genevrier | 💀 pour oublier ma peine immense

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💀 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.

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How must his attitude right now be making her feel?

Adrien shut his eyes, breathed, and reached up to lay his hand atop hers. He left it there, realizing by the difference in their temperature that he was fever-warm. Probably from throwing up.

"I'm really confused right now," he confessed, softly.

"I just... need to sort this out. Everything is... it's all a blur. Some things I feel and don't know..." he trailed off. "Some things I know but don't know how to feel."

Finally, he looked up.

"I don't know what happened to us, or how I got shot," he said softly. "But I know you're here. You've been here this whole time..."

This whole time.

"I hope you'll stay."

He was warm. Too warm. She should probably have called for someone once he started throwing up, but she didn't want to leave him alone.

...and he didn't seem to want her to leave, either.

Marinette's expression softened a little, though it was still pained, and she met his eyes when he looked up.

"Take your time," she promised in a whisper. "...I'll be here. As long as you want me to be here, I'll stay."

She hadn't left him yet. She had no intention of leaving him now, not when he was vulnerable, when he needed someone to support him. She didn't know if she was the one best suited to help him, but...

There was nothing she wanted more than to at least try.

Adrien settled back on the pillows one more time, his head pounding, but he no longer felt like he was going to pass out. Instead, his eyelids were just... heavy.

He needed to rest. His mind needed to unpack and label all the boxes that had just spilled everywhere, and try to make sense of everything. He couldn't even properly deduce what the holes in his logic were at the moment.

He set the glass on the bedside table, mostly shutting his eyes, and weighed the guilt with the need for comfort. Weighed how much he risked hurting her now, with how much he risked hurting her long-term.

"Okay."

Running his thumb over the back of Marinette's hand, his breathing evened out. Slowly, his hand went slack, and sleep stole over him, leaving him looking much younger than eighteen.

She kept her hand in his as he drifted off, made no move to pull it away even after he fell asleep. After all, she'd promised that she wouldn't leave him.

...but in order for Ladybug to visit him, Marinette had to disappear.

She sat there with him in silence for a while longer, listening to the sounds of his breathing, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Finally, when it seemed as though he might be waking up soon, she eased her hand out of his, retreated back to the other side of the room, and whispered her transformation.

When Adrien next opened his eyes, it would be to see Ladybug at his bedside.

...

Which, uh.

Was a little creepy.

The rest was essential to his recovery. When he woke up, he still felt sore and awful, but at least it wasn't overwhelming.

He could see someone nearby, but even with the red color, it didn't hit him right away.

Adrien blinked blearily up at her, attempting to sort through things, and focused on the sight, on her face, not immediately placing her, mind not instantly catching up to the world.

Caught between that place of sleeping and waking, his mind overlaying what he knew, he saw more clearly than he otherwise might have.

"... Marinette?"

...urk.

Well, she supposed she couldn't blame him for assuming. She had promised that she wouldn't leave him as long as he still wanted her there, after all, but...

"Ladybug," she corrected, her voice soft. "I... came to see how you were doing."

Adrien's cheeks flushed, but he still felt confused. Marinette looked an awful lot like...

Ladybug.

This was Ladybug.

Suddenly, he felt short of breath. How had she known to come here? Especially now, when there had been radio silence from her until this moment? He had a million questions, so many fighting for the forefront of his mind, but they all melted away when he saw the look in her eyes.

"Purrfect," he answered, very quietly.

It didn't have quite the same warmth or attitude that Chat Noir usually did, but it wasn't Adrien either.

"Now that you're here."

He didn't remember her, not fully, but bits and pieces of Chat Noir peeked through anyway, and Marinette's heart fluttered underneath Ladybug's suit.

Adrien didn't look sick. He didn't seem ill, although he did seem confused, but that was a marked improvement from earlier, when she was upsetting him.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she said softly. Ladybug had no idea what else she ought to say to him, but that was at the forefront of her mind. If she had, then maybe it wouldn't have hurt him when she'd blurted out the bit about his liking somebody else.

Maybe he wouldn't have thought that she, Ladybug, didn't feel so strongly for him.

"Can I get you anything?"

Shaking his head still hurt, but he did it anyway, feeling stupid.

Where words had come easily with Marinette, knowing what he knew about her -- which was next to nothing, other than that he loved her -- he couldn't help but feel tongue-tied.

He didn't feel like himself, and he wasn't sure how that was possible. He chalked it up to his injuries.

Adrien could understand why she didn't come. Marinette had said it herself- she didn't want to put him in danger. So why come now?

"... how much do you know?"

"I know the reporters... haven't exactly gotten the most accurate story out there," she admitted, because it was true. The press was acting on flimsy amounts of information and a lot of misdirection from Gabriel. "...and I know it's probably safest if most people continue to believe that."

Her eyes were gentle as she looked him over, and she started to reach for his hair to push it back from his face, but redirected to brush her fingertips over his cheek instead when she realized that she'd done exactly that as Marinette often enough that it might trip something.

"And... I know you're having some memory problems."

She bit her lip.

"That was part of why I stayed away... I didn't want to confuse you."

Adrien's eyes widened slightly as she reached for him, as he watched her pull herself back.

If she'd touched him, it might not have seemed so familiar. But it was. So was the way she bit her lip.

Hesitantly, he reached up, touched his fingers to hers.

"I remember you," he whispered, in the tones of a confession. He didn't remember everything, not by far, but he knew how he felt about her.

It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did to hear that.

She knew part of the reason he remembered Ladybug was that she'd reminded him. He'd remembered bits and pieces of the time he spent with Marinette, too, but to hear I remember you when he hadn't even remembered her real name stung more than she could easily express.

The worst part, though, was that even through the pain, it still made her happy to know that he'd remembered part of her, even if it was the part she didn't truly think of as herself.

"You do?" she whispered, and it was very clear from the look on her face and the sound of her voice that she didn't know exactly how she ought to feel about that.

Before he touched her fingers, she spoke, and he pulled back, hesitating, looking up at her.

It made sense for that to be her attitude, if he'd known everything about her. If he knew that she was disappointed because she was also Marinette, if he'd known that she didn't view Ladybug to be her true self.

But Ladybug was a constant in Adrien's life, and had been for years. He risked his life alongside her, trusted her implicitly, and that made an impression it was impossible to shake, even if he didn't have specific memories to back up his feelings.

It made sense that he remembered her.

But from his end, it looked less than promising.

It looked like Ladybug wasn't happy to hear that he remembered. That she was uncomfortable with it.

His heart sank, and it showed in his eyes.

"Yes."

It was understandable, and beneath the hurt, she knew that. It was just that although Ladybug was a real person to him, to her, she was just her alter-ego.

It hurt so badly that he remembered a part of her so clearly, but that he hadn't remembered her real name.

It should have been enough that she'd mattered to him even that much. Why wasn't it enough?

...more importantly, why couldn't she stop hurting him? She watched his heart sink, watched his face fall, and her stomach sank like a stone.

"I'm sorry," Ladybug whispered. "I'm sorry I didn't protect you."

How much of that night did he remember?

Did he remember how badly she'd failed him?

Immediately, Adrien wanted to reassure her. But he couldn't say it wasn't her fault, because he didn't know that it wasn't. He didn't know what had happened. But if Ladybug was involved, it made sense that everything had been so hushed, so confusing.

No wonder Marinette hadn't wanted to tell him.

We were on the same team.

He searched her eyes, looking for the answer to a question he wasn't even sure he had all the parts of, remembering the bruises on Marinette's face.

"What happened?" he asked softly. "Who tried to hurt us? Why is my father covering it up?"

She didn't want to lie to him.

She didn't want to treat him like he was fragile or breakable, either, but after the reaction he'd had to hearing the word superhero, she was worried about what his reaction would be to supervillain.

"It's..." she hesitated. "It's a little complicated. Even I'm not completely sure why your father's doing what he is."

That much, at least, was true. Gabriel Agreste was not an easy man to understand.

"...you said you remember me. Do you... Remember anything else? About who I work with, and who we fought against?"

Adrien's heart sank, and he pressed both hands to his chest, over the ache there, his vision dipping to the ground instead of her face as he struggled to remember.

... he had to. How could a superhero be standing in front of her, and he be unable to remember?

"... no," he whispered, terrified that she would take that as a reason not to tell him.

That made things a little more difficult.

She hesitated for a moment, thinking over her options, and before she reached out to settle her hand over one of Adrien's on his chest.

"Then I'll try to explain," she said softly. "But if it's overwhelming, I need you to tell me, okay? Promise me you'll tell me to stop if it gets to be too much."

Adrien looked back up at her, heart hammering under both of their hands. What was he, to her? This kind of touch didn't match the way she'd looked at him earlier, her reaction to him remembering her. This was familiar, almost intimate, was it?

Was he just that fragmented, just imagining it? What were they?

His head hurt.

"... okay," he said softly, mouth feeling dry with nerves.

Where to start, then...

"I've... been Ladybug for three years now. Maybe a little longer, it's sort of hard to keep track of the time." She glanced down at his chest, at her hand on his, and didn't pull it away. Maybe it was a little inappropriate, but...

This was hard enough to talk about as it was. It had to be harder to hear it, to not be able to remember anything about it himself.

"The night you got hurt... that was the first time in three years that we- that my partner and I met the person we were up against face to face." She hesitated. "It was... really dangerous."

Three years- around the time his mother disappeared, if he was sorting things correctly. One thing at a time. Her touch helped, made him take things in more slowly, grounding him in the now.

He listened to her voice, and his mind tripped over the word partner.

It was important, and he knew it, but instead of pushing himself, he let it be. Gathered it up and held it close, but tried not to look directly at it. Tried not to think too hard.

"... what happened then?"

"He outsmarted me."

When it came down to it, that was it.

Chat Noir had gotten the upper hand on Hawkmoth physically. They'd had him right where they'd wanted him, but he'd brought a gun to a magic fight, which was the one thing Ladybug hadn't thought to do.

And he'd paid the price for it.

"A lot of people got hurt in the process." Also true. There hadn't been a lot of people there, in that room, but the process of tracking down Hawkmoth and getting to him - there had been a lot of sacrifices made to get to that point. "...you were one of them. But..."

And then she hesitated.

"...the person who hurt you... he'll never hurt you, or anyone, ever again."

It was something he had no way of knowing. Something he couldn't remember, because he hadn't seen.

His heart sank like a stone, and he felt cold and sick. The person who had done this to him was dead. Even if they were a monster, even if they'd hurt people, even if they'd tried their damndest to kill him...

Did that warrant murder?

Adrien felt his stomach turn over, but it wasn't the kind of sick he'd been earlier.

"Who killed him?" he asked, very softly, and had the horrible feeling he already knew.

"I..."

Ladybug's stomach turned over on itself, and she looked away from his face, because she really couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye and tell him his father was a killer. Actually, she wasn't sure she could bring herself to say that at all, even if she wasn't looking.

"I really, really don't think I should be the one to tell you that."

Which probably made it all the more obvious, in the end. She never had been a good liar.

Adrien's heart sank further, and tears came to his eyes. Even if she wasn't telling him, she made it all too clear who it had to be.

He squeezed the front of his shirt, looked down at his arms, at the bruises still discoloring his skin, every breath pulling at his cracked ribs, the pieces of his mind he couldn't categorize, and shivered.

He had fought.

Marinette had fought. These weren't defensive wounds.

We were on the same team.

"Was it me?" he asked, and his voice was very soft, as empty as he could make it.

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