A.N. This one was inspired by the song Laal Ishq from the movie Ram Leela (a bollywood adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Highly recommend you watch it, if only for the amazing chemistry between Deepika and Ranveer and the absolutely GORGEOUS cinematography). This was supposed to be a oneshot but works better as a two parter. Second chapter will be up tomorrow!
Chapter titles from the song.
Chapter One. I have had such an enmity with you (that I wasn't myself anymore)
This red love,
this sorrowful love,
this flawed love,
this enmity of love.
Adrien comes to with a groan, his ears ringing from the explosion. Sitting up, he wipes his face, shaking his head and dislodging the dust that's settled in his hair. The ground still shakes beneath him, the akuma's every step sending shockwaves through the earth and in the distance he can hear people screaming, running from the monster.
He should have expected this. Father had been in a terrible mood this morning; it made sense that the day's akuma would be a particularly destructive one. More so than usual, at least.
"-nette! Marinette!" his head snaps up at Alya's desperate cry and panic grips his heart at the sight in front of him. He remembers now. The akuma had come out of nowhere, unleashing a blast that rocked the buildings around them and sent Marinette flying across the street where she hit a storefront with a sickening thud. He'd only taken one step forward when the second blast had hit, knocking him out for god knows how long.
Across the street, Alya has propped Marinette against a wall and is frantically trying to make her wake up. Jogging across the street to join them, Adrien pushes Alya's hands aside, sitting against the wall and settling Marinette's head in his lap.
"Adrien!" Alya exclaims, her eyes wide and filled with tears. "Oh my god, Adrien I didn't know what to do I'm sorry I just left you there but she hit the wall so hard and oh god I had to check and it's been ten minutes and she hasn't woken up yet I—"
"Alya it's fine," he interrupts her tersely, mind racing. Ten minutes? Where the hell is Ladybug? Adrien scans the sky for the telltale blur of red, listening for the zip of her yo-yo as she swings across the city but there's no sign of her.
Blood trickles sluggishly from Marinette's temple and he wipes it away, just as her eyes flicker open and she tries to sit up, frowning when he stops her. "No, don't try to move," he tells her, almost crying in relief to see her awake. "We just need to wait for Ladybug to purify the akuma and you'll be fine, okay?" Adrien presses a kiss to her forehead, pressing her head to his chest. "You'll be fine."
She doesn't look assured. If anything, she looks more distressed. Watching him carefully, she seems to be considering something for a long moment. And then, she reaches for her earrings, and Adrien's blood runs cold.
No.
No it can't be.
But there they are, glinting dully in her palm as she holds them out to him. Plain black studs. Studs he's suddenly realising he's never seen her without.
He could take them. Right now, he could grab them from her and take them back to father, finish what they started all those years ago. But he won't. Not when Marinette needs him, when she can't fight back.
"...Alya" he croaks before his resolve weakens, mouth dry. "Alya you need to take these."
Alya is looking back and forth from the earrings in Marinette's hand to Marinette herself, and Adrien can see that she desperately wants to bombard Marinette with questions for the ladyblog, to talk about everything, but before she can say anything, another explosion rocks the ground beneath them and her mouth settles into a thin line, her shoulders setting in determination. Grabbing the earrings from Marinette, she nods at the two of them and puts them on, running off to fight.
They watch her go, until she's out of sight, and then Marinette sags against him with a sigh and he pulls her close, wrapping an arm around her shoulder even as his heart beats rapidly in his chest, mind reeling at the new information.
Marinette is Ladybug. Marinette is Ladybug. He wants to laugh at the irony. Because Adrien hates Ladybug. Has hated her for so long it's practically ingrained in him by now.
In another world, he loves her. Would lay down his life for her without a second thought. Would be devoted only to her. In another world, they are partners, fighting side by side to keep Paris safe from Hawkmoth. Ladybug and Chat Noir, heroes of Paris.
In this world, Ladybug is his enemy; the only thing standing in the way of what he most desires. In this world, he is not a hero.
He squashes down the hysterical laugh that bubbles up in his throat, tightening his arm around Marinette. What a twist of girl he loves turning out to be the one he hates.
It is Marinette he has thrown in battle. Has punched, attacked, tried to cataclysm on more than one occasion.
What would he have done if he'd succeeded, if he'd defeated Ladybug and then Marinette disappeared the very next day? Would he have connected the dots? Would he have recognised her? Or would he be too busy riding the high of victory?
He's still processing when the miraculous cure sets everything right, when Alya returns, giving Marinette—sitting against him, all traces of injury gone—the earrings back and he can't help but stare.
(So close. So close he could touch them, take them, steal them, win the battle—)
Adrien's hands twitch at his side, but instead, he helps Marinette stand, insisting on taking her home even though he knows she's perfectly alright now. She's silent as they walk, but doesn't protest when he laces his fingers through hers, squeezing her hand tight.
Once they're up in her room, Marinette makes sure the trapdoor is firmly shut behind them before whirling to face him, expression steely. He thinks he knows what to expect. He thinks she will swear him to secrecy, impress upon him the importance of keeping her identity to himself. But today is a day for surprises, because instead, she pierces him with her blue eyed gaze and says:
"I know who you are."
Five words. That's all it takes. Five words, for fate to take a different course.
"I'm going to save her."
Adrien stares down at his mother, lying motionless in front of him. His legs buckle underneath him and he grabs hold of the sides of the glass coffin to stay upright, drinking in his mother's appearance. She looks exactly the same as the last time he saw her, over a year ago now; he half expects her to open her eyes any minute as though she's just having a nap but mother remains still, not even a flicker of movement underneath her eyelids.
Through the roaring in his ears, Adrien only partially hears father's explanation, but he looks up at the mention of earrings...and a ring that could bring mother back.
Could it be? Shoving his hand into his pocket, Adrien's fingers curl around the ring he'd hidden when father had called him. He remembers Plagg's warning that nobody could know about him, but surely he would understand, right? This was his mother! He couldn't just leave her, not when he had the means to bring her back, to make his family whole, and happy again!
Decision made, Adrien pulls out the ring, presenting it to father. "Is this what you need?"
Marinette hadn't wanted to believe it. Had refused to believe it, in fact; and it had been easy to dismiss the signs as coincidence when they were just friends, when she didn't know Adrien as well as she thought she did.
He's standing in front of her, mouth opening and closing but no words come out. She wants him to laugh in bewilderment, to ask her what she means, to have no idea what she's talking about but instead he just looks resigned and she feels her throat tighten.
Because Marinette has spent years fighting the owner of the black cat miraculous—the mysterious black clad boy who called himself Ravageur Noir, who never spoke, who was supposed to be her partner but only snarled and tried to steal her miraculous whenever she tried to reason with him.
Adrien closes his eyes, sighing. "How?"
"Does it matter?" she speaks around the lump in her throat. So many signs! So much she'd ignored—his irritation whenever Alya talked about Ladybug and the blog; the way he always disappeared just before an akuma attack, as though he knew it was coming—she'd ignored them all, refusing to even entertain the idea for more than a few minutes at a time, because…
Because it was Adrien! The boy she loved, who looked at her like she'd hung the moon in the sky, who built pillow forts with her in his bedroom just so they could watch a movie together; who would sneak up behind her to hug her and spin her around until she was dizzy and breathless with laughter, who kissed her so reverently, so softly, that she felt like she was made of glass.
How could he be the same boy who fought her on an almost daily basis, who threw her across the city without remorse, looked at her with blazing hatred in his green eyes?
How could they be the same? It was impossible.
And then suddenly, it wasn't.
(Identical scratches in identical places on two different faces that are now the same, and her legs buckling underneath her, the air knocked out of her lungs and a night spent crying and crying and crying—)
"No, I guess it doesn't." Adrien scrubs a hand down his face, "so where does that leave us?"
"Would you stop it?" she asks. "Stop the fighting? Could you?"
His silence is all the answer she needs. Swallowing hard, Marinette looks away, her eyes burning with unshed tears. Forcing her voice to remain steady, she speaks. "I think you should go, Adrien."
She ignores him as he steps forward, keeping her gaze lowered, focusing instead on the orange of his converses.
"Mari, I—" he swallows. Reaches up to cup her face, his thumb brushing her cheek and she can't help it. She flinches away from him, from his touch. Clapping a hand over her mouth, Marinette's head whips up in shock, meeting Adrien's hurt eyes as he inhales sharply, stepping back. She's never done that before.
But isn't that how it would be from now on?
Even if she wanted to continue their relationship— and God, she wants to. So, so desperately, she wants to wrap herself in his embrace—how could she ever trust him? How could she ever be comfortable around him knowing who he is, knowing what he wants, that she would be putting her miraculous in so much danger, constantly fearing that he would take them from her under the guise of stroking her cheek, kissing her lips, pulling her into his arms?
She can't.
Spinning around, Marinette clutches the back of her computer chair until her knuckles turn white. "Go. It's over."
Adrien hesitates for a moment, but then she hears him sniff, hears his footsteps receding until she is alone again. It isn't until she hears the front door slam shut behind him, that Marinette sinks to the floor with a gasp, finally allowing her tears to fall. Ignoring Tikki's concerned hovering around her shoulder, she buries her face in her hands, and weeps.
Their first meeting goes like this:
Marinette's up on a roof, scanning the latest akuma for weakness when she hears him land with a thump behind her and turns to see him. He is masked like her, dressed all in black with cat ears nestled in his blonde hair, and she almost cries in relief. Finally, the partner Tikki had said she was supposed to have is here "oh thank god—"
Except then he's launching himself at her, his hand bubbling with the destructive magic and his eyes full of anger and she barely manages to get away, his fingers brushing the ribbon in her hair, turning it to dust.
The message is clear. He is not her friend.
Adrien lasts a week. One week, seven days, one hundred and sixty eight hours.
By Monday, the entire school is buzzing with news of the breakup. It's all anyone is talking about and as the day progresses, he watches Marinette's shoulders hunch more and more, watches her retreat into herself, sitting in the back of the class and taking Alya with her.
Her best friend doesn't seem to understand why they've broken up, but she glares at Adrien nonetheless. He catches Marinette's eye briefly and she shakes her head slightly, answering his unspoken question. Alya doesn't know. That's something, at least.
He wonders what she told Alya about the breakup. Wonders if she spent the weekend staring at his phone like he did, waiting for a call that never came. That will never come again.
With a groan, Adrien lets his head hit the desk with a thunk. Beside him, Nino pats his shoulder sympathetically. "You wanna talk about it?"
"No."
It's not like he can say: oh yeah man, I found out my girlfriend is Ladybug, the person I've been fighting for four years and happen to hate with every fibre of my being and she knows who I am, so the only thing we could do was breakup because I'm not gonna stop trying to get her miraculous and she won't give them to me.
Instead, he just groans again. That's really all he feels like doing anyway.
It doesn't get easier as the week pases. If anything, the gossip only gets worse, whispers following him whenever he walks through the halls, but at least they're being respectful enough to at least pretend they aren't talking about him. He doubts they've shown Marinette the same courtesy. The girls in their class have rallied around her, and for that he's glad, but he misses her company.
Misses her showing him her designs and suggesting ideas for her, letting her steal fries off his plate during lunch. Misses the warm weight of her against his shoulder as they study, the feeling of contentment that settled deep in his chest at her every touch. The way she'd brush his hair out of his face, covering his eyes with her palm and pressing a soft kiss to his jaw before presenting her own cheek for his lips.
He misses her.
And so, on the Friday, exactly seven days after their breakup, he pulls her aside into a small alcove at school.
"Adrien, wha—" he cuts her off, kissing her deeply, exhaling shakily when Marinette hesitates for only a second before reciprocating, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
He doesn't know how long they stay there,in the dark, but eventually she pulls away, her arms tightening briefly before she looks up at him. She doesn't let him cup her face, so instead he settles for running his hand over her shoulder, down her arm, grasping her fingers with his.
"I missed you" he whispers, "so much. I—" his voice falters, so he looks down at their entwined hands, bringing them up to his mouth to press a kiss to her fingers.
"Nothing's changed, Adrien." Marinette's words are matter of fact, delivered tonelessly, and he screws his eyes shut, letting go of her and running a hand through his hair in agitation. "You know why it's the only choice. For both our sakes."
"I know that!" he exclaims "you think I don't? I just...I just wish—"
"You wish what?" Marinette's voice is sharp "you wish that someone else was Ladybug, right? So you wouldn't have to put a name to her, or even care." She laughs bitterly, shaking her head. "You're such a hypocrite."
He doesn't say anything, shame pooling in his gut. Because of course, he hadn't cared what he did to Ladybug. Not as long as he got the miraculous. He'd never spared a thought for her—if she was alright after the battle, what her life was like— unless it was to curse her out for succeeding yet again. He is a hypocrite. If it wasn't Marinette behind the mask, he still wouldn't care.
Marinette sighs. "We can't do this, Adrien." Rising up on her tiptoes, she presses a chaste kiss to his lips before stepping out of his embrace and he notices her eyes glistening with tears. "This won't happen again."