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[anonymous-coffeebanana]

A Body Was Never Found

(a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic)

The ground beneath Chat Noir’s feet is half-frozen as he wanders through the cemetery, but the cold has little to do with why he feels so numb. Gnarled, naked branches twist overhead while their feet try to trip him; their fallen leaves, like the bodies underground, are things of the past.

The grave Chat seeks lies empty. (A body was never found.)

...

Read on Ao3

(full fic under the cut. cw depression, grief, alcohol)

...

The ground beneath Chat Noir’s feet is half-frozen as he wanders through the cemetery, but the cold has little to do with why he feels so numb. Gnarled, naked branches twist overhead while their feet try to trip him; their fallen leaves, like the bodies underground, are things of the past.

The grave Chat seeks lies empty. (A body was never found.)

Beneath the moonlight, he combs the rows one by one. Some of the tombstones are ostentatious, complete with intricate carvings or towering statues. Others are cracked with faded letters—reflections of the corpses they protect.

The one he finally stops in front of is…plain. He wouldn’t have given it a second glance if the name etched into its smooth marble hadn’t sent a chill down his spine.

Adrien Agreste

2000-2018

There’s no inscription beneath that. He isn’t named as a beloved son, or hero, or friend—which is just as well. He wasn’t any of those things. Not in the end.

He was the one who’d destroyed everything.

That’s why he stands here, a year later, reading his name over and over until the letters lose meaning. The cold creeps its way through his limbs despite his suit’s protection, crystallizing in his chest. Adding to the weight that always sits there, making it hard to breathe.

Part of him wonders: if he stands here long enough, will the weight be enough to drag him underground? (Where he belongs.)

A sharp breeze prickles his neck, and he forces himself to gulp down air. It tastes sour, making him long for something else.

Shaking fingers pull a flask from his pocket; the cap falls to the ground when he twists it off. Cold metal presses urgently against his lips, and relief soon burns his throat. The taste is awful—he meant to buy vodka, not gin—but after the first sip, he doesn’t mind.

He just needs not to feel anything tonight.

Three hefty sips in, the small patch of wet grass that lines his empty grave looks oddly inviting. He collapses to his knees, tracing his fingers briefly over his name—until the ice inside his chest sharpens. Then he twists around to lean back against the marble, and sits silently until the gin makes his mind go fuzzy.

He considers tucking the flask away, but decides on one more sip for good measure. The liquid is halfway down when he hears the crunch of boots approaching, and his eyes fly open when someone gasps.

When he sees who’s standing there, he nearly chokes. Marinette.

So much for not feeling anything.

Maybe it’s the fact he hasn’t eaten all day, and the gin’s hitting harder than it should. Maybe he’s just not processing today as well as he thought he was. Either way, tears burn the corner of his eyes, and his heart—which apparently still remembers how to beat—lurches up into his throat.

Marinette is someone he’s never, ever wanted to disappoint. How is he meant to face her now that disappointment is all he knows?

For the longest time, she stands as still as the marble statue beside her. As quiet as the skeletons below. The distance separating her from Chat is about the length of the Agreste manor’s dining room table—and the tension that builds in that space is just as thick.

When the force of his own heartbeat becomes too much to bear, Chat croaks out a greeting. “H-hey.”

She responds with a choked sound, hands flying up to her mouth. “Chat Noir?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nods. He can’t possibly say anything—his throat feels like it’s been lined with barbed wire. So he waits until Marinette takes a step closer, hands falling slowly back to her sides.

“You’re alive?”

He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Are you kidding? The last time I saw you…”

Falling. Screaming. Death.

“I couldn’t find you afterwards. I looked everywhere, but you…” She hugs herself tightly, fingers digging into the sleeves of her puffy pink coat. “You disappeared.”

Chat hadn’t even known she’d been there; he supposes that’s one more thing he has to feel guilty about. But at least she made it out. At least the universe wasn’t that cruel.

“I couldn’t stay.” His voice doesn’t sound like it belongs to him. “It was all my fault. And Hawkmoth was gone, so…Paris didn’t need me anymore.”

“I needed you!”

Her voice rings sharply through the night, but even once its echoes have played through his mind a hundred times, the words don’t make sense.

“A-and what about Ladybug?” she demands.

Chat grits his teeth. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“You’re an idiot.”

I know.

“You’re…you’re here. So I can tell you that. Because you’re here. You’re really here. This…this is real?”

Chat’s not sure if he’s meant to answer that, but he cant bring himself to speak. He can’t even look her at her anymore, but he hears her breath spill through the night. And then there’s a blur in the corner of his eyes, rushing towards him. Before he has a chance to brace himself she sinks to her knees and throws herself into his arms. The flask falls from his grip, but he can’t bring himself to mourn the loss when her arms wind around his neck.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she sobs, as he struggles to return her embrace. “I thought I’d lost everyone.”

Chat knows the feeling. Every time he closes his eyes, it’s like he’s back there, at the end of the world. His Cataclysm crumbles the world around him. There are screams amidst the darkness and a flash of red that reaches for his hand.

In his nightmares, he never catches her.

He uncovers Alya’s broken body first, and he can’t fathom it. He can’t imagine telling Nino that the love of his life is gone.

Another minute of frantically tossing rubble aside, and Chat realizes he won’t have to. He won't have to—or get to—tell Nino anything ever again.

In his nightmares, there’s a third body. Sometimes a fourth.

Ladybug. Marinette. They switch places; he can never decide who would hate him more.

But now Marinette’s in his arms, and he can’t breathe.

“Please don’t leave me again. I don’t—I can’t…” She chokes on her breath, and he eases her back a little, giving her space to recover.

She reaches up, taking his face in her hands. Her eyes shimmer with tears and her bottom lip quivers. He can’t help but reach for her as well—he combs through her hair until the ends slip from his fingers.

When he tries to pull away, she catches one of his hands, bringing his knuckles to cradle her cheek. She leans into his touch with a wobbly smile. Then her eyes harden.

“Don’t. Leave.”

His hand falls from her face, but not before his claw snags her cheek. She doesn’t react—he’s not even sure she noticed—but the blood that beads along an angry red line is all he can see.

As if he hasn’t hurt her enough already.

He forces a shaky smile, then pulls her head to his chest. “I’m right here, Marinette. I promise.”

It’s not a lie if he never actually said he would stay.

...

xoxo, anonymous cucumber

[anonymous-coffeebanana]

Hello! I was writing anon fics until someone guessed who I am 😂. Here’s how (not at all) far I got.

There's Something About A Tragedy

A Body Was Never Found

xoxo, anonymous cucumber (aka ☕️🍌)

[anonymous-coffeebanana]

There's Something About A Tragedy

(a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic)

After Adrien learns the truth about his father, he wanders through a fog. Luckily, he meets some friends along the way.

...

Read on Ao3.

(full fic under the cut! cw: dissociation, panic attack)

...

The city is loud when Chat Noir’s world has just fallen apart. Each shriek of a car alarm is a screw digging into his skull. A screaming child, running away from their mother, is a knife to the heart—a reminder of that love and family have one thing in common: they’re both a lie.

Other noises are less immediate. Less clearly felt. He can only fully recognize them once they’ve seeped below the surface. Once they’re already burning him from the inside out.

The rustle of a fabric as someone walks by. (All times when Adrien was just a puppet.)

He stops to catch his breath beside a cafe; footsteps ring sharply against marble floors. (Freedom was always a fleeting thing, waiting for the clock to announce his next obligation.)

Laughter, growing nearer. (Chat remembers enjoying that, once.)

Chat walks through a fog, and he’s pretty sure it’s not all in his head. But he can’t tell for sure if the mist that clings to his periphery is a natural consequence of the passing of seasons or water’s endless cycle or the way the sun plays chicken with the clouds—how the hell is fog made anyways?

Maybe that’s not important.

Because a large part of him thinks the fog is of his own making. That the lack of clarity in his mind can’t be contained, and has taken to spilling into the streets.

There’s almost a comfort in that. In being surrounded by his own sense of self—something that never made sense. Not entirely.

At least now he knows why.

By the time hints of green sneak through the fog, opening a portal to a world that smells of sweet grass and carries a hint of even sweeter pastries, mind is buzzing. With alarm or recognition, he can’t quite tell. But the path beneath his feet feels familiar, as do the voices that weave closer and closer, waves that come apart and slam together until they finally align. Until they finally make sense.

It’s the first taste of constructive interference that Chat has known in hours.

“Hey, is it cool if I invite Alya over? We’re supposed to chill afterwards.”

“Yeah, of course. I already told her she could stop by if the project went long.”

Chat hears a groan. “If we could actually use computers instead of acting like we're stuck in the sixteenth century, we could have been done hours ago.”

“Ugh. Tell me about it.” There’s a sound of something shifting, and the fog heaves a giant sigh. A tower of books approaches. “Primary sources are heavy.”

The voices belong to two sets of footsteps—ones that have come far too close. Chat can only freeze, watching in horror and anticipation, as a laugh meets his ears.

“At least we’re almost back to your place.”

“True. And I guess there’s something to be said about learning the details of a tragedy from the words of someone who’s lived through one. Or something like—oomph.”

Marinette crashes into him the way she has so many times before, but this time he can’t catch her. He can’t even catch himself; he topples faster than the books in her arms. He lands hard on his butt, and the world tilts around him. The tips of his fingers feel numb. His chest feels tight.

Time passes—maybe a minute, maybe a lifetime—and Nino extends a hand down towards him. “Dude, you okay?”

Chat wants to reach up and take that hand, but suddenly he’s exhausted. He’s not even sure how he made it here in the first place, how the world led him right to two of his favourite people.

He just couldn’t stop moving before. He couldn’t. And now that he has…

Something bubbles up inside his chest—something painful, trying to tear itself free. But he can’t let it. That’s one thing he knows.

It’ll tear him apart, into billions of pieces. Then he’ll never escape the fog.

Marinette crouches beside him. Behind her, books are still strewn about—tragedies or casualties, all of them forgotten. “Chat Noir? What’s wrong?”

When he shakes his head, he’s not sure if he’s talking to Marinette, or to that terrible feeling inside him—the one that’s clawed its way to the top of his throat. He tries to swallow it down, but that doesn’t quite work.

He can’t quite breathe.

Marinette is right about so many things, but she often gets mixed up. And Chat thinks that, maybe, her words about primary sources is one of those times. She got it backwards, or inside out, or just…slightly off to the side.

Because there’s something about living through a tragedy that makes the details disappear. And there are no words after that.

He’s not even sure there’s living after that.

It turns out that when Chat Noir’s world is falling apart, touch is loud, too. But maybe not in a bad way.

Where Marinette’s fingers press gently against his chest, he feels a dull, throbbing sensation—like she’s reminding his heart how to beat. And when Nino kneels beside her, he claps a tentative hand to Chat’s shoulder. It forces warmth through Chat’s veins, almost enough to dispel the fog.

Marinette takes his hand, and he forgets, for just a moment, to keep pushing against that awful, writhing feeling. He lets it escape.

But there are people to hold him together now, so his sobs can’t quite tear him apart.

...

xoxo, anonymous cucumber