Chapter 11: Say what you mean out loud

Chat Noir's boots landed silently against a neighboring rooftop, relief flooding through him at the sight of his house. His eyes scanned his lit-up bedroom.

The bedroom he specifically remembered leaving in darkness earlier that night.

The feeling of relief turned cold.

He could see someone standing in there, revolving their head this way and that, as if they were searching for something.

Searching for him.

The person turned to look in his direction and he caught the glint of Gabriel Agreste's glasses reflecting off the light.

"SHIT!" Chat gasped, darting behind the chimney and leaning against it, hand grasping at his thudding chest, "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit—!"

What was his dad doing? After months of never even bothering to check on him, he'd decided to do just that at the worst possible moment?

Chat dithered on what to do next. He could hardly jump back into his room and detransform (as was customary) with Gabriel standing right there.

What would he even say?

"Oh hi, Dad. Yeah, I'm Chat Noir, one of Paris's saviors, and I've been hiding my identity from you for months. But I suppose this is a pretty big revelation, so now you finally have a reason to pay attention to me—"

No. He was doing this without the stupid reveal.

But he knew, no matter what, he couldn't avoid the confrontation.

He leaped off the roof and snuck up behind the gates of his driveway. After dropping his transformation and whispering to Plagg to stay quiet inside his shirt pocket, he began the short ascent toward the front doors.

The door groaned as he pushed it open, loudly announcing his presence, and slamming shut behind him with just as much vigor. Sure enough, he soon heard footsteps approaching him from behind.

First Ladybug. Now his father. This night couldn't help but add insult to injury, could it?

He let his hand fall from the door and turned around, but kept his gaze stubbornly glued to the floor, watching his father through his periphery.

"Adrien." Gabriel hesitated halfway down the stairs. "Where have you been?"

Any incentive to face the music with rationale faded away, a sense of irritation prickling over him instead. "Why do you care?"

"Do you have any idea how late it is?" There surprisingly wasn't any bite behind his dad's tone. Just a tired voice, worn down by constant pressure. "It's freezing out there, and you're not even wearing a jacket—"

"All of a sudden you're worried about me?" he spat, voice echoing loudly through the gloomy atrium. He'd always found this place to be too large, too empty, too impossible to fill with anything substantial—

"Of course I worry. You're my son."

Adrien scoffed. "I thought fathers were supposed to spend time with their son. But all you ever do is avoid me."

"I don't avoid you, Adrien."

"You can't even look me in the eyes!"

Almost to prove a point, Adrien turned his glare upwards, directly into his father's sharp blue eyes. Only to find him staring right back.

His heart shifted, clunking like a clock chiming midnight, as it released a trough of acid through his chest.

And he realized that the eye contact issue was a two-way street.

He couldn't stand it. The way it felt like Gabriel's very soul was boring into him, breaking through every wall he'd built up and leaving his most vulnerable emotions exposed.

And that, too, was a two-way street.

Because now that he was really looking at his father, he couldn't stop.

He could see it all. The red rims around his blood-shot eyes. The haggardness of his sunken-in face. The knotted-up hunch of his shoulders. The utter exhaustion in his demeanor that came from a series of defeats in a losing game.

Adrien had to take a step backward. In an instant, he was almost tempted to let his fury wither away, to leave the past behind and let bygones be bygones.

But how could he, when those same exact bygones still swarmed him by the dozens — burning into his mind, screaming into his ears, haunting him through his nightmares — every chance they got?

Adrien's courage solidified and he gritted his teeth. His father didn't deserve his sympathy.

"I know I've been distant," Gabriel finally said, "But it doesn't mean I love you any less—"

"Stop pretending!" The barrier — the one he tried so hard to maintain around his father — was starting to crack. Anger began to leak through, and he was helpless to stop the dam from splitting, splitting, splitting. "You don't care about me! You never did! Otherwise, you would've made more of an effort by now!"

Gabriel shook his head. "It's not that simple. You just don't know the truth. You have no idea what I'm going through. What I'm trying to—"

"Enough with the excuses!" Adrien clenched his fists, arms shaking. "Did it ever occur to you that I might be going through stuff, too?!"

Gabriel's eyes softened. "Then you should talk to me."

Unlike his son, he wasn't shouting. And Adrien wished like hell that he would. This argument would be a lot easier if he didn't have guilt slamming into him on top of everything else.

"Talk to you?! When has that ever been an option?! Are you aware this is the first proper conversation we've had since Mom died?"

He watched the softness in his father's eyes turn icy. "She's not dead, Adrien."

The clunking of his heart immediately stopped. He reeled back on his heels, laughter bubbling through his throat in choked gasps. "Are you serious right now?"

Gabriel took a few steps down the stairs, as if getting closer would help his case in any way. "I know how that sounds. But there are things about this world that you don't understand—"

"I'm not convinced you understand, Dad!" Splitting, tearing, gaping, shattering— "Mom is DEAD! We BURIED her! We had a FUNERAL for her! We watched her DIE! SCARED and IN PAIN and covered in BLOOD, all because YOU refused to drive at the FUCKING SPEED LIMIT—!"

"And I'd give anything to take that back!" Gabriel roared, the veins on his forehead bulging, "Anything!"

Finally, he was shouting. And it felt like the worst victory Adrien had ever achieved.

"You can't," Adrien whispered.

Gabriel sighed. "What if I could?"

And — wow, wasn't that a thought? He dispelled it as soon as it came, shoving it deep down inside himself.

"You can't," he repeated, teeth gritted.

Tears began to well in his eyes and he knew that the haphazardly tied knots keeping him together were all about to unravel. But he was not about to give his father the satisfaction of seeing it happen.

He moved forward and marched up the stairs, each stomp reverberating through the atrium and then back into his ears. He passed his dad at the halfway point, feeling like an insect approaching a venus flytrap. But what other choice did he have?

Gabriel reached for his shoulder. "Adrien, wait—"

The touch was gentle. But his nerves were fizzling to such a violent degree, Gabriel's hand felt like molten lava.

"DON'T!"

His fist shot out of its own accord and he roughly knocked his dad's arm away from himself, the momentum sending Adrien stumbling backward into the banister. Their eyes locked on each other, and he couldn't figure out which of them was more shocked.

Because Adrien wasn't violent. That wasn't who he was. He never lashed out, he couldn't stand the idea of hurting someone else, he'd rather—

His grip on the banister tightened as his legs turned to jelly, heart slamming against his ribs so hard, he wasn't sure how to breathe through the tumult.

Through his blurred vision, he saw Gabriel's hand reaching for him again, and he tasted bile.

Adrenaline rushed back into his legs and Adrien sprinted up the rest of the staircase, turning the corner and blindly racing toward his room. He couldn't bring himself to look back, but he hoped to god his dad knew better than to follow him.

He threw himself into his bedroom and pushed the door shut behind him, before slumping against the slab of wood, heart pounding to such an intense degree, he wished he could rip it out straight through his chest—

"Hey. Hey kid, just breathe," said the blur of black somewhere to his left.

"I'm fine," he gasped, fists pulling at his shirt like it would somehow alleviate his oxygen flow, "Just... give me a minute, okay?"

Plagg nodded. He watched him for a while, until he apparently deemed it safe enough to make contact again, and settled down into his blond hair. "Jeez, what's with that guy? First time in months he tries to actually be a parent, and that's the best he can—?"

"Plagg," Adrien snapped, his irritation returning now that he wasn't in the immense throes of panic. He appreciated his kwami's unwavering support, but Plagg sure did like to throw blame at literally anything that wasn't Adrien himself.

And Adrien didn't feel like he deserved to be blameless.

"Alright, alright!" The kwami dropped from his head onto his shoulder. "So. Are you okay now?"

He had half a mind to lie. To push down the fire in his veins and the thoughts in his head, and pretend everything was fine. Like he wasn't merely one step away from the edge. One step away from falling. One step away from everything crashing down around him—

But how could he? He'd already been pretending for weeks. Holding the lid down on an overflowing pot could only work for so long.

His chest clenched and he swallowed down the sobs threatening to consume him. "I... I keep messing everything up," he muttered through a voice thick with emotion, "Everything."

Plagg sighed. "That's not true—"

"Yes, it is! It is, and you know it!" He moved toward his bed and snatched up Planetarium the cat plushie off his pillow, burying his face into the toy's soft fabric to hide the swell of tears he couldn't hold in anymore. "My entire life has been one big fucking mistake."

Plagg nuzzled into his neck. "You're the only one who believes th—"

"Don't," he croaked, the plushie starting to become thoroughly soaked in his shaking hands, "You're not helping."

"I just don't want y—"

"JUST SHUT UP!" His veins lit up with gasoline as he threw the plushie across the room as hard as he could. But there was nothing satisfactory about the way it soundlessly hit the wall and fell to the floor. It did nothing to douse the fire raging through his body.

Plagg didn't say anything in response. He merely flew after the fallen toy and picked it up, depositing it back on the bed.

"Sorry," Adrien choked, because boy, he just couldn't help himself tonight, could he? He gripped at his hair, breaths jittery. "Goddammit, I'm so sorry, Plagg, I just..."

But he had no explanation to give. How could he explain this desperate need to pacify the intense burning he was feeling inside?

How could he explain the lengths he would go to in order to achieve that?

There was only one thing he knew for certain. And that was despite how huge his bedroom was, it currently felt like the most claustrophobic-inducing space on the planet. And if he stayed in it a second longer, he was going to drown.

Coming to a decision, he thundered toward his window and roughly shoved it open. He hoisted himself up so that he was standing on the ledge and, with one hand fastened to the ridge of the frame, stepped across the sill. Frosted wind bit at his exposed skin and tousled his hair.

"Adrien, stop!" Plagg flew out of the window, eyes uncharacteristically terrified. "What the hell d'you think you're doing?!"

"It's fine," Adrien said, twisting himself around and reaching for the drainpipe on the left side of the masonry wall, "I've done this loads of times before."

He pressed a foot against the drainpipe and balanced his weight between that and the window sill, before carefully easing himself up the wall, toward the low-hanging roof above, working hard to find sturdy hand and footholds.

Plagg scoffed. "Don't be stupid, kid. Just transform! Here, I'll do it for you."

"Wait, no, Plagg, don't." He almost let go in favor of pushing the kwami away from him. "Please just wait!"

He did so, green eyes still burning as he hovered a few inches away. "Adrien—"

"If you transform me, I'm throwing this damn ring as far as I can."

Adrien couldn't become Chat Noir right now. He couldn't. If he did, he knew he wouldn't survive. Whether he fell off the roof or not.

It seemed Plagg had finally begun to understand, the fury fading from his eyes. "Fine. But if you slip, I'm Chat Noir-ing you the hell up."

"Fine," he said, moving his foot up and shoving it into another crevice in the brickwork, "You can be my safety net."

The kwami rolled his eyes. "Like I always am."

Adrien kept his eyes solely locked on the wall in front of him as he carried on climbing, ignoring the ground that loomed far beneath him. Not that he'd ever been scared of heights. But the risk of danger was always a little more unnerving without a supersuit.

Hopefully no passersby from the street looked up and saw him. He imagined that witnessing a teenage boy randomly scaling the wall of a house would raise many alarm bells. (And maybe those alarm bells would have a point. But he wasn't about to give up now.)

Plagg flitted around him as he climbed, but to the kwami's credit, he didn't try to dissuade him. Not even when Adrien occasionally stumbled. There was only one moment in which the wind blew fierce enough to aggressively rattle the drainpipe he was clinging to where he heard Plagg let out any sort of indignant squawk.

Adrien's hands finally managed to grab the eave of the roof and he pulled with all his might, arms shaking from the strain of lifting his entire bodyweight, and— good god, he needed to stop taking Chat Noir's super-strength for granted.

He managed to haul himself up onto the tiles and then rolled onto his back, the uneven texture digging into his skin. He panted heavily as he waited for the burn in his muscles to cool down, but he could still breathe easier than he'd been able to for the past few hours.

Maybe for the past few weeks.

Plagg flew over and curled up on his chest. Adrien doubted it was comfortable; his heart was currently drumming against his ribs in a rapid series of harsh tremors.

Sometimes, he wondered why the tiny god even bothered. Surely an entity as divine as him had better things to do than follow some kid around while he moped.

"You're crazy," Plagg murmured into his shirt, "But that's okay. Black Cat wielders usually are."

Adrien huffed out a laugh through his labored breaths, reaching up to gently stroke the cat between his ears. But he couldn't quite make the flicker of humor last. Not even Plagg's company was enough to lift his spirits out of the thick pool of mud they'd buried themselves in.

Now that he was amidst the fresh air, the anger burning inside of him had faded away. All that remained was the overwhelming tiredness. Not the type that could be fixed by a full night of sleep. But the type that sapped into the very marrow of his bones, filling every gap it could find and then solidifying. Until nothing, nothing, nothing would ever be capable of scraping it back out.

Adrien collected Plagg in his hands and sat up on the roof, gazing out over the view of his city. The Eiffel Tower shone brightly in the distance, casting majestic sparkles of golden light into the night sky with repetitive patterns as it celebrated the clock striking midnight.

As if there was anything at all to celebrate.

Yesterday, he'd told Ladybug that he had full faith their responsibility to Paris would one day come to an end.

A part of him was a little hurt she'd been so quick to believe him.

Reaching Out
(Adrien edition)

"Nothing I ever do is enough.
Despite it all, Hawk Moth still reigns.
I think fate has called my bluff,
Knocking down the walls I can't maintain."

He released Plagg and stood up half-way, using his hands and feet to slowly edge himself up the slanted tiles of the roof, toward the summit at the very top.

"I wanna reach the end somehow,
In any way that I can find.
This feat's been the cat's meow,
But I'm ready to leave it all behind.

Reaching out
But no one's there to hold my hand.
There's no one here who understands.
I've seen the worst of it firsthand."

Finally at the peak, Adrien stood up straight. His shoes wobbled slightly on the narrow ridge, but he managed to keep his balance. He turned to face the view once more, only to find that the extra few feet he'd climbed had done absolutely nothing to enhance its beauty. Even from up here, nothing had changed.

He wondered if it ever would.

"I was once optimistic,
But now I feel so broken down.
All of the fun, it left too quick.
I no longer want to run around.

Reaching out
To hope my lady calls my name.
I wonder if she feels the same.
Just look at what we both became.

I think about
All of the things we won't regret.
I don't think we should give up yet.
It's not over, our fate's not set."

He let the heavy lead inside him win and he dropped down to sit on the ridge, feeling the liquid in his eyes finally overflow. The wind had dispelled his last bout of tears, but what did that matter when fresh rivulets were so ready to replace them.

He sniffled and wiped an arm across his face with lackluster effort. Hadn't he cried enough?

"Is it okay to be upset?
Is it okay... to be upset?"

Plagg found him again, this time landing on his shoulder and beginning to purr, sending soft vibrations through his skin.

Instead of acknowledging him, Adrien kept his eyes trained on the landscape in front of him. Cacophonous noises and iridescent lights blurred and blended through his senses, as his ability to focus on anything in particular faded away.

Adrien waited until his voice felt steady enough before talking again.

"Everyone would be better off if I wasn't in their life," he whispered into the darkness.

He felt Plagg's gentle purring subside. "You're just backsliding," he replied after a moment's pause, "Remember? You know all about how this works."

Adrien shot his kwami a pointed glare.

Because as if knowing made it any easier.

"The feeling will fade," Plagg said. "It won't last forever."

Adrien thought about his mother's final scream; Marinette's need to always distance herself; Plagg's continuous damage control; Ladybug's failed love confession; his dad's broken stare; Hawk Moth's obsession with a Wish he'd never get to make, so long as Chat Noir spent every waking minute of the rest of his life preventing that from happening.

"What if it does?" he asked, voice catching, "Last forever, I mean. What if this is as good as it gets?"

"Well, then." He felt Plagg's little ears twitch. "You're just gonna have to remind yourself that people actually quite like you. Hell, Ladybug looks at you the same way I look at aged brie. Maybe you should talk to her about how you're feeling."

Adrien let his shoulders sag from their rigid position. "I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"No, really. I can't." He once again wiped at the stream of tears on his face that never seemed to end. "I'm the only reason she's still holding on."

Because that's just how it was, wasn't it? Throughout his entire life, there was always a role he'd needed to play; a mask he'd needed to wear; a person he'd needed to appease. The real Adrien Agreste had never been enough, and he knew that.

His own partner was no exception to this rule. But contrary to what she might believe, he didn't do it to deceive her. He did it because he cared about her. To such an extent that he couldn't even fathom the idea of exposing her to what lay underneath.

How was he supposed to let her down like that? To tell her he wasn't as much of an unshakable force as she'd originally believed. If he couldn't hold them both up, then there'd be nothing left to stop them from falling down together.

"Bullshit," Plagg retorted, ever a master of brevity, "You're stronger together. Hiding things won't help either of you. The truth can hurt sometimes, kid, but it's still better than the alternative. It's the only thing that can set you free."

Adrien hummed in thought, focusing on the gentle breeze as it rustled past him. "I thought you were just a little cheese-obsessed gremlin, but that might be the wisest thing I've ever heard you say."

"No no, you had it right the first time," Plagg sniggered, "I've zero interest in becoming an obnoxious wisecrack like Wayzz."

"Who's Wayzz?"

"Just some kwami with a superiority complex. But that's irrelevant right now." His voice turned serious again, his tiny paws pressing into Adrien's collarbone. "Do you promise to talk to Ladybug? And fix all those problems going on between you?"

Adrien smiled. "This is important to you, huh?"

"Eh. I've been doing this job for a while. Trust me, it's better to be on good terms with your superhero companion. Things never end well when Cats and Bugs fall out. For either of them."

His smile dropped. "We haven't fallen out." He gave Plagg a concerned glance. "Have we?"

Plagg shrugged. "You tell me."

Adrien blinked the remaining residue of tears out his eyes, glad that they'd finally stopped, and looked up at the midnight sky. Clouds and pollution blanketed most of the constellations, but a few select stars had broken through the blockade, twinkling with celestial beauty.

He hated being at odds with his lady. He hated keeping secrets. His dad might've been a lost cause, but he believed that mending the rift between him and Ladybug was possible. And yes, maybe it would end in disaster for both of them.

But falling down together was still a variation of together.

He wouldn't talk to her yet though. Right now, all he wanted to do was make it through the rest of the night.

One breath at a time.

゜・。。・゜゜・。。・゜

Despite everything, Adrien had managed to make it through the rest of the night. He'd managed to climb back down off the roof. Managed to fall asleep. Managed to even go into school the next day.

Now he was in the library, sitting at the same little isolated desk wedged in the corner that he always gravitated towards, reading some Jane Austen book that Alya had recommended to him. He still couldn't decide if he liked it. The fact that he'd read the same page over ten times probably wasn't a good sign though.

But, well. Maybe he just wasn't in the right state of mind to appreciate it properly. His earbuds were blasting the song Way Down We Go into his skull and his eyes were scrutinizing the words in front of him, and yet it still wasn't distracting enough to shake the awful feelings out of him.

They weren't fading.

Had he really expected them to?

As if a few hours was enough to get over the months of build-up. How was he supposed to ignore the impending disaster that his life was inevitably going towards—

A hand brushed against his shoulder and he flinched, whipping round in his seat to address whoever was standing there.

Marinette's warm blue eyes and kind smile looked down at him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Her lips moved soundlessly.

He stared at her.

She chuckled and gestured at her ear.

"Oh." Adrien pulled out his earbuds, cutting off Jökull's gravelly voice, and wrapped the wires around each other before depositing them into his bag.

"Hey," Marinette said, sitting down in the empty chair next to him. Like always, his heart stuttered at the close contact between them.

He shut the book, his eyes lingering on the cover art. "Hey."

"Alya and Nino are wondering why you're not in the cafeteria with us."

He shrugged. "Sorry. Didn't mean to ditch you guys."

"Is it too loud for you? If you want, we could go to—"

"That's not it." He risked turning to look at her, only to find that her eyes had never left him. "I just don't think I'd be much fun to hang out with right now."

The furrow between her eyebrows deepened. "Adrien... is everything okay?"

Great. Now he was upsetting Marinette as well.

"Just forget it," he muttered, busying himself by grabbing the book and shoving it into his bag, "I'm fine."

"Wait, no." She gently grasped his arm, drawing his attention back to her face. Her eyes were blown wide, a desperate gleam in them he hadn't noticed before. "Don't do that. Please don't shut me out. I'm here for you, okay? If there's something you need to talk about, I'm here for you."

Adrien stared at her, frozen. He got the feeling that refusing her request would hurt her more than it hurt him. And hurting Marinette was something he never wanted to do.

Anyway, why should he refuse her request? What good did bottling everything up do? Like last night had proved spectacularly, all that ever led to was an explosion of unchecked anger.

Marinette wasn't Ladybug. But that didn't matter. She was still a person who cared. A person who was willing to listen to him.

"Okay," he said, relaxing back into his seat, "Okay, um..."

But there were too many thoughts swirling in his mind, overlapping and melding to the point that picking just one felt downright impossible.

"It's alright," she said, pulling her hand away, and by god, he must look like an idiot just sitting here gawking, "Take your time."

His brain finally settled on some sort of coherent tangent and Adrien cleared his throat. "I think, um... I think my father sent me to school to get me out of the way. I mean, don't get me wrong, the house is huge. But I guess..." He gestured helplessly with his hands. "It's just not big enough."

Marinette nodded, but said nothing.

"You see, I wasn't really... planning on going to school this year. I thought I'd just be home-schooled. I'd already done that kind of thing before, back when I was eight or nine, so it wouldn't be anything new. I, uh..."

Adrien pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. Stay on topic.

"But he sent me to school. And at the time, I, um... thought he was doing it to be nice? I don't know. I wasn't really thinking about it — I was just excited to get my life back on track. But I'm starting to realize that was just... wishful thinking."

"Your dad..." Marinette gripped at her rucksack strap, "Didn't want you around?"

He shook his head. "I think I remind him of my mom and he doesn't like it. He doesn't like me."

"Oh, I-I'm..." she stammered, "I'm sure that's not true."

He shrugged, folding his arms and leaning them on the table. "Maybe. But he was never very affectionate, not even before... not even when I was a little kid. H-He was always cold. He always kept his distance. Sometimes it feels like I never really knew him."

Adrien paused, his next slew of words lodging themselves in his throat, cutting off his airway. He'd never dared to say them out loud before, hadn't even dared to think about them.

But he forced them out anyway. Because only Marinette was listening, and she'd never once judged him for anything.

"Sometimes I wish that he'd died instead of her."

The muscles in his abdomen were burning and his hands were clammy, but the words were out there now. He couldn't take them back.

Marinette didn't reply. She just continued to watch him with wide shining eyes.

Adrien pressed his face into his folded arms so he wouldn't have to look at her anymore. He continued, mostly because he was adamant to move on from that comment as fast as possible.

"Everything's so up in the air right now. I-I never seem to know what I'm doing." He thought back to last night, and how Ladybug's eyes had fractured like glass after he'd rejected her, her pain shining through the cracks. "And I f-feel like I'm not... giving enough to the people I love."

Silence resumed.

He wasn't even sure if Marinette had heard that last part, considering he'd been practically talking into his lap. But then he felt a hand land on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

Still resting on his arms, he tilted his head to the side, just enough to be able to see her again.

She looked straight back at him, warmth and kindness in the place he'd been expecting to find pity.

"I think you give enough," she told him vehemently.

The compliment avalanched his chest into a roiling mess of emotion and he abruptly sat up straight, sucking in a sharp breath.

"No, I don't," he said, staring at her in exasperation, "I never have. I let everyone down, again and again. It doesn't matter what I do — it's never enough. I'm never enough. I'm despicable. I mean, what kind of son wishes death on his own dad? What would my mom think of me if she knew I'd thought that?!"

"Thinking it and willing it are not the same thing," Marinette insisted, grabbing his hand in both of hers to steady him. "Hypothetically, if you ever got the chance to reverse it, you would never do it. That's not the kind of person you are, Adrien."

"Okay, fine. You're right." He blinked and tears were rolling down his cheeks. Because of course they were. God forbid he ever got a grip. "I wouldn't. But... I can understand why my dad hates me. My mom made him s-so much happier than I ever did. I have all these— all these childhood memories of them interacting, and it w-was obvious how much they loved each other. I used to think it was sickening. But now?"

He shuddered on a breath, fighting through the ache in his chest. "I wish I could get that back for them. Th-They didn't deserve to be torn apart from each other. So maybe it..." He squeezed his eyes shut, more tears spilling over. "It would've been better if I'd died instead—"

He'd barely gotten the whole sentence out before Marinette was lurching forward and wrapping her arms around him.

Adrien's entire nervous system exploded and then rearranged itself, his mind grappling with the pros and cons of being hugged by Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

In the end, he decided it was exactly what he needed.

He didn't even realize he was trembling until his arms made a clumsy attempt at hugging her back, hands fumbling to find purchase on the loose material of her sweater. But once he found it, he held on and didn't let go. His face fell down onto her shoulder and a sob ripped through him.

And after that, he really didn't stand a chance. Any semblance of composure he'd managed to gather within the last few hours broke loose. Using Marinette as his anchor, he fell apart.

A series of broken sobs followed the first, as his limbs turned to liquid and his heart filled with spikes. All the while, her arms remained fastened around him in a vice grip.

It took a while before he was able to focus on anything other than the burning in his chest and the safety of Marinette's embrace. But when he did, his first thought was of how utterly soaked her sweater must be right now.

Adrien sniffled fiercely because he might've stained the shirt with his tears, but he was not about to snot all over her as well.

The second thing he became aware of was just how tightly she was clinging onto him. With a grip so fervently strong, he was convinced she needed this hug just as much as he did.

And then he noticed the way her shoulders were violently shaking, and his heart collapsed for an entirely different reason.

"Marinette?!" He scrambled free from their embrace so he could look at her properly, only to find her eyes as equally waterlogged as his, her face crumpled in anguish. He brushed his thumb across her tear-stained cheek. "N-No, please don't cry. Please don't— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"It's okay," she said, her breath hitching. She rested her forehead against his, her eyes closing. Her hand reached up and she threaded her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. "Everything's... gonna b-be okay."

Their noses bumped.

And god, he wanted to kiss her so badly. Maybe then, he'd feel an emotion that wasn't harbored in pain. Maybe then, he'd be able to communicate to her everything he couldn't say through words: just how much he appreciated her, how lost he would be without her, and how irrevocably and hopelessly in love with her he was.

Heart pounding, he tilted his head and moved closer. To his utter disbelief, she did the exact same thing. His lips briefly brushed against hers with a featherlight touch, and sparks ricocheted through his brain, and—

Dear god, what was wrong with him? They'd both been crying ten seconds ago.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, reeling back and moving as far away from her as his chair allowed, guilt crashing through him, "I'm so sorry. I swear I don't—"

"Adrien!" She grabbed his wrist before he managed to ultimately fall off his seat. "Oh god, I shouldn't have done that. That was terrible of me. Listen, I..." He stilled and her grip on him loosened, her panicked expression softening. "I think you're amazing," she said, "A-And I won't say I haven't thought about it. I definitely have. But I... can't."

Her eyes flitted away from his, but he could still see the way they burned. "There's this other boy I've liked for quite a while. I'm trying to get over him now, but I'm not there yet." She pointed back and forth between them. "And you... us... this wouldn't be the right thing to do. You don't deserve to be a... a rebound."

He blinked, taken aback. He'd always known Marinette didn't return his feelings, but to find out there was another boy involved?

His mind sifted through the other people Marinette was close to. But as far as he was aware, her social circle was very small. She barely wanted to hang out with their little group of four, let alone with anyone else.

"Who is it?" his mouth asked before his brain had time to even mull over the question.

Her eyes widened in horror, and he immediately felt like an ass for assuming it was any of his business. "Y-You don't know him! He goes to a different school, in fact!"

Adrien dropped his gaze to his lap. "Ah. I see."

It stung. But he still appreciated her efforts to protect his feelings.

"No, it's not a lie! There really is another boy—"

"It's okay, Marinette. You don't owe me an explanation," he said, keeping his voice as monotonous as he could and praying it didn't start shaking. He stood up and slung on his schoolbag. "You don't owe me anything at all."

"Adrien, wait!" She jumped to her feet and grabbed hold of his wrist as he began to walk away, her eyes sheened with a pain that pierced him straight through the chest because he'd done that to her. "I-I know how it feels to be rejected. And I don't want you thinking that—"

"I'm not mad at you," he promised. "This isn't your fault, okay? It's never been your fault."

He took another step away from her and she finally let him go, a fresh wave of tears spilling down her face.

He quickly turned around and left, before he could cave and throw himself back into her arms. That was the last thing she needed. The entirety of him was the last thing she needed.

He stepped out from behind the bookshelf and eyed the other students in the library. No one was looking at him funny. Or even looking at him at all for that matter.

The fact that their little dispute hadn't drawn any attention was a small blessing, but a blessing all the same.

Adrien pushed open the library's heavy doors right as the school bell rang out. He swiped the rest of the dampness off his cheeks and stole down the busy hallway. He didn't want to go to his next class. But he'd be damned if he shed another tear before he was back in the safety of his own bedroom.

With one careless mistake, he'd broken the pact he'd made with himself.

And that was to never let Marinette know how he truly felt.

Because he'd known it would ruin everything they'd built together, and he'd lose her in the process—

No. He wasn't going to think about it. Now wasn't the time to acknowledge what he'd done. He could keep up the 'I'm fine' act for a few more hours.

But the little voice in his head wouldn't stop whispering to him. Snide comments of shrapnel and poison spilled through his mind, crumpling his resolve bit by bit. Lots of truly egregious words said in many different ways, but they could all be summed up with a singular sentence. One indisputable fact. And he was tired of trying to deny it.

You destroy everything you touch.