Chapter Text
While a decade of isolation and copious amounts of anime had prepared Adrien Agreste for some of the challenges of assuming his role as a hero of Paris – the prettiest as Ladybug was more adorable and radiant than simply pretty – certain frustrations were … unexpected.
Being mind-controlled and puppeted around like a cat by every third akuma, suggesting that furry fetishes and leather-pet-play kinks were more common than was otherwise reported, was near the top of that last.
But no one talked about that.
What happened in non-con pet-play akuma battles stayed in non-con pet-play akuma battles.
Aside from that frustrating reality with which Adrien had to deal in the therapy sessions that Nathalie wrote off as business expenses and no one in France's equivalent of the IRS asked any questions when they saw that Adrien worked for Gabriel , the most daunting thing about becoming a superhero, and something touched upon only briefly and tangentially in a few Superman comics and films, was changing costumes.
It was heck in a handbasket finding a place to get away and hide so that he could transform. Indeed, a lack of privacy, which he had never been able to enjoy in his civilian life, being poked and prodded and manhandled by makeup artists and assistants preparing him for shoots, was one of the great challenges of his early career, at least until he'd marked out the proper locations around College Francois Dupont, his fencing academy, and home.
Once he had those committed to memory, though, he was alright.
At least until he had to detransform .
Having that bevy of safe-spots all planned out in advance was at least somewhat helpful when his miraculous was blaring and he was scampering across rooftops, claws scraping and scrabbling on loose tiles as sweat matted his hair to his brow, on a race against the clock towards his favoured hiding and detransformation spot, right across the street from College Francois Dupont.
Until he ran smack dab into construction work. Beneath him as he swore under his breath - “Ah, Fiddlesticks!" which was totally swearing of the most vile sort - a group of city officials in hard hats and yellow-vests, only one of whom appeared to actually be doing anything other than supervising, laboured on repairing the cracked pavement of the once oh-so-convenient hideaway.
Perched on the very edge of the rooftop above the gaggle of workmen, his heart jackhammering in his throat as he loosed a plaintive hiss at the sight, Chat Noir cast his gaze about him in a frantic quest to find some other detransformation spot. Oh, the roof might do, but CCTV cameras, news helicopters departing the scene of the most recent battle, or even someone in one of any number of windows in the adjacent buildings could easily spot him. Who knew, really, what eyes were upon him?
With a trill of delight that nearly descended into a lustrous and perhaps slightly lurid purr, he found precisely what he'd been seeking in the form of another small nook, almost hidden in the school courtyard itself. From the rows of dumpsters and flotsam, scraps of trash buffeted by the light wind that set his wild mane fluttering, it seemed as if it was some kind of dumping ground for the school's refuse. That supposition was confirmed when he set his baton to the edge of the roof, bracing his feet on the ledge so that he could control the angle of his flight, and burst into the air in a perfect parabolic arc that had him landing right smack dab on target.
Confirmed because the place stank, his nose flooding with the reek of sweating garbage and rotting food, even as his transformation dropped, the burst of toxic green light chasing shadows down the corridor of darkness between two dumpsters.
“Ah, wow !” Plagg's eyes fluttered almost rapturously as he breathed deeply of the fetid air. Adrien slapped a hand to his mouth to hold back the vomit. He'd always had a bit of a weak stomach. “This place is great! Is this going to be our regular transformation spot now?”
“Gross, Plagg.” He took a stumbling step towards the opening between the two containers, already lamenting the verbal beating he was going to take from Nathalie when he crawled into the limo with the stench of rotten garbage clinging to his designer clothes.
Rounding the corner in a concerted hustle to make it back to Madam Mendeleiev's classroom before he wound up with a late slip that would doubtlessly send him careening into yet another face-to-tablet meeting with his aggrieved father, Adrien had the wind punched out of his gut when a compact ball of energy and warm flesh careened right into him.
Normally, he'd be able to hold his own and stay steady on his feet, given the keen sense of balance and agility he'd refined through his extra-curriculars supplemented by a little spillover of feline grace.
Off balance from his hurried turn, though, he had no footing.
So, instead, he ended up flat on his butt, hands splayed out on the rough pavement and shocks of pain racing up his spine from his bruised rear.
“Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I'm just madly clumsy and I didn't see you there because who would have expected someone to be back here when I was but that's my fault and not yours since if I blamed you that would be like victim blaming though I'm definitely not thinking about you as if you're a victim and I really hope that you won't tell your father or Sabrina or the police about this if it does count as sexual harassment since I touched you without asking and I-”
“Marinette,” he grunted even though he was still seeing stars, straining under the girl's weight as she sat right on his sternum, having somehow contorted around to lay in precisely the wrong spot. “It's completely fine. Just-” A hiss tumbled out of his lips as she shifted, palm sinking into a sweet-spot of pain right in his gut.
“Oh, sorry!” Arm braced to the pavement this time, rather than his tummy, she veritably flipped to her feet while pulling him up alongside her in a display of acrobatic prowess and sheer physical strength that left him flushing.
From his breathlessness. Nothing more! Marinette being a pint-sized powerhouse in addition to her status as a phenomenal baker, overly-generous friend and confidant, keen and responsible class president, and all around spot of sunshine, delight, and joy in his life wasn't enough to cause him to grow breathless.
“What are you doing out here, Marinette?” he inquired, dusting himself off as the girl leapt back against one of the dumpsters, cracking her hip into the metal siding and then clutching at the injury with a yelp. The poor girl was, indeed, so terribly clumsy, and all of this was really his fault after all.
Her response tumbled out in a squeak as her face flushed red with - Adrien could only presume - pain. “I- I wasn't doing anything! Why would I have to be doing someo-thing!? I don't do any things of any variety. Just Marinette-things which aren't really things but more like... entities.”
Entities?
“Marinette, if there's something wrong, or something that you feel that you can't talk about, I- I understand,” he assured, taking her hand in his to stroke her knuckles as much to comfort her as himself, though, while her breathing hitched, her eyes squeezed shut in what he could only assume was disgust at his touch.
What a heel for touching her without her consent.
“I'm sorry.” With that apology, he let her hand fall, jamming his own into his jean pockets. “I shouldn't have done that, or pressured you. Whatever is going on, Marinette, it's your business and not something that I should try to pry into, but-”
Tears strained for release, but he held them back for her sake, plastering on a smile that he only hoped was encouraging.
“But if you need help,” he stumbled forward, the palpitations of his wounded heart reverberating through his entire body, “or if you want to talk to someone, you have friends who care about you and want the best for you: Alya, Nino, me. And your parents, too. Someone can help, and everyone would want to help.”
“Oh, no!” A pout mingled with a grimace set her lower lip protruding, highlighting the plump pink softness and hint of gloss. Her hands clapped together, fingers locking tight as if they were struggling against one another in a mortal lock. “Adrien, y-you can touch me whenever you want because friends touch each other all the time – Just nice and friendly touching!”
He just had to keep his eyes off that lip, all luscious like the fluffiest and tastiest of desserts which was an injudicious metaphor or analogy that sprung to mind for no reason because he most certainly had no interest in eating Marinette's lips.
He wasn't a cannibal, and Marinette... didn't trust him. What a repugnant fool he was, making himself sick for being so undependable.
“I- then what's wrong?” he whined like a plaintive kitten, much as he loathed the way in which she flinched away from him. “What are you even doing back here?”
Marinette's crooked grin, like a half-melted wax figurine that was being used in a voodoo ceremony, did not assuage his concerns as she slugged his shoulder.
While her shoulders bounced and head drooped, she bowled onward. “Oh, it's nothing all that serious, really. I was just- just-”
“Just what, Marinette?” Adrien asked. A radiating throb of pain paled in comparison to the knowledge that Marinette (the sweetest girl in class – the sweetest person in his life who always seemed to illuminate a room with her presence) didn't trust him. Watching her fumble from behind his drooping eyelids, he made every effort not to permit disappointment to leak out. “I – if something's wrong, I just want to help.”
“Just- just-”
“Yes?” The throaty rush of air fell like a death-rattle on his ear; he was tormenting her, trying to force a revelation and intimacy that he obviously didn't deserve, and the recrimination burned hot in his lungs. Suddenly inexplicably cool and tight, Plagg's miraculous felt like it was cutting the blood flow from his finger.
“ Smoking! ”
Adrien immediately regretted his decision to close distance, heeding his cat-like instincts to possibly curl up in Marinette's lap as the frantic screeched response tore into his eardrums, the girl herself wincing at the echoes that resounded down brick walls.
Tumbling about his brain like a bag of rough pebbles tossed into a washing machine was the incongruous image of Marinette plucking forth an illicitly-acquired pack of smokes from her pink purse and raising a little death stick to her lips – that were too pretty and pink even now as she mouthed non-words like a guppy feeding – to ever be sullied by tobacco-stains or those bright blue eyes clouded by puffs of smoke,
Before he could muster a response to that unfathomable revelation, Marinette finally found her voice.
“That's right! That's it! I was in this alleyway smoking,” she gushed, hands raised, palms facing skyward, as her head bobbed. Then she waved him off like he'd just popped off with some irrational gag about him being a shapshifting alien from Mars: “ Biiiiig smoker. Massive. Like six packs a day smoker which you'd think is a lot but it's not to me and that's why I'm always skipping class and late just so that I can get my nicotine fix like the smoker I am!”
It felt like he'd swallowed a whole truckload of Camembert, and, unlike Plagg, his stomach could not expand thanks to the marvels of kwami magic. He'd never known a smoker before! Some older models had, on occasion, indulged as a means of calming their troubled nerves and easing jittery hands, but they were a rotating cast of professional acquaintances.
They weren't someone special.
They weren't Marinette .
Addiction as the cause of her myriad tardies and shirked responsibilities was never something that he'd contemplated.
Clearly he was a terrible friend.
As he took Marinette's hand in a failing effort to sooth her, the alien smile - that had already seemed to take on a yellow cast - pierced his heart. His poor, dear friend deserved all the support that he could afford to her, regardless of her habits and life choices, particularly when she'd been consumed by such sheer, unreasoning terror.
“Marinette,” he breathed, clutching tight her fingers and gauging her reactions, which was rather difficult considering the flaming reds and pinks that rolled over her cheeks, but discerned no reluctance. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“Oh, s-sure thing, Adrien,” she choked out, and her gaze dropped to the grungy pavement.
Just to ensure that she knew that his affirmation and support were genuine, something that he would share with the entire class and the entire world, if necessary, even if she wasn't ready to disclose her secret addiction, he kept right on holding her hand as they returned to class.
Still, even as they took their place in class and Marinette, once finally loosed from his rough and unworthy grip, scuttled off to plop down next to Alya and smack her face to the desktop in a succession of brutal impacts as her girlfriend winced and stroked her between her shoulder blades, the uneasy tumult in Adrien's guts refused to subside.