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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"...yeah, I did."

It was fine. This was fine.

He was smiling, and Ladybug smiled back, miles more relaxed than she had been earlier. Even if things were weird and uncomfortable, even if they still had so much to learn and relearn about each other, they would be okay.

"So I'll be back, whenever you want me to be."

"Show up, even if I don't call," he invited her, though he could feel himself fading fast. "Whenever you need to see me. Or want to. Okay?"

His eyelids were only growing heavier, the more she touched his hair, which just happened to be the same way Marinette did.

"Okay," she agreed, and her voice was little more than a whisper.

She leaned down and kissed his forehead lightly, her eyes softening as she watched him. ...he was okay. He was tired, but he was okay, and this was all going to be fine. She had to believe he would be fine.

"I will. ...sleep well, okay...?"

Settling down, he looked up at her just in time to see her lean in, to catch a whiff of her skin and hair as she leaned over him, to shut his eyes into the kiss.

He wished he could pull her down, pull her close. Instead he reached up to touch her hair, letting the ribbon slide through his fingers.

"You too..."

He shut his eyes, breathing out. Not quite there yet, but she was there, touching him, and he soaked it in as long as he could.

Someday, he would be able to do exactly what he wanted. Today wasn't that day, but as he touched her hair, ran his fingers over her ribbon, Ladybug wished that it was.

"Mhm." Adrien was starting to settle. She kept her fingers in his hair, soothing him to sleep, waiting and listening to the sound of his breathing as it began to even out. "...see you when you wake up. When we both wake up."

She'd have to make good on her promise and take a nap at some point.

Adrien made a soft sound, and slipped away again, back into one of her deeper cycles of sleep, the kind it was nearly impossible to wake him from, and he kept on for hours. It was part of the healing process, according to the nurses, but it could still be alarming.

He was very still, eyes moving behind his eyelids. Dreaming.

The nightmare came on gradually, bubbling up as a feeling rather than events. Things didn't hurt in dreams, but he could still feel the fear, the desperation, the echo of the impact.

He was flying. He was flying over the city at night, warm and breathless, filled with starlight and fire, breath stinging his lungs and laughter leaving him high-

And then everything crumbled beneath him. Broke away under his touch. Broke apart and rotted.

He fell.

Adrien thrashed in his sleep, lashing out blindly with a cry.

Ladybug stayed by his bedside for a long while, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he drifted off. Finally, once he had been still for long enough that she felt it was safe to get some sleep herself, she whispered the words to detransform and settled down in the chair at his bedside for a nap.

...she slept less deeply than he did, and when he started to thrash, the rustling of his sheets drew her awake. She sat up with a start as it intensified, grabbed for his hand as he lashed out.

"Adrien? ...Adrien!"

Oh god.

"Adrien, wake up...!"

Still deep in the nightmare, Adrien felt the grab, felt the voice more than heard it, felt that desperation and fear. His fingers clawed, then dug into her skin, and when he turned, everything was red.

Red and sharp and red and she was on the ground and he couldn't move, he couldn't make his limbs respond as the world turned back around them, as it ate away at them both, as-

Ladybug's screams echoed in the dream.

Marinette's voice ripped him awake.

Adrien came back to reality in a cold sweat and with a racing heart, tears spilling down his cheeks, his throat raw from the noise he'd tried to make. Pain ripped down his torso.

He didn't immediately realize that he was awake.

His fingers dug into the palm of her hand, and she hissed as his nails broke the skin, but she didn't pull her hand away.

Something had him in its thrall. With all their talk before, about memories, about things that he might or might not remember - it was no wonder that his subconscious was wreaking havoc on him.

Her stomach churned, and she reached over with her other hand to smooth his hair down, away from his face, to try and soothe him with her touch.

"A-Adrien, it's okay, it's okay..."

At first, his eyes were flat with panic, unseeing, looking right past her. It wasn't until she called out for him again, that she touched him in the way he knew best, that he started to come back.

Adrien came awake in moments and snapshots, gasping for air, looking for her before he could focus on her fully, watching her face as she said his name.

It took a few tries, but he came back. He came home.

"I was..." it came out slurred at the edges, and he had to remember to breathe.

"... Marinette?"

The look on his face was the most frightening thing about it - that unseeing panic made her stomach churn, made her wonder exactly what he was seeing, what he was feeling.

What could possibly make him so afraid?

"I'm here," she whispered. Her hand tightened around his, and she met his eyes as she ran her fingers very lightly through his hair.

...how many nightmares had he had before he was able to wake up from them?

"You're here, too. You're safe."

Adrien found her by her touch, her voice, and drew several breaths without coughing, curled his fingers more gently around hers as he looked into her eyes, managed to focus.

"Princess," he whispered, his face a picture of panic and relief.

He shut his eyes, concentrating on her touch.

She was here. She was alive. He hadn't turned everything to ash.

He seemed to be getting some kind of comfort from her closeness, from her touch, so she stayed right where she was and didn't even consider pulling her hand away.

"I'm here," she repeated, giving his fingers another light squeeze.

It had all been a dream. A terrible dream, but just a dream nonetheless. Reality wasn't that great, but whatever his nightmare had been - whatever he'd seen - it wasn't real.

He was going to be just fine.

The dream was rapidly slipping away, but the impression it left shook him. Adrien's breathing evened out slowly, and he leaned into her hands, her touch, grounding himself.

He squeezed her hand, and when he finally opened his eyes, he noticed the red marks where he'd broken the skin.

He dropped her hand as if burned.

"I'm- I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

She blinked rapidly, startled, when he dropped her hand, then looked down at her palm. What...? Oh.

Marinette shook her head. "It's okay," she said quietly. "I've done worse to myself by accident." She reached for his hand with her other hand, her touch gentle. "...are you okay, Adrien?"

It made him feel a touch better, but not much. He accepted her touch despite feeling like he shouldn't, squeezing her hand. He needed the comfort.

"Just a little shaken up," he whispered, flashed her a smile that didn't stick. "Bad dream."

The details were rapidly slipping away into nothing, and what he did remember made no sense.

"Do you want to talk about it...?"

Were the things he couldn't remember making their way into his dreams? Was it something else entirely? ...if it was something having to do with the Miraculous, did he feel like he could talk to anyone about it?

He had his suspicions about her, but... it must be lonely, to feel like it was something he couldn't talk about.

"Because if you do, I'll listen, but if you don't, I won't force you to..."

It was tempting to just brush it off, but it was so weird, he didn't know how to make any sort of sense of it. Adrien frowned to himself, thinking, but ultimately he did trust Marinette.

"I'm... flying. Over the city. But not really flying. Think, like Superman? Leaping tall buildings in a single bound?" he chuckled slightly, knowing it sounded a little ridiculous.

"But then I was falling. Common dream, but... everything was turning to rust and ash, and rotting away, the closer I got to it."

Adrien looked down at his hand, pressed his thumb against something that wasn't there. It was a hitch in the edge of his memories, quickly glossed over as part of a dream.

"Like I was the one doing it."

Cataclysm.

Of course. It made sense. He didn't even have to be remembering Hawkmoth for it to be a nightmare - without the context, his own powers were terrifying enough. If anyone other than Adrien had been Chat Noir, that Miraculous could have been seriously misused.

So to remember the destruction of it, without remembering being on the right side, even subconsciously...

She squeezed his hand again, and her expression and her voice were both gentle when she spoke.

"That sounds frightening," she said softly. "But, believe me... if that was something a person could do - destroy things with just a touch - all of Paris would be a lot safer if it was you. You wouldn't misuse it." The fact that the city was still standing after that power had been in his hands for three years as proof of that. Her gaze dropped briefly to his hands - to the finger that no longer bore a ring - before she looked up at him. "...but you're okay, you know? None of that is happening."

Adrien was quiet, an uneasy feeling deep in his chest. It sounded so specific, so close and real. They had just been talking about superheroes. He'd just met one, if Ladybug hadn't been a dream, too.

Or had she?

Could he trust his own mind right now?

Was he just making things up to feel better?

None of that is happening.

"I hope not," he said softly, meaning himself, and the misuse of the power... or all of it. Did he mean all of it?

"You're safe."

The words were somehow both gentle and firm at the same time, and she lightly brushed a few strands of his hair away from his face.

"You're safe, and... all of Paris is safe. You don't have to worry about anything other than getting better."

The worst of it was over.

...well, as long as some other threat didn't rear its ugly head, but Hawkmoth was over and done with. What was the worst that could happen?

Despite her words, it still troubled him, thinking about it. It seemed so wild and far-fetched, but at the same time it had still been so real.

Adrien concentrated on the feel of Marinette's fingers on his skin instead of what was going on in his mind, felt the headache recede.

"Were you here the whole time?" he asked softly, confused. Things were beginning to blend again.

"...when you didn't have someone else here, yes," she answered softly.

Marinette was, after all, still unable to tell him that she was Ladybug. But she also wouldn't deny that Ladybug was there, if he asked.

"You weren't alone, I promise."

... someone else.

Did that mean Ladybug was someone else-? Or was she talking about the aides? His father?

Adrien's mind swam, and he wanted to ask, but was afraid of the answer.

What if Marinette wasn't Ladybug? What if Ladybug didn't actually exist?

Adrien felt ill again, and shut his eyes, trying to drown out the throbbing that was soon to become a fullblown migraine. He felt helpless again, even more frustrated. Was everything broken?

"Thanks for staying with me."

"Of course."

There was something on his mind. She could tell that much, from the way his expression changed, from the way he shut his eyes - but they were slightly out of sync, and she couldn't guess what it was.

"I wouldn't leave you alone."

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