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As soon as Marinette uttered the words to those reporters she knew that she was going to regret it. It’s jut that she was so frustrated with how every one was acting and her partner was bleeding out. But instead of offering medical assistance, the reporters chose to harp at them for being unable to save everyone. It wasn’t even the first time someone had died. It was just the first time that it was a reporter.
The others had all been crushed by buildings while trying to hide or the akuma powers had killed them. Sometimes the miraculous powers just didn’t work and she didn’t know why. She had a theory that it was because the laws of nature can be bent only so much – like when Adrien had been erased from time – but others, it was just fated.
Bat things happen when you try to mess with fate. The universe tried to correct itself and often took more than it was owed.
She quickly ran over buildings until she made it to the roof of her house. Her parents were away on a long overdue vacation, so right now it was a safe place for them. Normally, they’d go and hide out at the Agreste mansion, but with all eyes on the duo, heading to the mansion would draw too much attention. A random Parisian roof didn’t have the same effect.
After de-transforming, she gently placed her charge down on the floor face down. She needed to clean his back and she didn’t want to aggravate his injuries anymore than she already had. She came back into her room a minute later, hefting a rather impressive medical kit behind her.
It was one of the things that Adrien had insisted upon giving her after they started dating and found out each other’s identities. It was a really expensive medical kit and for god reason. It was loaded with every type of self-care kit imaginable. In between all of their activities and schedules, they’d both also found the time for some first aid classes, so they should be able to handle their own injuries without panicking too much.
Adrien had de-transformed and Plagg was nibbling at some cheese bread she’d left out for this express purpose. He looked exhausted and Tikki was actually holding the cat kwami up. “I’m healing some of the more serious internal wounds, but you’re gonna have to get those razors out of him before I can do more.” He said quietly, trying to reassure her and eat his cheese at the same time. Tikki shoved a sugar cookie in her mouth before trying to get Plagg to eat some more cheese.
She knelt down beside her partner, glancing at the kwami again. “Can you stop the bleeding while I remove the razors? I don’t want him bleeding out.” She said softly while probing the wounds on his back. Not bothering to wait for Plagg to verbally respond (knowing full well he’d follow her request) she began slowly pulling out the blades and dumping them on a plastic bag she’d found under the sink. Once the blades were gone, she gently cut off his shirt, tugging the cloth from where it had dried into the wounds. It was slow going, but she was able to get it off of him before he woke up.
Plagg flinched and Adrien shifted slightly, but so far he was out for the count. Luckily, thanks to Plagg, there was only a small trickle of blood. Unfortunately, Adrien regained consciousness when she started disinfecting the stab wounds. He flinched, almost rolling over but the pain stopped him. “Wha… what happened?” he asked, looking around blearily around hind. She shushed him before gesturing to the med kit and the pile of bloody razors.
“You got hurt. I’m gonna have to stitch you up. Plagg can’t handle it all by himself. Then we need to talk about today.” His expression immediately sobered up at her words. He nodded before carefully lying down again, shifting his head into her lap.
“Just give me something to bite down on.” He said, accepting the towel she handed him. Carefully placing It between his teeth, he nodded at her and buried his head in her stomach. Taking that as a sign to begin with the stiches, she deftly disinfected the needle and threaded it before putting neat rows of stitches in each stab wound.
He bit down hard and grabbed her thighs hard enough to leave finger shaped bruises, but he didn’t make a sound. He was used to this by now because when she had to do this at his house, if he made too much noise they would be discovered. When she was doen, she pet his hair softly, cooing at him for being such a good kitty. To avoid having to jostle him, she just dumped the dirty materials on the plastic bag along with the razors.
Plagg and Tikki had both flown down and settled on her shoulders, joining her occasionally in soothingly petting Adrien’s hair. After a couple moments he began to purr and doze off, spitting out the towel. Marinette then slowly reached for her laptop and began checking the news stations for their coverage of the battle today.
With each video and article she clicked on, the angrier she got. They were blaming every thing and anything on the two creature themed heroes. The media was so fickle. One minute they were grateful for the duo’s presence, the next, they were blaming them for everything wrong in the world.
A convenient scape goat, if you will. She felt her upper lip curl in disgust at the countless posts vilifying them.
Even some of the blog’s which had formerly been dedicated to them had changed their tune and brought up other incidents of death claiming that Ladybug and Chat Noir were unreliable. Just stupid teens way in over their heds. They conveniently forgot that they were teens and that they’d saved Paris almost once every day for a couple years now when they decided to claim that countless deaths were directly their fault and that they should stand trial for endangering the public.
First of all, what?!
None of that was in any way their fault. They were doing the best that they could. They were the only ones that could too! What did Paris think was going to happen when people destroyed the city? Of course there would be death. Of course there would be accidents. That’s just life in a city with a supervillain. It’s how things go.
Adrien eventually woke up again, coming back to alertness due to Marinette’s anger. He nudged her side with his nose, whining softly in the back of his throat as he tried to figure out what had made her so angry. On the screen was the Ladyblog – which was the sole blog that hadn’t trashed the names of Chat Noir and Ladybug yet. She clicked on a couple more random newscasts, getting the same stories everywhere.
“The media is fickle. They hate us today, but they’ll love us again tomorrow when we save the yet again.” He said sleepily, doing his best to burrow and curl up in her lap. She frowned and ran her fingers through his hair again.
“Do you want some painkillers?” she asked softly, pushing aside her own anger in favour of taking care of her partner. He was more important right now. He nodded slightly, and Tikki flitted over with the bottle. He dry swallowed a couple capsules before looking up at her again.
“You’re still upset,” he said softly, lifting his arm weakly, petting her cheek. She sighed before smiling down at him.
“Chaton, I can never get anything past you.” She continued running her fingers through his hair, the rumbling purr calming and soothing her. “Do you ever wonder what would happen if we just let police handle akumas for a day?” she asked suddenly.
He closed his eyes as he thought about his response. “They’d be floundering within 30 minutes,” he said drowsily, “besides, they’ll just hate us more.” She had to admit that he had a pint.
“I know,” she sighed, looking back towards the video that Alya had posted which covered the entire fight. She winced as Adrien was hit and then the reporter was killed in such a brutal way. “I may have lashed out a bit after you lost consciousness.” She confessed sheepishly. His eyes opened so that he could stare at the computer screen curiously.
“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. Don’t expect us to do anything for you again.”
She heard her own voice hissing and spitting at the reporters. It was always weird hearing one’s own voice on a recording. Although it was even weirder to see herself as Ladybug fighting.
“You made a pun, my Lady,” he grinned.
“Ugh, out of everything there, you pick that to focus on?” she groans and he snickers.
“But in all honesty, that wasn’t… that bad,” Adrien mumbled, trying for encouraging but falling flat. “I mean, you do make a very good point, and I can’t honestly say that I wouldn’t do the same thing if I was in your place.” He closed his eyes again and curled up in a tighter ball, careful not to aggravate his injuries. “We can just not be nice to the press and show up a little late to tomorrow’s akuma. You know take our sweet time and blame it on our injuries.”
“You’re right, Chaton. We do still need to protect the innocent citizens even if the press are jerks.” She caved, falling backwards to lay down on the floor with her arms spread. Adrien – and the cat he is – took that as an invitation to spread his entire body over hers, falling asleep listening to her heart beat and rubbing his head under her chin.
Of course the next day arrived much sooner than the duo would have wanted. Adrien had stayed the night – his dad and Nathalie were away, and Sabine and Tom were none the wiser due to their absence.
So Adrien just took some of the extra clothes he kept there for situations just like this (if he deliberately chose an outfit that was a Marinette original, and one that was pretty loose and wouldn’t aggravate his back and bandages, then nobody but him needed to know that) and then scaled down the building. Marinette’s neighbours (who did report to her parents despite Marinette asking them not to) just thought that he was being a nice boyfriend by walking her to school.
This was common place after a particularly hard battle.
And honestly? Neither of them could say that they were all that eager to be going to class. Sure, Adrien’s grades were phenomenal and after studying with her boyfriend, Marinette’s were nothing to scoff at either, but that didn’t mean they liked going to class while injured. They had to hide all kinds of pain so people wouldn’t get suspicious. Especially after their fights began becoming more public. Adrien’s extensive back injuries couldn’t be explained around. He’d have to be careful.
Marinette was clumsy and everyone knew that. Bumps and scrapes – even a broken bone – were normal to see on the baker’s daughter. Adrien was graceful and moved with a cat like elegance. He couldn’t possibly tear up his back like he did from fencing or Marinette taking him down with her.
Adrien dreaded sitting down without having Marinette to lean on. He was drugged up to the gills, but it was barely doing anything for him. Nino was bound to be suspicious. And Alya – the reported dedicated to revealing the identities of Chat Noir and Ladybug – sat right behind him.
If she noticed the bandages…
Well, hopefully she wouldn’t.
But then there was the reaction to Ladybug’s statement to consider. Would their classmates think them selfish? Would they be forced to sit quietly while their names were slandered? Could they?
And if they spoke in their own defense, would it be too obvious? (Marinette really should change her hairstyle, shouldn’t she) There was so much running through their heads that they almost didn’t realize that they’d make it to the school. With one last glance at each other, they entered the building.
As per usual, Nino and Alya were both waiting for them at the entrance to the class room. They set their faces into their usual bright but calm (or in Marinette’s case, nervous) smiles and then waved happily to their two friends.
“Wow! You guys are actually early for once. I thought it was an impossibility due to you photoshoots and Marinette’s chronic oversleeping.” Alya said brightly, causing Marinette to roll her eyes and blush a bright red.
“Ha ha, laugh it up.” She drawled, the effect lost by the fact that she was blushing up a storm.
“Yeah…” Adrien said sheepishly, raising his hand to rest on the back of his neck, but thinking better of it at the last moment. “I hurt my back at fencing yesterday so Nathalie made sure the shoots would be lighter.” He lied smoothly, ignoring the tightening of his girlfriend’s fingers on his sleeve.
He knew that Nino would pick up on his pain and would no doubt ask a lot of questions. If he already had an explanation, he’d overlook inconsistencies and just explain things away all by himself. Alya might be harder to throw, but that was fine.
“Do you mind switching seats with Marinette for today? I think I might want to take a nap and the chair won’t be good for my back,” he explained, blushing sheepishly at his friend’s knowing smirk.
“Sure bro, for your back.” He said slyly, wiggling his eyebrows. Adrien rolled his eyes but he shot Nino a grateful look nonetheless. He just smiled before wrapping his arm around Alya’s shoulder. “Besides, this works out in my favour too! I get to get my cuddle on with my gorgeous girlfriend.” His sleazy smile quickly dropped from his face at Alya’s glare.
She scoffed and roller her eyes but quickly got over it in favour of turning to Marinette excitedly. “Oh! But Marinette, did you hear about the akuma attack yesterday? Someone was killed!” she said, her face taking on a cross between an angry and a somber expression. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sad that someone had to die, but she was a disrespectful greenie and no one really liked her.”
Putting her best effort forward, Marinette tried to lie to her best friend. “Sorry, all the information I could get was during that newscast. The bakery was really busy yesterday without my parents so I was left to watch it. Although thanks to Adrien things weren’t that bad.” She mused nervously, willing her hands not to shake. “I’m sure the news was biased against Ladybug and Chat Noir though, so tell me what really happened.” She insisted as they sat down at their desks.
Adrien sat at the edge of his seat, but dutifully turned to stare expectantly at Alya. Marinette’s own wide eyes bored holes into the blogger as she waited for her to tell her version of the events. She knew how she and Adrien saw things and she knew how the anti-Ladybug and Chat Noir reporters saw it, but what she didn’t know was what teens her own age thought.
Alya bit her lip nervously before glancing around the room. See that no one was watching them all that closely at the moment, she began to rant. “I think what those reporters said was complete bogus! I was there, I saw the exact same thing and what they said happened was a complete and utter lie! Chat Noir and Ladybug didn’t abandon that reporter! Chat Noir actually got severely injured after taking a hit for her.”
“They can’t save everyone and as Ladybug said, they’re just teens. The reporter knew what she was getting into. She was 32 years old! She might have been green considering akuma attacks, but she’d been a reporter in Quebec for years before this. She just interrupted the two heroes in the middle of the fight and expected that the person who was akumatized after no one paying attention to him wouldn’t notice?!”
By now her voice had reached aloud volume in her anger. She was fired up and ranting in the defense of Paris’ heroes But due to her volume, she’d also attracted everyone else’s attention.
“While that may be, you can’t deny what Ladybug said.” Nino pointed out, getting a pretty solid glare from his girlfriend. That was when Nathaniel spoke up from his spot in the back of the class.
“Wait, what did Ladybug say? I must’ve watched a different news story.” He said in confusion, frowning from behind his sketchbook.
“After being attacked by the press for not getting themselves killed to save that stupid reporter, Ladybug declared that they wouldn’t help us anymore.” Chloe oh so helpfully pointed out, looking at her nails. “So much for heroes of the people.” She sneered. At Chloe’s announcement, the entire class was paying attention and getting ready to be involved.
“But like you said, Chloe, they would have gotten killed if they had done anything more.” Kim pointed out, “I’d rather us lose some no name reporter than the only people capable of taking care of the akumatized citizens.”
Chloe scoffed before glaring at the boy. “Yeah, but its’ their job to save us! What if this happens again but with someone more important than some stupid reporter?” she hissed, 100% ready to turn on the heroes that she once vehemently supported.
“Chat Noir took that hit for the reporter!” Alya yelled, standing up and glaring at the blonde bitch. “For all we know he could be dying or dead right now. Ladybug isn’t a rash person! She wouldn’t say something like that without a good reason. Her partner was down and people were attacking her. What was she supposed to do?”
Others in the class were nodding and murmuring in agreement. Chloe sniffed and stuck her nose in the air. Then she got a gleam in her eyes and she stared at Adrien. “Well Adrikins, what do you think about this situation?” she demanded smugly, confident that Adrien would agree with her.
But seeing as Adrien was Chat Noir and his girlfriend was Ladybug… he’d never do that.
“Well honestly? I totally get why Ladybug would say that.” He admitted in the soft way his civilian self spoke. “Being in the spotlight is exhausting and if you’re not used to how fickle the media is, then it can be overwhelming. Chat Noir and Ladybug are our age. They didn’t ask for any of this responsibility. They deserve a break. We should respect that.”
Marinette gently pulled him closer to rest on her chest. His back must be killing him by now. “They give their everything for this city, sacrificing so much, and all we can do is be ungrateful. We don’t know anything about them! Guys, they’re our age. They’re probably still in school. How bad did things slip that our greatest protectors are teenagers?” she said quietly, refusing to look anyone in the eye.
As everyone thought about all the arguments put forward, they failed to notice their teacher who had been watching the informal debate from the front of the class.
“While I’m glad you are all engaged in the current events of our city, perhaps we could face the front and start our lesson?” she said, smiling warmly at the blushing students. They were all embarrassed that they hadn’t seen her earlier. “Since you are all so interested in the topic, I’ll make it into an assignment. You will write a 3 page formal essay on your opinion of the incident yesterday. I expect a well backed up argument. You will have class time to work on it, and I expect the papers to be on my desk by next Monday.”
The class groaned at the announcement, but the two heroes in disguise weren’t exactly not excited. If nothing else, they will get a good grade on this. It was just the anxiety about what the others would write about. Well that and if they would give too much away.
But that wasn’t all they were worried about. They had no idea when the next akuma attack would be. Also, what would they plan on doing once the akuma did attack. Unfortunately, the likelihood of the next akuma being related in some way to that reporter.
They had only gotten halfway through their introduction when the screams began.