Chapter Text
Looping was a weird sensation.
As soon as Adrien clicked the bracelet on his wrist, he felt something warm encapsulate him entirely. There was a blinding light that pressed against his closed eyelids and begged for entrance. It was fuzzy too, like he was being stuffed with cotton.
As lovely as it sounded in theory, on his ten thousand two hundred and twenty fifth loop, Adrien had really come to hate it.
Maybe hate wasn’t the right word though, he thought idly as his body was caught in the bright void. Hate was a word he would use to describe his dislike of cooked liver. Hate was a word he’d use to describe his feelings towards Netflix anime adaptations.
So no, hate was probably the wrong word.
Hate was not a rush of cold water even when you felt as though your outsides were melting off. Hate was not the feeling of absolute terror and crushing anguish that he felt take over his insides, if only for a second, before he shoved it all back down so it couldn’t rise to the surface. Hate also wasn’t the deep, almost guttural, feeling of frustration and loathing that he let simmer under the surface.
That last one was anger, and he could deal with it.
The rest he had to push down and down and down into the bottom most pit of his soul. He had to make sure it never came up, or at least never fully. If it did he’d never be able to run his fingers over the green snake again.
Then Ladybug was in front of him, mid-sentence without a care in the world.
It was a sharp pain, the realisation that once again, she was none the wiser. She had no idea how many times she’d crumbled to dust. Been reduced to nothing right in front of him. How many times he’d failed her.
And she kept trusting him, because she didn’t know.
She deserved to.
“I’m sorry,” Adrien muttered, voice thick with the emotions he swore to keep at bay. “I’m so sorry.”
Ladybug stopped talking and her smile dropped, “Adrien?”
“I can’t-“ he can’t speak, he can’t talk, he can’t tell her he failed her so many times and see the disappointment, “I keep…”
Ladybug’s eyes furrowed in concern, a look he knew well, yet not nearly well enough to avoid the pang in his chest.
“It didn’t go well,” he managed to say, almost robotically, as he had many times before. It was easier to keep the waver away from his voice when he said what he did every time.
Ladybug was too smart for that though, too smart for her own good. She should have just taken it at face value. Assumed he was disheartened because he messed up.
“How many times did it not go well?” she asked softly.
That was it. She asked. She barely ever asked that question. They barely ever got time. She was always too busy singing his praises (what a terrible thing to hear when he knew that she was wrong, horribly wrong) to wonder how many times he’d heard it all before.
But now she asked.
He couldn’t find it within him not to tell.
“Ten thousand two hundred and twenty five,” the number sounded like more when he said it out loud.
He knew he’d be adding to it again.
Ladybug lifted a hand to her mouth in horror. Surely she now realised how wrong she was to trust him. So wrong to think he could save her.
Yet he kept trying anyway, because he’d never give up on her.
“Oh Adrien…” her voice was soft, almost too soft.
“It’s alright though,” he tried to assure her, finally daring to properly meet her gaze. “That’s what second chance is about, right? Doing it until you get it right.”
He would get it right.
One day.
“I know it’s pathetic-“ he said.
“It’s not pathetic,” she said firmly. “You’re not pathetic.”
Adrien blinked a few times. He’d failed so many times, was prepared to fail more, and she didn’t think that was pitiful?
“I’m no hero either,” he said. Because although Chat Noir was, Aspik and Adrien Agreste certainly weren’t.
“I couldn’t imagine how hard that must be,” her voice was gentle again, as if comforting a kitten. “To keep going. That’s why I chose you for the miraculous Adrien, you’re persistent and brave and kind, and I know you won’t give up. That sounds like a hero to me.”
His Lady was too much, too kind, and too caring.
She had too much faith in him.
“I-“ he hardly knew what to say. He needed to say something, because his time was running out, but he couldn’t or else he’d probably burst into tears.
Ladybug walked forward and wrapped her arms around him.
And oh- oh- it was so warm.
It was so comforting.
It was so nice.
It was so everything he’d never felt from anyone else. He never got hugs from his father, never from Nathalie, Nino did bro-hugs which were entirely different, and… well, he didn’t have anyone else. As Chat Noir, as close to Ladybug as he was, he’d never been held like this either. It was new and it was different, and he hated it.
But he loved it too.
Because in Ladybug’s arms, as he buried his head into her shoulder and let himself release a few suit-staining tears, he felt safe. If only for a moment he didn’t need to worry about his next loop, his next try, his next failure. All he thought about was that moment. A moment in her arms.
And then he heard his miraculous start to beep, warning him that he had little time left to reset the timeline.
He didn’t want to, but he knew he would.
He slowly untangled himself from Ladybug and wiped away his tears to let a smile tug at his cheeks.
“Thank you,” he said.
Ladybug smiled at him too, “Any time, hero.”
And that kept him going. That smile, that moment, that loop. The one he always remembered even when he’d rather forget. The time he was her hero. Even if he didn’t see how.
And so Adrien went again, and again, and again, and he remembered her smile and her touch and her words. He let them keep all those emotions at bay, the ones he dared not tap into. He didn’t let her hold him again either, not in the next loop or the next loop or the next loop after that because he knew if he did there was no going back.
So he kept the memory. Close and near.
And that had to be enough.