💗 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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Marinette had wondered. She'd never once bothered to hide her hands, though, because she was rarely if ever scrutinized the way Gabriel was. Maybe if she'd spent as much time in the limelight as he had, she'd have developed that habit herself.
Instead, she'd developed a habit of blushing, and her cheeks darkened as Adrien's thumb stroked over her palm. Oh. She needed to focus, to keep her breathing steady... much easier said than done.
"...not a one," she confirmed with a small sigh, latching onto the slight topic change. If he could guess that about her even with the limited memory of the day, then Chloé must have been more accustomed to taking credit for other people's work than she'd thought.
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His heart gave a too-hard thump. Uh.
"She's... not very nice to you, huh?" he asked, sitting up a little straighter, a tiny bit awkward. He probably shouldn't have done that.
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Neither one of them had tried to pull their hands away. For all that Adrien inexplicably wanted to be close to her, she wanted to be close to him, too. That much as probably obvious even to him.
"Not very," she sighed. "We were in the same class for years and years. She's never liked me very much."
The feeling was mutual, honestly.
"...I guess I'm not always very nice to her, either."
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With his fingertips tracing the lines of Marinette's palms, he thought for a while, let the feelings and scraps of memory surface as they would. Marinette and Chloé would be fire and ice.
"Chloé is..." he trailed off, thinking of her. Her and her cello. Her and her anger on his behalf. Her and her inability to give up, her insisting on being his friend.
"Hard to expain." He sighed. "She does a lot of things she shouldn't do, says things she shouldn't say. We've known each other for a very long time."
Adrien looked up, at Marinette's eyes. "She has reasons for the things she does. I'm not saying they're good reasons, or that she's justified, or that she isn't downright mean and dishonest sometimes. But I know where it's coming from."
His voice grew heavier, and he looked down at their hands. "Part of it is my fault."
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He must have known that when he'd started at their school, then. He must have - and yet, he'd kept trying anyway. He'd kept trying to involve her in his life, to get her to relax a little.
She never had, but he'd tried.
Adrien could be so kind. It was what had made Marinette like him in the first place, and it was so obvious now that his kindness was right there at his core. If he could still be kind, even having gone through what he had, then... he was undeniably a good person, wasn't he?
But sometimes, that kindness could make him take on more responsibility than he needed to.
"Your fault?" she questioned, disbelieving. "I don't... see how even a little of it could be your fault. Chloé has her reasons, but she's ultimately the one who chooses to do what she does, right? ...her choices aren't on you any more than my choices would be or your father's choices would be."
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It was faulty logic, but not the way Adrien saw it.
"She listens to me. At least a little bit. But I've never called her out on it, I've never stopped her. I tried damage control, but... I've never really stood up for anyone, either."
Or at least, he didn't remember doing so.
"Staying quiet while watching it happen is almost as bad."
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...it wasn't strictly true. She could remember him standing up to Chloé on more than one occasion - but it had taken time. Time that he couldn't remember, at least not right now.
"You did call her out on things, though. ...more than once."
She met his eyes.
"But even if you hadn't, it's still not your job to control her."
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He gave her a tiny smile.
"I guess I got a little braver," he answered, squeezing her fingers. "I used to be afraid I'd lose her if I spoke up."
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How many years had she gone without telling him how she felt and who she was, for exactly that reason?
"...it's just part of being human."
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The realization burned his cheeks with how quickly they went red, and he cleared his throat, looked away, but kept his hand against hers.
"Maybe it's... my second chance," he said softly. "Maybe, because I don't know how things are... it's my chance to start over with what I want them to be."
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"...that's a good way of looking at it," she whispered. "So... I guess the question is, how do you want things to be?"
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She'd stayed with him the whole time.
Maybe it was the brain injury. Maybe it was the talk about bravery. Maybe it was because they were so close, and he was so tired it just seemed the right idea.
Maybe it was just how he felt.
Adrien leaned in. His ribs protested, and the streth left him breathless, but her lips were so close, and-
A knock sounded on the doorway, and Adrien straightened with such abruptness, he gasped in pain.
God.
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Was he...
Did he want...?
She stayed absolutely still, breathless and waiting - until the knock on the door came, and she jerked back with a gasp. "Um - coming!" She called. "Just.. just a moment!"
Trying to keep herself steady, she headed over and opened the door.
...hopefully she looked more composed than she felt.
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At least it was only Nathalie annnnd no it wasn't.
On the other side of the door, Gabriel peered down at her over the rims of his glasses, looking at her red cheeks suspiciously.
He didn't say a word, but the eyebrow raise was... eloquent.
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Marinette fidgeted, thoroughly uncomfortable with the eyebrow raise, and stepped to the side so that Gabriel could enter the room. She avoided his gaze, as if that could hide her shame.
"You... came to see Adrien, right? I-I'll just give you two your privacy."
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Adrien cringed back into his pillows, but all of a sudden he'd put it together. He shut his eyes so he wouldn't have to meet Gabriel's as his father stepped into the room.
"Privacy?" Gabriel asked. "Whatever for?"
Ohhhhhhh my god.
Why did he have to inherit the sass from him?
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Marinette was about ready to die of embarrassment. She knew she'd been teling Adrien that his father would come around, but would it have killed him to wait a little longer to stop being distant?
"I mean - just in case you have... family stuff you want to talk about... that you don't want someone else around for..."
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Gabriel arched a brow at Adrien over Marinette's shoulder. Adrien gave him a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, finally gave him a shrug.
"Don't shrug, Adrien. Verbal answers."
All traces of excitement or happiness slid from Adrien's face, replaced with something more blank- but this time, Gabriel caught the look.
It had been second nature to correct him. He'd done it for so many years now, he hadn't usually watched Adrien when he said things like this. Had he always reacted like that.
"You can go if you want, Marinette," Adrien said quietly.
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...was it really okay for her to just leave, if Gabriel was already making him feel bad about himself this early on? She didn't want to get in the way of their relationship, but she didn't want to let it deteriorate, either.
It wasn't her choice. Not really.
"Do you want me to go?" she asked, her voice quiet as she locked eyes with Adrien.