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

Green, blue, violet.

Marinette knew, on some level, that in order to make the combination of colors work, she had to blend them properly. They'd gone over this just recently in class - it was one of the techniques designers relied upon to make things work. She'd done it a thousand times before even having been taught about it. It should be easy.

It wasn't. Her gaze wandered from the paper, to the green pen she was holding, to a blue pen lying between herself and Gabriel. Put the green pen down. Pick up the blue. Blend it, she tried to tell herself, but her hand just wouldn't listen.

How can you do this?

The voice in the back of her mind came unbidden, and Marinette flinched. She knew it was just her own guilt playing tricks on her, but the voice sounded a lot like Hawkmoth.

How can you go on designing and living your life like you're not responsible for Adrien's injuries?

Marinette set the jade green copic down, and she did not pick up the blue.

Gabriel watched her, out of the corner of his eye. His hand stilled, and he looked up, watching Adrien on the bed. He was clean, dressed in pajamas, hair combed back from his face. All traces of blood were gone.

The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and saline. Yesterday, they'd found that fluid was creating pressure on Adrien's brain, so the doctors had performed an emergency procedure to relieve it and allow it to drain.

There had been a long, tense conversation in the other room about the possibility of a tracheotomy. Adrien had been in a coma more than 48 hours, and breathing was a main concern. It was the safest course of action for complications that could arise in the future, though they hadn't yet surfaced.

Gabriel picked up the blue copic and placed it in Marinette's hand.

She seemed like a shell of herself. One more ghost in a house full of them.

"What you do now does nothing to change what happened," he said quietly. There was nothing comforting about his tone, but nothing cruel either.

"We made our mistakes." The both of them. All of them. "The reasons don't matter. But when my son wakes up, he will need you."

There was a click as he set down the copic, picked up another.

"You. Not your shade."

Marinette turned the copic over in her hand, listening. Thinking.

Adrien shouldn't have to need her - he could do so much better. Someone who could actually keep him safe. Someone who hadn't turned him down for three years straight because she was too hung up on one possibility to even see another.

She had probably caused him a lot of pain over the years. If they'd just talked things over sooner, maybe she could have spared him some of it.

But... it would be bad for her to vanish from his life now, and it would be worse to only be half-there. As Gabriel said - a shade. As Chat Noir, for better or for worse, he had depended on her. She hadn't been able to be the support that he'd needed in the end - that he had ended up like this was proof enough of that...

But maybe she could be that support for him now.

Marinette swallowed the lump in her throat and uncapped the blue copic.

"I just..." Her voice was brittle. "It doesn't... seem right. His life is on hold right now. Mine should be too. We're... we're a team. It's not fair that only one of us got out of that..."

"It isn't," Gabriel agreed, blending with careful, soft strokes, making sure the colors would flow properly. "It's disgustingly unfair."

Perhaps someone else would have given her encouraging words, or reminded her that life was unfair, but Gabriel was not that person. Marinette was a smart girl, and she knew these things. But this was also her first experience with world-shattering grief, with the guilt of living destroying her will to do so.

"But this happened to him, not to you."

Gabriel lined out the next section, faltering slightly. He pulled the pen from the page, closed his eyes.

Finally, he opened them.

In fact, if he had done what he meant to, it might have never happened at all.

It shouldn't have been him. It should have been her.

That was survivor's guilt, plain and simple. She knew her parents would have been devastated if their roles had been reversed. She knew Chat Noir would have absolutely flipped out. Alya probably would have tracked Hawkmoth down and beaten his face in with a tire iron.

And yet... She couldn't help but think it. He had protected her for three years. She should have protected him for once.

"I didn't... I didn't even think. I thought that once we had the Miraculous, he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone anymore." She took a shaky breath. "I never thought he would have had a gun..."

Gabriel could have told them he'd have a gun. That he'd have some means of backup, that he was evil and cruel enough to win at any cost, even if it meant stooping to murder.

Gabriel knew, because that was what he was prepared to do, when he found him.

"You were fighting a battle you were never meant to fight, one that should have been decided years ago." Gabriel outlined another section.

"You should have never been put in that position to begin with."

Marinette ducked her head, looked down at the pattern on her lap. She let Gabriel's words wash over her and slowly began to fill in some of the blank spaces, blending the blue into the green and leaving space for the purple later.

It was slow going, and not her best work.

"...but if I wasn't in that position, who would have been?" She bit her lip. "Tikki said..."

She faltered. Maybe Gabriel didn't want to hear about what her kwami had said, but the words were already out, and she couldn't take them back.

"...I was destined to be Ladybug. Even if I waited until I was ready, Hawkmoth wouldn't have... So many more people would have been hurt."

Gabriel was silent. Part of him wanted to tell her, but no part of him was ready to actually speak about it. If anyone, she had a right to know. Gradually, his fingers stopped moving, and the silence stretched between them.

It was Nooroo's voice that broke it.

"Gabriel would have."

The revelation fell, shattered around them, and Gabriel looked up, catching the movement of the butterfly kwami as he hovered, then landed on the footboard of the bed.

"You should tell her," he insisted softly. It wasn't accusatory. Just... sad.

Edited 2016-04-18 04:09 (UTC)

"—what?"

If there was any answer Marinette had expected, it wasn't that. She looked up from the pattern in shock, sought out Nooroo, settled her gaze on him at the bed's floorboard. A moment passed, and then another, and she looked to Gabriel.

The familiarity with which he and Nooroo had regarded each other at the hospital - the way he hadn't even hesitated to activate Chat Noir's transformation... the ease with which he'd accepted the existence of her kwami.

He hadn't even batted an eyelash at Tikki; he'd been angry, but he had never once insisted she couldn't be real, and he'd never once demanded an explanation for the source of Ladybug's and Chat Noir's powers. That should have been her first clue. If her parents had discovered that she was Ladybug, they would have asked so many questions trying to understand it.

"...you had a Miraculous of your own." Her brows furrowed. "Is that what Nooroo wants you to tell me, Monsieur Agreste?"

It was interesting, the conclusion she came to. But it was ultimately correct.

Gabriel put down the pen, watching Nooroo's earnest eyes, and finally sighed.

"I did." His voice was quiet and heavy. There was a dense quality to it, like he was carrying too much, like the words meant more than the language he used. "And I rejected it."

Nooroo barely flinched, but the sadness in his eyes was even more pronounced.

The silence wavered, and Gabriel got to his feet, taking his clipboard with him. The door clicked softly shut behind him.

Marinette wondered how long ago he had received the Miraculous. Had he been Adrien's age? Why had he rejected it? Had Ladybug and Chat Noir been active then? He'd known Plagg's name. He'd spoken to Tikki like she should have known about him.

My son. Her son.

There were bits and pieces of the puzzle that were starting to fall into place, but she didn't have enough pieces to form the full picture. As Gabriel swept out of the room, she held out her hand to Nooroo.

"...don't worry, I won't try and make you tell me," She said softly. "It's his story to tell when he's ready... right?"

Nooroo sighed after the door closed, then came without hesitation to Marinette's hands, alighting on her fingers sadly. He softened as Marinette spoke, a faraway look of wonder coming to his face.

"You were chosen well, you know."

His voice warmed, and he half-smiled before he looked after Gabriel.

"He wasn't always like this. Back when I knew him, he wasn't so..." he trailed off, searching for the word. He never seemed to find it. Instead, Nooroo got lost in the memories, following them down the rabbit hole, somewhere he couldn't yet share.

Patting Marinette's hand apologetically, he looked back up at her.

"He might not be a kind person," Nooroo added, "But he does care. He cares more deeply than any human I've ever known."

Hesitating, he finally added, "It was why he was chosen." Nooroo's attention drifted towards the boy on the bed. "... but it was also why he gave it up."

"...where the Miraculous are, trouble tends to follow."

Or maybe it was that the Miraculous themselves were what followed trouble, because the people who were chosen by them were the ones who were best equipped to deal with it. It was hard to say - she just knew that since she became Ladybug, many of her classmates had become victims of Hawkmoth. That hadn't changed when she had moved from one level of school to another.

Either way, as she followed Nooroo's gaze to Adrien, the first inklings of understanding tugged at her.

"And if there's anything Monsieur Agreste doesn't like... it's trouble coming to his son."

Maybe it wasn't exactly how it played out, but she could imagine it. Starting a family, having Adrien come into his life... and then some kind of disaster. If trouble followed Gabriel's Miracuolus the way it seemed to follow hers and Chat Noir's, she could understand why he would give it up, if he thought it might stop danger from being attracted to his family.

Her brow furrowed and she bit her lip.

"Nooroo?" She whispered. "The Hawkmoth we fought didn't have you back then. So... why was the Miraculous given to him? What else is out there?"

Nooroo made an affirmative sound.

It was far from the whole story, but she had the right idea. Gabriel was a man of secrets and privacy, like the Miraculous holders so often were. Adrien, their Adrien, was an anomaly.

In the wake of Marinette's question, Nooroo quieted again. His wings fluttered.

"For now... hopefully nothing," he finally answered, "If all is well, you'll never have to have that question answered."

Hopefully nothing.

But there was a possibility, a terrible possibility, that there might be something. It explained why Gabriel had told her to put the earrings back in. She imagined it probably had as much to do with providing her a means with which to defend herself as it did with providing her a means to not fail at protecting Adrien this ime, if things were to go pear shaped.

"I think I'd prefer not to have it answered," She agreed. "But if it has to be... I'll try my best to be ready for it. Whatever it is."

"Me too," Nooroo admitted, saddened. None of them were in any condition to fight. Hawkmoth's defeat would bring a measure of peace, but they could only hope that it would last. Thousands of years, and Nooroo had seen countless forms of evil.

Hawkmoth, terrible as he had been, was far from the worst.

He'd still managed to cut deep.

"If something truly awful were to happen, you wouldn't be alone," he assured her softly. "The others would be awakened. The Master would see to it."

"There was a part of me that thought..."

Her voice trailed off, and she looked up from the kwami to rest her gaze on Adrien. She didn't look away from him as she spoke, but her voice remained soft.

"I thought he would show up to take the earrings back once it was finished. The ring, too. But... he's not going to, is he?" Idly, without looking, she lightly brushed a finger over the top of Nooroo's head. "I mean, if he hasn't yet, he probably plans for me to keep them..."

"Our chosen are usually chosen for life, or until they can't be heroes anymore. The bond between kwami and chosen is... special. Sacred." He leaned into her fingers.

The fact that this was coming from Nooroo made it worse. Hawkmoth had corrupted that bond, perverted it. Nooroo had been forced, unwillingly, to serve.

"He'd never want to seperate you and Tikki if he didn't have to. It would be cruel."

... and it made Gabriel's voluntary rejection of the Miraculous an even more jagged pill to swallow.

Edited 2016-04-18 07:06 (UTC)

Marinette bit down hard on her lip to keep from saying what Tikki, curled up in her purse, would have been thinking if she wasn't fast asleep:

Separating a kwami and their chosen is cruel. Is he really going to keep Adrien and Plagg apart once Adrien wakes up?

"What are you going to do now that you're free, Noooroo?" She asked after a moment, bringing the butterfly kwami closer to herself and lowering her voice. If Gabriel was coming back soon - or if Nathalie or someone else in the house was nearby... she wasn't sure she wanted them to hear. "I have your Miraculous right now, but... I'm not your chosen. I can give you back, though. If you want. You should be with whoever you want to be with."

"I want to be with Adrien!" he answered suddenly, fervently, almost before Marinette finished her question. Though he hadn't shown any overt emotions since all this began, the thought of being separated from the boy, even if Marinette would never do it against his will, was a terrifying prospect.

Of course, Marinette had no way of understanding just what their relationship was. He seemed to have known Gabriel in the past, but... Adrien hadn't known what kwami were. Chat Noir had been completely new to the idea of the Miraculous when he'd become a hero.

It caught her a little by surprise, how passionately he said it. No - a lot by surprise. Her eyes widened in clearly apparent shock and she was silent for a long moment before she nodded once and her expression softened.

"Then you'll stay with Adrien," She said simply. "I'll do everything in my power to make sure that happens."

Even if that meant hanging onto his Miraculous indefinitely, staying by Adrien's side indefinitely. If it was rejected, he would vanish - she knew that now, so she wouldn't reject him.

Nooroo smiled thankfully back at her, fluttering his wings. Three years was a long time not to be listened to. Effectively, Marinette was the first one to break the streak.

He fluttered up to kiss her cheek softly, then flew back to gently alight on Adrien's chest. He rose and fell with every breath.

"He's going to wake up. I know he is. He's strong."

Marinette smiled and brushed her fingers against her cheek. Even if there wasn't a lot she could do for Adrien right now, at least she could make Nooroo feel listened to.

"He is," She agreed, following the kwami's progress up and down as Adrien breathed. Was it just her imagination, or was his breathing getting stronger? The likelihood of it being wishful thinking was about as strong as the likelihood of it being actual progress, so it was hard to say. "He's probably the strongest person I've ever known."

It wasn't an exaggeration.

"...I hope it's soon. I really miss him, Nooroo."

Nooroo was quiet, feeling Adrien's heartbeat beneath him, listening to the air in his lungs. Finally, he floated back to Marinette, gripped her fingers, and gave her tiny tugs closer to Adrien's prone form.

He guided her hand to his. His fingers were warm. They twitched as she touched him. His eyelids shivered, and he relaxed again.

"I think he knows."

She allowed Nooroo to bring her over to Adrien, allowed him to pull her hand to his. When his fingers twitched, she curled her fingers around them and squeezed lightly.

A reaction of some kind. That had definitely been something, hadn't it? She wanted to believe that it was.

"Do you think he can hear us?" She didn't let go of his hand. "I saw a movie like that, once... but I don't know enough about medicine to know if it's something that really happens or not."

(no subject)

villainousthetic - 2016-04-19 04:23 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

bonnechance - 2016-04-19 04:54 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only