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she used to think blue was a pretty color. the color of the sky—specifically the kind you’d see right after the sun is rising.
now it just looks…wrong.
(blue was the color of his eyes as he grinned and laughed before lunging towards her—)
blue is a cold color. (she seems to always be cold now)
“Marinette? Girl you’ve been spacing out a lot recently..” Alya’s voice suddenly pushes her thoughts behind. Marinette blinks a couple of times—harsh enough to blur her vision a little—before turning to face Alya.
“Sorry! What were you saying?”
Alya laughs, “I was just going on about how weird Ladybug’s been acting. It looked like she and Chat Noir had an argument or something..”
This causes Marinette to stop—like really stop—and think. She hasn’t argued with Chat in months now—and he hasn’t done anything for her to be annoyed at either.
(Ladybug just watches, swearing she saw white instead of black on his suit, swearing that his eyes were blue just for a second, that for a second he wasn’t Chat Noir.
He was him..
And it’s a slap in the face; a reminder of her reality. Whatever they may have had causes him.
She can’t let herself in—not anymore. Already she toes that line being friends with him. She can’t let them grow closer. She refuses for this to be where she dies)
“Maybe she’s just being cautious?” She throws the half-assed lie out, barely present in the conversation.
or even present in general.
That’s been happening a lot too—sudden blanks in her memory, sudden blank sense of being, sudden need to just make everything around her stop.
God she’s so tired.
“Cautious of what though? I mean maybe a little wary since the whole Frozer thing. Ooo or maybe—“
Marinette leaves the conversation, going into the depths of her mind instead.
Marinette isn’t scared of Chat Noir.
She isn’t—she’s just concerned.
Worried.
(Terrified)
The topic seems to follow her everywhere after that.
“Ladybug!! We wanted to hear what changed between you and Chat Noir!?” one reporter would throw out after a particularly easy akuma attack. Then another would join in, and before she knows it shes surrounded and she can’t even look at Chat for help because he’s already left—
He’s gone, like he should be.
(She doesn’t allow herself the pleasure of missing his stupid jokes or his comfort when the paparazzi got too much.
This is the necessary move forward for her to survive.
for everyone to survive)
She’s able to flee the crowd, not even waving goodbye.
She knows what she has to do.
They may not understand—and that’s for their own good.
No one needs to understand.
(God she’s so alone).
Forums of speculation start showing up more.
‘LADYNOIR BREAKUP???’
‘LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR: BROKEN UP OR SOMETHING MORE?’
‘LADYBUG—‘
“Put the phone down Marinette…” Tikki asks, but grabs her phone anyway.
Marinette doesn’t try to grab it from her. It feels physically impossible to even talk most days.
“Mari…you can’t just avoid him you know..” and she can’t even defend herself. She’s in a perpetual state of numb that she’s too exhausted to even show a response.
She doesn’t know if she can even move her arms. She’s stuck.
“..Marinette please just talk to me” Tikki pleads. She wants to but..
She’s so tired.
“Chat Blanc—“
Marinette breaks.
“Tikki I need you to leave me alone.”
Tikki stops, looks at her—and that causes her skin to crawl in ways she hates. Her anger rises—if anyone were to understand, she’d thought it be Tikki.
“I get it okay!! I’m being unreasonable!! I’m being stupid!! Like how incredibly stupid is it to not be able to even move because it feels like your entire body just shut down! I mean—“
“Marinette—“
“How selfish am I to…to feel afraid all the freaking time over something that doesn’t exist!”
“Mari—“
“How selfish am I to want to live!!”
“Marinette!!” Tikki looks—really looks at her holder.
(Her holder is barely 15)
“…Tikki am I selfish for wanting to not die?”
Tikki wants to cry.
“I mean I guess i’ve convinced myself I was doing all this so that everyone doesn’t die but—“ Marinette hasn’t realized that her eyes are watery and her heart beat racing.
She’s in the fetal position and it takes everything not to cry.
“Marinette I need you to breathe with me okay?”
“Tikki I don’t want to die—“ Marinette murmers out. and Tikki flys herself onto her head to rub it gently.
“Marinette what do you see?”
What does she see?
(The crumbling of her statue self floating away in the water. The sight of people and corpses everywhere she turns—
the realization that in this timeline she’s dead—
dead dead dead dead—)
“uhh…I-I guess my bed…” And she’s trying to breathe she really is but it feels like she's drowning and that something is grabbing at her neck—
She wants to pull her hair out. The feeling of it on her neck makes her panic and suddenly she feels like she's choking—
“Tikki I can’t breathe—“ and she wants to cry and yet.
No tears.
(Maybe she’s faking it. Please tell her she’s just a stupid liar and not paranoid)
Tikki holds her, and after breathing a lot, she’s…not freaking out.
“Tikki I think I’m afraid…”
Tikki hums, but doesn’t say anything. She knows who Marinette is talking about.
(Chat Noir is her biggest fear).
“Tikki can you pass me the scissors?” Marinette whispers, breathlessly. “I’m not gonna hurt myself I promise,”
Tikki nods, before slipping away to get them.
(Ladybug still has the pigtails. Magic or..something.
But Marinette gets to breathe, no longer suffocating from the grasps of hair on her throat.
Alya’s the only one who likes it in their class).
“Nothing wrong with it really dude! Its just unexpected,” Nino nervously laughs when she asked them once if the cut really was bad.
It was clearly not done professionally and had an uneven look to it. Almost like a kid playing hairdresser with her dolls.
“I think it looks great!” Alya smiles, one that makes Marinette feel that confidence she’s so desperately is missing recently.
“I mean a bit of a touch up and it would definitely look good!” Adrien smiled at her, one that months ago would make her fall into mush and stumble.
Now it just made her feel numb.
(Oddly, she’s started to see him more in Adrien)
“Marinette if you ever need a good stylist I know some of the absolute best in Paris—“ Lila started, but by that point she’s met her peak on interactions.
She seems to have suddenly developed a social battery, something she’s never had before.
(Instead of wishing to spead every moment with her friends and family, she now dreads long hours with them. Everyone keeps acting the same. Like nothing has changed for them.
And it’s true, nothing’s changed because she stopped things from changing.
She’s the only one who knows what could have happened. It’s a burden she must carry for the mistake she’s caused. )
Her parents are the most conflicted about her hair.
“Dear are you sure you don’t want me to fix it up even a little?” Maman asks, and it’s not forceful or demanding. She knows she can say no—which is exactly what she does.
Her hair may be jagged and messed up, but its the only way she can truly cry for help.
Tikki doesn’t talk about the night she cut her hair.
(“Marinette, you don’t want to get back into finishing that dress you started?” it’s a weekend, and she’s done nothing but lay on the ground of her room and doomscroll again on her phone.
She hasn’t touched her sewing machine in weeks, and already she can start feeling her fingers becoming less calloused by the day.
“I don’t even remember why I was making it..”
“You didn’t have a reason, you just wanted to,”
Oh how much she misses her old self.
“Oh…” and Tikki does nothing but stroke her bangs, a motherly comfort.
She never does finish that dress)
Patrols were something they only did on occasion before.
Now Ladybug is seen every other night, watching and waiting.
Chat barely joins her, not after the awkward and unpleasant encounters from previous meetings.
She knows he knows somethings up, but he’s never asked.
(“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine”
And that was the extent of it. Maybe she could have explained, maybe she could have told him right from the start, but she’s in too deep now.
If he ever did ask for specifics, she’d answer the say way.)
It was strange, to see him on the top of the Eiffel Tower that night.
(2 and a half months after him)
It’s a Monday, he never does Mondays even back when…
back when she was normal (ish)
“Hey,” He awkwardly waves, but Ladybug can’t be distracted.
(She’s too scared to look at his eye, fear of them being those terrible terrible cold blue.)
Its maybe a minute of silence, the tension is thick it feels just as suffocating as the pigtails on her head, (she wishes she could rip them off. God knows she’s tried already).
“Can you please just look at me for once?” Chat’s voice is harsh but not loud. In her peripheral, she sees him move forward to look at her.
Marinette
Ladybug can’t look.
There’s a screech of sorts she can only assume are from Chat gripping the bar with his claws. It spooks her enough to glance at him briefly.
She doesn’t know if it’s her delusions or reality that he looks angry.
“Can you please tell me what’s wrong?!” Now he’s yelling, but she can’t look at him still, especially now that her eyes are shut tight.
“I’m fine,”
“Bullshit”
She’s never heard him swear before, and the deep scorching voice on the back of her head laughed and taunted.
(She deserved some of that anger, but she swears she has to be like this.
Why else would she do these things before even thinking through them?
Why else would she instinctually act in such terrible ways?)
“I thought maybe at first it was something I did—and I gave you time to yourself because I know I can be frustrating—“
“Chat-“
“Let me finish please… I need you to hear me for once”
Ladybug shuts her mouth, finally opening her eyes a bit, but only looking at their feet.
“This isn’t you being angry at anyone—or at least that’s what I’ve gathered from your personality but now I don’t even trust that. You’re so different and you won’t let me in—and yeah I know about the secret identity thing but. If your in danger or…or just in pain you can tell me. I’m not looking for you Ladybug, I just want my friend back—“ and he’s reached out to touch her shoulder and it’s all too much (Friendship got her killed. Got everyone killed)
“Your friend is gone,”
Ladybug doesn’t even realize she said that, or that she’s running away from the thumping of foot steps following her.
“Ladybug wait!!!”
Ladybug can’t wait
(time didn’t wait for Marinette to catch up to herself, to reflect and mourn and cry and scream and and
and feel.
She had to keep going, and now she doesn’t know how to stop)
“Can you please stop following me?!!” She shouts back, turning and twisting in different directions in hopes she’ll lose him.
She doesn’t, he recognizes her patterns enough to know what she’s planning on doing.
(Where is it she’s even going?)
“Just tell me why you keep avoiding me!!” Chat shouts back, and she didn’t even notice until then how close he’s getting to her.
And then she trips on the edge of a rooftop and slides across it before just..laying there.
(Later she notes it’s the same rooftop Bunnix popped out of and ruined her life)
“Ladybug?…” And he’s towering over her, concern replacing his previous anger.
And she breaks.
She kicks Chat in the chest, he’s too near, too close, too much like him it physically hurts.
“Stay away!!” She’s still close to the floor, her eyes are watery but she knows she won’t cry.
(She doesn’t think she even can cry)
Chat is wincing and has a hand to his lower chest, however he isn’t defensive.
(why isn’t he mad at her?)
“Ladybug…”
She wants to scream at him, throw things and hit him and run away—
Marinette is stuck in place.
“I told you that I’m fine!! Nothing is wrong! So please, just leave me alone!!”
Chat looks just…out of it.
(He looks like she does)
“..M’lady please,”
She cracks, and the thin wall she’s so carefully built shatters.
“You want to know why I’m avoiding you?!!!! It’s because I’m afraid of you Chat!”
Afraid is an understatement.
Chat Noir looks at her with pain, so much pain it hurts.
(She isn’t wrong she isn’t wrong she isn’t wrong)
“..What?” his voice is a hush murmur, yet with all her paranoia it seems her body has naturally become hyperaware all the time.
Ladybug finds it in herself to get up, and she wants to run—go home and just lay there and maybe just maybe she’ll shed a tear or two.
She can hear a voice a little too similar to Tikki’s tell her she needs to do one more thing first.
“Chat, Bunnix took me to a…a future where you destroyed everything…and and everyone was dead—hell even the moon was broken,”
she’s trembling.
he’s forcing himself not to go closer to her.
(When did she start hugging herself?)
“All because I let us get too close—because I was stupid and careless enough to think we were actually safe in some way,” and she’s laughing, because how funny is it that her biggest fear isn’t Hawkmoth.
It’s her own partner.
She’s so stupid.
“Ladybug—“
And she’s running away again.
(it seems to be the only thing she can still do properly)
only this time no one is following her.
She’s finally broken what little friendship was left between Chat Noir and Ladybug.
(She isn’t dying anytime soon)