Too Close For Comfort

[mistkitt]

 Originally Posted: 03/21/17

~*~

Blood.

Blood, and Alya crouched over his still form. The shattered remains of his helmet sprinkled over the road like ashes. His hand, palm up, fingers curled.

And the crowd. Always a crowd with akuma attacks. Giving them space.

Ladybug stood surrounded by helmet fragments—visor over there, the tip of an ear next to her foot—staring from a distance. At Alya’s fingers pressed against his neck. At the blood pooled around his head, dampening his golden hair. At his hand, palm up, fingers curled.

That was the love of her life strewn across the sidewalk.

The love of her life, she thought, as Alya’s scream confirmed what she didn’t want to know.

A second scream came from the akuma victim. The purple butterfly mask lit up his horror-stricken face.

“I didn’t mean to—!”

Ladybug stared.

“I didn’t mean to—!”

She must have told him a thousand times.

“Oh God…!”

Too dangerous. It was too dangerous for him.

“Adrien!”

“Lucky Charm.”

~*~

Adrien woke with a headache, surrounded by darkness. While he waited for his eyes to adjust, his nose confirmed his location: the clean, particular scent of a hotel room. He tried to sit up.

“Whoa, whoa.” Pressure on his chest forced him back down. “Take it easy, man.”

“Nino?” Adrien closed his eyes against the pain in his skull. Why was he in a hotel room with Nino? Hadn’t there been an akuma attack? Ladybug. She needed his help.

“Come on.” Alya’s voice this time. “We should give them some privacy.”

Adrien felt the bed beneath him shift. A door opened, momentarily bringing light into the room and illuminating Ladybug, leaning against the far wall. Then it shut, and darkness reigned again.

Adrien waited for Ladybug to approach him, but she didn’t move. Memories resurfaced: the akuma, his taunting, the blow that sent him flying off the roof of the building. He groaned. Ladybug must have been angry at him. “I messed up, didn’t I?” he asked.

Ladybug remained silent.

Adrien gave her a pleading look. “Buginette?”

Her eyelashes flickered, but it took several more painful seconds for her to separate from the wall. She approached him, eyes downcast, one arm draped across her stomach. She drew one knee up onto the hotel bed, followed by the other. Then she reached out and stroked his hand, tips of fingers brushing his palm. He instinctively closed his fingers around hers.

And Ladybug shattered.

She bent over until her forehead touched his chest and wept with such violence that Adrien knew, without a single doubt, what had happened to him.

Tears blurred his vision. He laid a hand on his Lady’s hair, felt each sob tear through her body like a physical blow, and whispered what little reassurance he could: Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m still here. He let her grief carve a wound into him that would never heal.

And he promised himself he would be more careful.