imagine the miraculous users having their days numbered according to the animal/insect their miraculous represents. for example, marinette is expected to die 2-3 years after gaining her miraculous (i’M SORRY [or am i?])
It’s always a matter of balance, isn’t it? The universe takes and gives in equal measure, and there is always a price to pay.
But when Paris burns and a hero is needed, Marinette pays it all without question and without much doubt. In the heat of the moment…in the seconds that it takes to see fear searing in her loved one’s eyes, she clips on the dusty red earrings and embraces the red of fate.
There’s a warmth to it all, comforting and supportive. It’s what gives her the strength to shorten her life, and cup a sobbing kwami in a gently grip after all is peaceful.
“It’s okay. I’m okay, Tikki. Thank you for giving me this gift.”
And she truly means it, even if she will wake up this night, with hitching breaths and a panicked flurry of questions. But she is not alone, because Tikki will comfort her through the night, answering them all with a millenia’s worth of love and care for her hero.
—-
Marinette learns the meaning of regret when she meets her partner.
He is dark where she is light. Destruction where she is creation.
But his green eyes are so bright and earnest, it’s almost too easy to fall for his quips and puns. So they play, and she steps in tandem with his leaps and bounds across Paris.
They save they day again and again. Trust each other, again and again.
And then…she finds out who he is.
She wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The fact that her red fate has tied her in ribbons too inextricable to be unlaced. Her red is her luck and her life, and she would give it all up if it meant keeping him safe and happy. This person…her first love, her first choice to run to when the world is turning upside down…they are the same person.
But luck for once is not on her side, when she remembers that the black dots on her earrings mark more than just the time left in her transformation. They mark her lifeline, slowly leeching away into the deep color of a dying sun.
So even when identities are revealed, it is much to her regret that she must keep dancing away from him. She must remain distant, even as she selfishly reaches for him with trembling fingers and a confession wilting in her blooming smiles.
She doesn’t know what to do when he makes a far enough leap and embraces her as he says the thing she fears and wishes for the the most.
“I love you.”
—
She is selfish when she wakes in the night, screaming with muffled sobs into her pillow that she is scared.
She is selfish when she refuses Tikki’s comfort and instead seeks him out to lay all out. Tikki wordlessly, apologetically slips into her place in those red earrings, and Ladybug streaks through her city, moonlight painting her silver and gray in a way that makes her look heartachingly ghostly.
Her sacrifice in black little dots, marking a path that will no longer exists once she fades away. Her decision to save the city she loved, balanced by her life cut short.
His silence is telling. but she returns his confession with her own.
“I love you too…but I’m so scared, Adrien. I’m going to die, and I can’t leave you alone. I’m going to die, and I’m going to leave behind everyone that loves me.”
He doesn’t answer, but his teeth are grit and there are tears that stain his mask impossibly blacker than before. He pulls her tight to him, his sobs weaving themselves into her starlit strands.
And here, she feels held together. As if she isn’t just a number of dots slowly floating apart to become nothing but a faint memory in the grand scheme of things. She’s strong enough here to be honest with herself.
She clings to him desperately, slim fingers more frail than ever when cries into the crook of his neck.
“Adrien…I’m so scared. I don’t want to die.”
He shakes harder, but still they cling onto each other as the world keeps turning, woefully callous to their plight.
—
“It’s the natural order of things. To have incredible power, a sacrifice must be made. I told you this before you accepted.” Plagg chides, his eyes betraying all the pain of lost Chat Noirs in his time as their guardian.
They all accepted whole heartedly. They all knew the terms. And they all were heroes, every last one.
But Plagg remembers their tears in the middle of the night, the regrets and the memories and each and every one’s last words. It’s the least he can do for the people he loves and kills.
“BUT WHY HER?” Adrien rounds on the kwami floating lazily over his bed. His pacing stops, his hands dig through his already messy hair.
He’s done his research.Read the ancient texts over and over, but the contracts are iron clad. He had accepted his fifteen years with a grace and foolhardiness only youth can impart. Because when you’re sixteen, fifteen years is almost double your life.
It seems okay in the moment.
He hadn’t realized how fast time could pass. He hadn’t realized that he would fall in love with someone who paid a heavier price than he.
And he can’t save her.
It hits him with a finality that is crushing to realize. So he crumbles to the ground in despair, burying his face in his hands and oblivious to a Plagg who curls against him with an age old regret.
—-
They decide to live by the moments life gifts them.
Marinette still smiles, but it’s something deeper…much more tender than before.
She tells Alya that she adores her. She tells her parents that she loves them very much as she runs out with a croissant dangling from her mouth, backpack hoisted over a slim shoulder and Tikki flapping undignified inside.
She breaches a truce with Chloe, becomes Lila’s closest friend.
She does things she’s never thought of doing.
She kisses Adrien a lot more now, holds his hand when everyone or no one is watching. She wipes his away his tears when ever the subject of her lifespan comes up.
And he weeps, forcing a smile on his face because he should be the one comforting him.
But his Marinette is strong and brilliant and dying. She laughs whenever she pleases, floats away from his tender caresses whenever the notion strikes her.
She is free, dancing on red ribbons to a place he can’t reach her.
—-
“You’re not scared anymore?” He asks one day, very quiet as they sit watching the winking lights below them.
And she merely looks at him with that piercing gaze of hers, starry eyes edged with a smile so melancholy, that he wants to cry again.
A year has passed, and she’s growing weaker. But still she smiles, and he pretends to.
“It’s not that…but you know something…it’s a lot better when I think about everyone I love and who loves me back. ”
He glances at her, shock etched into his expression. Eyes wide behind a mas that does nothing to hide his feelings.
“W-why?” is all he can say in a strained voice.
Her hand moves to cover his over his knee, lacing her trembling fingers through his own.
“I might be selfish. But it’s because I know…I won’t really die…not as long as just one person remembers me. And that’s the best I can do, isn’t it? That’s why we live…to love and be loved. I think…that’s just enough to make life worth living. And to live means to die right?”
And she’s smiling as she explains this, and he may agree at a later time. A year from now when rain falls over a new gravestone, but for now he can’t. For now, he just wants to love and be loved by her. So he presses a hesitant kiss to her waiting lips, his tears running down his cheeks and she can taste the salty sadness of it all.
But acceptance is a part of life, and she’s grateful she’s met him. She can’t regret her choices…not when they’ve led her to this moment where the lights shine bright and the moon smiles. Everything is as clear cut for once, and she leans her head against his shoulder after a breathless, desperate kiss.
“Thank you, Adrien. Please keep living so that when I do see you again, you can tell me so many good stories, okay?” She whispers, but she doesn’t know if he can hear her over his own sobbing.
—
“Thank you, Marinette” He says, as his hand caresses the gray stone. The rain patters on, and he looks at the toes left on the pawprint of his ring with a bittersweet satisfaction.
To live means to die. He hadn’t understood that until now.
But he does, and he lets himself close his eyes for a moment, feel the rain running down the back of his shirt as he lives for the present. There’s lots to do, things to see and stories to write. He wants to build up a library of memories so that when he does see her again, he can smile proudly and say “ I remembered, and we both lived.”
He doesn’t mean to. He promised her he’d keep living. He’d build the library of memories for her, for the both of them. But the night is lonely and the rooftops don’t shine the way they used to. There’s a stillness in his heart and a crack in his smile.
Nino notices and tries, but he doesn’t understand the depth of Adrien’s pain.He thinks its because Marinette is gone and he doesn’t realise that Adrien lost two loves, not just one. Ladybug and Marinette. Two lives lost. Two lives taken before it was time. All of Marinette’s dreams. All of Ladybug’s hope. That’s what was taken the day she ran out of time.
Alya weeps. She doesn’t understand and there’s nothing Adrien can do to make her. The secrets lie heavy in the shattered remains of his heart.
Her parents… her parents…
The bakery closed the day she left. It never reopened.
Plagg understands. He’s the only one who does. He’s lived it all before.
He protects. Hawk Moth is still out there. Still a danger. So Adrien does what he can. Captures the moths and… feeds them to Plagg. Plagg says he’s storing the energy, but… Adrien doesn’t want to think about why. Why would Plagg need to store? Ladybug wasn’t coming back. He was on his own. Forever and into eternity.
Except he’s not.
Ladybug and Chat Noir are intrinsically bound. There cannot be one without the other.
And there she stands. Proud. Ready. Happy. A smile on her face. Blonde hair blowing in the breeze. A joy he hasn’t seen in years.
Its not her. Its not her. It could never be her. It’s a new girl but something tugs inside him.
She smiles and hold out her hand, “Hello. I’m Ladybug, Tikki said–”
The cat will always love the bug and she will always leave him. Nine lives to her one. He’s doomed. And he can’t. He can’t do this again.
He turns away, shoulders slumped, head down, heart already breaking under the strain. “No. You’re not.”
Damn Kry
That’s cold!
@gigiree put the knife in my heart but then you twisted it!
*cries*
*stubbornly decides to read this*
*immediately get’s shot in the head with feels*
I HAVE BEEN EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED!
You would not believe how hard I am tempted to keep going with this.
You don’t know how tempted I am to figure out how to bribe you to keep going with this.
At first, there’s anger.
How dare they? How dare they both? How dare the kwami put another Ladybug before him and expect that he’d partner with her. And watch her grow. And watch her die. See another family torn apart. Another life lost.
It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not just!
The pain and frustration is unbearable.
He hates. He’s mean. He ignores Plagg.
He never lets her get hurt, can’t do it, won’t do it, it’s not her fault, but he’s never nice to her. Not really. He tolerates.
But Tikki chooses her bugs well. The girl is… delightful. Nothing can bring her down. She’s a ray of sunshine in his dark place. She inches her way in.
He grows to… love. Even the word leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He loves. He is not in love, but he loves his friend. His partner. Because she is bright and light and happiness and nothing, not even knowing her time on this Earth is limited, prevents the happiness that shines from her. She takes so much joy in the little things. The flowers. The moon. The stars. Him.
He learns she was already doomed. She knew, when she took up the earrings that her time was limited. She was already dying. Cancer, she said. And yes, she was sad, but the earrings… they gave her strength. Helped her live, day by day, gave her a little longer with her family. Gave her an absolute, instead of a linger.
If she could do some good in this world before she goes, that’s all she ever wanted.
And she does good. She teaches him, so many different things, but she teaches him a short life is okay, as long as its a Miraculous one. Find happiness in the moments. Share the happiness. Live, like every day is his last.
It’s not like Marinette. There will never be another Marinette. Not for Adrien. This girl… she is a wonder but they could offer up all the bugs in the world and it wouldn’t replace Marinette. But… he loves this little bug.
This little firefly.
Her light goes out far too soon.
When she met the little red bug – no, kwami, she corrects herself again – she had (understandably) been surprised. She had been a little hesitant to even hear what the kwami had to say. But after Tikki explained everything, about Ladybug and Chat Noir, she understood.
But then the explanations kept coming, and Tikki kept talking. Kept saying how nothing could prevent what had to happen, and that she understood how much it would hurt. Kept repeating that same span of time. The curse of the Ladybug.
Why? That was the only thing she could think, was why?! If these little powerful creatures that transformed them could let them turn into these superheros, then why couldn’t they prevent this sort of thing? Wasn’t there something, anything they could do?
She didn’t want to die!
… But neither did anyone else, she realized. She couldn’t be selfish like this. Not with so much at stake – not with so many people in the world who could get hurt. So with a grim face and heavy heart, she would don her earrings, say the words, and pretend to be stronger than she felt. She would go out and capture the little fluttering beasts that had doomed her to this shortened lifespan. She would save all of Paris, but she didn’t have to be happy about it.
There was, however a single silver – or maybe black – lining.
When she first met her partner, actually met him, he was more mature than she thought he would be. In more ways than one. He was 30, he said. Had just turned 30 the day before they met. And he was…
Funny. Charming. Caring. God, she had never met anyone who cared so much in her life. The way he looked at her was with undisguised love, but it was a strange kind of love. After all, she was only 16. He told her plainly one day that he had loved his own little Bugaboo a long time ago. Told her that he never wanted another one, and that it wouldn’t be right to “his lady”. But he still loved her, cared for her when no one else was really in the position to do so.
So together they defeated the akuma. They saved people. And each time she captured one of those little beasts, she felt a little sicker. A little more tired. A little more angry. Why her? Why had Tikki chose her? And why did Chat Noir have to keep looking at her with that undisguised pity? Why did he have to keep making those awful puns when she knew he was just doing that to distract her from the inevitability of it all?
Another akuma down. She released the now cleansed insect into the sky, watching it mutely as she always did. Her earrings beeped once, a warning that her timer would run out soon. She sighed inwardly, suppressing a shiver. That timer felt less like a timer on her powers and more like on on her life. She turned toward her partner to say goodbye, only to see him watching her. He looked… sad. “We need to talk, Little Bug.” She wished he wouldn’t call her that. “Meet me at the Tower as soon as your kwami is recharged.”
Without another word, he pounced off. She knew better than to go looking for him when he transformed; with so many years of practice, he was great at hiding his transformations now.
She sighed and went into an alley, transforming herself. She glanced at her phone and sent a quick message to her parents. With a friend, be home soon. Love you! She always ended her messages with love you now.
She grabbed some cookies from her tin in her purse and gave Tikki them, wondering just what Chat wanted to discuss with her.
When she got to the Eiffel Tower, she wasn’t sure what to expect. Chat was perched on the side of one of the railings, looking out over Paris. He smiled. “There you are, Little Bug.”
“I told you not to call me that,” she muttered, pouting.
“I know.”
And then, after a small lull between them, he started to speak.
He told her he knew she didn’t have much time left. He then surprised her by saying that he didn’t either. He was already starting to feel sicker, tired. He grinned when she tried to apologize for what he was going through, and told her that there was nothing in the world that could have stopped him from helping his Lady, all those years ago.
And then he started telling her all the things she never knew. Who Ladybug used to be – Marinette. He told her his name was Adrien Agreste – the model, all this time. He told her about all the akuma he and Marinette defeated, all the people they met, all the people they saved. And then he went on, telling her all the little things, like how he learned who Ladybug was, and how he had fallen in love with her. How Marinette smiled, how she laughed, how she loved him with every fiber of her being.
And how she died.
Chat Noir – Adrien – was crying. She was too.
“There’s a reason I told you all of this, Little Bug.” She couldn’t be angry at the nickname now, for some reason. “You see… My Lady, she told me once something very important. At the time, I didn’t understand. At the time, everything still hurt too much. It still hurts, and I’ve accepted that it will hurt all the way up until I die. There’s no way to avoid that.”
“But
then she told me that she wasn’t scared. I didn’t understand – how could she not be scared? She was going to die at 18 years old. Just 18. That thought scared me so much – still does. And she said… ‘it’s because I know… I won’t really die… not as
long as just one person remembers me. And that’s the best I can do,
isn’t it? That’s why we live…to love and be loved. I think…that’s just
enough to make life worth living. And to live means to die right?’“
She didn’t know what to say to that.
“To this day, I haven’t forgotten what she said. I remember all of that, word for word, because that’s what she would have wanted. No – that’s what she wants.” Adrien – Chat – looked at her now, making no move to stop his tears. “Do you understand why I told you all of this, Little Bug?”
“Why?” Her voice was shaking with emotion.
“Because someone needed to know. Someone needs to keep her alive for me.” He stood and stepped off of the railing towards her, onto the platform where she was just frozen. He walked over and brushed her black hair away from her cheek. “I won’t be around much longer to remember her, so I’m hoping you can do that for me.” He drew her close and kissed her forehead, holding her. She was still paralyzed. “Everybody dies some day, Little Bug. But me and you? We’re keeping people alive every day of our lives, just by defeating those akuma.”
“For me… For my last wish… Do you think you could save her for me?”
When she saw in the newspaper that Adrien Agreste died just before he turned 31, she couldn’t hold back the tears. Tikki assured her that no one expected her to try. She wept and the little kwami tried her best to comfort her.
She went to the funeral, of course. So many different people did. She blended into the crowd easily – he’d taught her that stealth, the sly cat. She watched the coffin get lowered. The first person to leave was an older man, one with grey-blonde hair and a purple broach. She was the last to leave.
She crossed the graveyard and stopped at a grave that had a familiar name. She put a single black rose there, one she was sure Chat Noir would be happy with. She hoped Marinette liked it too.
When she met him for the first time, the boy seemed so very immature. She was used to Adrien, but not this. She was certain this boy made even more puns than the previous holder of that miraculous did. But she beared with it. She had to, after all – there was no Chat Noir without a Ladybug, after all.
The timer kept beeping, and time kept moving, and she knew her time would come soon. But she felt better now. More at ease with it.
When her partner realized she would die, he was distraught. When he realized she was fine, he couldn’t understand. She tried to explain, and he pretended to get it, but she could see he didn’t understand. She cleared her throat and handed him something – a journal. She requested that he give it to the next Ladybug, and for him not to open it, under any circumstances. In it was the name, and story, of the girl who came before.
Starting with Marinette.
He promised. She knew he would. The Cat always listened to his Bug.
When he asked her why she always said the same thing after releasing a purified akuma, she only smirked and didn’t give him a response. She tapped the yo-yo in her hand, watching the white insect flutter past her eyes. Just like life, she thought. Just like all the lives that came before her. These were all the lives she was saving with her sacrifice.
what i do is not up to you 