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kleenex-tissues · 4 months

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Yours Truly (21)

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Ch. 21 - Stop the Clock

“Do you Parisian heroes make a habit of getting impaled, or is that just you?”

Marinette wanted to go back to sleep, but a burning pain in her leg and throat kept her mind from drifting off. She almost hadn’t heard the sly remark above her because of it. Almost. Most of her nervous system was currently failing her, but she managed to groan out, “No’ usually, bu’ firs’ for every’fing.”

She was met with a chuckle, and she tried smiling back. She wasn’t sure if she succeeded. Her eyes fluttered open to a blurry world, a black and blue blob staring down at her, and she wondered if this was a pain-induced hallucination. At least the voice speaking to her was nice. Maybe it was an angel?

“Ladybug, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

Adrien? No, probably Chat Noir. Not that that distinction mattered anymore. It had only been a matter of time until she found out his identity. If not on the field, she would have had to know as Guardian eventually anyway. She just wished it could have been under better circumstances.

When Marinette tried to mumble his name back at him, he quieted her. “No, don’t talk! You’re really hurt right now, and you have to stay as still as possible.”

Staying still sounded nice. She could do that.

“Listen, I know Tikki is slowing the blood loss, but I need her. Someone has to cleanse the akuma and use the miraculous cure. I'll give you Plagg. We just have to do this quickly.” He was stumbling over his words in his panic. “I’m so sorry I let this happen, M’Lady.”

In any other circumstance, she’d hesitate, not wanting to reveal their identities to anyone else. She still wasn’t sure if the black and blue blob was a real person or not, really, but their situation was dire. This would be an issue for her to deal with when she was more coherent. Tikki would understand, she was sure of that at least.

“Spo’s off.”

As soon as the red flash of light disappeared, Marinette began screaming. The pain was too much too soon. It hurt, and she heard Adrien sobbing out apologies as he removed her earrings. He grabbed her hand and despite both of their shaking, managed to slip his ring onto her finger.

Someone held her head down, and she heard another voice whispering, “Mari, it’ll be okay. I won’t leave you, I promise.”

The voice sounded familiar, but she knew there was no way Damian was in Paris with her right now. She listened to it anyway, and thanked the universe for sending her such a comforting gift in her final moments.

“Your partner said you need to call for 'Plagg.' Can you do that?”

A gloved hand was rubbing her cheek, and she leaned into it. She tried nodding, but ultimately gave up in favor of mumbling, “Claws ou’.”

The green light that encased her seemed to ease some of the pain. It had become much more manageable, and she tried to pull her focus onto the hands holding her face to distract herself. She needed to focus on anything but the cold metal in her upper thigh and her scratchy throat.

The hands came loose from her face for a moment, and she tried to follow before they quickly returned, bare this time. They were warm. She leaned into them as best she could.

One hand rubbed soothing circles on Marinette’s cheek, and the other moved up to stroke her hair. She barely felt the tears dripping onto her forehead.

Finally, the world was righted again, and she felt the ladybugs swarming her body before she saw them. It wasn’t very often that she had the chance to feel the miraculous cure from this side, but it felt like nothing in the world had ever made sense before that moment. She felt like she was home.

Marinette began to properly stir, blinking away the blurriness that had clouded her vision. The night was bright with Parisian lights, just like it should have been. She began to that she might have imagined the last however many hours, but her fears were assuaged when she held up a black gloved hand before her eyes. This wasn’t the Ladybug suit, and that certainly wasn’t Chat Noir looking down at her.

Holding her were two men she had only ever seen in the news — Nightwing and Robin. Where had Damian gone?

The hands still performing ministrations on her head belonged to Robin, and judging by the sopping wet hair Nightwing sported, they were who had pulled her from the Seine.

She blinked up at them before Robin pressed a desperate kiss to her forehead, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

Wait, why was Robin kissing her?

What had happened when she was passed out?

—

Damian had never felt such righteous fury before in his life, not even when his father had gone missing or all the times Ra’s had beat him senseless on the sparring mat. He had arrested many monsters and let them live, but he knew he could never grant such a mercy to the man who had done this to Marinette. This pure soul deserved everything life had to offer, and he would gladly give it to her, which meant destroying Hawkmoth.

He hadn’t had the chance to think better of it before he began pressing a hurried kiss to her forehead; he just needed to feel that she was still there, from his fingertips to his lips. It was rather embarrassing that Dick had been the one to witness it, as well. He wouldn’t say anything of it now, but Damian knew he was never going to live this down.

Yet right now, nothing else mattered. His Mari was safe, her beautiful heart beating in tandem with his. Everything about her was beautiful. Her delicate face, lithe hands, and soft hair felt almost too good to be true. He could live a thousand lifetimes repenting, and he still would never truly deserve her.

Part of him was glad that she had changed suits because the black leather highlighted the deep blush painting her skin. The red spandex would have distracted too much from it.

Marinette let loose a nervous laugh. “Uh, what did I miss?”

Damian never let his eyes linger from her own, but he could feel the shit-eating grin dancing across his brother’s face. He chose, very pointedly, to ignore it.

“I took too long to get here,” he whispered to her. “I wish you had been able to inform me of this foul bastard tormenting your city. I would have had his head on a platter for you in a heartbeat.”

Dick chimed in, “Wow, kid. You sure know how to woo ‘em.”

Marinette’s face somehow became impossibly redder, and the skin was burning underneath his hands. She tried to sink into herself, but the tight leather suit left little room to hide. The faux cat ears were definitely not helping her.

Before she had the chance to question the vigilante’s familiarity with her, her partner came rushing towards them. He now donned a red and black polka dotted suit similar to the one she had worn earlier. The accessories they had swapped seemed to be the cause of it, but they could discuss this later. Maybe when they hadn’t just watched Marinette thrash around in agony.

The ladybug hero fell onto his knees and threw his body around her, crying into her shoulder, “Thank Kwamis, you’re alright! I don’t think I could have lived with myself if anything had happened to you.”

Marinette pulled a hand up to gently pet her partner’s hair, a soft smile gracing her now less-red face. He buried his face further into the crook of her neck, and she brought her other hand to rub along his back. Damian felt his heart drop at the exchange.

“It’s alright, Minou.” She let out a dry laugh. “Now you know how I feel every time you throw yourself head first into danger.”

Damian was overcome with a sudden possessiveness. He knew who this other boy was. He was Adrien, the boy who had broken Marinette's heart, and the one she still called her best friend. Damian believed that perhaps she was far too forgiving. He would never let anything bad happen to her again.

One of his hands moved to push Adrien off of her, the other still tenderly holding her face. The other boy was caught off guard by the sudden movement, and Marinette’s eyebrows jumped in shock.

“Bug off, Minou, ” Damian growled at him. His hand returned to rubbing her hair back. “She’s mine.”

He felt a sudden smack against the back of his head.

“For fuck’s sake, Damian. I taught you to act better than that,” Dick chided him. Damian swung his head around to meet his brother’s menacing gaze with his own.

“So much for secret identities, Grayson.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Like she wasn’t gonna find out anyway. What, with your little kiss and confession.”

Heat rose in Damian’s face. Whether it was in anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t say, but suddenly he was tackling Dick back into the river. It wasn’t a ‘confession,’ okay? It was simply a truth she should be aware of. Damian Wayne didn’t do ‘confessions.’

They hit the water in a tangle of limbs and spandex, and Damian swore he could hear Marinette laughing as he submerged into the water. He was overcome with the thought that maybe, it wasn’t so bad to open up his heart to someone. After all, nothing in this world could possibly be sweeter than her voice.

A kick to the jaw reminded Damian why he had tackled Dick into the Seine in the first place. He was so going to kill him.

#batman #wolfish-writes #damian wayne #maribat #maridami #miraculous ladybug #mlb x dcu #dcu x mlb #batbros #batfamily #daminette #dick grayson #adrien agreste #lady noire #mister bug

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fragileizywriting · 2 years

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Kwami Swap / Reverse Lovesquare AU Pairing: Ladybug!Adrien x Cat!Marinette Rating: T Words: 1,301 Warnings: Mentions of Canon-Typical Temporary Character Death, Mentions of Non-sexual Nudity

Without the noise of the tap running, the bathroom echoes into a stony silence. There’s nothing she can say in the next eight billion years that will get him to smile at her, sitting down on the bathroom tile, back against the tub like he’s part watch dog part annoyed and part too stubborn to leave her alone for a second. He’s learned his lesson today with that. He’d join her in the tub, glare at her from the other side with their knees and shins all over each other, but they’ve tried before. Adrien doesn’t fit. He’s too tall, too noodley, too lanky to fit into this tub that is nothing but decor for this apartment.

So it’s her. Alone. Wading the waters and doing her best not to sink in entirely until she disappears, which she’s desperate to try, but knows better than to do so in front of Adrien. Not now. Definitely not now. It’s up to her shoulders, the water a pale green from all the soaps she’d haphazardly run underneath the tap, foaming at the sides. She follows it with her fingers, trying to pop the bubbles, trying to collect them into mounds, trying to do anything and everything at all except listen to the quietness between them.

“Kitty—”

“I’m sorry.”

He sighs, trying again. “Kitty.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Why is it so loud in here, even when you’re completely quiet?” he murmurs. This gets her to stop talking, shutting her jaw with a click. She’s a listener by nature, designed with the cat miraculous to hear and follow, but she’s molded it into a hybrid situation— she— Marinette— is a talker. A biter. A fighter. A killer. Words come easy for once for a black cat Miraculous user.

But she’s exhausted. The Miraculous cure is everything it’s called— a miracle, a cure— but some things it doesn’t fix. She’s two centimeters to the left of comfortable. Her body is too small for what she’s experienced tonight. Made of starlight, tasting of ash… it’s a miracle she has her legs. Her arms. Her toes. Her fingers. She can breathe— she can see— she can talk and hold Adrien’s hand.

She sinks down into the bath until her hair starts to plume. Her hair is nothing as long as Lady Noire’s, but it’s still long enough to sway in the gentle heat of the water. Vision might be a little bit slanted, from how hot the water is, but it’s nothing compared to what happened just an hour ago.

“What would we have done if I couldn’t bring you back?” he asks, into the quiet, when she refuses to reply.

“I don’t know. Maybe get Viperion to second-chance it, go back in time and save me, or… it doesn’t even matter.” She licks her lips, gathering steam. “But I knew you could bring me back, I knew you’re capable enough to—”

“Marinette,” he murmurs again, causing her to shrink. He doesn’t call her by her first name. She’s not even sure when the last time he said it was. “That’s not something I’m ever comfortable risking.”

“But—”

“No,” he continues. All firm, all stern, all him. She shrinks harder. “I will never risk your life to win against an Akuma.”

And yet.

She saw what had happened, briefly, on the news as Adrien had pushed her into the bathroom and stripped her of her clothes when she could barely stand and was shaking from fatigue. How he’d peeled away her Miraculous, letting the hexleather dissolve away like sugar in a hotpot. She’d died. She’d completely died. He’d left the TV on before leaving the apartment, swinging through the narrow and tight alleyways that Paris offers, trying to make it to the Akuma in time before she did anything stupid.

Well.

“I’m sorry,” she offers again, when he opens and closes his palms in front of his chest, like he can’t believe his fingers exist. Paramedics arrived on the scene. Luka had been there, too, shouldering his way through the crowd while her eyes had dimmed and flickered, cradled in Mister Bug’s arms. Those very fingers are the ones that saved her. “I didn’t mean to… to hurt you like that. I didn’t want you to get hurt, Adrien—”

“So you made the choice for yourself, instead?”

“I’m not capable of being without you.”

He turns to her. Looking over her, completely ignoring her nakedness in favor of staring at her. Exhaustion under his eyes. Claustrophobia creeps into her skin with that look. “Kitty—”

“I’m not.”

He knows. Of course he knows. He has nightmares of a woman in white, of a woman with blues, of a woman that causes supernovas with her tears and screams. The way Adrien speaks of it makes it feel so intimate, yet so far away. She is her. But she isn’t. The Ragdoll. The White Lady. The Blanche. Whatever her name is, in that universe that keeps Adrien from sleeping so often, feels like a coat whenever they talk about it. It’s her. But it’s not.

So Adrien knows. Adrien knows that she’s not capable of being alone.

And yet.

“What makes you think I’m capable?” he asks her, quiet, tears in his eyes.

Noire specifically has a last-resort method before passing out. She’s caught herself doing it across the years, ever since they’d first revealed their identities with one another— ever since Adrien had come back from an alternate universe, because Bunnyx needed help— where she causes as much damage around her as possible. If she’s going down, everything will fall with her. The cement under their feet had started to crumble under the weight of her powers trying to keep her safe. Even if it was ultimately futile.

Buildings had started to level. Streets had started to turn. Cars had started to flip. People had started to run away. And she’d slipped away while in his arms.

“You saw what happened— and that was while I was dying. You saw what I did to the Louvre— could you imagine what would’ve happened if you were the one in my shoes instead? Could you imagine what I’d become if you were the one I was trying to wake up? Paris would be gone. You don’t have the problem of leveling cities when you’re desperate.”

“I— I know,” he chokes. She reaches out to him, fingers pruney and gross, brushing his hair back from his eyes. “I don’t want that to happen.”

“Viperion wouldn’t have been able to turn back time quick enough.” From what she saw on the news before being herded into the tub was Viperion talking to civilians who’d been worried, reassuring them that Lady Noire had fully recovered. He’ll show up soon, any moment know, boots slipping on Adrien’s balcony while he scrambles to make sure the two of them are fine. She can’t even muster up a weak snort at the idea.

“I don’t want to see what happens when you’re alone. Never again, Kitty.”

“Which is why I couldn’t let it be you.”

“I—”

“I won’t let anyone hurt you. No Akumas. Never. You can always save me, and I know you can. But I can’t save you. I never understand how to, so I don’t want to risk that. When there are emergencies, Adrien, you are most important. Nothing else is.” She reaches down to his chest. His polo is unbuttoned. His collarbones are showing— dark, darker, honey-colored and amber warm. He’s hotter than the tub is when she presses her pruned fingertips against him, feeling the skin like a lifeline. “I’ll do it every day. Without question. Without thinking about it. You’ve always been the most important person in my life, and that’s not about to change now.”

#sharks and sugar #fragileizysasfic #i'll be posting this on ao3 later on in the month #i'm currently hiding

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