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The city is loud when Chat Noir’s world has just fallen apart. Each shriek of a car alarm is a screw digging into his skull. A screaming child, running away from their mother, is a knife to the heart—a reminder of that love and family have one thing in common: they’re both a lie.
Other noises are less immediate. Less clearly felt. He can only fully recognize them once they’ve seeped below the surface. Once they’re already burning him from the inside out.
The rustle of a fabric as someone walks by. (All times when Adrien was just a puppet.)
He stops to catch his breath beside a cafe; footsteps ring sharply against marble floors. (Freedom was always a fleeting thing, waiting for the clock to announce his next obligation.)
Laughter, growing nearer. (Chat remembers enjoying that, once.)
Chat walks through a fog, and he’s pretty sure it’s not all in his head. But he can’t tell for sure if the mist that clings to his periphery is a natural consequence of the passing of seasons, or water’s endless cycle, or the way the sun plays chicken with the clouds—how the hell is fog made anyways?
Maybe that’s not important.
Because a large part of him thinks the fog is of his own making. That the lack of clarity in his mind can’t be contained, and has taken to spilling into the streets.
There’s almost a comfort in that. In being surrounded by his own sense of self—something that never made sense. Not entirely.
At least now he knows why.
By the time hints of green sneak through the fog, opening a portal to a world that smells of sweet grass and carries a hint of even sweeter pastries, his mind is buzzing. With alarm or recognition, he can’t quite tell. But the path beneath his feet feels familiar, as do the voices that weave closer and closer, waves that come apart and slam together until they finally align. Until they finally make sense.
It’s the first taste of constructive interference that Chat has known in hours.
“Hey, is it cool if I invite Alya over? We’re supposed to chill afterwards.”
“Yeah, of course. I already told her she could stop by if the project went long.”
Chat hears a groan. “If we could actually use computers instead of acting like we're stuck in the sixteenth century, we could have been done hours ago.”
“Ugh. Tell me about it.” There’s a sound of something shifting, and the fog heaves a giant sigh. A tower of books approaches. “Primary sources are heavy.”
The voices belong to two sets of footsteps—ones that have come far too close. Chat can only freeze, watching in horror and anticipation, as a laugh meets his ears.
“At least we’re almost back to your place.”
“True. And I guess there’s something to be said about learning the details of a tragedy from the words of someone who’s lived through one. Or something like—oomph.”
Marinette crashes into him the way she has so many times before, but this time he can’t catch her. He can’t even catch himself; he topples faster than the books in her arms. He lands hard on his butt, and the world tilts around him. The tips of his fingers feel numb. His chest feels tight.
Time passes—maybe a minute, maybe a lifetime—and Nino extends a hand down towards him. “Dude, you okay?”
Chat wants to reach up and take that hand, but suddenly he’s exhausted. He’s not even sure how he made it here in the first place, how the world led him right to two of his favourite people.
He just couldn’t stop moving before. He couldn’t. And now that he has…
Something bubbles up inside his chest—something painful, trying to tear itself free. But he can’t let it. That’s one thing he knows.
It’ll tear him apart, into billions of pieces. Then he’ll never escape the fog.
Marinette crouches beside him. Behind her, books are still strewn about—tragedies or casualties, all of them forgotten. “Chat Noir? What’s wrong?”
When he shakes his head, he’s not sure if he’s talking to Marinette, or to that terrible feeling inside him—the one that’s clawed its way to the top of his throat. He tries to swallow it down, but that doesn’t quite work.
He can’t quite breathe.
Marinette is right about so many things, but she often gets mixed up. And Chat thinks that, maybe, her words about primary sources is one of those times. She got it backwards, or inside out, or just…slightly off to the side.
Because there’s something about living through a tragedy that makes the details disappear. And there are no words after that.
He’s not even sure there’s living after that.
It turns out that when Chat Noir’s world is falling apart, touch is loud, too. But maybe not in a bad way.
Where Marinette’s fingers press gently against his chest, he feels a dull, throbbing sensation—like she’s reminding his heart how to beat. And when Nino kneels beside her, he claps a tentative hand to Chat’s shoulder. It forces warmth through Chat’s veins, almost enough to dispel the fog.
Marinette takes his hand, and he forgets, for just a moment, to keep pushing against that awful, writhing feeling. He lets it escape.
But there are people to hold him together now, so his sobs can’t quite tear him apart.