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She explodes into yellow mist again, and he leaps for her, desperately grabbing for something, anything, but all he catches is smoke.
Again.
“Aspik!” she shrieks in terror as the yellow bolt of light streaks toward her, and he’s too far, not strong enough, not fast enough, no extending staff to cover the distance.
“My Lady!” he screams, his vocal cords already raw. It doesn’t matter. This never happened anyway. She won’t know.
Again.
His limbs are heavy. The last time he felt this tired was Heroes’ Day and that wasn’t even close to what Second Chance is taking out of him. He reaches for her. His right toe slams into his left heel. He hits the pavement face-first, and she’s gone again.
Again.
He doesn’t know how much more of this he can take. The magic is already stretching thin; with this little sleep he should be dead. He hasn’t eaten or drank anything in… he’s not sure how long. It feels like forever. It is forever. This is the longest single moment of his life and he’s at 24,612 repetitions. He tries to do the math and gives up somewhere around “months.”
Again.
She chose him. She chose Adrien. This started as him trying to impress her but now it’s gone far beyond that; Ladybug doesn’t make mistakes. She always chooses the best person for the job. She put her faith in him and he is failing her. She doesn’t need Chat Noir, she said it herself—she needs Aspik, she needs him as Aspik, and so he is going to keep going until he can save her. No matter what it takes.
Again.
His muscles are starting to eat themselves. He’s never been this hungry in his entire life, and every single cell of his body feels like a grain of sand in the Sahara. He’s slowing down. She always saves him, no matter how many times he dies—he needs to needs to needs to do the same, Paris can’t live without her, he can’t live without her. She didn’t choose Luka. She chose him. Don’t quit. Ladybug is never wrong. He wants to stop, to give Sass to somebody else, to step aside and be Chat Noir again… he doesn’t even remember what that feels like.
Again.
“I’m actually also Chat Noir and I’m in love with you—”
She’s gone again. He wants to scream. He can say whatever he wants; it doesn’t matter. It’ll never change. Nothing’s changing. He could drop down on one knee and propose right now and five minutes later it would mean nothing. He could leap at her in a rage and tear out her eyeballs with his bare fingers, screaming why in Plagg’s name did you pick me, and in five minutes she’d be back on her feet and whole with no memory of what he’d done and not even any blood on his fingers.
Again.
He drops to his knees in the alley and retches. “Sass,” he says. “Scales—scales rest.”
After so long in the snakeskin, his casual clothes feel wrong on his body. Like it’s not him anymore. Like the Adrien Agreste who first put on the bracelet is dead and he, whoever he is now, is all that’s left.
“I can’t,” he gasps to his Kwamis, unable to lift his trembling limbs. “I—I can’t—” He sobs. “Don’t make me do this again!”
“Ladybug needs you,” Sass whispers mournfully.
“Ladybug needs the snake,” Plagg spits back. “Kid, listen! Kid!”
Adrien can’t move. His muscles are dead. His nerves are frozen and on fire at the same time. His skin, his mouth, his tongue—sandpaper.
“This isn’t going to work, Adrien,” Plagg murmurs. He hugs Adrien’s cheek—or at least Adrien thinks he does. His face has gone numb. “You have to stop.”
Adrien lurches upward, falls against the stone wall. “One—one more time,” he says, his voice dead. “Sass. Scales slither on.”
Again.
Adrien drops his transformation the second it goes up.
Ladybug is stunned. Just one second ago, he was fine—raring to go, even. He hasn’t even done anything yet! Is the prospect of wielding a miraculous so horrifying to him that—wait.
He looks exhausted. And an equally exhausted Sass just collapsed into his hand.
“Adrien?” she ventures. What just—?
“It didn’t work,” he says. There’s something wrong with his voice. In two seconds, all the life has gone out of it. “I’m… I’m so sorry.” He holds up the box. “I wasn’t the right choice for you after all.”
I’ve been trying for months.
How many times?
It was the 25,913th.
He’s running on autopilot when he gives the Snake to Luka. There’s barely enough room in his brain for anything else. He has to keep standing. Has to keep moving. He staggers around the corner. I failed, he thinks. I failed her.
“Plagg, claws out!”
The guitar case snaps. The butterfly goes loose. They pound fists.
Chat bolts before Ladybug can get a close enough look at him to see how tired he really is. The cure fixes up his muscles, his aching bones, but months of sleep deprivation are pressing on him—he can see the shadows on the ground move, twisting towards him with cold malevolence, which he knows isn’t right. Darkness is pressing on his mind.
He tries to jam his baton into the ground, to vault up to a rooftop, but the baton slips and he collapses, and there’s nothing left in him to rise.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He gasps. Presses his hands to his flesh. He’s not wearing snakeskin, or leather, or even his street clothes. Some kind of sheet thing.
“I did the math,” he hears. It’s her voice. “Twenty five thousand, nine hundred and thirteen times. Between three and five minutes each.”
Hospital gown. He’s wearing a hospital gown.
“That’s between seventy-two and ninety days,” she murmurs. “Chaton… you were awake for nearly three months.” She sucks in a breath. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He tries to move. To open his eyes. To something. His body won’t respond.
He feels her hand on his, cool flesh, not spandex. He flinches; his skin burns at her touch. She withdraws her hand.
Finally, he cracks open his dry lips. “Are—” he croaks, his throat burning with the force of the words. “Is this real?”
“Minou?”
Her voice explodes into yellow mist in his mind, and he whimpers. That sight is burned into the back of his eyelids. He’s seen nothing but her dying for… if she’s right, three months. No sleep. No food. No water. Just losing her, over and over and over again.
How can he be sure he hasn’t lost her again? How can he be sure this isn’t just his mind finally breaking under the strain, giving up and retreating into some happier dream?
The endless snaking loop, the endless series of losses, that’s all he knows anymore. That’s what his world is. How is he supposed to exist outside of it?
Her fingers settle on his arm and he realizes—she’s here and she knows who he is and she is out of her suit.
“Why did you—did you keep going?” she says, her voice breaking. “You nearly died. Again.” Her fingers clench painfully around his wrist and ow. “What, did you think you needed to prove something? How goddamn bullheaded are you?”
He works his lips, tries to push saliva into his mouth, wets it. “You needed… me,” he says. “As Aspik.”
“It wasn’t working!” Her thumb rubs circles on his forearm. “You could’ve given it up at any time. You didn’t have to—”
“Trust you,” he croaks. “No matter what.”
She gasps. “A-Adrien?”
“You… chose… me,” he rasps. Tiny gods, every word hurts. “Had to… trust. Your choice.”
“What if… What if I chose wrong?” Her voice is small.
He moves his neck, shaking his head against the pillow as best he can. “Better—judgment,” he manages. “Than me.”
“Goddamnit, Chat!” she says, and she’s gripping his shoulders now. “I needed you! I needed Chat! You could’ve said no, you could’ve—”
“Not—what you said… to Aspik.”
“I didn’t know where you were!” she says. “I was—I was trying to keep Adrien from panicking!” She slams a fist into the soft springs of the bed with a squeak. “We failed 25 thousand times because I didn’t have Chat Noir!” She’s whisper-screaming now. She’s furious. She doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s saying. He still can’t open his eyes.
There’s a knock on the door. “Monsieur Agreste?” says the nurse. “Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng? Visiting hours are over.”
Dupain-Cheng.
“Mari?” he croaks. “My—My Lady?”
She squeezes his hand. “Yeah,” she says. “We’re going to talk about this later.” She lifts his hand, presses it to her cool lips—electricity shocks through his body at the contact, and he knows—this is real.
“Count on it,” he manages.
She closes the door, and it’s over. It’s finally over.
If he never sees that goddamn snake again it’ll be too soon.