Chapter Text
Those who knew her would say that Marinette never had a sense of self-preservation.
In her eyes, being that she had become the physical embodiment of Creation and Luck at twelve, she didn’t need self-preservation. Everything in the universe had a balance, just as everything had a way to right itself should it fall from its axis.
She was the Divine Guardian, wielding power to become the very personification of Life . She had a conscious mental bond with a deity to speak to when she required guidance. Marinette felt, personally, that she was doing fine.
Needless to say, she was a very stubborn girl, even at three in the morning.
Marinette finally finished working on the commissions that had been pre-ordered, which she would be able to send out for delivery tomorrow, thank god. Rather than take a break, or maybe even go to bed, she stands and stretches before moving toward her kitchen, tying her dark hair into a loose braid as she walked.
She flipped on a dim light and thumbed through her stack of coffee filters to separate a new one from the pile, opening the lid to her coffee maker to place it inside before filling the pot with water. As she was pulling the instant coffee out of the cabinet, she hummed in thought.
All that was left to do tonight was her physics paper, which was due at 7 am. In four hours. The professor must’ve thought that, by extending the due date time from midnight to the start of the class, his students wouldn’t procrastinate nearly as much. Clearly, the man didn’t know Marinette Dupain-Cheng.
It did make her swear that she would never take physics as a morning class ever again, however.
She was watching the coffee begin to drip into the pot when she heard a suspicious thump from outside.
She cocked a brow in bewilderment, noting the fact that she was on the fourth floor and all that was outside was her balcony, which she’d decorated in potted plants despite the cramped space.
She almost didn’t think anything of it—having been Ladybug since she was in collège, her sense of danger had become a bit distorted. But, she didn’t want any of her belongings damaged or stolen, especially when Gotham police seemed a little more concerned with psychopaths playing dress-up than petty theft. Which was understandable, if a bit disheartening.
Slowly, silently, she snuck toward her front door where the umbrella and baseball bat sat side by side. The bat was a housewarming gift, of course, from her closest and most caring friends. Every time she looked at it, she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. They knew she could likely do more damage with her bare hands—without using a hint of magic—before she ever needed the bat. Nonetheless, they insisted that if she was moving to Gotham, she should have something in the apartment.
She flexed her hand on the handle of the bat, readjusting her grip as she crept toward her balcony, sliding the lock out of place and slipping the glass door open quietly. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pressed into a firm line. She wonders if maybe the lack of sleep was getting to her.
The corner of her balcony remained enshrouded in darkness, despite the dull kitchen light being cast mutely through the glass.
A bone-chilling breeze moves in as she’s reminded that early winter is setting in, and the scent of iron reaches her nose with it. She can almost taste the copper in the air on her tongue.
A figure moves. She wouldn’t describe it as stepping forward, so much as staggering.
All of a sudden, Marinette felt thirteen again, seeing her best friend—her partner —appear on her balcony and ask to stay just so he wouldn’t have to go home. Her chest ached.
The stranger was clutching his side. She couldn’t make out his features, or even what he was wearing, but there was blood, and she saw that he was swaying on his feet.
This was not her Parisian partner, she wasn’t sure who this was, but he was on her balcony and she had a damn bad habit of picking up strays. Her friend group can attest to that. The baseball bat was forgotten and limp in her hand before she gently set it aside.
Light sifted across his chest. Blood. So much of it. More than she’d realized.
She saw the R symbol on his right breastplate.
Not just a vigilante, then.
One of the bats.
Robin.
Light dimly reflected over something on his left shoulder.
As he wavered, his head tipped forward into the stream of light, revealing a domino mask that covered his eyes while blood matted his hair. Cuts and bruises lined his jaw and cheeks.
It took her a moment to realize that the light she’d seen reflect off his suit was a knife lodged into his shoulder. It must’ve only been a minute that she stood there before his eyes fluttered closed, and he was falling unconscious and to the ground.
Her breath hitched as she caught him, her hands going to his side, suddenly becoming warm and sticky.
“Please, stay awake,” she says in English, her words calm and clear, her accent kept at bay so that he would understand her in his current state, but her words seemed to go unheard as her brows pinch. “ Medre.” She breathes before gently reaching down and lifting him into her arms, careful to turn his head into the crook of her neck—she knew it was cold, but he was shivering . Perhaps it should have been, but it wasn’t difficult to carry him.
After so many years of using the Miraculous’, she learned that she didn’t need to be transformed to access the very magic that began coursing through her veins with time, even outside the mask. She supposed that, had her mentor lived past her fourteenth birthday, he may have mentioned that the limits they had would dissipate when they became adults before he made her Guardian.
She ignored how she could feel his blood seeping into her clothes, staining her skin. Instead, Marinette began moving on instinct. It may have been a while since she had to tend to extreme injuries, but it was still an involuntary reaction.
Perhaps it was the deity of Creation who lingered in her consciousness, or perhaps it was just Marinette , who needed to know that she was still good in some way… But it didn’t matter, because she was going to tend to him.
She decided the best course of action was to set him in the bathtub and attend to his injuries there. It would likely be less messy as well. She long ago learned to… forgo hospitals. She doubted he shared an opposing sentiment seeing that he was here and is likely very unaware of that fact.
As she set him in the tub, she grimaced when he quietly groaned, remaining unconscious despite the clear pain his body was in. Her eyes fell to the knife still snug in his shoulder. Upon closer inspection, and to her horror, she carefully leaned him forward to feel behind him, along his back, and sure enough, just shy of his shoulder blade she felt the tip of steel.
Marinette inhaled an unsteady breath, muttering to herself in soft French, “Merde, il a été empalé,”
She had seen the hilt of the knife in the front. Hell, the amount of blood was… more than concerning. He’d passed out, for Christ's sake. She scanned him again.
But he had been impaled , and the blade was still in him.
She turned around, facing her vanity, and dropped to her knees so that she could scour through her cabinets for her extensive first aid and medical kits. Marinette swore under her breath as she thought about how she would have to press magic into every single thing she used because she sure as hell didn’t know what all he was hit with.
It took a few moments to realize that, of all things, the impalement wasn’t the most horrifying thing about what was lodged in his shoulder. With all of her medical supplies surrounding her, she knew pulling it out was the best course of action to clean the wound and sew it up.
That was when she realized the blade was jagged and there was an awful aura around it.
Poison.
If this was all from one person, or at least several opponents in relation to each other, she can only assume that he was hit with several poisonous things. And if his tactical belt was anything to go by, it was a rare poison that he didn’t have the antidote for.
That must be why, she realized, he couldn’t make it back to whatever the bats used for headquarters—the poison was kicking in.
The moment she had carefully pulled the blade free, she set it aside and began applying light pressure to stop the thick, gushing blood. Again, she could see pain contort his unconscious face beneath the mask. She muttered quiet apologies, knowing he couldn’t hear her. Perhaps couldn’t even understand her—she may have switched to French at one point, but she wasn’t sure.
She cut away the shoulder of the uniform, grimacing at how she had to use her own strength to remove the armor.
As she cleaned the wound, her brows knitted in concentration, all she could hope for was stopping the blood and praying the poison wouldn’t be at work in his bloodstream.
After she cleaned it thoroughly, lacing everything she used with divinity, she sat back on her heels and began threading through the eye of her medical needle.
Thank god, sewing was her life. Sewing flesh was a little different, but she’d done it countless times on herself and others when necessary.
She hummed softly, tying off the stitch and moving to do another as she felt him stiffen beneath her. Was he waking up?
“Merde,” she mutters as she ties off another thread. She was half done—the laceration was a full inch and a half, and she still had to do the back.
“'Ayn 'ana?” The vigilante mumbled, but his eyes remained closed. That sounded like… Arabic? Marinette continued humming quietly.
“You’re safe,” she breathed as she sat back, looking over her careful work, sure she’d gone unheard once again. She gently pulled him forward so that she could do his back. Marinette winced when he groaned again, remembering that not only was he in pain, but he was awkwardly propped up in her bathtub.
At least, the lesion was less on this side because only the tip of the blade fully went through the other side. Marinette had never been more thankful to have a steady hand.
After she cleaned the wound again, she stitched up the other side before laying him back gently again. She began wrapping the wound with an adhesive wrap, sighing.
Now, his side. She had a feeling that most of his blood loss wasn’t solely from having been impaled by a poisoned dagger.
She removed more of his uniform carefully and examined the long gash that ran across his stomach, the deepest of which reached the crest of his hip.
Marinette closed her eyes, inhaling deeply before letting herself exhale again. She stood and got a clean cloth, holding it to the wound and watching it soak up the blood.
When she pulled it away, she saw how thick some blood on the cloth was, a sling of curses spewing from her lips as she looked at the hero in her tub.
In what order could he have attained these injuries and kept fighting? Sure, as Ladybug she’d shattered her body, many times, but she could heal herself! Mon Dieu! He was just a person! She had a deity in her consciousness and the abilities of said deity!
She cleaned the wound and cursed aloud every second of it.
In her mind, she knew that the entire clan of bats was the same, she just wished someone would have the common sense to remind them that they were all human.
As she began sewing up his stomach, her brows pinched and lips in a thin line, “After all of this, you’d better not die,” she mumbled in French, before suppressing the urge to groan. “Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time I resurrect the dead,”
The boy grumbled something she didn’t catch, his eyes fluttering open—not without effort, she noticed. His eyes seemed heavy, and he couldn’t seem to focus on her.
“How often do you get benched for pulling this shit,” she muttered under her breath as she glanced up from the stitches to get a good look at his pain-contorted face. “Welcome back to reality.” She cocked her head as she watched him try to piece everything together.
“Where the hell am I?” He ground out through clenched teeth, seeming as though he were about to rush forward to sit up—to leave.
“Not so fast, Boy Wonder. Stay still.” She said, shaking her head with a sigh. She paused her stitching to wipe some blood off of her hand and raise it to his forehead. Marinette didn’t miss how he flinched but didn’t move. Couldn’t . The pain must be kicking in.
As she suspected, he had a fever. When she pulled her hand away, her hand was red with fresh blood beyond the lingering stain that was brought on by working on his injuries.
Marinette gathered the movement from a moment ago made him lightheaded because his eyes, still hidden beneath his mask, narrowed but continued to flutter with effort.
“Now that you’re awake,” she hummed, returning to sewing up his stomach, “I’m going to recruit you into helping me with my physics paper. After I know you won’t die from all of this.” She mumbled that last bit in French as an afterthought.
“Absolutely not,” he swore, his glare lethal enough to level cities.
Marinette gave him a flat look, one brow lifted in challenge. “Which one of us is bleeding out?”
“I’ll kill you,” his jaw tightened, eyes narrowed into slits.
“I’m shaking.” She rolled her eyes, tying the next stitch off.
“No one will find your body,”
“Please,” she chuckled. “Vous êtes le seul qu'ils ne peuvent pas trouver.”
“Qu'est ce que c'est censé vouloir dire? ” He bit back.
The corner of her lip tipped up. He spoke French. “No one has knocked my door down yet. I assume communications were cut, whatever family-plan tracker you bats use has been disabled or destroyed, or they don’t know you’re out at all. Take your pick, petit oiseau.”
She was almost done sewing up his side.
Anger always did blind oneself from pain better than anything she’d ever used.
When Marinette finally finished, she wrapped his stomach in an adhesive wrap before she wiped off her hands, taking another clean cloth in hand, and gently dabbing his forehead.
He reared his head back with a scowl firmly in place, but she just rolled her eyes and stilled him with a hand on his jaw. The cut over his brow didn’t require stitching, thank god.
“Hold still.”
“You cannot order me around,” he spat.
“I just know that every day I’ll regret not leaving you in the cold where I found you,” she shot back with an unimpressed look. Her words, however, seemed to remind him that he didn’t know where he was or how he got there.
“Where the fuck am I?” He seethed.
“My bathroom. More specifically, the tub.” He didn’t find her humorous, so she waved a free hand. “Pinewood Apartment Complex. Found you on my balcony, bleeding out before you fell unconscious, pretty boy. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave you where I found you due to the winter weather and my heart of gold.” Marinette said dryly.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” He ordered accusingly.
“Most vigilantes don’t like the police or hospitals, so I decided to do you a favor and not let you die,” Marinette stated flatly as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I saw the symbol on your chest, bat boy. I also saw the knife snugly lodged in your shoulder. I wasn’t too worried.”
“What?”
“The only laced with poison, obviously.”
“And how the hell would you know that?”
“You’re feverish, and it’s not from the blood loss.” Half-truth. He didn’t need to know the deity-enhanced abilities allow her to feel the aura of things and people around her.
“Who sent you?”
“My parents sent me off to university here, if that counts,”
“Answer my question.” His jaw was clenched, his hand slowly moving towards his utility belt.
“No one sent me, dumbass. You showed up at my apartment and collapsed. I was already up because I’m a student at Gotham University and have a paper due. I heard you land or whatever. And I know how to deal with vigilantes,” she huffed an unamused laugh, “I grew up in Paris for Christ's sake. And before you get your facts screwed up, I didn’t touch your mask. Your little outfit was less lucky, considering… everything.”
“We’re done here,” he spat, gritting his teeth as he pushed himself upward to stand. Before she knew it, his brows pinched beneath his mask and his eyes fluttered shut. He was falling again.