Work Text:
Marinette felt like death warmed over as she swung her way back home. Her muscles burned with fatigue and her throat still ached as if Hawkmoth’s hand was choking her still. The battle had been fierce and brutal. The dragon akuma their nemesis had summoned as his champion tore half the mansion apart and blasted the rest with blue fire. It had taken the full team to restrain it long enough for Vesperia to stun it with Venom and Ladybug to break the glasses perched on the dragon’s snout. Gabriel’s assistant Nathalie dissolved out of the black smoke only to be restrained by Purple Tigress and Rena Furtive.
And the take down? The final confrontation she had been hoping and dreading for the last several years?
She shuddered. She had never thought that love and loss could throw such a brilliant, creative mind into the realms of madness. But there was no other explanation for Gabriel Agreste, a man who by every earthly standard had everything, to turn into a villain out of fiction, torture a city for three years, and turn its people into nightmarish versions of their worst selves. There were a dozen times during the battle when she could have used Viperion’s Second Chance or Cat Noir’s Cataclysm, but Cat hadn’t responded to her call to arms and Luka needed to be the one to protect Adrien. He already knew, or guessed, that Luka was Viperion so if he had to transform to protect them from akumas or anything else it would not come as too great a shock.
“At least Adrien was safe,” she thought tiredly as she landed with an inelegant stumble onto her balcony. “I wouldn’t have had him be there for anything. Not when it was his father, the man who ignored him, neglected him, who kept him locked up. Not when I…” She did her best to shake off the memory of Hawkmoth’s attacks on their friends, the thought of Adrien’s mother in her glass coffin surrounded by pale butterflies, a real-life Snow White with no life left in her, of Nathalie being hauled away in handcuffs, coughing up blood. Those memories were sure to haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.
She slipped through her skylight and onto her bed, the sight that greeted her was yet another blow to the heart. Luka stood in the center of the room, his arms wrapped around Adrien who was weeping with sobs so strong it shook his whole frame. His sorrow was palpable, but still he made no sound. Luka’s slate blue eyes locked on hers, sympathy, worry, and heartache clearly visible over the top of Adrien’s tousled hair.
“It is done,” she rasped. Tears welled up in Luka’s gentle eyes and Adrien didn’t seem to hear her through the fog of grief.
Marinette was so tired, bone weary, and sick at heart, but there was still work to do. Adrien needed her.
She climbed stiffly down her loft stairs and wordlessly wrapped her arms around them both. Adrien flinched at first, but when his swollen eyes were able to focus on her he practically threw himself against her. Luka leaned in and pressed a kiss on her forehead before taking up his guitar and opening the trap door. It felt like the seal on a closed letter, something ending, something final. Another heartbreak to add to her trunk of memory.
“Goodbye, my melody,” he murmured, wiping away a tear as he closed the door behind him.
Letting out a sad sigh, Marinette wrapped her arms and her focus around the boy she loved.
“I’m so sorry, Adrien,” she whispered as her tears fell into his hair. “I didn’t want to, but-“
“No! I’m sorry, My Lady,” he wailed. “I should… I should have been there. You needed me, but Luka… Luka said…”
Only one person called her his Lady. She was too tired for panic to set in, exhaustion blunting the shock it would otherwise have been on finding out that the boy she loved was also the boy behind the mask. Shock was for tomorrow. Tonight she needed to be strong for Adrien, just as Cat Noir had always been strong for her.
“It’s okay, Kitty,” she whispered, guiding him over to the chaise so he wouldn’t have to bend so far to reach her. “If I had known, I would still have made the same decision. It’s enough that the battle is over. Let me carry the rest.”
“But you shouldn’t have to! I’m his son! I should have seen it! I should have known!”
She carded her fingers through his hair as she had done a time or two when they had basked on a rooftop in the cool of the day watching the sunset over the city they protected. “You couldn’t have known, Adrien. No one could possibly expect -“
“You knew,” he said in an almost accusatory tone. “You knew that Father was Hawkmoth years ago!”
“We didn’t know how clever he was back then,” she insisted as gently as her aching throat would allow. “Who would have thought he would akumatize himself to hide his tracks? I mean, this is the guy who gave us Mr Pigeon over a hundred times!” Adrien snorted, though whether with amusement or derision she didn’t know. “I won’t lie to you, Adrien. It is going to be hard for a while, but I will make sure no one hurts you. You’ll be safe here and your friends will support you no matter what.”
For the first time since she had arrived, he looked up at her, eyes wide in terror.
“Marinette,” he whispered. “Please tell me she’s okay!”
She couldn’t help the soft smile that spread across her face as so much of the confusion over the last few years became clear. Taking his face in her hands she pressed her forehead to his. “She’s fine, Kitty. Your princess is safe and sound.”
“Then why isn’t she back yet,” he demanded, panic evident in his voice. “She should have been back, LB! It takes, what? Ten minutes to get there? She could have been hurt!”
“Adrien, you need to calm down.”
He jerked himself up out of her arms, a snarl twisting his handsome face. “I’m going to find her!
She grabbed his arm. “Cat, trust me! Marinette is fine!”
“I love her, LB, and if you don’t know why she isn’t in her own room after everything that has happened, then I will find her myself! Plagg, claws-“
“She is in her own room,” she rasped.
He stared at her, his eyes widening in wonder as she released her transformation. Tikki shot each of them a nervous glance then flew over to her cookie jar by the bed. Adrien took a tentative step towards her before falling at her feet. “Is… is it really you, Marinette,” he whispered in awe.
She nodded.
“She’s… she’s always been you?”A hand crept up to caress her cheek, as warm and as gentle as a sunbeam, and she pressed into it. She nodded again, too tired to spiral down into anxiety over how this revelation might affect him.
Both his hands cradled her face. Then he rose to his knees and pulled her into a rough kiss, hungry, lonely, and desperate. She shunted aside her exhaustion and pain poured all she had left of goodness, hope, and love into her response. It took him a moment to realize she was kissing him back, but when he did, the frantic movements of his lips slowed. He drank her in and gave back in full: sunbeams and moonlit dances, candlelight and roses, racing rooftops and raindrops bouncing off an umbrella.
They finally parted for air, but their foreheads pressed against each other and their noses still brushed as his hot breath puffed across her face.
“I’m sorry, Marinette,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion. “I know you don’t feel the same way about me. I should have asked. I-“
She rolled her eyes and pulled him back for a kiss of her own. This time he was too stunned to respond. “I think I broke him!”
"I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t love you, silly kitty,” she said, her voice sounding worse than ever.
He stared at her, completely gobsmacked. “You do?” His voice broke.
She nodded and winced, rubbing her throat gingerly with one hand. Now that the adrenaline of the battle was wearing off, it hurt abominably. Adrien’s eyes narrowed and gently pulled her hand away to reveal what she was sure were livid bruises. His beautiful green eyes went dark with fury.
“I’ll kill him,” he growled.
Marinette took his hands in hers. “I’m just bruised, Kitty. Well, bruised and ready to drop. The important thing is that everyone is safe now. My parents will know in the morning and I am sure they’ll invite you to stay with us until we figure out where to go from here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he stated firmly. “I’ve waited years to find out who my Lady is and to find out she’s the girl I love outside the mask? No way! Besides, I know both sides of you now and both Ladybug and Marinette take care of everyone but themselves. It’s my turn to take care of you.” He scooped her up in his arms and carried her up to her bed, removed her shoes, and covered her with her pink blanket. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, so different from Luka’s: warm, strong, full of determination and just as much love.
He turned to go back down to the floor, but she grabbed his hand.
“Adrien,” she whispered. “Did you mean it? Really mean what you said?About loving Marinette?”
His fingers twined with hers as his cheeks turned pink and his eyes were still shadowed. “Did you mean it… about loving Kitty?”
She looked down at his hand in hers. “I’m same as you. Adrien was the other boy. I couldn’t seem to let him go, but maybe that is because he is you?” She shook her head wearily. “I don’t know right now, to be honest, but I love you, Adrien. One way or the other.”
His smile was wide as he leaned in to kiss her. “Yes, Marinette. When Luka brought me here, the only thing I really wanted was you. I love you, so much. I have for while, but couldn’t bring myself to admit I was in love with two girls at once. Then, you just started to fill in all the cracks, you know?”
She smiled softly in answer.
“So, if that’s all settled, let me take care of my princess.”
He disappeared through her trapdoor and she struggled to stay awake. “This isn’t just some extremely vivid dream, is it Tikki,” she whispered.
Her little friend flew up to her followed by a black cat kwami. “No, Marinette. You did it! You defeated Hawkmoth and everyone is safe.”
“Including my kitten,” Plagg said, nuzzling her cheek with his tiny head. “You did good, Bug.”
“And he really loves me?”
Plagg rolled his eyes. “If you ever doubt it I will show you his Marinette drawer. Sure the kid practically had a shrine to Ladybug, but he got twice as sappy over your valentine and the lucky charm you gave him. He even kept the notes you wrote him when you sent him your class notes from school. He’s been absolutely impossible! If he was any more besotted he’d-“
“That’s enough, Plagg,” Adrien growled from the trapdoor. He carried a tray up the stairs and set it on the foot of your bed. I made some hot ginger tea, I remember you said you like it, and I brought up some arnica lotion from the first aid kit down stairs.”
His touch was gentle as he applied the lotion to her bruised throat and the ginger tea did help her relax and feel better. She kept dozing in and out until he finally pressed a kiss to her forehead and headed for the stairs. She grabbed his wrist once more.
“Stay, please,” she whispered. “I … need you. I need to know you’re safe when I wake up.”
His cheeks burned, but he moved the tray down to her desk before coming up and laying down on top of her blanket beside her. When she blinked up at him, confused, his blush darkened. “That way if your parents come up to check on you they’ll see nothing happened.”
She rolled over to face him and nestled into the crook of his neck as he wrapped his arms around her.
“Tomorrow’s going to be awful, isn’t it,” he whispered into her hair.
“Probably… but don’t worry, Kitty,” she managed between yawns. “Its you… and me against the world… remember?” She snuggled against him and breathed in the scent of his aftershave and something that was just him.
Tomorrow would be hard, but they had made it this far. Things were going to get worse before they got better, for both of them, but she would be there for him.
“Goodnight, Kitty.”
He nuzzled against her hair. “Goodnight, princess.”