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There’s water in her suit. Freezing cold and weighing her down, sticking to her skin.
There’s a rhythmic pounding behind her eyes. Dull and heavy, making her vision blur, her eyesight worsened by the water still clinging to her lashes.
The rubble that scatters the banks of the Seine dig into her back. The world feels slow and muddy. She’s just barely aware of the warmth spreading beneath her body that’s laid flat against the thorny ground, her suit slashed open, wounds gushing red.
She’s so damn cold. Each breath rattles in her chest and escapes from her mouth in pitiful wheezes. Her ears are ringing, but she can still make out the sound of another exhausted body dragging itself out of the river.
The sky is a rusted red and she can smell the smoke even from this distance. Black clouds blot out the light and cast the world into a feverish pitch.
It was meant to be sunny today.
She can still see the fires that ravaged the city, that are still ravaging the city, running rampant through the streets. Flames licking high into the sky, streaks of magnificent gold and red reaching for the heavens. Whether it’s because of the cold or the memory of that searing heat, Ladybug shivers. She’d come so close to those flames.
She can hear the body of her partner slump to the ground beside her. Her neck creaks as she turns to look at him.
Chat Noir looks limp and beaten. But even still with his eyes half swollen shut they gleam in the suffocating darkness. The green of his scleras stand out against his ashen skin
She can see that he’s shivering as badly as she is, muscles twitching beneath his dulled suit. Both arms are laying limp and unmoving on either side of his body. The suit on his arms is still intact, but beneath the leather she knows that both limbs are mangled and broken.
Ladybug can’t bring herself to give him a reassuring smile. She’s too tired, her face feels swollen and painful. All she can do is lock eyes with her partner and count his shallow breaths.
There’s a large gash on his forehead, close to his hairline, obscured by wet hair still darkened with ash. The water must have washed off the blood, but now it is bleeding again. Crimson soaking his skin and dripping down his face. It’s so bright against his pallid complexion. It drips down his brow and into his eye. He squints as blood runs down his cheek and into the torn collar of his suit. He can’t move his arms to wipe away the blood. He doesn’t even try.
Her chest aches at the sight. Her right arm moves dragging along the ground as her shaking hand tries to wipe the blood from his eye. Pain blossoms from her wrist, probably fractured. She rests the back of her hand against his bruise mottled cheek, her fingers stroking his face, offering a measly comfort.
She doesn’t know what to say.
Paris is still burning around them, and yet neither of them are in any state to even move. Her yo-yo is still clutched in her left hand, frozen fingers unable to pry themselves off in order to release the Akuma still trapped inside.
Chat shifts beside her, head raised off the ground to better look at her. He tries to speak but chokes on the liquid stuck in his throat. Ladybug isn’t sure if it’s blood, bile or river water that he spits onto the ground. Probably a mixture of all three.
She can’t find it in herself to be disgusted, not when her head pounds so fiercely her stomach churns.
She tries to turn herself more towards her partner, but freezes when jagged pain slices through her ribs. She pants, the pain is too sharp to be just a bruise, it’s most likely broken, possibly shattered. Each breath sending white hot pain through her chest.
Chat’s hacking finally comes to a stop as her eyes begin to mist over. His throat is covered in deep purple and blue bruises. He can barely speak, his voice brittle and raw.
“We did it”. Chat whispers through bleeding lips.
Ladybug wishes she was cynical enough to laugh. But instead tears escape the corners of her eyes and dampen the ground beneath her. It feels like they lost.
“We won”
Not really. Not in the way that matters. Not when buildings are collapsing around them, not when the sky above them is on fire, not when body’s remain buried under piles of rubble. Not when Hawkmoth came so close to winning.
Over her many years of being Ladybug, Marinette has learnt that her miraculous cure will only revert the damage done directly by the Akumas. The damage done by frightened bystanders and terrified crowds will remain. And for all the power that the ladybug miraculous possesses, it cannot bring back the dead.
Chat always had such a terrible way of being optimistic, even in the face of devastation.
Maybe that’s why she needed him so much. Her other half that balances her.
Her lips tremble and tears roll down swollen cheeks. For a moment she has a selfish thought of how she must look compared to the person staring back at her. Hair pulled out of its normally neat ribbons, wet and caked in blood and dirt and ash.
She lets out a choked sob and wishes she could hide her face. If only Paris could see her now, bloodied and broken. Chat tries to soothe her. Quiet whispers and hushed words. But her ears and still ringing and her temples are throbbing and there are black spots dancing is her vision. She’s still losing blood.
Why was she crying?
Why was Chat still trying to console her, with his broken arms and bloodied face and bruised throat. Why was he so concerned for her when she’d seen the hits he’d taken, when she knew there were injuries that were far worse lying beneath his tattered suit.
Despair curls in her chest and her lungs gasp for air through breaths of smoke.
“You’re okay, you’re okay”
Sirens wail in the background. The bridge behind them crumbles into the river.
“We can finish this”
Her sobs are stuttered, not enough stamina to let anymore tears go to waste. Barbed pain searing through her chest with each staggered breath.
“Ladybug, look at me”
She doesn't want to. But she can’t deny him. She untucks her chin to gaze at him.
His eyes are a beautiful green.
“We need to finish this”
His words, slow and measured bring her back to herself. His eyes are clear and aware. They may have lost this battle, but there was still a war to be won.
Her left arm drags her yo-yo closer to her. Joints stiff with cold and pain loosen their grip. The yo-yo opens and a white butterfly flies free. Dull, paper thin wings flutter in the wind.
“Bye bye little butterfly”
The farewell comes out slurred and mumbled.
“Just one more thing to do Buggaboo. You can do this”
Such kind eyes he has. The two of them lie freezing on the ground, yet his gaze is still so full of warmth.
She tries to centre herself. Her consciousness slipping.
Her right arm reaches out to clasp her partner's shoulder. She needed him as much as he needed her.
With her other half in one hand and her miraculous in the other she casts the spell.
White flashes before her eyes and the world is flooded in her dizzying bright light.