genevrier | 💀 pour oublier ma peine immense

Entry tags:

💀 pour oublier ma peine immense

It had been a long and hard three years.

Ladybug had run out of fingers with which to count the sticky situations she and Chat Noir had been in because of Hawkmoth. But finally, finally, she and her partner had him dead to rights. As time went on, they had grown desperate, and they'd made mistakes - but nothing they hadn't been able to fix. He'd made mistakes, too, and that was how the two of them had managed to track him down.

Heart pounding, she cast her gaze down at the man that had been their adversary for so long. Hawkmoth stared back at the both of them with a dark glare full of loathing. There were a lot of things she had wanted to ask him when she finally caught up to him, but there was only one question she was actually able to form.

"How could you?" She whispered, her voice ragged. She was breathing heavily - the fight had taken a lot out of her. Out of her partner, and out of their enemy, too; had it gone on much longer, they all might have dropped dead out of exhaustion. "You hurt so many people."

Hawkmoth's eyes glittered, and he pressed his lips together into a thin line. Ladybug felt something roll down her cheek - sweat, she hoped, and not blood or tears, but she'd taken a hit to the temple earlier and she couldn't be certain that it wasn't bleeding (and in fact it was). But she was in better shape than him, at least. He was beaten down, he had lost.

All that remained was to take his Miraculous and make sure that Nooroo's power never, ever fell int the hands of someone like him ever again.

His refusal to answer stirred anger in her where there had once been pity.

"Men. Women. Children. You used them all - and for what? What on earth could have been worth it? I don't understand. Explain yourself, Hawkmoth."

He didn't answer. He looked between the two of them, seething. Ladybug scowled and knelt down in front of him, curled her fingers around his brooch, and yanked it away from his suit.

The magic holding his transformation together fell apart, and Nooroo emerged from the butterfly Miraculous at long last. Ladybug cradled him in the crook of her arm and watched as the facial features of their nemesis became clear.

A well-dressed man, middle-aged. Nobody she recognized. Without his Miraculous, he should have been powerless. Defeated. Done for.

She didn't catch his smirk until it was too late.

His hand darted into the suit jacket that hadn't been there before, and his fingers closed around something she couldn't see. "I'll make you understand," He snarled, and the next thing she knew his hand emerged from the jacket and the crack of a gunshot split the air. "Perhaps now we'll share the same wish."

There was a gun in his hand, Ladybug realized, as a dull roar and the man's twisted, bitter laughter filled her ears. He hadn't aimed at her. She turned toward her partner with dread.

He had aimed at him, and his laughter was not the laughter of a man who had missed his mark.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Adrien's eyes and face softened, warmed. He didn't exactly remember, but his father was far from all bad. Apparently, Marinette understood that, at least a little. He'd taken an interest in her (Adrien ignored the twinge of jealousy) so it made sense.

"Is that how we met, then?"

She'd mentioned they'd gone to school together, and it made sense... but it seemed so simple.

"Yes."

...she wasn't sure she wanted to go into the details, but - if it helped, if it jogged his memory even a little, wasn't that a good thing?

"To be honest, we... weren't friends at first. There was a little bit of a misunderstanding involving you, my seat, and a piece of gum Chloé had left there, but... you won me over pretty fast."

That was an understatement.

It didn't jog his memory, not the way he would have wanted it to. Nothing so clear. It was an impression of things, mixed with his imagination, vague enough to be nothing concrete.

His brow creased, and it brought on the beginnings of a headache. It was too much, too big to drop at once.

"Can you tell me more?" he asked, carefully taking her hand in both of his. His hands were steadiest when she held them. "It doesn't have to be big things."

"About how we met...?"

She tilted her head to one side and put her other hand on top of his - so that one of her hands was sandwiched between his and one of his hands was sandwich between hers. The contact helped them both, though perhaps Adrien needed it more.

"Or just about things in general?"

"Things in general. Things about us."

He wanted to remember -- it was massively depressing to be told about his own life, without having any memories to go along with it. It hurt to watch her recall things he didn't, knowing how important they were.

But if she gave him something small, something to work with, maybe it would trip more. Maybe it would help.

In the meantime, he focused on the warmth of her hands.

"Hmm... let's see-"

There were a lot of things she could draw on, really. Not so much that was super recent, between them as Adrien and Marinette, but... a lot of things from school. Even more from their nighttime forays onto the rooftops -

But maybe it was too soon for that.

"You're really good at Mecha Strike III," she settled on. "I'm not too bad, myself. We've played together."

Surprisingly, it did trip something. It was more of an impression of a feeling than a concrete vision, but he looked down at their hands, picturing it.

Frustration- but how did that make sense?

He wanted to play it, but his fingers weren't coordinated enough. Not yet. He'd definitely lose, and-

"... you're really good at it," he said softly, blinking a few times. "Aren't you?"

"Umm... maybe a little."

The attempt at modesty was accompanied by the kind of smile that made it obvious she knew she should try to downplay it for the sake of being polite... but also that she knew she was just as good as he was saying.

Maybe even better, honestly. Her dad had trained her well.

"I had a lucky charm that helped me out, but-"

...she'd let him borrow it. Actually, come to think of it, had she ever gotten it back?

Lucky Charm.

The words tripped something in his head, something painful, tangled, leaving him a little breathless. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision. Lucky Charm...

"What did it look like?" he asked, already picturing it in his mind. Vague, fuzzy, but... a bit of jewelry, of some kind? Wasn't that right?

"A bracelet," she answered.

No matter which lucky charm he was thinking of - the gaming one or the one that came from her earrings - it was technically right. Funny how jewelry seemed to play a pretty big role in their lives.

"It's a bunch of different-colored beads on a red string."

A bracelet wasn't what he was thinking of, but a moment later it did come to him. Frustration, futility, and a multicolored bracelet... it-

Adrien closed his eyes, picturing it as best he could.

"It was green in the center," he whispered, but his mind kept catching on red.

Marinette's eyes lit up, though with his eyes closed, Adrien wouldn't see it. He would hear the excitement in her voice when she spoke, though.

"That's right!"

He remembered it. He actually remembered it.

Her heart gave the weirdest flutter. It had been years ago, when they'd first started getting close enough that she could talk to him and only made weird, incoherent noises about half the time instead of all the time, and it was really such a small insignificant thing but it had meant the world to her and he remembered it.

Adrien looked up at her, caught the excitement, the joy, and he felt a pressure in his heart, a happiness. He wanted to remember, especially if it made her this happy. He squeezed her hands.

He wished he could remember what happened to the bracelet. He remembered her giving it to him to hold onto, but... he wouldn't have thrown it away, would he? Where would he keep something like that?

... he didn't want to send her to look, and have it be gone.

It was something he'd need to do on his own.

"What else?" he asked, excited, hopeful.

They were making progress.

Marinette beamed, even as she thought back, tried to figure out what would trip something else for him. The bracelet had been a lucky guess - her lucky charm at work again, maybe.

What else, what else...?

"You helped me and my parents unload deliveries at the bakery sometimes," she went on. "You said you'd help whether they fed you or not, but they bribed you with croissants and other pastries anyway."

... at the bakery. Her parents owned a bakery. Adrien went quiet to listen, casting his mind about the vast, clouded jumble of things he couldn't focus on. It was like being locked in a pitch-black basement packed with storage. He didn't know what anything was, but if he could feel it out-

He didn't remember unloading, but he did remember, with startling clarity, the taste of quiche.

"They... came in a lot. While we were playing video games. To give us food."

...he remembered that too.

Well, of course he did. Both of her parents were great cooks, and the bakery's wares were not to be forgotten. She grinned at the memory, although the way they'd kept coming in had annoyed her at the time.

"That's what they do best," she explained with a small, fond smile. "I think they've made it their personal mission to make sure that nobody who sets foot on their property goes home hungry."

Adrien settled down more, half-shutting his eyes, rubbing with his thumb against her hand.

It was something he'd done before, but the gesture wasn't something he recognized as that. It just felt natural.

"Are they okay with you being here?" he asked softly.

"...they haven't said they're not," Marinette answered, cautiously. "But I moved out a few months before all this happened, so it's not like I have to have their permission to be here."

Truth be told, she hadn't given her parents a whole lot of details about what had happened, simply because she had no good explanation for... well, any of it. Luckily, the press had been much more focused on Adrien's injury than her own involvement.

Unluckily, her parents liked Adrien, which meant they were worried anyway - just about him, not her.

"I think they probably want to visit you and see how you're doing, but... they're waiting until you feel more up to it. Papa's definitely going to make you a get-well-soon batch of croissants, though."

The delay was mostly so the risk of his stomach rebelling was lower, honestly.

Unfortunately he couldn't stomach solid food, not yet, but he smiled at the prospect, more at the fact that her parents apparently cared about him enough to want to know how he was doing.

He went quiet again, stroked the back of her hand.

"What about school?" he asked, gently.

....now that was most definitely a loaded question.

Marinette bit her lip and glanced off to the side. He could just be asking about his school. He'd asked her for little details, after all - but this was going to have to be something she admitted that she didn't know, because she and Adrien hadn't talked a whole lot as themselves since the end of lycée.

"I'm not sure what you were studying," she murmured. "We both got... busy, after lycée, and didn't keep up with each other so much once we weren't at the same place. But I'm sure your professors will let you make up the work once you've recovered."

(Part of her knew he wasn't only asking about his school, which was why she didn't quite meet his eyes.)

Adrien had no idea what school he was going to, or even if he was going to school at all. But Chloé had insisted that Marinette was doing shady things in order to pay her way through ESMOD.

Adrien gave her a long look, knowing she was hiding it from him because she didn't want him to worry. That she was missing class to stay by his side. That she had talent, and she was tanking her education to be there for him.

"What about you?"

The expression on her face was guilty as sin. She'd dodged the question and they both knew it, and now he was asking her point-blank.

"I'll figure something out," she answered. "That's... what I'm good at. Figuring stuff out on the fly."

It sounded a little pathetic to say it that way, but she had spent the better part of three years as Ladybug, doing exactly that. If it could apply to her superhero life, there was no reason she couldn't make it apply to her civilian life. Eventually.

"ESMOD."

Adrien said it quietly, watching her face.

His stomach flipped over, uncomfortable, worried.

"You're a designer."

... how could they have drifted apart so much, enough to go in different directions after lycée, enough for her not to know what he was studying, and she was still at his side like this?

Chloé had said they weren't this close, and Adrien hadn't believed it, believed he must have been hiding it, whether it was from the press or from his father, but Marinette had said it herself.

Marinette flinched.

Yes, she knew it was irresponsible of her to be cutting classes to keep watch over him. Yes, she knew that by skipping she was not only tanking her classes, but also leaving bad impressions on influential people in the industry -

But Adrien was more important to her than that. She couldn't just go on with her life like nothing was wrong.

Not when she could be here, helping. If there was even one single, small thing she could do, and she missed it because she was at class, then... that would be awful.

"It'll be fine," she mumbled.

It wouldn't. In fact, with as much time having passed as it had, she wouldn't be at all surprised if her professors had simply written her off and failed her already.

It would be difficult, if not downright impossible, to manage to get herself admitted to the school again.

"I can design even if I'm not in school."

Adrien's heart sank. He had no idea how much time had actually passed, not with any clarity, but by the look on her face, it may already be too late.

She was good enough to go to ESMOD. Who knew what else he was keeping her from?

"Marinette..."

He wasn't going to scold her, but the pain and worry and disappointment and guilt was all too clear in his voice.

Why?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject