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“Oh my god,” Ladybug said, rushing over to him. “ Chat!” She threw herself at him, hugging him in a tight embrace.
“Oh!” Chat Noir said in surprise, before returning the hug.
“You have to stop doing that.” Ladybug murmured into his ear, still holding him.
They had been fighting an akumatized firefighter who, for whatever goddamn reason, was angry at 3 am and decided he wanted to burn Paris to the ground. Naturally, Ladybug and Chat Noir couldn’t let that happen, and dragged themselves out of bed to stop him.
The fight hadn’t been going very well, and Ladybug needed time to figure out how to use her lucky charm.
So Chat’s solution was to literally throw himself into the fire, taking on the Akuma on his own to grant Ladybug some time to get a plan.
Ladybug had to watch as he burned to death.
“We were really on fire tonight, huh Bugaboo?” Chat quipped, finally pulling away from the hug.
Ladybug snorted wetly, and lightly punched him in the shoulder. “That so isn’t funny, Chaton. One of these days you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”
“Why? Am I just too hot to handle?”
Ladybug ran a hand through her hair, trying to decide whether she wanted to hold him and never let go, or kick his ass. “You’re the worst.”
“But you love me anyway,” Chat said.
“Chat, I’m serious,” Ladybug said. “I can’t keep watching you die.”
Chat rolled his eyes. “I knew you would bring me back,” he said, gesturing vaguely to her miraculous ladybugs.
Ladybug just took a shaky breath. “Chat, your screams. ”
Chat must have finally caught onto Ladybug’s somber mood, because he sobered up. “I would rather it be me than you,” he said, eyes low. “Besides, you’re the one who can de-evilize the akuma. The people need you. Not me.”
And god, maybe it was the adrenaline from the fight wearing off or the fact that it was 3 am and Ladybug was exhausted, but she could swear her heart felt heavier than it ever had. “But I need you,” she admitted, voice cracking at the end. She sounded vaguely like a child.
Chat looked up into her eyes in amazement, like she was the sun itself and maybe, just maybe, Ladybug couldn’t help but feel the same way about him.
But then her earrings beeped, and as much as she longed to stay, she knew she had to go. She cleared her throat and broke their gaze. “That’s my cue,” she said with a half-assed smile, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah, it’s late, I should go too,” Chat said. “Until next time, M’Lady.” And with that, he jumped off the rooftop and was gone.
Marinette didn’t sleep very well that night, and the constant tossing and turning and coughing from breathing in so much smoke earlier left her frustrated and impatient. She decided to get up early to catch up on homework and actually get to school on time.
She arrived outside in the courtyard first, and couldn’t help but laugh when she saw Alya walking in like a zombie, phone in one hand and coffee in the other. It had been a couple weeks since their sleepover at Alya’s house, and Marinette was doing okay. Kind of.
“Rough night?” Marinette asked with a smirk.
“Ugh, girl, you have no idea,” Alya said. “There was a stupid Akuma at 3 am! But I had to get footage for the Ladyblog.”
Marinette just watched her with a smirk as she put the pieces together in her exhausted brain. “Oh! So maybe you do get it,” she said, and Marinette giggled. “But I got some awesome footage with Nino’s drone,” Alya said, showing Marinette the photos of the horrifying fires and billowing smoke, and Ladybug and Chat Noir’s figures looking grand and strong in the glow.
Marinette looked away, deciding she didn’t need to see it all over again. “You were there Alya?” She exclaimed, worry creeping into her tone.
Alya waved a hand. “Don’t worry, girl, I was a safe distance away. Hence the drone.”
Marinette took a deep breath to steady herself before saying, “Why are you still doing the Ladyblog? I mean, wasn’t the whole point to find out Ladybug’s identity?”
“Well, it may have started like that, but since then it’s become a major news source to the people of Paris. They like to see footage of Ladybug and Chat Noir saving the day. It gives them hope,” she said with a smirk, nudging Marinette a little. “Plus, I want to go to journalism school and it will look really good on college applications.”
Marinette couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Okay, just make sure you don’t--”
“Reveal anything, I know,” Alya said. “I already took down all the posts that could possibly point to you. Plus, I’ve been thinking about posting some purposeful misdirects.”
“Alya, you’re the best,” Marinette said, and she meant it.
“You wanna see my favorite photo from last night?” Alya asked with a devious smile.
Marinette gave her a suspicious look, and Alya passed her phone to her. On the screen was a photo of the hug she had shared with Chat after the battle. “Alya!”
Alya wiggled her eyebrows. “You and Chat are getting really close, huh…?” She said.
“We’re partners!”
“Oh really? Because I have approximately 17 photos that could--”
“Alya, no,” Marinette said. “We’re close friends, yeah, but--”
“I don’t know, Marinette, friends don’t hug like that. ”
Marinette was getting actually angry. “Alya, stop ,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Alya took a step back, sensing Marinette’s anger. “Mari, I--”
“I’m going to class,” Marinette said, grabbing her backpack and storming off.
Alya sat there in shock, trying to figure out where exactly she went wrong. It was just some teasing! She did that all the time with Adrien, and thought it would be funny with Chat Noir now that she knew Marinette’s identity.
For the millionth time, Alya wished Marinette would just talk to her.
She waited a bit to pull herself together before following Marinette up to their classroom, right in time for the bell to ring. Marinette looked guilty as Alya sat down next to her, but didn’t say anything.
In fact, she didn’t make any noise at all much the entire school day, except to cough every once in a while. It wasn’t until Ms. Mendeliev’s class at the end of the day that she seemed okay again, after falling asleep during a video. Alya woke her up before she could get in trouble, and Marinette just seemed grateful.
They walked out of school together, and Marinette finally apologized, saying, “Sorry I snapped at you.” She kept her eyes low. “I’m just really tired, I think.”
It seemed like an excuse to Alya, but she figured now wasn’t really a time to poke the bear.
11:48 pm
Alya: MARI I SAW AN AKUMA
AT LOUVRE RN
Marinette: shit
ugh i have so much hw
akbdfvuiubiskn
omw
12:29 pm
Alya: Hey you okay?
That akuma looked kinda rough
Marinette: we’re vibin
Attachment: 1 Image
[ Image depicts selfie of Ladybug and Chat Noir posing in front of the Louvre. Ladybug is wearing a stupid grin and Chat Noir holds up a peace sign. ]
Alya: Omg jsjbswawkjdfia
Can I post this on the Ladyblog
Marinette: pls no
i look so terrible lmao
Alya: Noo you guys are so cute
The people would love it
Marinette: eeek
fine
Alya: Yayy love uuuu
NOW GO TO SLEEP
Marinette: girl i wish i could
The next week, the girls had gone to Marinette’s house after school so Alya could catch Marinette up on the math lesson she missed. Alya was chilling in Marinette’s room while Ladybug went off to do her thing. She scrolled through the photos she had taken for the Ladyblog during the past week, and couldn’t help but notice the way Ladybug and Chat Noir smiled and laughed around each other. Marinette seemed genuinely happy in his presence.
Suddenly the hatch door to the roof slammed open and down came a very angry Ladybug. “I swear to god if I ever see Hawkmoth in person I’m gonna Lucky Charm myself a gun and kill that bitch myself.”
“Oh?” Alya said, looking up from her phone.
“I mean doesn’t he ever get tired? Three akuma attacks in one day! And it's only four pm!”
“You’re totally right,” Alya said with a smirk. “Murder is the only solution.”
“I’ll do it,” Marinette said snarkily.
“No you won’t.”
“No, I won’t,” Marinette agreed with a sigh. “Tikki, spots off.”
Alya couldn’t help but stare as Ladybug transformed back into Marinette right before her eyes. The magic of it all was amazing, no matter how many times she had seen it.
“You must be exhausted,” Marinette said to her kwami, catching Tikki in her hands. She grabbed a small bag of cookies from a table and gave one to Tikki to nibble on.
“You okay?” Alya asked Marinette as she walked down to the main floor of her room.
“All the akumas were easy, just a pain in the ass,” Marinette said. “I was supposed to work with Adrien for our project at lunch today but had to run off to fight Mr. Pigeon for the millionth time,” Marinette rolled her eyes, and then gasped. “Ugh, Alya he’s gonna hate me for blowing him off!”
“He’s not gonna hate you.”
“He is!”
“I’m pretty sure Sunshine Boy doesn’t have a hateful bone in his body,” Alya said.
Marinette sighed dreamily. “And I love him for that.”
“You know another sunshine boy that probably is incapable of feeling hate…?” Alya asked.
“...Who?” Marinette narrowed her eyes.
Alya turned her phone around to reveal the photo she had taken of Ladybug and Chat Noir laughing on patrol a few days ago. “Chat Noir!”
Marinette groaned and dragged a hand down her face. “Alya, no…”
“Oh c’mon! My poor Ladynoir heart!” Alya said. “You have so much chemistry together!”
“No, we don’t . He’s just a flirt.”
“He’s only ever flirted with you.”
“I don’t even know who he is!”
“Marinette, look at these!” She flipped through her camera roll to show Marinette the photos of her talking to Chat Noir.
The way her eyes lit up around him was something Alya only ever saw when Marinette was around Adrien. Except around Chat Noir, Marinette was cool and collected, not worshipping him in the somewhat unhealthy way she did Adrien. Chat Noir brought out something in Marinette that Alya hadn’t seen in a long time. She didn’t want Marinette to throw that away for the sake of secret identities.
“You can’t deny that you care about him,” Alya said.
Marinette crossed her arms, starting to shut down. “He’s my partner. We’ve been through a lot together. Of course I care about him.”
“It’s more than that. I know you, Mari,” Alya said.
“What do you want me to say? Yes, he’s my best friend. He knows a side of me that no one else knew until you, and we’ve been through a lot of shit.”
“You know he loves you. You would make an amazing couple,” Alya said. “You deserve to be happy, Marinette.”
Marinette sighed. “I’m not gonna get that with him,” she said, her voice resigned.
“Do you feel the same way about him that you do about Adrien? Because it sure looks the same,” Alya said.
“I don’t know , Alya,” Marinette groaned.
“ Yes, you do.”
“It’s so different!”
“It doesn’t have to be!”
“ Yes, it does!” Marinette was yelling now, her voice getting tight like it did when she wanted to cry.
“You love him!”
“I know!” Marinette yelled, breaking down. She took a couple shuddering breaths as tears pooled up in her eyes.
“ Talk to me, girl.” Alya said, putting a supportive hand on her shoulder.
“I love Chat Noir so differently than I love Adrien. Adrien makes my heart race and my head cloudy and makes me feel butterflies in my stomach. He makes me feel young and alive. I love Adrien. But I need Chat. He makes me feel grounded and safe. It’s like he always knows what I’m thinking and knows exactly what to say. He’s my partner and my best friend and I need him. I couldn’t do it without him. I wouldn’t want to.”
Alya nodded, glad to have some sort of breakthrough.
“I love Adrien, but if I had to choose between the two, I would choose Chat a million times over,” Marinette said. “Even if we can never be together.”
“You can be together! You’re the guardian now, you make the rules,” Alya said. “You can let yourself be happy, Marinette.”
Marinette crossed her arms and clenched her jaw, backing away from Alya’s comforting touch. “Not with him.”
Alya could tell that that was the end of the conversation.
There was still something Marinette wasn’t telling her. She was still keeping secrets.
“Okay,” Alya said, deciding it wasn’t worth the fight.
Marinette sat down at her desk and pulled her notebook closer to her. “Okay, so back to proofs…”
It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Alya finally found out about the reasoning behind Marinette’s reservations towards Chat Noir. Sleepovers had become something of a weekly tradition, now that Marinette could hang out with Alya without worrying about ditching her to go be Ladybug.
Since learning her secret, Alya felt that the two had only gotten closer and closer. Sometimes they would have a few days in a row that were so normal, Alya could almost forget Marinette was a superhero at all. But then Marinette would run into class in the middle of the school day, frantically muttering some excuse for her absence, looking exhausted half to death, and Alya would be brought back to their jarring reality.
Marinette slowly stopped hiding just how much of a mess her life was to Alya, and Alya was glad to hear Marinette rant about everything that had gone wrong each day, happy to see the way it took a burden off Marinette’s shoulders.
And the sleepovers were fun, as much fun as they were therapeutic for Marinette and exciting for Alya. She loved Marinette, more than ever.
Which is why it was so difficult to witness Marinette having a nightmare one night.
They were sleeping over at Marinette’s house that time, and the night had been completely normal. They baked brownies, watched a movie, gossiped. They even painted their nails, but Marinette had to run off halfway through, and was disappointed to see her nails had smeared at some point during the fight.
After a long night they fell asleep side by side, bundled in blankets in Marinette’s living room, talking in hushed voices until their whispers turned into sleeping breaths.
Everything was peaceful, until Alya woke up to Marinette shuffling and tossing and turning under the blankets. Even in the dim light, she could see Marinette’s pinched expression, a sign that she was in distress.
Alya wasn’t sure what to do. She sat up and stared at Marinette, trying to decide if she should shake her awake, possibly scaring her, or let her sleep through whatever horror she was enduring.
“Chat!” Marinette cried out in her sleep. “No…”
Tikki woke up at that, and looked sadly at Alya. “Does this happen a lot?” Alya mouthed silently to Tikki. The kwami just nodded her head.
“Chat! Please!”
Alyas eyes widened. If she kept this up, she would probably wake up her parents in the room next door. That would be a difficult one to explain.
“Wake up! Marinette, wake up, it’s okay,” Alya whispered, going to shake Marinette’s shoulder. The minute her hand touched her arm, Marinette shot straight up, eyes wide, gasping.
“Woah! It’s okay!” Alya said, putting her hands up in surrender. “It’s me.”
Marinette’s expression was wild, taking in uneven breaths and looking around unfocused.
“Marinette! Look at me!” Tikki said, flying in front of her. Marinette’s eyes found Tikki’s, and slowly her panicked breaths steadied out. Marinette looked to the side at Alya then shoved her pillow in her face, letting out a choked sob.
Alya had no idea what to do at that point, looking to Tikki who was similarly hovering over Marinette with apprehension. Alya liked to think she had gotten pretty good at comforting Marinette, but she had never seen her as scared as she looked that night, desperately trying to quiet her sobs.
Alya wished Marinette had told her parents. A strong adult figure sounded pretty good right about then. She longed for someone there to tell her what to do.
But, alas, Alya was all Marinette had.
She hesitantly put a hand on Marinette’s back, and Marinette leaned into the touch.
“Shh… it’s okay.” Alya said, rubbing her friend’s back in comforting circles.
Marinette slowly pulled the pillow away from her face and looked at Alya with red bleary eyes. “I--” She hiccuped. “I’m sorry!”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay…” Alya looked around for signs of an akuma or her parents waking up. “Why don’t we go upstairs?” Alya asked.
Marinette nodded in agreement and got to her feet unsteadily. Alya kept her arms around her as the two walked upstairs to Marinette’s bedroom where they could talk in peace.
They collapsed in Marinette’s bed, Alya holding her while she cried.
Slowly Marinette forced herself to calm down with a practiced discipline that Alya didn’t know she possessed.
But Alya wasn’t sure if she preferred crying Marinette, or whatever strange coping mechanism this was.
Because now Marinette just stared at the wall, frozen. Her eyes were still wide with horror, her jaw clenched and body tense. She shook a little in Alya’s arms.
“Marinette?” Alya whispered. “You with me, girl?”
And Alya should have expected it, she had heard it so many times. Marinette had lied to her so much that she could easily read the signs, pick out the truth from the falsities. And this was Marinette’s favorite lie of all, the go-to line that she lived by:
“I’m fine,” Marinette whispered.
But it still broke Alya’s heart.
Alya rubbed Marinette’s back, hoping to coax her into snapping out of whatever daze she was in. “Do you want to talk about it?” She asked.
Marinette shook her head absentmindedly.
“Do you… Do you want me to get you anything? Water?”
Marinette didn’t even respond that time.
“Marinette you have to work with me here,” Alya said, voice breaking from the stress. “I want to help you, but I don’t know what to do .”
Marinette blinked a couple times slowly, and moved her head to finally look at Alya. Her entire body relaxed into Alya’s touch. Alya let out a sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pressing her face into Alya’s shoulder.
“It's okay, it's okay,” Alya repeated. “Do you want to talk about it?” Alya asked again as Marinette finally pulled away.
Marinette started to shake her head, then paused. “Maybe,” she said.
Alya nodded. “It might help.”
Marinette took a deep breath, wringing her hands together in her lap. “I don’t--” she shuddered. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Alya nodded encouragingly. “That’s okay,” she said. “Does it have to do with Ladybug?” Alya talked slowly and calmly, using the same voice she did when she babysat her sisters and one of them was upset.
Marinette nodded. “It was-- it was a few months ago-- I don’t know,” she said. “It didn’t really happen-- or it did, but then I stopped it before it could happen.”
Alya was already a little lost, but she was just glad to see Marinette opening up.
“Chat Noir-- Chat, he--”
Alya squeezed Marinette’s hand in support.
“He got akumatized. He became Chat Blanc,” she said. “Because of me.”
Alya could feel the guilt eating up Marinette as if it was a physical entity.
“He was so powerful , Alya. He cataclysmed the moon. He destroyed the world. He killed me.”
Alya felt the pit in the stomach grow.
“A-- The Bunny miraculous had to go back in time to take me to the future, to stop him.”
“But you fixed it? You saved him?”
Marinette nodded. “Yeah. I fixed it. Gotta love time travel, right?” She joked lazily.
Alya didn’t laugh.
“I found out why he got akumatized,” Marinette said, voice raw. She rocked herself slightly as she talked. “It was because I told him my identity.”
“Oh, Mari…”
“We fell in love,” Marinette said with a broken smile. “Can you imagine that?” She shuddered. “But he ended up getting hurt, I guess.”
Alya felt her own eyes tearing up.
“And our love destroyed the world,” she said with a hysterical kind of sound that Alya couldn’t distinguish between a laugh or a sob.
And then Marinette’s expression hardened. She pulled herself from Alya’s supportive arms, as if she felt she didn’t deserve the comfort.
“So I can never tell him who I am,” she said. “I can never let him get close, not in the way I want to. Pretty fucked up, right?”
Alya couldn’t help but agree. Suddenly Marinette’s predicament as a superhero felt very real, and very grim. Marinette would always have to sacrifice her happiness, her love, her everything. Ladybug may be the miraculous of good luck, but to Marinette, it would always be something of a curse.
“I’m sorry, Marinette.”
Eventually the two fell asleep there, laying in Marinette’s bed. Maybe Marinette wasn’t okay right then, but at least she didn’t have to hold it all in herself. At least she had Alya to carry the burden with her.