focus.
"Lucky Charm!" She threw her yo-yo above her head.
A hose fell in her arms and she looked around for something. Anything. She heard Chat yell out in pain, as more flames grazed his cheek and he fell to the ground, exhausted and panting. He turned to his side and clenched his fist against the concrete, and grit his teeth together.
Ladybug began to panic. "Think, think."
She spotted a fire hydrant and instantly ran over to hook the hose into it.
"You think a little water is gonna stop me from getting what I want?" Inferno laughed and pointed his flame thrower towards Chat Noir's head. "You've got to the count of three to hand me your miraculous."
"Don't do it, LB!" Chat called out and looked at her with sad eyes. "Just forget about me. You've already moved on anyway."
His words threw her off and tears fell from her eyes. "I haven't!"
Inferno knocked Chat in the head with the end of his weapon. "Shut up, already! Hand it over, now!"
Ladybug became determined and she hit the hose on, soaking Chat Noir with water and the end of Inferno's gun. She wrapped her yo-yo around Inferno and yanked him to her. She kicked his gun out of his hands and hoisted him up onto a light post.
She carried the flame thrower over to Chat. He peered up at her with blood coming down his forehead and burnt skin. "I need you to cataclysm this, please." She sobbed on her knees.
"Anything for you, m'lady." Chat opened his palm in a claw-like move. "Cataclysm." He whispered and he placed his hand on the weapon, disintegrating it.
Ladybug released Inferno, once he transformed back. She caught the Akuma in her yo-yo and set it free.
"Miraculous ladybug!" She threw the hose in the air and watched the ladybugs take over the city.
They skipped over one important detail. She ran over to Chat. "Why didn't they heal you?"
"I- I don't know." He winced, holding his arms into himself.
"This isn't good. We need to get you help." Ladybug helped him to stand. "C'mon." She wrapped her arm around him, after she threw her yo-yo and took him to her apartment.
He sat on her bed, hissing in pain at his wounds. Ladybug ran around frantically trying to find a first aid kit.
"Ladybug." Chat tried to get her attention. "LB?"
Ladybug didn't answer. She didn't know what to do. She was pacing around, throwing items everywhere in her bedroom.
"MARI!" Chat finally called out her real name and groaned, holding his head, wiping the blood onto his fingers. "I need you to fo-" He passed out onto her bed and Ladybug panicked.
Plagg zipped out of his ring and flew at Ladybug. "Fix him!"
"I'm trying!" Ladybug panicked at the black cat kwami. "I don't know what's wrong!"
"Keep him awake." Plagg zipped and grabbed a cold glass of water and dumped it onto Adrien's face.
He woke up and sat up, holding his head. "What happened?"
"You need to stay awake, kid." Plagg nudged him to try and make him more alert.
"You're badly hurt." Ladybug carried over her first aid kit. "Spots off." A red light covered her and Marinette stood in Ladybug's place.
Adrien felt himself begin to black out again, but Plagg slapped him across the face. "Stay awake!"
Marinette combed her fingers through his blonde hair to find where he was bleeding from. "That's gonna need stitches." She looked over the wound on his skull.
Adrien groaned, as she pressed a piece of gauze to the wound. "Hold that a minute." Adrien placed his hand on it, as Marinette prepared the needle.
"Have you done this before?" Adrien winced at the pain in his head and neck.
"Once." Marinette smiled at him and knotted the end. "My father got hurt one time and he taught me how to do it."
"Comforting." Adrien rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt over his head and stuffed it between his teeth.
"I'm sorry." Marinette worried her bottom lip.
"Just do it already." Adrien mumbled through his shirt.
Marinette began to sew it shut, before she tightened the string and pulled the string. Adrien groaned and gripped the bedspread with his fingertips.
"Fu…." Adrien hissed and tapped his foot.
"Almost done, kitty." Marinette finished and cut the string with a pair of sewing scissors.
Adrien let the shirt fall out of his mouth and he panted. His neck felt like it was burning and everything that touched it sent a new wave of unbearable heat.
Marinette sighed and looked his neck over. "I'm not sure how to fix your burns… Maybe we should take you to a hos-"
"No! I can't explain this." Adrien groaned and stood up. "My father will kill me. You know how he can get. If he finds out, I have burns… I'm done for."
"Don't stand up. Sit down." Marinette helped him to sit back on the bed, but ended up tripping and falling into him.
He cringed and slowly opened his eyes to find hers centimeters from his. "I- um… hm." Adrien smirked warmly at her and she kissed him on the lips.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and deepened it.
Marinette broke the kiss and started to cry and graze his chest with her fingers. "I thought you were going to die."
"I have nine lives, bugaboo. You can't get rid of this Chat that easily." Adrien joked and ran his hand along her spine, before the pain kicked in again and his head spun.
"You need to lie down and I… need to figure out what to do about your burns." She sighed and got off of him.
Adrien smiled at her and laid on his stomach with her pillow under his arms. "I'll wait."
"And I'll make sure he doesn't pass out." Plagg stood his ground.
"I'll help." Tikki called out and zipped over to Plagg to give him a hug, sending them spinning through the air.
"Tikki!" Plagg complained and tried to get out of her grasp.
Marinette flipped through her smart phone and looked up burn treatments. She went off to grab a bowl of cool water and a soft wash cloth. She came back to her bedroom and set the items next to her bed.
Marinette sat beside his upper body and peered down at a saddened Adrien.
"You okay? I saw how you were fighting out there, tonight." Marinette spoke softly and dipped the cloth into the cool water, before dabbing the burns along his neck.
"Yeah…" Adrien turned his face into her pillow to give her better access to the back of his neck.
"Adrien…" Marinette sighed and rinsed out the wash cloth before dipping it again.
Adrien sighed and rubbed his face into her pillow, being careful not to graze his burnt cheek. "I guess- I-"
Marinette didn't have to hear more out of him. "You want me to tell you why I haven't just picked the obvious choice? Why I'm waiting so long to say three words that you want to hear?"
Adrien peeked up from her pillow and nodded with a hiss, as his skin pulled around the burns that were swelling up.
"I'm scared. I'm scared of ruining this." She gestured between the two of them. "I'm scared of hurting Luka. I'm scared of…"
Adrien grabbed her hand that was holding the wash cloth. "Let me help you then." He searched her eyes with his own. "Let me help you decide."
Adrien sat up and groaned at the movement. He took her hands in his. "When you first fell into my lap, literally." He chuckled a little. "I thought you were the most amazing thing to ever TANGLE up with me. You were so beautiful, as you fell from the sky. How could I not CATch you?" He brushed her knuckles with his lips. "You're the most amazingly beautiful, strong, talented, woman. I have ever met. I couldn't see my life without you. AS Chat or Adrien. You make my life so much better. You make it more bearable. You're my light, Mari. My everything."
Marinette got lost in his green eyes and he kissed her knuckles with his soft lips again. She touched his burnt cheek with her wash cloth and he winced at the pain with a chuckle.
"Ow." Adrien closed one eye and smirked at her.
"Your Chat is showing, Adrien." Marinette smiled a little.
"It always is, Mari. You just don't notice." Adrien smiled warmly at her. "I mean it. I really do love you. I've always loved you. What I wanted to tell you when I held you during the fight with Dark Cupid was this. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you."
"I-" Marinette bit her tongue.
"Just say it." Adrien shook her hands in his.
"I-" Marinette clenched the wash cloth in her hands.
"Please…" Adrien begged her with his forest eyes.
"I love you." Marinette pressed her lips together and blushed.
"That's all I ever wanted." Adrien touched her cheeks and brought her lips to his and she dropped the wash cloth onto the bed.
Song I wrote to: Let Me by Zayn