Marinette groans as her alarm goes off. Her eyes flutter open and she takes a deep breath, preparing herself to roll over to hit the snooze button. Her chest constricts in pain when her ribs expand, shooting stars expanding across her vision and razors crisscrossing her torso.
"Ahhhgh!" She immediately rolls back. She barely turned and pain shot through her whole body. Her injuries must be bad, she's usually able to take pain like a champ. Sitting up very slowly, she carefully probes her rib cage. Not too bad, only two broken ribs and maybe a third fractured one.
"Marinette? Take these, they should help with the pain and swelling." Tikki hovers in front of her, a juice box in one arm and a medicine bottle in the other.
"Thanks, Tikki." Marinette smiles at the tiny red fairy and gently takes the items from her. Popping two pills in her mouth, she reflects on the night before.
She had been too distracted. Injuries are common in akuma fights, though she had never been hurt this bad before. She had really freaked Chat out. The panic was clear on his face. Thinking back now, she realizes he may have hurt the poor akumatized victim. She had seen him flying over and she vaguely remembers hearing glass shatter.
He obviously didn't want to leaver either. In all honestly, if he had pushed harder to stay with her she probably would have caved and let him stay. She counts herself lucky that he hadn't followed her home. She finds herself smiling as she thinks of her partner. She's lucky to have him, a partner who respects her decisions no matter what he thinks on the matter. She trusts him with her life. And for good reason, he seems to be willing to risk everything for her.
"Marinette, you need to get ready for school." Tikki gives her a sad, knowing smile.
Marinette slowly but surely makes her way to the bathroom, limping and wincing the whole way. She strips down and checks herself in the mirror. The only visible bruise with clothes on is a small bruise on her jaw, easily covered with makeup. The bruises on her torso, however, will be a bit harder to hide. One such bruise extends from just below her collarbone all the way down to her knee, covering her entire right side. The other bruise fills the space between her left hip and armpit, a reminder of the net the akuma had been using. Her whole torso is a mass of dark blue and purple.
She can't tell which side is worse. The hit from the akuma had broken her ribs but the impact with the car had done major damage to her entire right side. She can move her arms with relatively little pain but her right hips is in constant pain and makes walking difficult.
She grumbles to herself as she quickly and clumsily cleans herself. Calling it good enough, she stumbles around her room preparing for the long day ahead.
She realizes, as she marches toward school, that acting normal can be very difficult when literally everything you do hurts. Even breathing is painful. She muddles through her day, doing her best to keep from moving too much or too suddenly.
It's not until her final class that she finally pays attention to anyone else. The room is abuzz as her classmates prepare for exam that's about to start. She can't shut out the world anymore. She slowly puts her things away, doing everything she can to keep her gasps of pain from being noticed.
"Umm… Marinette? Are you okay?"
She stops moving completely when she hears Adrien's concerned voice. Slowly she raises her head to see him watching her from the seat below. He looks completely exhausted.
"I… Um, I'm fine." She fakes her normal smile, which also seems to hurt somehow.
"Are you sure? You've been really quiet today and you keep saying 'ow' whenever you think no one is paying attention."
Is she really that transparent? She shakes her head slightly. "I'm fine. I just worked myself a bit too hard this morning. I was helping move some bags around in the bakery and I guess I pulled a muscle or something." She smiles down at the beautiful boy, feeling guilty for lying to him so easily.
He watches her for a moment before nodding to himself. She watches his green eyes flutter shut and his head start to dip. He jerks upright, eyes wide open and staring at her but obviously not seeing her.
The room quiets as the teacher enters the room and both teens turn their attention to the front of the room.
"Alright class. I hope you're all ready for this exam. You will have the whole class to finish it. You are allowed two sheets of scrap paper and a calculator. Please use pencil. Good luck."
The papers are passed back and soon the only notice is the scribble of pencils on paper and the random clicks of calculators.
Suddenly, a soft thump reverberates through the room.
Lifting her head to find the source of the noise, Marinette sees Adrien with his head laid on the desk. He passed out. She glances around to find that no one else had seen. Or at least no one else reacted to him falling asleep.
"Uh…. Umm, Madame Mendeleiev, I think Adrien fell asleep." Marinette raises her hand and points to the blond head snoring on the desk below her.
"Oh. Adrien?" the teacher makes her way to his desk and gently shakes him. All he does is snort and begin to snore quieter. "Adrien?" she shakes him harder, to no avail.
"Yeah, I don't think he's gonna wake up." Nino tells her and pokes his friend in the face with his pencil. Adrien's face twitches but he continues to sleep.
The teacher keeps trying and he keeps snoring gently. After a few minutes, she gives up. "I hate to say it but I don't think he's gonna pass this exam."
Even though she is concerned, Marinette has to concentrate on her test. There isn't much she can do to help and she needs to pass. Her grade in this class is suffering enough as it is.
An hour and a half later the test is over and Nino rolls his friends head off the test to turn it in for him. Marinette gets a glimpse as Nino hands it over. He only answered the first six questions. He definitely failed.
The room quickly clears as Marinette slowly gathers her things. Before she knows it, it's only her and the sleeping Adrien in the room. Alya had told her something rushed about needing to finish a story for the Ladyblog before sprinting from the room, followed closely by Nino. She shakes her head as she makes her way down to the sleeping boy and takes Nino's recently vacated seat. Watching his quietly, she reaches out and gently brushes his hair to the side.
A hand shoots up and grips her wrist as green eyes pop open. Covering for her surprise, she smiles at him gently. "Hey there. How are you feeling?"
His grip on her wrist lessens as he calms down. The crazed look in his eyes fades as he takes in his surroundings. "I'm so sorry! I didn't hurt you, did I?" he whips up and carefully releases her wrist.
She hides her grimace as she caresses the tender joint. "No, you didn't hurt me. Are you okay? You were really out of it. You looked a bit upset when you woke up."
"I'm fine, it was just a bad dream. Ummm… where is everyone?" he glances around the room in confusion.
"Oh, yeah… Umm… Class is over. Its free period now…"
"Over…" he murmurs to himself. "Wait, free period? What about the test?" his brow furrows, then his entire face relaxes. "I slept through the test, didn't I?"
She looks away from his blank stare, guilt filling her to her core. "Yeah…" she sighs. Why does she feel so guilty? Pity, sure. Pity would make sense. But guilt? Maybe because he helped her so much when studying and then he failed when she couldn't help.
"That sounds just about right." He nods and stares off at nothing.
"I'm sorry Adrien."
"Why? You're not the one that fell asleep. And it's not your fault I did. I was stupid enough to not get enough sleep. Why would you be sorry?" The look on his face is so sweet and sincere.
"Well… I… I don't know. I'm just sorry."
He smiles at her and leans over to hug her gently. "It's okay Marinette. I'll live. Don't worry about me." He pulls back and looks at her gently. His eyes flicker down and he frowns. "What's that?" he gently brushes his fingers over the bruise below her collarbone.
Crap. Her carefully chosen scarf had fallen when she wasn't paying attention. Panic fills her as concern grows on his face. "O-ohh, that. Ummm… I woke up this morning and it was there." She laughs uncomfortably, pulling the scarf back into place to cover it.
"Marinette, what really happened?" his tone is steely and his eyes search her face. He carefully moves the scarf and pulls her shirt down another inch to see more.
She pulls back, out of his reach. "You want to know the truth?" she asks as she scrambles for an answer. He nods as he watches her carefully.
"Alright, fine. I'll tell you… It's a bit embarrassing though…" she hangs her head and looks up at him through her lashes. He still looks concerned. "Well… I was working on a project at home while listening to music and I had to get some stuff from the top of the cabinet in my room. The stuff was heavier than I thought and I was dancing to the music and I kinda… tripped. I missed a step on the ladder and fell… I guess it bruised pretty bad." She feels herself blush, not from embarrassment but from guilt.
"You tripped and fell and it bruised your collarbone?"
"Yeah… the, uh, the stuff I was carrying kind of fell on me…"
He looks at her for a moment, his face uncertain. With a sigh, he shakes his head and smiles at her. "I'm sorry you got hurt. Next time you need help, ask for it. You can always call me. If I can get away when you call, then I'll be more than happy to help."
Happiness fills her chest when she sees the genuine smile on his face. He's so kind, even when every word out of her mouth is a lie. "Thank you. I wouldn't want to bother you though." She mumbles back.
"Oh, so now you're awake!" Nino's voice makes them both jump. Her face burns red when she realizes how close she and Adrien had gotten to each other. They had unconsciously leaned toward each other while they had talked. She leans away while turning toward Nino.
"Yeah, he just woke up a minute ago."
"Dude, I hate to break it to you but you snoozed right through the test. We tried to wake you up but… Sorry man."
"It's alright Nino. I'll be fine. I'll probably just get grounded or something, no big deal." Adrien smiles at his friends and gathers his things. "Now, I'm starving. Let's go get some food. Um, Marinette… Remember what I said. Just call and I'll be there."
She smiles at him and feels her heart skip a beat. "Y-yeah. Thanks Adrien."
He nods and the two boys make their way out of the room. Marinette grins to herself and she slowly stands to follow them, forgetting momentarily that the majority of her body is covered in purple and blue bruises.
Groaning quietly, she limps toward the schools exit. Her hip is worse than she thought and sitting in one position for hours on end must have aggravated the injury. She inches her way along the hallway, trying her best to move her right leg more than a few centimeters at a time. Maybe she fractured her hip bone, or maybe the bones popped out of place a little. She'll have to be careful for the next few days to let it get better.
"Marinette? Are you okay? You look like you're in pain."
She turns to find Alya walking up behind her. "Oh, I'm fine. I'm just a bit stiff from sitting still for so long. Those seats aren't exactly comfortable." Laughing innocently, she gauges her friends face carefully.
"I guess so… what took you so long to leave the room?" Alya's eyes sparkle with mischief and a smile spreads across her face.
"Well… I was talking to Adrien…"
"Oh really? About what? How beautiful he is when he's asleep?" Alya asks in a singsong voice.
"No, he woke up as I was leaving. I was just telling him that he slept through the exam. I'm kind of worried about him … He looked upset when he woke up but not about missing the exam. He's not worried about getting into trouble either, it's something else… He looked really worried actually."
"I'm sure it's nothing, probably just something with his next photo shoot. Though I'm surprised he's nor freaking out about the test. It's kind of a big deal." Alya falls into step by Marinette, looking forward as she falls into thought.
The rest of the day passes slowly as Marinette suffers in silence. Even after taking those pain killers repeatedly, she still has trouble moving without gasping in pain. She made her way to the cafeteria to eat some late lunch and watches Adrien trying and mostly failing to stay awake. His head bobs every few seconds as he tries to pay attention to the lecture their teacher was trying to give him about proper sleep schedules and the importance of time management. As if he needs a lecture on that.
Eventually, the bell rings and she heads home for the weekend. Her priority as soon as she gets home is to sleep. She feels her head swim in exhaustion as she climbs the stairs to her room. She's a sleep the moment her head hits the pillow. She dreams of blond boys and green eyes.