Vanished (Lukadrien) • Miraculous Ladybug

Chapter 21 | sore and achey

Adrien wasn't all there today. He seemed a little out of it. All his co workers had noticed it, but he said he was fine.

Today his shift wasn't out waiting tables or doing a kids party, but it was helping clean out the back rooms and re-organise. He and his boss Alyssa were busy as work moving old furniture into storage and sorting through things that could be thrown out and replaced.

Only one problem... Adrien was sore again.

He woke up this morning with his usual ache, but unlike usual how it'd go away with a painkiller he found it getting worse. But he tried not to let it get to him.

"Those chairs are ancient, half broken anyway. We can toss them" Alyssa said.

"Take them out the back?" Adrien replied.

"Yeah leave them by the recycling"

Picking up two of them, one under each arm he wove his way through all the boxes of supplies on the ground and pushed the back door open, leaving the chairs by the recycling dumpster. Heading back in for the next two, he paused at the door for a moment to take a breath.

"Ah- why am I so achey today?" He complained.

Sticking his head out of his apron pocket, Plagg looked up at him.

"Be careful ok? Don't overwork yourself" Plagg said.

"I know, I might ask to leave early today once we've done all the cleaning in the store room"

He headed back inside, Plagg ducking back into his pocket. Grabbing the next two chairs he repeated his trip out the back a few more times until he'd taken them all out. Next in the store room was a stack of table cloths.

"Alyssa, are we still needing these?" He asked.

Putting down the box she was stacking, she came into the store room to look at them.

"We can still use them yeah, put them in with the place mats and we can stack the boxes up on this shelf. Under it we can put the spare cutlery boxes" she explained.

Nodding in understanding, he picked up the stack of table cloths and took them to the box of placemats, rearranging things inside for them to fit nicely. As he stood at the box stack doing that, he could feel his knees shaking. That didn't usually happen... then again usually when his legs hurt this bad he was able to sit down since he'd been at home to school when it happened. It was bad timing really.

It was an ache in his thighs, and a weird twinge in his ankles. It felt like a cramp that wouldn't go away no matter how much he stretched or stayed still. It lingered, not leaving him alone even after that painkiller this morning.

Sure his legs hurt often, but not this bad...

"Alright... uhh I think we'll need a second box for the table cloths" he said.

"Damn I hope everything will fit in the shelf, the extra boxes are on the table" Alyssa replied, busy carrying the cutlery boxes into the storeroom.

Adrien turned to go get another box, but unexpectedly the second he took a step forward, a sharp pain shot through his shin causing him to trip and land against the floorboards with a thump and screech of pain. Hearing it, Alyssa quickly shoved the box onto the shelf and rushed out to see what had happened.

"Chaton, you ok?" She asked, worried tone in her voice.

"M-my legs..." was all Adrien could get out through the seething pain he suddenly felt.

All his coworkers knew of his random leg pains, he'd put it on his application when he got the job. So Alyssa knew that this was likely a flare up of some kind.

"Come here honey, let's sit in the break room" she said, helping him up and supporting his weight as he limped to the break room.

He ended up sat on the sofa, an ice pack against his leg in hopes it'd do something to ease the pain.

"Maybe you should go home early today, take a few days off. All the work on your feet can't be good for you" Alyssa suggested.

"I-if that's ok- Ugh ow-" Adrien replied.

"It's alright hun, I'm not gonna force my employees to work when they clearly can't. You've already helped out enough today. Call someone to pick you up and I'll have Robin put the rest of the boxes away ok?"

When Adrien for this job he was a bit worried he'd have a mean boss, but his boss was actually very understanding, and didn't take shit from rude customers too. So he called Delilah to come get him and unsurprisingly she was there very quickly. The second Adrien mentioned his legs hurt she got worried.

She thanked his boss for letting him go early, and helped him out to the car. The sting wouldn't go away, it hurt to move or put pressure on it.

"Has this happened before?" Delilah asked.

"Yeah but never this bad. All the other times I was at home or in class so I could sit down and rest" Adrien replied, tense and strained from the pain.

"Hmm... I'm taking you to the doctors, hopefully they can get to the bottom of this. Or at least give you a stronger painkiller. Honestly just from what you've been saying I think it's some kind of chronic pain, it didn't help that you've been in your feet all recently, or played sport before you ran away"

She was probably right. Adrien has vivid memories of him crying to his mum as a kid that 'his leg was ouchie'. He'd always had random pains, just never this bad.

Whatever it was, he wanted it fixed. How could he go back to being cat noir and fighting with pain like this? It was hard enough to fight with mind pains.

"I've been meaning to see a doctor about it anyway... I just wasn't expecting to collapse like that..."