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The sensation of falling shouldn’t have twisted Marinette’s gut the way it did.
Not after all the hours she’d spent soaring up and down throughout Paris with the aid of her yo-yo without so much as a second thought as to how far down she was swinging.
Things were different now, though.
When Marinette was little, she often dreamt of falling. One minute, she’d be happily skipping along, and the next, her foot connected with air and she was tumbling down, down down….until she woke up.
Once Marinette became Ladybug, however, the dreams stopped! Wielding a miraculous meant soaring, tumbling, and freewheeling through the sky on a pretty regular basis...and Marinette (or her subconscious, at least) realized that falling wasn’t nearly as scary when she knew she’d be able to catch herself.
Marinette still had stress dreams, of course. They were practically a staple of her life. But not about falling anymore.
And then she became the Guardian.
The night after Ladybug and Chat Noir’s battle with Miracle Queen, Marinette fell into a restless sleep and a restless dream…
She was walking through Paris while holding the Miraculous Box. It was so heavy, almost too much to carry. Gradually, the box grew bigger and bigger, until Marinette found herself tripping and stumbling into one of its looming black spots.
She was falling again. Unable to scream, unable to think, unable to save herself.
Marinette finally woke up with a start, heart pounding and breath coming in short gasps.
The dreams were back. and they were worse than ever.
Before, the falling dreams were vague. Falling off a pathway while walking to the pool, tripping over a crack in the sidewalk and then catching herself….those dreams were stressful, of course, but they were normal. Lots of people had stress dreams like that.
But now, Marinette’s falling dreams were vivid.
She was Ladybug, and she didn’t have a yo-yo, or her yo-yo snapped, or an akuma carried her high into the air and dropped her....and she fell.
She was Marinette, and she couldn’t transform….and she fell.
She was trapped and could only watch as Chat Noir lost his balance or his baton and fell from the Eiffel Tower...feeling the horrible, agonizing feeling of falling with him as he plummeted down an infinite distance below, even though she was stuck in place herself.
...it was getting to the point that Marinette no longer wanted to sleep at all...Tikki had to coax her to shut her eyes each night. And she’d grown to dread using her yo-yo...what if any perceived reality was another dream? All of her dreams felt so real.
What if she was about to fall again?
“Hey, Ladybug? You okay?”
Ladybug blinked and shook her head, rooting herself back in the moment.
She was on patrol with Chat Noir. They were standing on the sidewalk. About to vault and swing up onto the roof of a building.
...she realized she’d been afraid to make the leap. Because if she went up...that meant she had to come down eventually.
“Uhh, I’m fine!!!” Ladybug replied, forcing herself to smile at her partner. “Just, uh...trying to figure out the best way up, that’s all!!!”
This WASN’T a dream. It was real. She was perfectly safe.
….but what if it WAS a dream?
Or what if today was the day her dreams became reality and her yo-yo failed her??
“M’lady? Hey, are you sure you’re alright?”
Ladybug blinked the fog of panic from her eyes and found Chat gazing at her, brows creased with concern. He cocked his head at her before placing a hand against her forehead.
“You aren’t getting sick, are you?”
Ladybug couldn’t help but smile at that, even if it was a half-hearted smile. “No, Chat Noir, I’m not sick. And even if I WAS getting sick...would you even be able to feel my temperature through your suit?”
Chat paused for a second to consider that.
“....alright...you might have a point there...” he chuckled.
“But, Ladybug, sick or not, you still don’t seem like yourself...is everything okay?”
Ladybug steeled herself and prepared to state that she was fine, that everything was just dandy...but one look at Chat stole those words away.
She couldn’t lie to him. She didn’t WANT to lie to him.
If anyone could understand what she was going through...it was Chat.
“....no...not really….”
“When I was little, I used to have nightmares about falling...you know those dreams?”
“Oh man, do I ever… I don’t have them much anymore, though.”
Ladybug and Chat Noir had decided to cut patrol short that day. Now, they were seated on a bench tucked in a corner of one of Paris’s smaller parks. Not many people frequented said park, which made it the perfect place for the two heroes to talk without being disturbed (and without having to leave the ground).
“The dreams stopped once I became Ladybug, which was amazing…” Ladybug’s voice trailed off.
Chat cocked his head at her. “...I heard a ‘was’ in that statement...have the dreams started up again?” he asked gently.
Ladybug nodded, biting her lip. “Ever since I became the Guardian…” she whispered. “Almost every night, I dream that my yo-yo breaks, or I lose my balance, or an akuma knocks me down, or YOU get knocked down...and all the dreams end the same way. With falling. Horrible, endless falling.”
She lifted her yo-yo, examined it, and winced. “Everytime I have to use my yo-yo, now, I’m afraid that I’m inside another dream and that I’m about to fall, or that my dreams are about to become real and I am about to FALL for real. I know it’s silly, but….” She squeezed her eyes shut as a few wayward tears trickled down her cheeks. “How can I be a good Guardian if some stress dreams are freaking me out so badly?”
“Hey, listen to me,” Chat said softly, taking Ladybug’s hand and gazing at her with compassion in his eyes. “It is NOT silly to be freaked out by stress dreams. I have nightmares too, sometimes. Not about falling, though...they’re usually about being trapped somewhere with no way out.”
Ladybug’s heart dropped. “Oh, Chat, that’s awful...I’m so sorry….”
Chat gave her hand a squeeze and replied, “Thanks, m’lady. My nightmares are definitely awful, but I know whenever I wake up feeling trapped, I can become Chat Noir and feel free again. It keeps them from being too bad.”
Ladybug sighed, happy for her partner but unsure how her own problem could be solved. “That’s wonderful for you, Chat, really...but I don’t exactly have that luxury. Being Ladybug doesn’t help with my nightmares anymore...if anything, it’s making them worse now…”
Chat pursed his lips in thought, trying to come up with a solution for his lady. “Well, whenever I wake up from a nightmare, I remind myself of what I know to be true: that I am Chat Noir and I am capable of freeing myself. We just need to come up with a truth you can tell yourself whenever you wake up from a bad dream.”
He thought for a few more seconds, and then his eyes lit up.
“Whenever you fall, I’ll be there to catch you!” he exclaimed. “That’s it!! That’s what you can tell yourself: if I ever fall, Chat Noir will be there to catch me.”
He squeezed her hand again and gave her a gentle look. “And I don’t just mean that in the literal sense...I’m here for you no matter what, Ladybug. If you feel stressed out, if the responsibilities of being the Guardian become too much to bear...I’ll be there for you. I’m always here for you.”
Ladybug’s face flushed crimson, and for the first time in a while, her spiking pulse could be attributed to something other than fear.
“Plus, I have a friend at school who trips allll the time, and I’ve gotten pretty good at catching her,” Chat added on with a cheeky grin. “I’ve had PLENTY of practice, I promise!!”
Ladybug buried her face in her hands to smother a laugh (and maybe also to hide her blush). “I think that friend of yours might be my secret twin,” she giggled. “I like to think I have a special talent for tripping over stuff.”
“Secret twin, eh?” Chat mused, examining Ladybug’s face and imagining Marinette in his mind. “You know, she COULD be your secret twin…you kind of look like her...”
He furrowed his brows for a moment...and then he remembered Multimouse.
Never mind.
“Hey, thanks for cheering me up, Chat Noir!!” Ladybug said, leaning in to give him a hug. “And thanks for the reminder that you’re always there for me...I really appreciate you…”
Chat smiled warmly as he nuzzled into a hug. “Anytime, bug.”
Marinette dreamed of falling again that night.
But this time, as she plummeted down into the void, she remembered her conversation with Chat.
Chat Noir will always be there to catch me.
And then he was there, cradling her in his arms, whispering encouraging words in her ear, and kissing her on the forehead.
...WAIT.
Marinette jolted awake from this dream, just as she did with all the nightmares she’d been plagued with.
But this time, instead of shaking with fear, she was covering her burning face with her hands and trying to ignore the butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
...she supposed it was an improvement.