It was a difficult time after the doctor left, leaving specific orders to keep the heat on until either he or another medical professional came by to turn it off. Even though Marinette was supposed to be drifting in and out of consciousness, she hadn't woken up since Chat came. Even hours later, she was still in deep sleep.
He did see the smallest hint of a bruise right below her collarbone and pulled down the collar of her shirt just enough to see an actual bruise, confirming everything Dr. Martin said about her and her…situation. Her life behind closed doors. And even now there wasn't anything he could do. He'd failed to take action so many times now that he was even allowing other people to hurt his friends—not that he wanted to either, but at least never had that intention.
Chat Noir wasn't supposed to show any kind of vulnerability but once the doctor left him to "protect" Marinette from "akumas," the waterfall came. Part of it was self-loathing, part of it was frustration, but most of it was for Marinette and all the people he hurt…but mostly Marinette. She wasn't conscious and he knew she couldn't hear him but he couldn't stop apologizing even for the simplest, most minute things he'd done as Adrien. Not paying her attention, not being there for her, not protecting her, not even visiting her. It wasn't like he didn't know her address. He could've come to see her any time. He could've swung by her parents' bakery and caught her if she was there. She would've had little choice but to talk to him then. He could've asked her what was going on and judge her reactions to be either alarming or normal.
He wanted to hold her hand and feel for himself how much warmer she'd become. And…to feel her alive, possibly for the last time, if she was truly on the cusp of death. What if this was also his fault? He wasn't known to visit anybody and at most helped people medics couldn't reach in time. But…then he left them to their own devices. He never bothered to see how they did after the fact. So with his lack of concern for others, what if he'd passed right over Marinette after an akuma battle so many years ago and she'd been hurt? What if her wound had become infected and that was what was slowly killing her? This idea was going out on a limb of course, but what if it was the truth?
Or, if her illness wasn't his fault—which he desperately hoped was the case—where did it come from and when did she get it? His job was akumas, the doctors probably weren't going to tell him anything beyond what they already had. And even then, they might've considered it a little too much information to begin with.
He didn't hold her hand. He didn't touch any part of her, and not just because her hands and arms were covered with a thick blanket. It was because she looked so sickly and delicate. She looked like her life was slipping away from her even though she was starting to look better than before. He could see clear progress but she still seemed corpselike. A terrible sight to him.
Her bandages didn't help. Nothing had been put over her ear but the bleeding had stopped. Her nosebleed stopped and nothing was there now except a nose tube to provide her with oxygen. The cut under her eye had a small ball of cotton taped to her face. It hadn't been easy to see every little thing with water diluting the blood, splashed across her face, and her hair had been a blooming mess to hide any other injuries. There was a bandage taped down to her left temple and an entire band of gauze wrapped around her hairline, with a small line of blood having leaked through on the left. He still thought it was head trauma but she didn't seem to have any trouble breathing and she could've been hooked up to many more machines if there had been enough problems.
At last her eyes fluttered open. It was obvious she was dazed, like the doctor said she could be. At least she woke up though. Her world was hazy but this was a really good sign.
She wobbled a bit as she sat up fully, pulling her arms out from under the blanket and rubbing any dizziness from her eyes. He let her do as she pleased, so long as she could balance enough to keep upright, and waited patiently for her to notice him—and hopefully remember him. Surely she would. Chat Noir was just as much a friend to her as Adrien. Even if she didn't always remember him in the past, this time he was right here.
There were bruises—mostly small, light brown ones that weren't too noticeable—spotting her arms like a human dalmatian. Well…maybe that was a little exaggerated. They did spot her arms but were relatively far apart from each other. And they weren't very big, aside from one near her elbow, but he swore if someone was doing anything to hurt her, they would pay dearly. He couldn't get in trouble with the law if it was in Marinette's defense.
She didn't see him right away and kept her eyes focused straight ahead while her fingers trailed her face feeling everything stuck to it. He wondered how many times she'd already done this before he was allowed to see her.
He wiped the last tears from his eyes, enough to catch her attention from her peripheral vision.
He remained silent, waiting for a reaction beyond the absent stare he was receiving. Her eyes seemed…somewhat focused on him. It looked more like she was seeing through him rather than looking at him. It wasn't clear whether or not she remembered him. The lack of response was frustrating to say the least, and it had him on the edge of his seat hoping she would give him some kind of cue that she did remember him. And if she didn't, he would just leave her be. He would come back the next day as Adrien and by then her spells of unconsciousness would be over.
"Hi," she finally said.
Her voice was hoarse and he couldn't tell if it was from thirst, a sore throat, or brain damage. Hopefully not the latter.
"Hey," he returned. "How are you feeling?"
She looked down for a moment as if mentally scanning her body to answer a very simple question that shouldn't involve this much effort.
"Cold," she replied. "It's freezing in here."
It probably wouldn't help much—if at all—to warm her up with the room beginning to make him sweat, but it had to be better than nothing. He reached out to her, offering his body heat to help if the room wasn't enough for her. He highly doubted it would make much of a difference but to her, it did. Her arms clung to him as tightly as possible. He imagined the pressure couldn't feel too good to the bruises on her arms, but when she started shivering, chances were she didn't even notice them. In turn it reminded him of how violently little Marcel shook in his arms, even though he tried to hold the boy close, and later saw the results of his failure to keep Marcel warm at all. Feeling another person shivering against him, unable to offer the heat they instinctively sought out, was dampening his spirits even more. This morning he was content, he was reliable, he'd rolled his eyes at another akuma attack, and then all this happened. Maybe he just hadn't taken it seriously enough. Maybe he hadn't realized the severity of what one storm could do to people because he was safe from it. Fighting in it, yes, but he was the one person who had been in the storm that came out totally unfazed.
"You're cold too," Marinette commented.
At this point he was in a lose-lose situation. The combination of his own body heat and the heat provided by the vent wasn't enough for her to at least feel warm. And the moment she nuzzled her head between his neck and shoulder, the first skin on skin contact he had with her, he felt her temperature. No wonder she couldn't feel warmth right now, her own temperature was still low enough to give him chill bumps.
"You were out in a bad storm," he told her.
And when she'd been knocked unconscious by an unknown object, her body failed to produce the amount of heat it normally would've at least tried to, leaving her critically hypothermic—not exactly the same as freezing to death in an avalanche but still cold enough to be life-threatening.
"It's wet outside."
For a second he wondered why she was choosing to turn to him for warmth rather than the thick blanket already on her bed, covering her all the way up to her neck. Then he realized the blanket didn't even matter right now. It was useless unless it could trap heat and Marinette didn't have much of that. He wasn't completely sure but if anything, under the blanket was cooler than the room's current temperature—and his.
He wanted to remove the blanket but decided against it. The doctors knew better, after all, and he had little choice but to trust their judgment. Marinette was getting warmer but she wasn't out of the woods yet, and if for any reason her temperature dropped again, or if she became unstable, then as sick as she was, it could be fatal for her. Maybe they weren't letting her warm up as fast because it would overwhelm her and shock her system. He didn't really know.
"It's getting warmer outside, actually—"
"Can I go outside?"
He felt her fingers scratch at his back as she tried to grip onto his suit tighter than she was able, trying to capture any heat she could. His suit was so tight on him she had trouble holding on to begin with.
"I think it's hotter in here than out there."
"It's freezing in here."
"It'll get a lot warmer in here, I promise."
"You're freezing."
He was starting to understand what Dr. Martin meant when he said Marinette could be confused—she was notaccepting logic. She hardly seemed to realize where she was at either, and if she did, she had absolutely no comment on it. In the past she'd always had an opinion on something and she was usually outspoken about it to some extent. Without her saying a single thing regarding her surroundings, beyond its clearly unbearable temperature, he was led to believe her confusion was getting the better of her and he wouldn't be able to reason with her like he would under normal circumstances.
"Get me out of here…" she groaned. "I hate this place…"
"I don't think that's a good idea right now."
Not to mention even Chat Noir didn't have the authority to do that.
She managed to pull his entire upper body down by wrapping her arms around his neck and falling back onto her inclined bed. At least she'd been dressed in a hospital gown…otherwise this would be a very awkward position…
Good Dr. Martin came back in as Marinette was still, at this point, hugging his head.
"Please help me," he begged.
Chat could've simply pulled her arms away from him but he didn't know exactly how delicate a state she was in right now and didn't want her to fight against him at all, even if it meant he was stuck bent down over a woman who apparently thought cuddling his "freezing" head was the best way to warm back up.
"How did this…uh…?"
"She said she felt cold and things kind of evolved."
After a moment of thick silence the doctor threw his head back and laughed.
Good to know this was humorous.
"Hello, Marinette, how are we feeling today?" Dr. Martin asked as he walked around to the other side of her bed.
Finally the woman let go of him to turn her full attention to her doctor. He still didn't know whether or not she had remembered or recognized him… She seemed to have enough energy to have pinned him in one of the most uncomfortable positions he'd ever been pinned. That one vertebra at the base of his neck and the start of his spine had strained to roll with the punches and not fight her grip. Now it was just sore as he popped it to relieve stored up pressure. Pressure from a petite woman. Wow.
"Thanks," he said.
"Is she safe now? From any akumas?"
Chat nodded his head. "Yeah."
The doctor breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good, good, the last thing we want is another attack." He took another relieved sigh but this time it sounded like it was only there for emphasis. "Her family will be coming soon, you're free to go now."
Actually it was more like a polite way of kicking him out of the hospital, or at least Marinette's room.
"I have other things to do," he lied. "I'll leave her in your care. Tell her I checked in on her, if she doesn't remember this."
"Of course. I'm sure she'll be delighted."
The doctor helped Marinette sit back up—to which she did not take kindly and went limp just to fight Dr. Martin—and stuck another thermometer in her mouth. Once again Chat caught the blood contrast on the inside of her lips as her mouth opened. It was sickening.
He quietly left the room in slight hopes to see her family. But then he realized that if by any chance he bumped into them, they would probably be expecting some kind of information from the person who found her even closer to death than she already had been… Before he chose to wait and let the storm take over the whole of Paris… Jeopardizing innocent lives…
Thankfully there was no encounter with her family. He left in tumultuous peace.
A/N
So...yeah, so that's that. I'm thinking of changing the genre to Suspense, just because everyone's guessing and wondering and I do still have many more surprises. Most of this was written on mobile Mic Word (app), so near the bottom especially autocorrect took hold of this chapter and decided every other word was wrong. I apologize for any misspellings or words that don't make sense. I ran through it but if you spot one please tell me so I can fix and update it!