💗 marinette (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bonnechance) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
genevrier2016-04-15 05:13 pm
bonnechance) wrote in genevrier2016-04-15 05:13 pm
💀 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.
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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"I won't, but I think he might already know."
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Oh god.
Marinette made a small, distressed noise and peeked out at him from between her fingers. "I hope not, if he knows then he'll think I've been sucking up to him, won't he...?!"
She'd already tanked her chances in the industry by flaking on her classes. The last thing she needed was for her fashion idol to think she was some kind of suck-up.
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"I can't see you doing that."
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The protest came immediately, but then Marinette looked down at her hands and shrugged uselessly. ...at least they weren't covering her face anymore.
"I don't think so, anyway...? But if he knows how much I admire him then that's going to cast anything I've said or done into a suspicious light and...!"
She'd always had a tendency to imagine worst-case scenarios, though Alya had witnessed the brunt of it in school.
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"Relax."
He squeezed, softly.
"Admiring is fine. It's someone's actions that define them. Unless you were to start fawning over him..." he paused to pull a face, "You're not going to have a problem."
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Which was probably about 75% of the reason Gabriel was okay with having her in the house, honestly. What she admired was the work he put into it, not the wealth or status that came with his name.
...
Also if she was going to fawn over anyone in the Agreste family, it would be Adrien.
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"And he's having you work on them!" he pointed out, happily.
"He must have seen your work at some point, right? If he trusts you to touch those sketches, he must have?"
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Marinette was good at what she did when she was on her game, but she'd been off her game ever since Adrien had been shot.
"But he has seen my work. Actually - there's a funny story about that. You've worn my work."
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"Really?" he asked, a little shocked. His father permitted that?
"What was it?"
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Marinette thought back to the contest, to her anguish over trying to come up with a design, and couldn't help but laugh at herself. It had been a little ridiculous, hadn't it?
"They were doing a contest at school, and your dad said that whoever won would have their design worn by you in a photo shoot, and... well, I didn't know you were allergic to feathers, I swear I didn't."
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Laughing hurt, but he still couldn't stop once he got the giggles. Laughing felt good, released endorphins he needed, left him breathless and teary-eyed and ribs ripping with pain.
It still felt good.
"Pigeons?" he finally asked, wheezing. "They're what get me the most..."
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...and honestly, it was good to see him laughing again.
"Pigeons," she confirmed. "I had sort of a... feather pattern on mine, and I thought a real feather would tie it all together, but then... your allergy, and..."
Yeah. He wasn't pretty when he sneezed.
(She loved him anyway, though.)
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"Did we at least get a good shoot out of it?" he asked, happily. "Do we have any pictures?"
It would be good, looking into the past with her.
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The words registered on her a moment later, and she blushed, but... somehow managed to smile through it.
"...I don't know if you kept any of the photos, but... your dad probably did...?"
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"I am a professional," he joked, but his eyes were dancing, and he cracked quickly. "Honestly, the photographers I work with are very good at what they do, and I'm sure your hat was awesome. It would be hard to fail."
He contemplated a moment. "Maybe," he ventured, "it might be online?"
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It should have occurred to her sooner, but... he was right. It very well might be online, and they could probably find them pretty easily.
In fact... she scrambled for her phone and pulled up the web browser.
"Yeah, it might be! Hold on..." A few quick words into the search engine, a click over to image search, and... yep, there Adrien was, in all his derby-hatted glory.
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"They photoshopped my bloodshot eyes and runny nose out," he added, on the verge of laughter all over again.
For a second, it felt almost like a memory. It felt his.
"You'd think Chloé would have remembered," he continued, without realizing what he'd said.
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...in retrospect, Gabriel had probably gotten a synthetic feather or something for the actual shoot.
But, wait-
"...Chloé?" she repeated, and then she remembered the way the other girl had stolen her design. But for Adrien to have brought that up - did he remember? Her breath caught, and she studied his face intently.
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"She was... there, wasn't she?" he asked. "In our class?"
It made sense, but he already knew it wasn't quite right. He frowned to himself, trying to remember how it was supposed to go. She was there- and though he consciously hadn't remembered, he knew it was a school contest, somehow-
... everything went back to being frustrating, blank.
He knew. He felt. Sorting those feelings out and attaching them to events was another matter.
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He hadn't really remembered, then. It had just sounded... familiar. Which was normal, because it had happened, he'd been there-
"Do you want me to give you the full context?" she offered. "Or would you rather see if you can remember it yourself...?"
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Though he knew Marinette wasn't judging him for it, it still felt like failure to say that he couldn't.
"Tell me about it?" he asked. "That might bring something up."
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Which would have been equally cool to see Adrien wearing, to be honest.
"...Chloé's design... also had a feather."
It had been a blatant ripoff of her own, but. She didn't want to badmouth one of the fe friends he could remember...
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A school contest. How had his father had the time? Had he? Had he gone, or-
The details materialized, and he wasn't sure if it was memory or just logic. Nathalie with a tablet. Chloé, carrying on...
Adrien didn't remember the words so much as the very singular action of Marinette's hands, flipping her hat over. The cool, confident, satisfied tone of her voice as gold thread glinted through the stitches.
It was a very clear memory, one of those moments, suspended in time. One of those pivotal snapshots, the emotional impression left by that realization.
"Yours won," he said softly, frowning to himself. "Because it was yours."
The context was foggy, the details a blur, but the impression was still there.
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It was sort of a depressing thought, and Marinette tried to brush it aside, to just be happy that he was starting to remember things at all.
"Yes," she said quietly. "Your father said I had a hat maker's hands."
...it was a compliment, really.
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"Fashion leaves your hands a mess," he explained.
"Especially in his earlier days, I remember my father's hands being stained with ink. Band-aids from slipping with his seam ripper when he was tired. Hatpin holes." He stroked his thumb over Marinette's palm with a faraway smile.
"It's why he has that habit of holding his hands behind his back," he confided. "He didn't like people seeing them."
He looked up with a tiny, wry smile.
"I bet Chloé didn't have a single needle mark."
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