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It turned out that sometimes Marinette made mistakes, even as Ladybug. Chat had really done a number on himself this time. Marinette thought to give him the scolding of a lifetime for being so overzealous, so careless. He was injured and weak. She knew Monarch was always watching, but she held her tongue. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. The pain she felt in her heart was overwhelming and silencing. She could still see the blood pooling from tears in his costume, circling around his hips on the pavement. He had lost his footing on the rooftops from a mess the akumatized villain had made, apparently hit a flagpost, then had fallen hard on debris correcting itself after it had been standing upright from the ground.
Right after she had used the Lucky Charm.
Now he was gritting his fangs, sweat soaking his brow and golden hair, his breath heaving. Marinette was quick to his side, prodding him as gently as she could. All she could do was pull him into her lap, cradling him close. “We need to get you to a hospital,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. She needed to stay strong. He needed confidence right now. “You need someone to get you there. I…you would need to change back. I can call someone for help.”
He laughed weakly. “I already told you. I would reveal my identity the moment you wished, my lady.” Shaking his head, he closed his brilliant green eyes again. It was hard for him to keep them open. “But I know. You don’t have to tell me. We can’t know each other’s identities. Monarch and all that. You don’t need to chew meowt.”
She glared at his use of a pun. Normally, Marinette would get after him for joking at such a critical time, but she refrained. It didn’t matter. She lifted her yo-yo, flipping it open. “I know who to call.”
“Whoever you call is going to wonder why you didn’t just restore your kwami and bring me to the hospital yourself. You always carry food on you for Tikki.” He laid his head back, squinting at the sky. No matter what he had told her after his time with Marinette, his feelings for Ladybug still nagged at him now that he had rejected Marinette. They were still under there, no matter how he choked them down. He could never be with someone who wasn’t a hero. He knew that. He had hoped to help Marinette fall back in love with him as Adrien, but he knew—he would always have secrets to keep from her. It wasn’t fair.
“Chaton…” She knew he was right. Not to mention, if she called Alya, knowing her intelligence, she’d be able to sleuth out Chat Noir’s identity anyways.
The beeping of her earrings was loud in her ears and the sweat on her brow suddenly felt so much colder. What could she do? She stared at Chat Noir’s hand and went pale as she saw a pad blink out. They didn’t have much time. She slipped one hand beneath the bend of his legs and the other beneath his arms. As Ladybug, lifting him up wasn’t an issue.
He let out a mangled cry of pain and Marinette tensed, feeling tears threatening to fall at the corners of her eyes. She was in love with him, even though she still harbored feelings for Adrien. She had seen a different side of him that night they shared together, every time he came to her balcony, that time he invited her to the rooftops. What would she do without him? How could she be so stupid and blinded all the time? She had treated him so awfully and left him in the dark and now, because she didn’t pay close enough attention, he was hurt and bleeding out.
He reached up weakly, giving a smile that was so warm, so kind. Marinette grit her teeth. Why did he have to look at her like that? “Don’t cry, Buginette. Whatever happens, I don’t want to see you cry.” He smeared away the tear with a clawed finger before his arm dropped.
“Chat!” She held him closer. The tears had started streaming now. He was no longer responding to his name, breathing but with his eyes rolling back and closing as his head hung loosely against her chest.
Marinette wanted to scream. There was nothing to do. Su-Han would hate her for it, but seeing as Chat was already losing consciousness, there was no way she could cover her eyes and get him to a hospital. There was no way he could get to a hospital on his own. The only thing Marinette could think to do was something so, so impossibly stupid.
Her parents were gone for the weekend for an anniversary getaway. She would have time to repair the room before they came home.
She tossed her yo-yo. The trip to her house seemed to go by in chaotic flashes, tears blocking her vision, as determined as she was. When she reached the balcony, he was fully unconscious. The first thing was to stop the bleeding. She maneuvered him through the trapdoor, leaping down with him in her arms. She was down to a minute, and he was down to three.
He was laid across her bed and she bit her lip before bringing the blanket over him.
Running downstairs, she found the closet, gathering as many towels and medical supplies as she could. She didn’t even feel the transformation wear off.
“Marinette,” Tikki advised, her voice feeble, “you have to hurry. Humans bleed quickly.”
Marinette was surprised there was no scolding to be had. No warning about the consequences. It seemed Tikki understood the problem was too dire to worry about it. Any way one framed it, there was a life on the line. Whoever Chat Noir ended up being would remain a secret she would just have to take to the grave. She had already sworn off love, so what did it matter?
“I know,” Marinette agreed, grabbing a dusty old medicine kit and placing it atop the pile. “I know you’re hungry right now, too, Tikki, but please find something for Plagg. I’m sure he’ll understand the lack of variety. There’s no time to be picky.”
The kwami bobbed her head and drifted from the open purse, shuffling through things left on the kitchen counters.
Marinette lumbered up the stairs and eventually lurched forward on the last with the heavy load in her arms. It thankfully stayed in one stack, though her eyes were focused on the person in her bed more than it. He hadn’t transformed back yet. She lifted the stack and once again hobbled up the next set of stairs, feeling out-of-breath. It didn’t even begin to compare to the sound of her pulse in her ears.
She set the stack down at the foot of the bed and peeled the covers off slowly. He had drenched them with blood, but that was fine. Marinette didn’t care about that. She could see the tear in his uniform, even from the side. The wound stretched all the way to his back. Swallowing her nerves and swiping at her tears with an arm, she grabbed the first towel, plush and soft, placing it in her lap. Next, she carefully moved the teen all the way on his side, so he was facing away from her. The wound on his back was so much worse, and the breath she sucked in upon seeing it was steep and dry. It was so deep.
“F-focus Marinette! You can do this,” she told herself before she pressed the towel against the wound. She put as much of her weight on it as she could. The wound needed to clot.
The de-transformation happened as suddenly as hers. With a flash of green, sleek black became tattered civilian clothes. Marinette swallowed, avoiding looking. All she knew was that she was realizing Chat’s scent was familiar—it was something she smelled all the time. Without the costume obstructing it, it was much stronger smelling. But that didn’t matter. Marinette was happy to find that the towel wasn’t being stained all the way through yet. Was it slowing?
Plagg slumped on the shoulder of the boy beneath him, clearly weakened, too. He glanced over at Marinette, and his eyes went wide.
“You’re treating him? Never thought I’d see the day you stopped with all of that Guardian stuff.”
“I’m still the Guardian,” Marinette snapped defensively. “This is an emergency.”
“Sheesh! I know, I know. You know I just mean the ‘rules.’ I think they’re stupid, anyways.”
The cat stared down at the boy beneath him, scooting past tousled blond locks to rub his cheek against his. Chat Noir was turned away still, so Marinette watched the cat sorrowfully. Worry. Even though he was acting normally a moment ago, it was clear he was concerned.
“Hey, uh, Marinette, is it?” the cat asked. “I owe you a hundred wheels of camembert if you can fix it.” His ears and whiskers were drooping.
“No need, Plagg. I’m going to,” Marinette said. She found that her tone was much more calm than before. As she held the towel fast with one hand, she grabbed her phone with the other, haphazardly typing in a guide on giving stitches. There was a suturing kit in the medical supplies from the closet (having overprotective parents paid off sometimes), Marinette just had to know how to use it. She laid the phone against the gathered blankets she cast aside, watching the tutorial as she put on a pair of gloves and slowly disinfected the area once it wasn’t bleeding so badly.
She swallowed, even watching the tutorial. It made her want to crawl inside her own skin just looking at it. But Chat Noir, her partner, her best friend…he was in trouble if she didn’t. After threading the needle, she grabbed the needle driver and forceps and went to work. Plagg covered his eyes with his paws.
“I’m glad he’s knocked out cold, actually,” Plagg admitted.
“Yeah, me too,” Marinette agreed. “I wouldn’t want to be awake during this.” She tried to think about how it was just like sewing—a new technique, a new stitch, and something really, really hard to work through.
When Tikki came up with the food, Marinette was at last closing up the last open wound. There had been four in total.
Marinette sighed in relief. She still hadn’t looked at the face belonging to her partner, even when she reached over and felt for his pulse. Normal. It was normal. He was fine. The kwamis, fully fed, had begun working on taping gauze over the injuries.
“Ladybug? Ladybug…where…?”
The boy was croaking out the name of her superheroine self. She moved her hand from his neck and felt along his arm until she found his hand under the blankets, still. It was chilly in her warm grasp. “I’m here, Chat. I didn’t go anywhere.”
She couldn’t see what he looked like right then. He was facing the other direction since she had turned him over to administer medical care. Had his eyes opened?
She could tell he was groggy when he spoke again, barely coherent. She wanted to shrivel up and blow away, hearing the confident hero reduced to this. “Where…where are we? I fell and then…”
“And then I took you to the only place I could,” she near whispered. “We couldn’t go to the hospital without risking your identity being discovered, so I just…”
“You’re a real hero, Wonderbug.” He found that her hand was covering his and he turned it to hold it. “What would I do without mew?”
Marinette sighed, but found herself laughing softly at his pun. No wonder it had been so easy to fall for him. “You scared me, Chaton. You really did.” The kwamis drifted aside as she laid down, their work complete. She was behind him. “I–I know you don’t love me anymore. But I—”
“That’s not exactly true,” he admitted. “I just…I tried so long and I never got anywhere. It hurt.” She stared at the back of his head, at the blond locks spread over her pillow. The gray sweater he was wearing wrinkled as he rolled one of his shoulders, stopping to wince from pain. “But it’s okay, my lady. You know I’m loyal to death. I understand.”
An understandable answer. Her blue-black hair pressed into the pillow next to him. “I was blind. I was mean to you, even though I never meant to be.” He was still holding her hand and her round cheeks took on a slight hue of pink. “I’m…I’m regretting it, Chat. I don’t know how to tell you that I…”
“You don’t have to feel bad, Ladybug. It’s all right.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Marinette couldn’t help it. She leaned forward, pressing her head against the valley between his shoulder blades. “Mon minou, I don’t know how to say it. I don’t deserve to say it after everything we…”
“Then show me, Buginette.”
There was silence for a while before Marinette scooted forward, moving her hand and his upwards so she could hold him closely. Her heartbeat was in her ears. “I was just trying to be responsible. I’m sorry.” Her voice was beyond quiet.
“I could never stop loving you, Ladybug,” he said. “Never. I tried and…no matter how many times I say I’m over it, I never am. You’re always there in the back of my mind. You’re so smart, kind, talented…I could go on and on. There’s this girl I know and I thought I could love her. She’s so unique and she’s kinda…well, flighty, a bit clumsy, but she’s incredibly talented and always thinking of others.” A small laugh. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I couldn’t be with her when she couldn’t know who I really was. When she was a fan of mine. It wasn’t fair.” He went quiet for a moment. “Honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much she’s like you. And I wondered…” He shook his head. “This…this is the closest I’ve gotten to getting to see you.”
Marinette went quiet. Her blush had deepened. She glanced up at the kwamis, who were staring intently behind the wooden stabilizer in the middle of the room. No objection from Tikki. Plagg, she could swear, was smiling. Marinette took a deep breath. She calculated everything rigorously to keep Monarch from discovering her identity. Why couldn’t she do it again if it truly made them happy?
She turned back to Chat. “The boy I love is…the same. I can’t be with him when I know I’d be hiding secrets.” She buried her nose back in the softness of his sweater. “I doubt he’d ever think much of me that way, but I gave up, anyway. It doesn’t matter. You’d probably laugh, but…I fell in love with him when he gave an umbrella to me when it was raining. I had pegged him as someone else for a while and—”
Chat lurched upwards, onto an elbow. He groaned in pain, but he didn’t lay back down.
“Chat Noir! Hey! Please, lay down. You’re hurt.”
“An umbrella?” he asked, quietly. Marinette stared at his back profile and felt her stomach lurch. It couldn’t be. The smell was all too familiar now, and she stared down at her desk, at the blue perfume she had bought far too many bottles of. She had shrunk back, bringing her legs to her chest. There would be no grand reveal. It was just Marinette, in her humble jeans and navy blouse with embroidered flowers. “I…I think I—”
“Adrien,” she mouthed, barely audible. At last the cat turned to her, green eyes wide. He looked just as frightened as she did.
The pain finally got the better of him as he collapsed back to the bed, this time rolling onto his back. He barely let his body rest before he was trying to get up again. “Buginette! You’re—”
“You’re going to get sent to the emergency room, is what’s going to happen at this rate,” she scolded, even if her heart was beating hard in her chest. “No more bed, no more cuddling—hugging—and you’re going to be in a gurney with horrible television channels.”
“Nooo, Marinette,” he whined, grinning lopsidedly up at her. She could see it all now. All the similarities, all the complexities—the differences of both individuals added together into one person who was free in one identity, trapped in the other. “We just figured out something this big and you’re going to bring me to a hospital? We could go on a date…the wax museum, maybe?” He looked at her slyly.
“I told you that was a prank! I was seeing if you would kiss—cave, I mean cave—before me!” Marinette hugged her hands across her body, red to her ears.
Adrien started laughing. It was the most joyous laughter she’d heard from him, freer than donning the Cat Miraculous could make him. She stared at him, his hair and clothes a mess, and felt herself melt a little. Clasping her hands to her burning cheeks, she looked away.
“Marinette…”
“No!”
“My lady…”
“Still no!”
“Buginette…”
Marinette whipped around to face him. “What?!”
He took her hand as it lowered from her face and delicately placed it to his lips. She was aghast as the same picture flashed in her mind, but with Adrien as Chat Noir. It was him. The whole time, it was him.
“I love you,” he told her, plain as day. He smiled in that delicate, chaste way Chat did when he made such assertions—the sweetness and kindness of Adrien was now apparent in those moments.
Marinette took in a deep breath, scrunching up her face as she tried. “I…I lo—” She couldn’t get it out. Every time she tried, it seemed to get stuck in her throat. “I love—” Her eyes scrunched shut, her hands gripping the sheets.
She could hear him moving, grunting a bit in pain as he maneuvered his way into a seated position. He shouldn’t have been moving so soon, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to stop him. “Like I said, you can just show me,” he told her. His voice was like velvet, smooth and dense. “I never got to give you that goodnight kiss like I wanted on our date, Marinette.”
“When you were in costume?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He scooted closer. He held a hand over his chest, the other outwards, faking a bow. “May I have this kiss, Marinette?”
She couldn’t help but giggle at that. “Yes, you can.”
He leaned in, and the kiss felt just like Chat Noir’s, but it was softer and so much less urgent. Marinette tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned into it. She wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but afterwards, some words were much easier to say.
“I love you, Adrien.”