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The cool thing about adrenaline is that it keeps you moving throughout the entire fight. Fatigue becomes nonexistent. Pain becomes nothing but a dull blur in the back of your mind.
The bad thing about adrenaline is that, when it’s over, the world collapses around you. It makes you want to collapse. It makes all your injuries, all you scrapes and scars and cuts and bruises incredibly prevalent and damn painful.
Chat loved the adrenaline high. He hated the adrenaline crash.
It made him increasingly aware of the fact that, right now, his shoulder was most definitely dislocated and blood was gushing down his face from the mixture of his bloody nose and the gash on his forehead.
He needed a hospital. He needed medical treatment. He needed help.
His transformation was going to reverse any minute now (in fact, his ring was beeping at him as if it could read his thoughts), so he needed someone who he could trust with his dual identity.
Nino was the first person that came to his mind. As his best friend, he knew he could trust him with anything and Chat knew he wouldn’t freak out. Well, freak out too much at least.
But Nino didn’t live anywhere near here. He would probably either detransform or bleed out before he made it even halfway to Nino’s house.
Chloé? No. There was no way in hell he was ever going to reveal his identity to Chloé.
Alya? No. As much as he liked Alya, he didn’t trust her enough.
Who could he go to for help?
His head shot up as quick as it could in his current state. Just across the street, the Dupain-Cheng Bakery resided. The lights were on in the upper level and he could see Marinette walking around inside.
Mari.
Mari would help him. He trusted her enough and he knew she wouldn’t tell anyone.
Without another thought, he stumbled to his feet and immediately had to fight off a wave of dizziness. No. He had to get to Mari’s balcony. He had to.
He took a running start and leapt between the building he was on and the bakery. He missed it by an inch but caught the railing with his uninjured hand.
He tried to pull himself up but failed as another wave of nausea hit. He resorted to hanging there as he waited for it to pass, his hand slipping even more with every passing second. He made a mental note to talk to Plagg about adding extra grip to his gloves later.
A drop of blood slid down his face and plummeted to the sidewalk below, splattering and staining the concrete. A sickly feeling rose in his gut as he realized that that would be him if he couldn’t pull himself up.
He needed adrenaline to kick in again, to save him. But it never did, resorting to leaving him in fear and hopelessness.
His hand slipped off the railing. The calm feeling of free falling absorbed him and he closed his eyes, hoping to ride out the tranquility for as long as he could.
A hand encased itself around his wrist and he was abruptly jerked out of his stupor. He didn’t have the energy to even look up anymore, the shock of the fall and the blood loss combining to increase his fatigue, but, judging by the smallness of the hand, he assumed it was Marinette.
“Chat!” she said, confirming her identity. “Give me your other hand!”
“…Can’t… shoulder…” was all he managed to choke out.
“Dammit,” she swore.
Chat felt another hand grip his uninjured arm and felt her lift him up and through her open window with a grunt. If his mind wasn’t so foggy and jumbled from blood loss, he might have thought about how strong she was. But instead, his mind was just blank as black crept on the edge of his vision.
Mari picked him up in her arms and transported him to the couch, ignoring the blood that was soaking her floor. She placed him down delicately and said something that was lost to his delirious mind.
His eyelids felt like cinder blocks and the black was almost covering his entire vision. He just managed to see her look of concern grow into full blown panic and hear the muffled final beep of his ring and see the detransformation start as he succumbed to his fatigue.
The first thing Adrien saw as he awoke was a red blob floating in front of him. He squinted, trying to make out what it was, but the little blob still just remained a blob.
“Marinette!” the blob called. “He’s awake.”
Adrien was fairly certain he was still dreaming. He rubbed his eyes to clear away the remains of sleep and opened them again.
It was a kwami. It was Ladybug’s kwami.
“Adrien!” Marinette yelled, appearing into his line of vision as well. She looked like a mixture of stressed and worried with her cheeks almost the same shade as Ladybug’s kwami. “Are you okay?”
Adrien propped himself up on one arm, noting that while his shoulder was still dislocated, his head was bandaged. “I’m fine but… why is Ladybug’s kwami here?”
The kwami and Marinette looked at each other, seemingly having a silent conversation. Marinette opened her mouth to speak but, before she could get a single syllable out, she was interrupted.
“It’s because she’s Ladybug,” Plagg said.
Adrien looked up to see his kwami resting on the top of the coach, munching on a cookie. He raised an eyebrow.
“What? It’s not camembert but, Tikki’s right, these are pretty good.” He looked at Marinette as he said the second half.
“Thanks, Plagg,” Marinette said with a friendly smile. She turned to Adrien again and her smile turned uncertain. “So, I guess the secret’s out. I’m Ladybug.” She laughed hesitantly.
Adrien observed her again. The blush never left her face and she still seemed stressed and worried but as he stared at her, he noticed there was a layer of exhaustion to her. He briefly wondered what time it was and if she had stayed up while he was unconscious, waiting for him to reawaken. He also noted the blood stains on her clothes, and he realized with a shiver that that blood was his.
“…Adrien?”
Adrien snapped out of his thoughts and laughed.
“What… what are you laughing at?” Marinette asked, fearful that he was laughing at her identity.
“It was right there in front of us!” He managed to spit it out between his bouts of laughter. “How did I not see it before?”
Marinette and the kwami– Tikki– made eye contact before they too started laughing at the hilarity of the situation.
Plagg rolled his eyes and waited for them to calm down before speaking.
“This reveal is great and all but Adrien’s arm is still dislocated.” He turned to Adrien. “Sorry kid, but that’s gonna hurt.”
“I can handle it.”
Marinette gripped his arm and looked at him waiting for a cue that he was ready. He nodded and she forced his shoulder back into its socket.
Adrien’s scream of pain could be heard an entire block away.