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Marinette, we’re back early. If you and Adrien could head to the bakery after school, that would be great. We have a lot to talk about.
That could mean so many things. Why had her parents returned early? Did they leave any incriminating evidence for her parents to find or did they just want to talk to them? There was obvious signs around the house and the bakery that Adrien had been there too, but Adrien staying over had never bother her parents before. They knew how his dad was. But the fact that they wanted to talk to the both of them was suspicious all in its own. Plus taking into account the way that the text was worded…
Needless to say, both Marinette and Adrien were nervous to return to the bakery.
“What do we do?” she hissed, curling into his side where they’d taken ‘cover’ under a desk. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gingerly pressed his back against the cool stone wall.
“I don’t know. But we can’t exactly escape whatever this is. I think we should just talk to them. For all we know it could be a bout a new dessert that they want to make after their trip.” He whispered back, smiling slightly as he tried to relieve the tension in his girlfriend’s small frame. She frowned, although he could tell she was trying to suppress a smile, and opened her mouth to respond when she was interrupted by the classroom door slamming open.
A cacophony of jumbled noises suddenly invaded their quiet space and Adrien winced. His ears were still sensitive due to just transforming back – one of the side effects of the suit. His head snapped up, nearly banging it against the bottom of the desk.
“Ms. Dupain-Cheng! Mr. Agreste? Are you alright?” they heard their teacher call as the class flooded into the room. Reluctantly, the duo climbed out from under the table where they were hiding.
“We’re alright, Ms. Bustier, Ladybug’s lucky charm fixed everything.” Adrien said as the two made their way down the stars to the front of the class. The class immediately surrounded them and bombarded them with questions about their wellbeing.
“Are you sure that you guys are okay?” Alya demanded, grabbing Marinette’s shoulders and pulling her from his grasp so that she could hug her. “As we saw from Chat Noir, Ladybug can’t fix everything. Did either of you get hit by any rubble? You might have a concussion!” words were just flying out of her mouth with no control at this point.
Marinette smiled weakly at her friend and glanced back at her partner. Luckily for them, Alya didn’t notice this eye flicker. Unfortunately, that was when Nino decided to slap Adrien on the back good naturedly. He managed to hit right on the deep stitched up wound and Adrien felt a bolt of agony jolt through him. He distantly heard Nino say something about how he was glad they were okay, but he was too busy trying not to show his pain.
But then Nino’s hand shifted, and his shirt caught on his stitches tearing some and he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He let out shout a pained shout before collapsing. This of course drew everyone’s attention back to the blond model. Marinette’s eyes widened in panic as she fell to his side, hiding his back from view. Nino’s mouth had formed a perfect ‘o’ shape as he stared in horror at his hand. It was speckled, but there was blood visible on his dark finger tips.
“A-Adrien?” Nino’s vice was about an octave higher than it should have been as everyone’ eyes fell on his hand. Adrien winced as his own hand subconsciously rose to cover where Nino ‘s had hit.
“Woah! That’s blood! You said you didn’t get hurt!” Alya gasped in shock. He winced again at her volume and unconsciously curled deeper into Marinette’s embrace.
“Well,” he said, tongue swiping across his lips nervously. “I wasn’t hurt by the akuma. This is from last night. I had a sparring accident while fencing. Just a surface graze.” He placated. Everyone still looked very worried, but they saw that he didn’t want to talk about it and did the nice thing by not forcing him and backing off.
“Ms.? My parents texted me and they want me home. We can look after Adrien there.” Marinette said dismissively, pulling her downed boyfriend up and easily grabbing both of their bags and making her way to the door with Adrien in tow.
Ms. Bustier was left speechless, but she didn’t protest as two of her students practically fled the classroom. It was no surprise. They’d been stuck there ever since the akuma had attacked. Plus, the principal ha d told everyone to just go home. Classes would not be resuming today.
After quickly applying another bandage to Adrien’s back and changing his jacket, they rushed back to the bakery. They needed to know what the Dupain-Chengs wanted to talk about. The curiosity might just kill the cat this time. Lucky for them (not…) they bakery had closed sign up, meaning they wouldn’t have to wait until shop hours were over.
They dropped off their bags and then made their way to the living area of the apartment above the bakery. Tom and Sabine were waiting for them on the couch. On the coffee table sat cups of tea and a small plate of cookies. Marinette and Adrien nervously crept forward and sat down beside each other on the love seat facing the married couple.
“Hi, mom!” Marinette said awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck in a decidedly Adrien like move. “You guys came back early.” She stated, giggling nervously and Adrien shifted in his seat. He rarely had to deal with parent child conversations in person because the last time he’d seen his father was 3 months ago, and the last time his father had been actually in Paris (let alone actually seeing his son) was more than a year before.
If his father was disappointed in him, then he just had Nathalie tell him in her monotone way. He doesn’t think he’s ever been sat down for a talk by his father. It took too much time. This was new and scary, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to act. Marinette was stiff and jittery so, so was he. Plus, it also gave him an excuse to not slouch and lean his aching back on the couch like a normal teen would.
“Yes we are.” Sabine Cheng said, snipping on a cup of tea. “We heard that there was a pretty major attack near here and we wanted to make sure that you were okay. And then with today’s attack I’m glad we did.” She smiled gently at them and Marinette let out a sigh of relief. It seemed like it was nothing bad then. She hadn’t even commented on the rather obvious signs that Adrien had spent the night at the bakery. “Adrien dear, how’s your back doing?” she asked, just calmly sipping her tea.
Adrien and Marinette immediately stiffened at her question. She shouldn’t have known that Adrien’s back was hurt. Unless their teacher had called ahead… “uhh, I’m doing much better. Just a superficial fencing accident. Newbie just didn’t know how to handle the sabre.” He chuckled, reaching for his own cup of tea to avoid showing signs of lying. Oh, jasmine, great. He liked green tea.
Marinette’s mom raised a delicate eyebrow at him. “Oh no dear, I think it’s much more severe than that. We did watch the fight after all. You don’t need to hide it from us.” She said, concern seeping into her tone. “You should let me look at it. I’m sure Marinette took care of you, but a mother worries.” He could feel Marinette panicking beside him and he honestly couldn’t say that he was doing much better himself. All signs pointed to the fact that his girlfriend’s parents knew that he was Chat Noir.
“Y-you know?” he asked, unable to hide the horror in his voice. This was not good. His fingers clutched the teacup tightly. Sabine nodded as Tom moved to speak up.
“We know our daughter, Adrien. We’ve known that she was Ladybug since the second akuma attack.” He admitted, causing Marinette to pale and waver beside him. “Once we saw Ladybug returning Chat Noir’s affections at the same time as Marinette began dating you, it was easy to see. You started relaxing around her and acting more like your alter ego”
Adrien felt the blood drain from his face. They knew. There was no misunderstandings; they knew that their daughter and her boyfriend were Ladybug and Chat Noir. “I’m so sorry, mom!” Marinette choked out as tears began to gather in her eyes. He reached out and placed a reassuring (or what he hoped was) hand on her knee.
“Oh my dear, you misunderstand. We’re not made at you, honey. Worried yes, but never mad. We’re proud of you; both of you.” Sabine said in a soothing manner. That’s when Marinette launched herself at her parents sobbing as she let out all of her pent up emotions. Her parents didn’t hate her for keeping it a secret. Adrien smiled at the happy family in front of him. He knew that Marinette had been worried that her parents would make her stop, and if their current reaction was any indication, then it looked like they wouldn’t.
“Thank you.” He whispered, tears beginning to gather in his own eyes at the touching scene. Sabine and Tom smiled kindly at him. When Marinette had calmed down, she returned to her place beside Adrien, still wiping away stray tears.
“Now, we were completely serious about checking your back, young man. Shirt off and turn around.” Sabine ordered.
Adrien stared wide eyed at her before his eyes flickered over to his girlfriend for what he was supposed to do. She shrugged, looking as uncertain as he felt. She moved towards him and together they slowly worked his shirt off of him with minor wincing. They had done this so many times now that it was routine. He turned around as Marinette began unwrapping the bandages to reveal his half healed stab wounds.
The stitches had been pulled out of the ones closest to his shoulders where there was the most movement, and the skin was red, torn, and raw. Marinette’s cool fingers soothed the inflamed skin, but without the pressure of the bandages he could feel the thread in his skin as it pulled with each breath. He tried to relax, but the pain killers had worn off a couple minutes into the talk back to the bakery and the pain was now at the forefront of his mind.
He heard a gasp of shock from behind him and he turned his head to see that tears were forming in Sabine’s eyes as she placed her hands over her mouth in horror. Even Tom had gone a bit pale after seeing the mess that was his back. “It’s not that bad really,” he found himself saying, “I pulled some stitched while fighting the akuma earlier this morning. Marinette did a good job, it was much worse last night. It’ll be all healed in about a week. No reason to worry.” But his smile was tight as the stitches shifted with each twitch of his muscles and the pain really began to hit him.
“Oh honey!” Sabine gasped, moving to gently touch his heated skin, walking around the coffee table and kneeling behind him. “This looks really bad. We need to redo these stitches and clean some of these. Marinette your stitches are lovely if you could go get your med kit? Tom you know what I need.” the small Chinese woman began ordering. Not questioning her, Marinette and her father both went to get their things. Marinette returned first with her heavily stocked med kit, and Sabine immediately pulled out the disinfectants.
“Now this will sting a little, but I want you to focus on the voice okay? Tell me about your day.” She said in a soothing and motherly tone. That wasn’t something he’d heard in a while. He tried to do as she asked and not stiffen up as she and Marinette began gently cleaning the now ragged wounds.
“Well uh…” he trailed off, wincing in pain at the sting of the disinfectant, “today there was another akuma attack, but before that was fine.” He began awkwardly. “I had crashed on Marinette’s chaise – sorry Mrs. Cheng – because I really wasn’t all that awake after Marinette removed the razors from my back, so I was actually able to eat this morning. We walked to school and I managed to convince Nino that I’d just pulled something in a fencing spar with a newbie. Class was fine, we’ll be having an essay on the morals of having teenagers defend the city due at some point.” He rambled on, growing less and less aware of the pain in his back.
“Since you know, I’m sure you saw what happened yesterday. In less than 24 hours, it has been spread all over the city. Our class was actually debating the different opinions this morning and that’s why we have to write that essay now. We had just begun writing it when an akuma attacked – I think he was that reporters brother or something? – and the situation quickly descended into chaos Part of the wall had been blow up so everyone was running around in panic – we really should have a drill or a plan in place because the school gets attacked so frequently…” he kept on rambling.
At this point, he didn’t even know what he was talking about anymore. All he knew was that the words were just pouring out of his mouth and that Sabine’s voice calmly asking questions was very soothing. This was a brilliant way to ignore the pack. The disinfecting was over way sooner than he’d expected and in no time at all, Marinette was beginning to get out the suture kit while her mother carefully removed the last of the ruined stitches. That hurt a bit more, but he just forced himself to keep rambling (moving onto how annoying Chloe was and how she was the reason so many people at their school got akumatized) to ignore the pull of the thread on the ripped edges of his flesh. At least he wasn’t bleeding too much. Perks of being Chat Noir.
Just as he’d finished sharing that one time Chloe had embarrassed herself when she was 7 and attending a dinner party, his girlfriend broke in. “Maman, I’m going to need to stitch these back together. If you could get him lying on is stomach? He likes his hair to be played with – almost like a real cat. It works to relax him.” She said softly, holding up the prepped and sterilized needle.
Marinette was a good seamstress and her stitches were very neat. With a quick and steady hand, she would be done in no time. Just as he’d finished shifting to lie in Sabine’s lap so that Marinette could begin, Tom returned with an unlabelled tub of something. He set the small tub on the coffee table before once more leaving the room, but this time to fetch more bandages.
He closed his eyes as Sabine’s deft fingers began to stroke through his silken blond locks and scratch his scalp. He did his best to relax, unconsciously purring quietly as both a sign of distress and to encourage Marinette’s mom to continue. Marinette leaned forwards to begin when he felt Sabine stiffen. “Aren’t you going to numb the area?” she asked softly, doing her best to not disturb the boy on her lap. Marinette shook her head and began to quickly sew the skin together, soothing the heated skin with her cool hands.
“Non, maman,” she said, “we’ve done this enough times. Cha- Adrien doesn’t like the feeling – past Chat Noir’s had gotten addicted to pain killers and he wants to avoid that – and his skin will sometimes react to it. He knows what he can handle. Lord knows how many times he had to do this himself before we knew each other’s identities.” She admitted, glancing up briefly at her mother. “The life of a superhero isn’t always glamorous, and my lucky charm doesn’t heal everything.” He clenched his eyes shut, his semi-distressed purring growing louder.
But luckily for him, she finished less than 5 minutes later. Sabine looked a little pale, but she helped him sit up anyways. He groaned softly as his tense muscles shifted. He didn’t dare roll his shoulders in fear of agitating his back yet again. He rubbed his eyes a little bit before looking around for Marinette. Instead of finding her he nearly jumped a foot in the air at the sight of Tim sitting and staring at him.
He hadn’t even heard the large man re-enter the room. He must have been really out of it. A hand grabbed his chin and his gaze was dragged back to the small Asian woman in front of him. “You still with us, honey?” she asked and he belatedly realized he was still purring and had a vaguely distressed look on his face.
He nodded slowly still staring oddly at Marinette’s father. He was holding a roll of clean bandages and the mysterious tub. He handed them both to his wide who in turn passed the tub to Marinette. His girlfriend smiled reassuringly at him before opening the tub and showing him the contents. “It’s an herbal cream,” she explained as she took some of it onto her fingers. “It’s supposed to stave off infection and increase the healing speed. I can’t believe that I forgot about it. It even has a mild pain reliever. My mother learned how to make it when she was in China last year.”
The paste was a light green colour and despite the amount of herbs that must have been packed into the thick cream, it looked completely smooth. Just a shade lighter than chilled pea soup. “I’m going to spread a layer over the stitches and then wrap them up again, okay?” she confirmed as she spread it all over the wounds on his back. It was cold, but not unpleasant. Despite looking like a thick gelatinous substance, it seemed to spread and seep into his skin like water. It was nice. Once she was done, Sabine carefully wrapped him up and helped him slip back into his shirt, although the jacket was left resting on the back of the couch.
“there that’s much better,” Sabine said, trying to bring up the mood of the room. Adrien smiled at her. Marinette handed him a teacup and gratefully downed the lukewarm beverage.
They sat in a companiable silence for a couple moments before Tim shifted. “I want to thank you, Adrien, for protecting my baby girl. I know that she is more than capable of protecting herself, but I feel less worried knowing that you’re there with her.” Tom said, looking his daughter’s boyfriend right in the eyes. He blushes, unused to the amount of attention he was receiving.
“It’s no problem, sir. Marinette means the world to me. I’ll never let her get hurt if I can prevent it.” He said, his voice filled with conviction as he stared right back at Mr. Dupain. If this were like in the animes, his eyes would be sparkling with determination right now.
“Yes, but we also care about you. Please try to avoid getting this injured in the future. Your life is no less important than Marinette or Ladybug or even civilians.” Mrs. Cheng said, drawing his intense cat like stare to her. He shrunk sheepishly into himself at her words. He knew what she was getting at. Sabine stared pointedly at both him and her daughter, who was also smiling sheepishly.
Finally it was Marinette who broke. “I’m sorry! It’s just Chat was so hurt and they were blaming us and I panicked,” she said in a rush. Sabine smiled at her and waved her hand.
“Oh Marinette, I know that and that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m agreeing with you and telling you that your father and I would appreciate it if the both of you were a bit more careful, okay?” his girlfriend relaxed.
“Thank you for the concern, Mrs. Cheng, Mr. Dupain. Adrien said diplomatically.
“Oh please, call me Sabine.” The mother said, a soft close eyes smile on her face.
“And me, Tom. “
Marinette’s mother leaned forward, setting her teacup down. “So tell me a bit more about just how unsafe your school is.”