"We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin."
― André Berthiaume
IX. Part 4 of 6
Seeing each other again is inevitable.
Marinette could opt out of New Years plans and Adrien could blame a demanding schedule for his latest string of absences, but Ladybug and Chat Noir? An indisputable duo. A two-person superhero team. Paris's longtime protectors, the last line of protection between innocent civilians and the scheming of Le Papillon.
And to Marinette's great displeasure, akumas don't care about the relationship ups and downs of two twenty-something superheroes. Without regard to the sensitive balance of her partnership with Adrien, akumas crawl out from the woodwork relentlessly. She knows it's a bit presumptuous to suppose their increasing numbers have anything to do with her personal problems, but it doesn't stop her from muttering it beneath her breath as she dodges attacks, weaving between buildings and over craggy rooftops.
Chat Noir is a streak of black beside her. He's about as far from his partner as he can get while still being within sight. Their usual banter is gone - replaced with terse silence and only the occasional over here, look out, to your left! Together they do their work as succinctly and indifferently as two maybe-not-friends saving their city can manage.
They get the job done, but once Le Papillon's power is broken and Paris is returned to its rightful state, they part ways.
Marinette can hardly stand it. Their disconnect begins to tighten each time they meet, like a second skin that refuses to shed. She wants to talk to him, to tell him this is all wrong. It's not what she wanted; it's not what she meant. The crushing weight of putting her life in the hands of someone who won't talk to her chafes at her more and more.
Marinette turns to find him once the butterfly has vanished, as if this time he will stay. She wants to say something to him, anything at all.
But he is gone.
Chat Noir is struck down somewhere into the bend of two alleyways.
Ladybug begins to slide down from behind the chimney she's hidden herself behind. Their strength is superhuman, but the strings of worry tug themselves into a knotted ball low in her stomach. She has to get to him. That was not an easy blow to take, one she knows they could have avoided by being nearer together.
The clattering of the patinaed downtown roofing sets her nerves on edge as she works closer and closer to where Chat fell to. She drops into the dense shadows of the alley, senses buzzing and alert. She runs toward him, sandwiched between two walls that feel like they are closing in around her. When she turns the corner, she spots him. He lays on the ground in a heap of black, staff knocked aside. He's drawn in like a child, knees to chest and head lolled aside.
"Chat Noir!" she calls.
When she reaches him, she gets to her knees and reaches out one gloved hand for him.
"Don't," he says, picking himself up just enough to be out of reach of her outstretched hand.
It stings. It stings so much, Marinette feels like the wind has been knocked from her. Like she's been the one slapped to the ground by the great hand of today's akuma, breathless and boneless.
After a long stretch of silence and stillness between them, he begins to rise. Gingerly he tests his feet as he gets to them. He brushes rubble from his legs, rolling back sore shoulders. He groans, but still doesn't reach for her. Still doesn't look her in the eye.
Above, the akuma searches for them, angrily daring them to reveal themselves.
They don't have time for this, but she cannot dive back into danger until she's said the words clawing up her throat.
"Adrien, please. Don't turn away from me."
He does look at her then, face turned over his shoulder to regard her incredulously. Then angrily. His green eyes then settle on something between distrust and hurt, framed by the black contours of his mask.
He half-turns to her and says after a moment, "You turned away from me first."
Marinette stiffens, but his response is expected. Would he believe her if she told him everything again? That she did not turn away from him - that she turned away from herself instead? That she needed a moment to rest the weight of her mask and suit, to understand what they meant together? What Ladybug and Marinette meant? She'd resisted making sense of herself for so long, and he had dismantled every mask she had hidden behind by loving her.
Would it even matter to him at all?
"I didn't mean to," she settles on, as inadequate as it is in the face of every scrambled, complicated feeling.
"I gave you my heart, Marinette."
"I know," she says. And he gave her so much else too, so many difficult and interwoven things. "But I didn't say no. I said to give me time."
"That's as good as saying no," Chat Noir says, turning away from her again. He winds his shoulders back again, stretches out his neck, begins checking each finger to tally their pain.
"You're being unfair," she bites back.
And he is, as he sometimes could be. He is so very intricate, this partner of hers who is somewhere in the middle of being both Adrien and Chat Noir. He knew how to ask for more than she was ready to give, more than she knew how to give just yet.
"I'm being unfair?" he says with a short, humorless laugh, looking up at the sky but not quite seeing it through the cracks of the buildings. He shakes his head. "Let's go back, Marinette. We've got a job to do."
The days crawl into weeks.
Despite everything, Marinette misses the sound of his knock at her window, casually requesting entrée. She's never turned him away, no matter the space of her heart or mind. He's been a constant, always welcome in her small studio.
She misses the small things - Chat propped against her bed, Chat idly rummaging through the bric-a-brac on her desk and drawers, Chat at her shoulder watching her work. She misses their talks that ran deep and long into the night, sometimes about nothing and sometimes about everything.
Longing builds until it seems like it's all there is - a homesickness for a person she said she never really knew.
But she's known him all along, hasn't she?
Despite everything, Adrien misses his partner. His friend. His dangerously close to something-more-than. Ladybug. More importantly, Marinette. Joyeux Noel, he'd said to her. You're being unfair. All said in the shades of his anger and heartbreak. So much of her seemed to say no; her first look at his true identity, her own reveal, the words she offered him across a too-small café table. Every biting remark tossed in haste between akuma attacks since.
And yet, didn't he know her well enough to know it was more than that? Hadn't he spent enough years beside her to know better? To Adrien, she gave her kindness. To Chat, she gave her trust. To both, she had shared her fears. Wasn't she always afraid of this? Wasn't time a fair thing to ask for? He'd told her she turned away from him; he had treated her like someone who meant to hurt him, like someone he didn't know.
But he's known her all along, hasn't he?