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It was an honest accident. Well, not really, but Chat Noir and Ladybug just hadn’t been able to stop the akuma in time to prevent it. They’d hoped that the Lucky Charm would be able to reverse it, but there were some things that even magic couldn’t fix. And death, was something that just was. It was inevitable, and no matter how much magic they were gifted with, there was only so much they could do. They couldn’t reverse death or time. It just wasn’t how things were. People were lucky that they didn’t remember what they did as akumas most of the time.
So yeah, this was their first civilian casualty after about 3 years at the job. That was an impressive amount if they were going to be honest. They knew that it was only a matter of time before it was to happen. Lately the akumas had been getting more and more dangerous. Hawkmoth had obviously found a way to power up, just like Chat Noir and Ladybug.
Or he just began to discover the true extent of his powers. Either way, it wasn’t exactly a fun time for the duo. Akumas were already hard to deal with while also living their civilian lives. At least they’d found out each others’ identities about a year into their superhero gig. It was an honest accident, but they were glad that they’d discovered them anyways. It made it much easier for them to handle their feelings as well as to handle the actual akuma attacks.
They worked well together, both in an out of the costumes. And after finding out each other’s civilian identities, their teamwork was practically flawless. They knew everything about each other, and their closeness in their civilian forms often puzzled and even annoyed people. It wasn’t their fault, it’s just that when they told people that they trusted the other with their lives, they weren’t exaggerating at all.
They needed to, because they risked their lives for the people of Paris every day. It takes a lot of a person to be able to keep up with all of that, and they were just teenagers. It was a lot of pressure, that they didn’t even know they signed up for. Not only did they have to protect every innocent bystander no matter how stupid they were, but they also had to keep everything about their lives a secret. It was exhausting, and sometimes they made mistakes.
Chat Noir got hit by an akuma and fought Ladybug, Ladybug was a little too late figuring out how to use her lucky charm and Chat got a little scraped up, some citizen got mowed over by them when they got thrown; accidents happened. It was inevitable and they’d made their peace with that. Hazards of living in a city with regular supernatural attacks. There was only so much that two masked vigilantes could do against numerous foes. They couldn’t be everywhere at once. They were just teenagers; kids really.
So when Hawkmoth really outdid himself and spawned three akumas at once, it was no wonder they were overwhelmed. Often times, it took the both of them to best one of the rage filled akumas with powers greater than their own, but three? That’s just too many for them to realistically deal with at once, no matter how skilled they had gotten. They did their best to split up, but it was always the damn reporters that messed everything up.
The press had been getting in their way for years now, and it didn’t help that some people thought that the middle of a battle was obviously the perfect time to conduct an interview about incredibly personal things that they had no business knowing.
Why did they feel like it was their business if they were dating or not? Seriously what the hell? It was exactly one of those moments when one of the newer reporters made a fatal mistake. She’d been bugging them for weeks now, getting really into her new assignment of figuring out everything about the crime fighting duo. Most of the other reporters had learned that it was best to wait until after the danger had passed to approach. But nope. Not this stubborn girl.
No, she flat out walked right into the middle of the fray, shoved a microphone and camera into their faces and started rattling off questions like they weren’t trying to fight for their lives at the moment. How freaking dense does someone have to be to do that? She can’t be getting paid enough to do that.
Of course, the latest akuma had had attention issues and was absolutely furious at the fact that the reporters (and now Chat Noir and Ladybug) had been ignoring him, so he’d lashed out, launching razor blades (this kid had ISSUES) at the defenseless reporter. Chat had launched himself in front of her, but he went down after the first round.
Ladybug had thought quickly and thrown the reporter away before trying to distract the akuma from attacking both the stupid press as well as the heavily bleeding Chat Noir, but it was all in vain. The akumatized citizen was too infuriated by the reporter and had now focused all of his attention on her. Ladybug simply wasn’t fast enough to block the next razor attack, and suddenly the innocent girl was pinned to the wall with the razors. She was dead in a matter of minutes.
Ladybug and Chat Noir hadn’t been able to finally stop that particular akuma for another half an hour, but luckily no one else had been hurt. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been so lucky and they were covered in cuts. The lucky charm had fixed the property damage, but had only stopped some of the more serious bleeding from the cuts the two heroes sustained. Chat Noir had an arm draped over Ladybug’s shoulder and he was leaning heavily on her, trying to ignore the vast amount of straight razors sticking out of his back.
If he took them out now, then they wouldn’t stop the bleeding. He needed to be able to wrap them up and clean the cuts asap, but the reporters had a different idea. Obviously ignoring the fact that the two heroes were bloody and exhausted, they swarmed. The dead girl’s body had been taken away by an ambulance only a couple minutes after she died, so all that was left was a sickening blood stain on the brick wall of the closest building. Some reporters looked like they wanted to be sick, but the bolder ones just looked angry.
“What do you have to say for yourselves about letting a civilian get killed?” they demanded harshly, all talking over themselves and attacking them for not being able to save one person. It was actually a miracle that this was their first casualty. That was just crazy. They kept on hurling insults and accusations at the downed duo and Adrien was quickly becoming overwhelmed. Their Miraculous’ were beeping and Adrien was loosing blood fast. They needed to get to cover now.
Marinette was exhausted and glared angrily at the reporters. “I didn’t see you guys doing anything to stop her from getting in the middle of the fight. We were handling it, but then she drew his fire. We can’t save everyone, when we’re barely able to save ourselves!” she yelled angrily, adjusting the nearly unconscious form of her partner so that less strain was put on his injuries.
“Look at us! We’re just kids! We aren’t supposed to be heroes. We’re just doing the best that we can and sometimes it’s not enough. But we’re trying and we seem to be the only ones. So you can shut your ungrateful mouths and bug off! I need to get Chat to medical attention before we lose him permanently. What would you do then, I wonder? What would you do if we just stopped saving you.” She snarled, backing away with the limp form of her partner in tow. “Don’t expect us to do anything for you again.” She hissed.
Then she was leaping up and over buildings, away from the bloody courtyard and the hounding reporters. The group just stood there, cameras broadcasting this entire exchange live to every news station – even Alya, from her perch on a building out of danger, was able to get Ladybug’s speech up on her Ladyblog. Everyone was just stunned.
Ladybug had always been the happy one, always ready with a helpful idea or advice. Chat Noir was always there to take a hit and relieve the tension by crack a joke. But now they were down and Ladybug had yelled at them. No, she’d snarled at them. And she’d claimed that she wouldn’t help them. One of the more… anti-vigilante reporters took this chance to turn to her camera man and begin to speak.
“Did you hear that folks? Not only did Ladybug and Chat Noir shirk their duty by letting a civilian get murdered, but now they have abandoned us. Are these the kinds of heroes that you want protecting your city?” she said, beginning to spew more and more anti-Ladybug and Chat Noir propaganda. Soon enough, some of the others hopped on the bandwagon and began their own slandering of the city’s former heroes.