Ladybug didn’t think: just threw herself after him, yo-yo spinning out to anchor her. Chat Noir could hit the ground from that height and walk away whistling. But Adrien?
Adrien would just have to deal with the road rash from being body-slammed into the building ten meters up from the road. Not to mention the bruised back.
“Ladybug, what–?” Adrien asked weakly, as she tried to get a grip on him: one hand held the yo-yo, the other had kept his head from hitting the brick, and she was braced on a windowsill with one foot, her other knee between his legs so he couldn’t fall farther, which left none of her limbs free to secure him, and he–
“Grab on,” Ladybug ordered him.
He didn’t. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your sorry ass, apparently. Grab on.”
“…Why?” He wasn’t even looking at her. “I don’t deserve–”
Ladybug turned his head to face her and leaned in close. “I don’t care what you don’t deserve.”
“We are having this conversation,” Ladybug snarled. “Whether you like it or not. We can do that here, or we can do it somewhere comfortable. I like option two. Grab on.”
“If you insist,” he mumbled, securing his arms around her waist.
She launched them up, dropping them back on the rooftop, and pinned him down with her body weight. “I’ve heard a lot today about what you don’t deserve,” Ladybug told him, terror-fueled anger easing now she had him safe. “And you’re right. You don’t deserve kindness. Or friendship. Or forgiveness. Or love.”
Adrien, eyes still closed, went limp under her. “So why did you stop me?”
“I wasn’t done talking.” Adrien swallowed and didn’t answer. “Two things,” Ladybug continued. “Nobody deserves kindness. Or friendship. Or forgiveness. You’re not required to accept it when it’s offered. No one is. But someone making that offer isn’t about what the receiver deserves. It’s about who the giver is.”
He cracked an eye open. “I don’t understand.”
“The other thing,” Ladybug went on. Gods, what had his father done to him, that he thought he had to be good enough to be worth being kind to? “Everything you said about deserving starts with I.” He blinked up at her. “What about Marinette? What does she deserve?”
Adrien’s jaw went slack. “How did you–I didn’t tell–”
“Magic,” Ladybug snapped. She’d tell him the truth, probably. Eventually. “What about Marinette, Adrien?” She paused, swallowing back tears. “Chat, what about me?”
“Ladybug–” He stopped. Looked away.
“I don’t think Marinette deserved one of her closest friends calling her a bully because she dared to think someone who constantly attacks her isn’t someone she should befriend,” she told him. Her voice couldn’t shake. She wouldn’t let it. “I don’t think Marinette deserved being told Lila wasn’t hurting anyone not five seconds after she told you Lila was hurting her. I don’t think Marinette deserves to feel she’s responsible for your broken body on the pavement back there.” She shoved away the thought of what that would look like, how it would feel. “And you know she would have.”
“She really would have,” Ladybug repeated; it was true for multiple reasons. “But you know what I think she does deserve? Your apology. And your trying to make this right.”
“…How am I supposed to do that?”
“Why don’t you ask her that.” It wasn’t a question.
Adrien turned his head to the side, closing his eyes, as though that would keep her from seeing his tears.
Ladybug took a slow breath and let it out. “I’m sorry I told you that about your dating Lila,” she said quietly. “I knew it was you, I knew it wasn’t true–I didn’t think it would hurt you so much. I just…” What had she been thinking? “…wanted you to know how much being lied about hurts, I guess.” She moved to the side, giving him room to get up, if he wanted. “You knew Lila’s a liar from the day you met. Marinette knows you knew.”
Adrien rolled away from her and pushed himself, wincing, upright. “You deserve a better partner,” he mumbled, twisting the ring on his hand. “–OW! Plagg!”
“Did he bite you?” Ladybug asked, trying not to laugh: it could only sound cruel.
Reddening, Adrien looked away.
“Hell yeah I did,” said Plagg, swooping around to hover between them. “Listen, kid. That asshat you call a father taught you the best way for you to not get hurt is to keep your head down and not make noise. And as a survival strategy when no one can help you, that’s not bad. But it’s not healthy, either.”
“And you’re not alone,” Ladybug added. “You don’t have to be alone.” Don’t leave me alone.
Adrien started to pull his knees to his chest, hissed, and stopped. “Why are you bothering, Ladybug?” he asked, quiet. “Why me?”
She folded her arms. “Don’t fish for compliments while I’m furious with you,” she told him flatly. “I keep telling you you’re irreplaceable. I wish one day you’d listen.”
“That’s because people have been messing with your head,” Ladybug told him. “Without you, Chat Noir, there wouldn’t be a Ladybug. Not this one, anyway. Just a lonely girl somewhere, who wore a mask once or twice. Get that through your skull already.”
Adrien watched her, silent, a few more tears tracing down his cheek.
“I think you should go home,” Ladybug said. She needed to feel a lot of feelings somewhere he couldn’t see; she wasn’t entirely sure she should leave him alone, but then, as long as he kept the ring on, he wouldn’t be alone. “Talk to Plagg. Get some rest. Think about how you’ll apologize to Marinette.”
“Wouldn’t that be cruel, though?” Adrien asked, voice small. “Why would she want anything to do with me anymore? I didn’t know Lila was hurting her. I didn’t notice. I made it so much worse. And–she said she loves me.” He was quiet. “Wouldn’t that mean everything I did hurt her worse?”
It had. “Probably it did. Probably everyone involved should forget about who loves who for a while,” Ladybug added, thoughtful. “Not that Lila will, but–everyone else. And as for whether it’s cruel of you to apologize, or whether Marinette wants to hear it–why don’t you let Marinette decide that?”
Adrien nodded. “All right.” He pushed himself to his feet.
Ladybug rose too, catching Adrien when he staggered. “Sorry about your back.”
“I’m pretty sure I was asking for worse,” he told her. “Plagg? Claws out.”
Marinette set an absurd number of alarms to make sure she got up and moving soon enough she would be early to school the next morning. The problem with this was, of course, that Lila’s earliness was habitual.
She tried to ignore Lila. It only worked as well as it did because Lila, this morning, didn’t seem interested in her.
Adrien dragged himself in at his usual time, smelling of menthol analgesic and wearing a great deal of concealer. “Marinette,” he said, just loudly enough for everyone in the classroom to notice, maybe not loudly enough it would be obvious he meant them to. “I owe you some apologies.”
Marinette, who hadn’t slept so comfortably herself, turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t know Lila’s lying about you was hurting you so much,” Adrien told her. “I–people say things about me all the time. Mostly none of it’s true. I don’t let it bother me. But you’re–not used to that. And nobody should be lying at all. I didn’t know she was hurting you.” He watched her, green eyes sincere. “I should have known. I really should have known not to hurt you myself. But I hurt you anyway. I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t say I forgive you. “Don’t do it again,” she said instead.
“I won’t.” He swallowed. “I don’t deserve your kindness. Or your forgiveness.”
That word again. “Nobody does, Adrien. People aren’t kind because other people deserve it.”
Adrien nodded, looking away.
Marinette opened her purse, reaching past Tikki–they’d had a long talk last night–to pull out the string of beads that Adrien gave Ladybug, that Marinette had given Adrien. “She told me you said to give this to someone who deserves it.”
Adrien stared at the beads. Then at Marinette.
“I’m still mad at you,” Marinette told him, holding them out to him. “I think I will be for a while. But I don’t want my friend wandering around out there without his lucky charm.”
He reached for the beads, then drew back. “We’re…still friends?”
“Depends,” Marinette said, giving the beads a shake. “Do you want to be?”
Adrien took the charm, his fingers just brushing hers. “Only if you do.”
She smiled. “Then we’ll be all right.”
janainaart
romaincrisis
origamiaround
titsay
jbbartram-illu
