Work Text:
The day, as usual, had begun with the sun. Marinette, as usual, had not awoken with the sun. How she managed to be late every day despite living less than a minute away was beyond her.
Sometimes, it isn't even her fault. Today, she blames Hawkmoth for waking her up at the ass-crack of dawn and making her fight whoever was moody at three o'clock in the damn morning.
Bastien Roux. Marinette had never met him in person before, but she'd heard Nino commenting on his social media videos. He was the teenage son of some tycoon - the sort of person Adrien or Chloe would be friends with. Bastien had been akumatized into Backlash, who had the power to redirect force, because 'every time he tried to help, it came back to hurt him.'
Ladybug would feel sorry for him, if she could think without being thrown around violently. Every attack Ladybug and Chat Noir tried hurt them worse.
"Going to need some luck here M'Lady!" Chat Noir shouted.
"Cover me!" Ladybug called back, before summoning her "Lucky Charm!" A small, red with black polka-dotted mirror prism fell into her hands, and Ladybug held it carefully, scared of dropping it, her mind racing with plans.
"Stall for me, I'll be back in a minute!" she told him, throwing her yoyo and zooming away. She zipped into a corner shop, snatched a roll of tape on the house (akuma battle privileges) before heading to the Eiffel Tower. Ladybug scaled to the top, placing the crystal prism on the point and taping the sides down. It didn't need to hold forever, she only needed a minute. Pulling out her bug phone, Ladybug placed a call to her partner, who picked up on the first ring.
"Top of the Eiffel Tower? I'll be there in the flick of this cat's tail!" he told her cheerfully. Half a minute later, Ladybug was able to spot the cat by the lights on the Eiffel Tower. Backlash trailed after him in his silver, black, and blood red armour. Perfect.
"What's the plan, Bugaboo?" Chat Noir asked as he made it to her.
"Call your cataclysm, then wait for my signal," Ladybug whispered as Backlash hovered towards them. Not the right angle yet.
"M'lady, are you trying to get rid of one of this cat's nine lives?" Chat Noir asked. "Cataclysm."
"Trust me," Ladybug said, looping her yoyo around his torso. One...two...
Bingo.
She shoved Chat off the tower and he fell towards Backlash, grazing his armour with the Cataclysm. Ladybug yanked Chat Noir up with the yoyo cord. Backlash's armour began to glow red before unleashing a blast towards them. Ladybug waited for another second before ducking, pulling Chat Noir down in front of her. Backlash's blast hit the prism and redirected, hurling back towards him.
Ladybug was so busy watching Backlash that she failed to notice the angle the blast was on. A stupid mistake that would cost her dearly. Half of the blast smacked into Backlash, and the supervillian roared as the outfit shrivelled and blackened.
The other half of the blast split off, heading straight to where Ladybug held Chat Noir. The blast hit her in the back, and Ladybug screamed. It didn't burn. It didn't bleed. It seeped into her bones, deep and corrosive, like her bones were turning to dust. Her insides clenched and squirmed, trying to fight off the destruction.
The miraculous are very complex pieces of magic. There is always a balance: destruction with creation, the cost to a wish. They cannot save everything. Destruction cannot exist without creation. Creation cannot exist without destruction. While Backlash shrivelled into ashes, Ladybug survived. She was creation. Destruction cannot destroy creation.
The pain went internal, and Ladybug struggled to bleed.
"Bug!" Chat Noir leaned her against the side of the tower. "Are you okay?"
"The-the akuma," she murmured, staring at where the black butterfly floated away. Chat Noir handed her the yoyo hesitantly, and Ladybug ignored the spasm in her arm when she purified the akuma. "Can you pass me the prism?"
He obeyed, clampering to the top of the tower to detach it. Ladybug ran her finger over the smooth crystal before throwing it into the air, her arm screaming with pain. "Miraculous Ladybug!"
Chat Noir leapt to catch Bastien Roux, placing him on the ground before using his stick to come back up to her. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Ladybug smiled. The pain was almost completely gone, just a dull ache in her back. "I'm fine, Chat. Don't worry about it."
Chat Noir looked at her for any sign of injury. "You got hit with the same blast that turned someone to ash. Of course I'm going to worry," he whispered.
"I'll take it easy for the next few days. It'll be okay," she smiled. "There's no reason to worry."
Ladybug threw her yoyo out, using the momentum to pull herself towards the bakery. Back to home. She landed on the balcony, slipping through the hatch and into bed. "Spots off," Ladybug whispered, magic trickling down her body and turning her back to Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
It hit her like a sack of bricks. Agonizing. The moment the magic peeled away, her body crumpled. Her knees gave out. A scream caught in her throat but never escaped. A wet, crackling sensation spread beneath her ribs. Something shifted, like a rib had torn free or her lung had collapsed.
The pain wasn't like before. It was everywhere now; sliding down her arms, seizing in her stomach, curling around her spine. Marinette tried to gasp. No air came. "Tikki," she mouthed. "I can't-I can't breathe-"
"Marinette? Marinette!" Tikki's panicked voice squealed.
Marinette's transformation had been holding her together. Now that she wasn't transformed, there was nothing healing her internal injuries. The miraculous held her together like stitches. When it was gone, everything inside her split open. Bruises bloomed across her abdomen and ribs, black and green as the power that created them. Marinette's hands were cold, and she starts sweating from the effort of keeping herself alive. She doesn't black out. That would be a kindness.
Instead, she lies there, barely able to blink without crying. Sometimes the pain receded, and sometimes it was entirely gone, but then it wasn’t. She'd spent half the night mutely screaming for it all to stop while Tikki begs her to let someone help. Anyone.
Help means questions. Help means people will see what she did. Connect dots she doesn't want connected. Pain like this means a lot of people will care. Care what happens to her, what happened to her, it doesn't matter. Nobody can know her identity. The world is at stake.
Marinette can barely pull herself out of bed. She needs to go to school.
No questions. No one can know.
She barely touches her breakfast. Her stomach felt like rock. Her mother looks concerned. Marinette just said that she tripped down the stairs and felt a little sore. Anyone who knew her knew how bad her balance was on a good day.
Alya and the rest of her classmates are not so easily convinced. Not that Marinette tries that hard to convince them. She can barely sit upright without flinching. She can barely stand without collapsing. Marinette just sits, staring blankly at the wall as her organs scream and her blood boils. Or clots. Does it matter?
"Girl, are you sure you're okay?" Alya asked. "You've barely touched your lunch."
"I've just got a stomach bug," Marinette cracks a smile, ignoring the way her muscles thrash and spasm.
Just a bad sleep.
It's just stress.
Nothing to worry about.
"I don't believe you," Chat Noir folded his arms. Ladybug stopped staring at a spot in the distance, turning to look at her partner. "You were cataclysmed, m'lady. That stuff doesn't just pass like the wind. You hardly spoke throughout patrol today. You've been dissociating for the past twenty minutes. And don't think I haven't noticed you wincing everytime we land, because I have."
Ladybug can't deny any of it. While being Ladybug last time dulled the pain, transforming again has made it a million times worse. Ladybug has postponed her patrol twice in the past few days because transforming made her want to lie on the ground and never get up. Her legs felt wobbly when she tried to stand or put her whole weight on them, and her arms couldn’t hold anything heavier than her yoyo. Even that had a time limit before she began shaking.
"I'm fine," Ladybug cleared her throat.
"I don't believe you," Chat Noir said. "You look like you are about to pass out from pain!"
"Maybe it's from boredom," Ladybug argued.
"I know what it looks like when someone is trying to hide their pain for the benefit of others, Ladybug!" Chat Noir exclaimed. He took a deep breath, looking up at her with red rimmed eyes. "It’s not just your body. You’re hurting and pretending not to. That’s the worst kind of injury. The kind you refuse to treat."
Ladybug opened and closed her mouth. "I'm fine," she said after a minute.
Chat Noir sighed. "Go home, Bug. Get some rest," he said. "You're not invincible. I wish you'd stop pretending to be."
He didn't believe her. Ladybug wasn't surprised. She wouldn't believe herself either.
He turned around to face her again. "I'll see you when I see you." Chat Noir vaulted out of sight, and Ladybug collapsed on the rooftop as her legs gave out on her. The temperature flared as pain she'd been fighting for the past hour caught up. Ladybug pressed her back against the cold concrete in an attempt to cool it down. Her breathing was erratic, and her lips were pale, and she could barely stop dying long enough to think.
"Marinette you have to stop this!" Tikki begged. How long has Marinette been detransformed for? "Get help, please! Even if it is just Chat Noir, at least it's someone!"
Her identity had to remain secret. "I can't," she whispered.
It took every ounce of strength to pull herself to her feet. Marinette didn't dare transform, in case the pain worsened. How it could even get worse, she had no clue, but there was always something worse.
Marinette barely remembered getting home. Her brain flashed between moments, her memories vanishing without her even knowing they existed. Marinette lay her head on her chaise, coughing up a mouth full of ash onto the pink silk. That's probably not a good sign.
The next time Marinette woke up, she was hooked to monitors and lying in a hospital bed. Her parents watched with concerned eyes. Her entire body felt like it would break at the touch. It shuddered with the pain you would think could only be achieved if electricity shocked her by every drop of liquid within her body.
They knew.
Paris was doomed.
Everyone knew she was Ladybug.
The world was going to end.
Who was supposed to fight the akumas?
Who was going to save the world if she couldn't repair the damages?
They were going to die with her.
D
i
e
a
n
d
b
l
e
e
d
"...internal injuries..."
"...no known factors..."
"...like her body just spontaneously started shutting down..."
Marinette listened to the doctors rattle off her symptoms. All she managed to understand is that they have no clue what happened. Unsurprising. She had massive internal bruising and organ damage, but no reason for her body to go through this.
They ask her what happened. She fell down the stairs. Tripped and landed badly. They don't believe her. They don't question it. Marinette is grateful for that.
She was confined to the bed until further notice. Weeks of lying there, no sudden movements. They say she's fragile. Marinette doesn't disagree.
Tikki takes her earrings to someone else. Marinette doesn't ask who. Part of her doesn't care. She spends every waking moment thinking about the last thing Tikki had told her.
Creation can't fight off Destruction forever. Eventually, they meet, and the consequences of that are disastrous for everyone involved. You cannot continue to exist and desist. Live and die. Tikki was holding her back. It was like two different surgeries were happening to fix the same problem. They cannot fix the situation. It just digs a deeper hole. The rest of Marinette's existence would have been fighting off the pain, unless Tikki removed herself from the equation.
And it worked. Tikki left, and it was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. The pain subsided, and Marinette slowly recovered. She got better. Felt better. Lost everything. She may have to use a cane for the rest of her life, but it was better than eternal bedrest.
Scarabella. The new Ladybug. She was brilliant. It took some time for her and Chat Noir to work together the way Ladybug and Chat Noir had. It worked eventually.
Tikki told them who Marinette was. Eventually. Marinette didn't realize until she wheeled into her room to find a familiar black-armoured hero waiting for her. "You should've told me," Chat Noir breathed.
"I couldn't. There was nothing either of us could've done," Marinette said.
"You don't think I would've torn the world to the ground to find a way?" he whispered.
"Exactly why I couldn't," Marinette told him. They were silent for a few seconds. "How's Scarabella? Found a new lovebug?"
Chat Noir scoffed quietly, helping her onto the bed before sitting on the chair. "You aren't that replaceable, bug."
"Seems like I am," Marinette shrugged.
"She didn't want this. Tikki had to explain in a lot of detail why you couldn't keep being Ladybug before she agreed," Chat Noir sighed.
"Does she know?"
"Yes." Marinette turned to look at the ombre-haired heroine standing awkwardly at the door. "I...I'm sorry. You were perfect for this, and I..."
"Replacements aren't all bad," Marinette smiled at her. "Just look at the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies."
Scarabella snorted into her hand. "Did you just compare this with Spider-Man?"
The girls laughed quietly, but the moment was ruined by Marinette leaning over and coughing a dust cloud into her hand. Chat Noir looked horrified, and Scarabella was on the verge of tears. "Don't look at me like that, Kitty. This isn't your fault," she told him.
"It is," Chat Noir shook his head.
"Non. This is Hawkmoth's fault. If it wasn't for him, none of this would've happened. Don't forget that, kitty. We are children with the powers of gods. We're bound to make mistakes. Don't let it define you," Marinette grabbed his hand.
Tikki was the next to visit. Marinette wasn't surprised. She loved her kwami. Tikki was what she missed most about Ladybug.
"Was it worth it?" Tikki asked.
Marinette leaned against the pillow. "Being Ladybug?" she asked.
Tikki nodded guiltily. "Was it worth it to be happy for a little bit? Even though it ended up sad. Would it have been better if the whole thing never happened?" she asked softly.
Marinette smiled. "You made me the best version of myself. Knowing the outcome, I would do it all again in a heartbeat," she said. "Being Ladybug was worth everything it cost."