Work Text:
“Miraculous Ladybug!”
The swarm of red and pink swirled all around them. Overturned cars were back in place, piles of unrecognizable rubble glued themselves back into buildings, and craters in the road were filled up once more. Everything was back as it was. As if nothing had ever happened.
A white butterfly flew past Ryuko’s gaze, disappearing into the night. Soft pitter-pattering became heavy thuds knocking down on the roof. She turned to find Ladybug behind her, hunched over with her hands on her knees. Then, as fast as she came, Ladybug whizzed her yoyo somewhere.
“Well, that was super— super fun and all,” she said, waving her free hand, “but I gotta go.” Her footing was stumbling all over. The yoyo’s string was loose, as if it wasn’t anchored to something. “Bug out!”
“Ladybug, your—”
Unfortunately, Ryuko’s warning fell short of fully leaving her mouth in time as Ladybug slipped off the roof.
Before she herself even registered it, her body became light as wind, and Ladybug’s flailing arms were now twisting between her trails of dust and cold air. She didn’t need to be human to feel Ladybug quivering in her embrace. Slowly, she carried Ladybug to the ground, dropping the poor girl back on her feet.
Ryuko whisked herself back together into a corporeal form. She crossed her arms, waiting for Ladybug to compose herself.
Plink!
The yoyo fell. Its strings were pulled all the way out, entangled like a mess.
Ladybug ran her fingers through her hair. Her breaths were short, sharp, like any amount of oxygen she inhaled wasn’t enough.
She held her head in her hands. “I— No, no, no… That— I’ve never—” Ladybug’s voice had been cracking earlier, but now it was impossible to even hear her without getting closer. “I swear, I’ve… Ugh…” She rubbed her knuckles against her eyes.
Then, a sniffle.
Ryuko felt a change in the air. She strode forward, an arm cautiously hanging over Ladybug’s shoulder and her back facing the windows of the apartments around them. They were lit up, and the silhouettes watching couldn’t have been more obvious. She glanced over her back. People were beginning to emerge from their hiding spaces.
Overcoming her hesitation, Ryuko patted Ladybug’s back, if only to get her attention. It worked, and Ladybug looked up with reddened eyes.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?”
Ryuko curled her fingers around the iron lattice, letting her hands feel the prickly cold of metal and her lungs breathe in the faint, rusty smell. She hadn’t had a chance, nor an excuse, to come up here until now. The mix of yellow and white lights continuously flickered. A fog was descending upon the city.
Ladybug’s yoyo lay next to her, its owner a little further away, completely unharmed. Darting around Paris using a yoyo was a strange experience, to say the least, along with the added factor of carrying another person. Thankfully, it had come to her easily.
How long has it been? Five minutes? Was that enough time given to Ladybug to breathe?
Ryuko faced the girl in question. Ladybug had curled into a ball. Her hair was unkempt, blown by the force of gales, and she kept pinching her fingers as if to make sure they were still intact. She was… not in the best shape, that was certain.
How should she go about this? Maybe she should be honest. Honesty was a good quality.
“You look horrible.”
For the first time since the two met up to fight the supervillain of the day, Ladybug chuckled. It was hoarse, dry, like she hadn’t drunk water in hours.
“Yeah,” Ladybug agreed, “I knew that already.”
The Eiffel Tower was emptied of its visitors, and the lifts were closed off. No one could’ve been here, yet Ryuko found it hard to say Marinette’s name. “I mean it. Have you even gotten any sleep? Any food and drinks in your stomach?” she asked.
A concerning amount of time passed before Ladybug said anything. “I ate breakfast this morning… Okay, it was more like brunch.”
“What did you eat, exactly?”
“Dunno. I forgot.”
Ryuko kept her sigh to herself. It should’ve been more obvious to her—why Marinette wasn’t joining everyone for lunch as often, why she always seemed so far away from the rest of the world. Distant. Aloof. Like a wisp of cloud passing by, drifting mindlessly in the wind.
“Is something…” No, that came out wrong. She didn’t need to ask when the answer was clear. Ryuko pushed the yoyo closer to Ladybug, scooting over to close their gap. “Have you talked to someone?”
Ladybug didn’t complain, didn’t push her away. She wanted to think it was a good sign, but a good sign would’ve been Ladybug crashing into her arms. A good sign would’ve been this never happening in the first place.
When Ryuko knew Ladybug wouldn’t respond, she continued, “You should consider getting help.”
Ladybug threw her yoyo off the edge.
Or that was what Ryuko thought had happened. In reality, Ladybug had crooked her finger into the handle as she flung the toy away. It dangled hopelessly, waiting to be pulled back up. The yoyo swung back and forth, ringing the tower like a bell, before coming to a stop.
Quietness had never sounded so harsh in Ryuko’s ears.
Ladybug’s chest rose and fell. Her jaw was tense, but not tense enough. She blinked rapidly, her blues now glassy, but she’d already exhausted her tears on the way here.
Dazed, Ladybug hid her face in her knees, her finger scratching along the side of the yoyo’s handle. “No one can know,” she mumbled. “No one.”
The air was thin. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Ryuko insisted.
“I didn’t mean… Not like that…” Eventually, Ladybug rested her chin atop her knees. “How can I talk to someone when all my problems are because I’m Ladybug?” she said, this time clearer than ever. Maybe that was her way of apologizing for ever speaking weirdly to Kagami.
“I don’t want to burden Alya with more of my sob stories—God knows she doesn’t deserve that—and Luka’s on the other side of the world because of me, and now he has a girlfriend and a good life ahead of him, so…” Ladybug pulled at the strings of her yoyo. “I just… I’m— Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about me.”
The tower rang again and again as her yoyo crawled back to the top in worse shape. A minute grimace crossed Ladybug’s face, disappearing as she looked Ryuko in the eyes. “Big smile, see?” She grinned.
There was dirt smeared across her face, and she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Ryuko dropped her stare. She held tightly onto the lattice, letting the bright lights burn her vision. Her canines pierced the insides of her mouth.
“Kagami.” Ladybug patted the small space between them. But her fingers were tapping the metal anxiously, and the way she said her name sounded foreign. “I’ll be fine. I can— Wha—”
Ryuko didn’t know what had happened. She’d lost control of her own body. Suddenly, Ladybug’s ribbon ties were tickling her neck, warm breaths blew on her hair, and her back was only met with the night’s biting chill.
She had to say something, right? Ladybug was stiff and almost lifeless. She had to say something. Something.
“I’m here. I want to help you.”
The wait was long. Then, cautiously, a pair of arms circled Ryuko’s stomach. It didn’t feel the same as she remembered. It was different, alien.
For her, this was less of Ladybug accepting her help by hugging her back and more of Ladybug simply surrendering to whatever Ryuko’s wants were. Whatever she said, Ladybug would agree. Whatever she did, Ladybug would go along with it.
That wasn’t what helping was.
She wasn’t helping.
“I’m sorry for jumping on you like that,” Ryuko said as she released her hold. “I’m not fond of sudden physical contact. I don’t know why I did it to you. I should’ve known better.”
Ryuko tried pushing Ladybug away as best as she could, but it was as though her hands were glued to that damn spotted suit. Ladybug was as light as a feather, and the two times Ryuko had carried her around tonight were so easy, like she was built for it.
So why couldn’t she let her go now?
She didn’t have the time to answer—that was what Kagami told herself—as Ladybug clasped their hands together. A genuine frown curled Ladybug’s mouth, and her mask furrowed, creasing. Her eyes were pleading.
“No, please.”
Ladybug lifted Ryuko’s hand to her face, allowing Ryuko to caress her soft, freckled skin, her claws to brush over the dried tears. Ladybug nuzzled into her palm as if her life depended on it. She cracked her eye open, barely a squint.
“Please let me stay like this.”
Ryuko was lost. She wasn’t made for this purpose. She wasn’t taught how to handle this. She opted to let Ladybug drag her hand around, let the girl settle into a more comfortable position for herself, whilst she wordlessly mirrored.
Overlooking the city that never slept, Ryuko found herself sitting atop the Eiffel Tower with Ladybug resting on her shoulder, her own arm ensnared—she was certain it was going numb by the minute—and fluttering eyelashes brushing against her skin. This wasn’t how she’d imagined this night would go. Not at all.
It wasn’t like Ryuko minded or anything. It was just that she had not a clue what she should do. She wasn’t aware of friends who did… what they were doing. What should Ryuko do to support her ally, Kagami to console her friend? Should she really be letting Ladybug wallow in her misery, even though that was what the girl had asked for?
“I think you should go home.”
Ladybug stirred, changing the position where her head lay, sinking deeper into her clothed clavicle. “Mmm, shouldn’t you be the one to go home first?” she said. “I have… patrolling duties and stuff.”
Ryuko was unconvinced. Unconvinced that Marinette’s parents were that easygoing, and unconvinced that the superhero really had other duties to attend to.
“Your retorts aren’t as persuasive as you believe them to be.” She could sense Ladybug’s heartbeat quickening. Ryuko ignored the strange knot in her stomach. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Just know that I will always be here for you, and I will always help you. If you want me to, that is.”
Ladybug cleared her throat. “I call lies on the first part. I know you hate secrets, Kagami.”
Her own name came out strained. “I do. But how I feel is not the problem here,” Ryuko said. She glanced down at Ladybug’s dark, red-tipped hair, illuminated by the bright tower lights.
Silence. Ryuko hated it, but she couldn’t hate the fact that Marinette was doing this to her. She could never hate Marinette, hate how reckless she could be, hate how indecisive she was around people she liked, hate how she would keep the wrong things to herself.
“I’m… not very good at this,” Ryuko admitted, that exact string of words eliciting a shuffle from Ladybug, “but I want you to remember how you’ve always tried helping me with my issues. It didn’t always work out, but I truly appreciated what you did. Now, I want to try and help you, even if the results are not what you hoped for.”
Finally, Ladybug lifted her head. Her expression was not something Ryuko could properly put into words. There was a glint in her eyes, not of happiness, but of another emotion.
And then Ladybug smiled. It was small, incomparable to the huge grin she’d shown not too long ago. But it didn’t fit right. That wasn’t how Marinette smiled.
“You mean that?”
What a dumb question. Of course Ryuko did. Had she ever not been a woman of her word? She pursed her lips into a tight line, a small shake of her head just in case Ladybug didn’t catch on.
“Then… can I kiss you?”
Ryuko leaned back. Her canines were poking at the surface of her tongue. Her hands clawed at her thighs. All of a sudden, she was aware of every rust forming on the iron structure, of every patch of cloud gliding far away.
Every thread interweaving on Ladybug’s mask, every way the lights could’ve angled and reflected off her earrings, every second Ladybug’s question hung in the air, every nanosecond the light left Ladybug’s eyes.
“You want to kiss me?” Ryuko clarified. Such a request was completely out of the blue. She had to make sure Ladybug wasn’t just saying things she didn’t mean.
Ladybug placed her hands on top of Ryuko’s. “I mean it,” she said. “Please.”
She no longer wanted to look Ladybug in the eye. Her body was screaming to wrestle her hand out of Ladybug’s grip. Yet Ryuko found in herself no strength to do so. “Marinette,” she called for the first time, the girl’s name tasting strange in her mouth. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“My head is as clear as day— Please, Kagami, I just want to feel something…” Ladybug’s lips trembled. “I… Okay, maybe I’m not— But I… I just—”
This was wrong. Everything about this was wrong, Ryuko knew that. She had principles to uphold, ideas to maintain. Her values couldn’t simply be cast aside to make someone happy for ten seconds max. She would’ve told anyone else off.
So why couldn’t she bring herself to reject Ladybug?
Ryuko knew the answer to that, too. Her heartstrings twisting and tugging at themselves, her body warming up. A part of her wanted it. A part of her was impulsive and reckless and really did want to feel Marinette’s lips on hers and God Marinette truly was a bad influence.
Just don’t think about it.
Ryuko leaned in.
She pecked Ladybug on the lips.
Don’t think.
“Do you want this?” she asked, maintaining enough space between them that Ladybug could have a way out.
Ladybug closed her eyes. “Yes,” she mouthed. There were glistening tears forming in the corners, shining under the lights, but that didn’t stop her from closing the gap.
Their noses briefly knocked against each other. Ryuko turned her head to the side a little more, meeting Ladybug’s lips proper.
Marinette’s lipstick had a subtle hint of sweetness, though it was cold from the night. Ryuko’s canines grazed over her lip. Her head felt heavy and dizzy from the thin air—or maybe it was the familiar smell of baked pastries.
Her hand reached the back of Ladybug’s neck, pulling her closer. She hadn’t meant to, but her claws had curled tight, scratching Ladybug’s nape. A strained squeak passed into Ryuko’s mouth. She was pulling away for air when Ladybug cupped her face, crashing their lips together again.
This time, it tasted salty. Moist. Cold. Ryuko sensed vibrations ringing through her mouth, Ladybug’s shoulders rising and falling, a stray tear getting caught where their skin met. Crying. She was crying.
Ryuko bit on Ladybug’s lip. It wasn’t hard enough to tear open the skin, but Ladybug had squealed in surprise. It gave Ryuko enough time to be able to pull away. She clamped her hands down on the girl’s shoulders, preventing her from jumping forward for the second time.
“Marinette, stop. You’re crying.”
The whites in Ladybug’s eyes widened. She blinked multiple times as if she hadn’t even realized. Ladybug smothered her wet cheeks with her palm, staring at it with an indescribable emotion.
“Fuck…” She chuckled, broken in between by a sob. “I’m— God, I didn’t even— I’m a mess.”
Ryuko’s hand stopped short of wiping the tears on Ladybug’s face. Her fingers curled, opened, and closed before reaching with her thumb, swiping back and forth across a running tear.
Ladybug choked. She dropped herself on top of Ryuko, heaving and trembling with no sound. The tower shifted, the metal structure screeching. She shook her head over and over as if to rub it all away.
“I’m— I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
It didn’t matter what Ryuko could have said to comfort her—she knew it wouldn’t work. She left her hands on Ladybug’s shoulder as something solid, something rigid for the girl to hold on to.
Her body was starting to ache.
Ladybug’s silent sobs died down with time, if the cessation of shaking meant anything positive. The fog above the city was clearing up. The traffic came and went. Somewhere over the line of buildings and streets was Marinette’s house. Her parents were probably waiting for her.
Ryuko tapped once on Ladybug’s back, then twice. On the third attempt, Ladybug sniffled, wiping her nose as she got up.
“Ugh… Kagami, I— I must’ve fallen asleep, sorry…” she said, shutting her eyes. Her voice was as terrible as Ryuko had heard it earlier that night, if not worse. Once again, Kagami had failed to help.
“It’s okay,” Ryuko could only say as she stood up. She felt slivers and patches of her suit sticking more to her skin than the others. She lent a hand to Ladybug. “Let me take you home.”
To other people, it would seem like the superhero Ryuko was escorting home a civilian who’d been trapped at the ring of destruction tonight’s supervillain had been in. Maybe some took pictures of them, flying across the roofline on a gust of wind.
She wished it were as simple as that.
Marinette’s home was dark. The bakery had closed long ago, and the lights above weren’t on. Even as Ryuko stepped off and carefully put Marinette down on the rooftop, amidst the drooping potted plants and folded chairs, she couldn’t help but think of the place as unrecognizable.
The moon had risen high in the sky. She had to be home soon, lest she get into another argument with Mother. Ryuko spun on her feet and was about to leap onto the railings when a hand clasped hers.
“Kagami,” Marinette said in a whisper. “Wait.”
Ryuko stilled.
“I know I said it so many times, but I’m sorry for what happened earlier.” Marinette squeezed her hand. She was cold. “I— I wasn’t in a good headspace, and… You were right, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I understand if you… if you…”
She let Marinette spin her around. Their hands stayed intertwined, though Marinette’s grip was weak. Ryuko memorized the lines on Marinette’s palm, the sweaty surface, the groove around each knuckle joint. Her gaze was fixated on the floor, near Marinette’s pink shoes.
She had to know.
“Why did you kiss me?”
Marinette released her hold. Maybe she didn’t mean to, but Ryuko had already engraved the way Marinette stepped back into her memories. The girl wrapped her arms around herself. She looked small.
“Be— because I like you, Kagami. I swear, I like you, and I would have a house on the beach and three hamster kids with you because I really do like you! There’s no one in this world who wouldn’t fall in love with you if they knew you the way I do. I like you the way I liked Adrien, the way I liked Luka… But— It’s— it’s just complicated, okay? I…”
Marinette took a deep breath. “Chrysalis is still… And your mother… And I’m responsible for keeping Gabriel’s— I’m the Guardian of the Miraculous and— I don’t… You deserve someone who’s… not a complete wreck like me,” she stammered. “And it’s been in the back of my head for ages, and I knew I shouldn’t have ruined our friendship, but I just had to— I… I keep thinking I won’t get another chance, like what if something happens to you? To me? To the entire world? I needed— I wanted… to be selfish. I was selfish.
“There, okay? That’s my answer…”
The muscles in her body tensed. Ryuko could clench her fist until she broke her own bones. She hated it. She hated that Marinette was right; they shouldn’t be together, but it could’ve worked out if the two of them had properly talked and weren’t what they were. She hated that the kiss had to happen like that. She hated everything Marinette had just said.
She just couldn’t hate Marinette herself.
“I understand.” Ryuko relaxed her hand.
She didn’t have to think about what she should say next was what Ryuko had hoped for. Complicated. It was complicated. Maybe doing this meant she was being a terrible person, but she didn't want to break Marinette's heart further. “I do forgive you." Ryuko prayed it came out of her mouth naturally. "We are still friends, and I still want the best for you. I sincerely hope you don’t think you’ve jeopardized our friendship.”
Marinette stepped back, lowering her head. She was biting her lip in the same place Ryuko had, was wrapping her hands around her neck in the same place Ryuko had.
“Never think you’re alone, because you’re not. As Ladybug, you have partners who would trust you and hope you trust them too. As Marinette, you have friends you can count on. And you have me,” Ryuko said. Was that too much?
Ryuko walked back to the railings, jumping and balancing on top of them. “You can come to me when you feel ready,” she said. Hopefully, by then she would be ready to see Marinette again. “You always know where to find me anyway.”
She was about to say her goodbyes when Marinette beat her to it. “Um, Kagami,” Marinette mumbled, her voice growing louder as she inched closer, “do… do you think… once this is over, we can be together?”
If Kagami were being honest, she had no idea. There were too many factors at play. After what had happened tonight, could she still picture herself being with Marinette?
“You’ll always have a place in my heart,” she said, her voice as elusive as the wind. Ryuko stepped onto the formless platform, and she had to remind herself that there was only one passenger.
“Good night, Marinette.”