The Line Between Love And Hate

Chapter 21: 10 Years

~Marinette~
Adrien and I rush back to the office so we can look into the murder. The walk through the hallway is quiet.

"I've never seen the office this empty." "It's midnight Agreste. Who would be working at midnight?" "People that have to catch a murderer." "That's not funny." "It wasn't a joke." He walks into the room and plugs in the camera Gabriel gave us. It has a perfect view of the back.

While Adrien looks through the footage, I'm trying to find a way to log into XY's account to see how much money is left.

"How's it going over there?" I raise my hand to my forehead. "The moneys gone." "Dammit." "What about you? Did you find anything?" "Nothing. We have absolutely nothing." He says as he slams the mouse down.

"Calm down-" "How can I calm down? Our only lead is garbage now, we have the exact same information on Hawkmoth as we did before, and we have no intel on who he's working with!"

"We'll catch him Agreste." "When? After he murders someone else?" "I- I don't know." "We need a new lead. We need to find something else about him. Anything. We just need leverage." "I can try to get us a new lead." "You can?" He asks calming down slightly.

"I can. You just need to relax okay?" He takes a deep breath and nods. I place my hands on his shoulders. "We got this. Okay? We'll put him behind bars." "I- Im sorry. I guess I sort of panicked."

We spend the rest of the night revisiting files, looking over the cameras to see if we missed something, and looking for potential targets.

~~

"The suns out. We should take a break." Adrien says tiredly. I yawn as I close the files. "Coffee run?" "Sure." "We can even pick up some croissants from my parents bakery." I say as I stand up. Adrien doesn't answer me.

~~

The drive to the bakery is quiet. We're both thinking. How can one night create such a disaster?

I turn my head and see Adrien has tears in his eyes. I reach over to touch his hand, but before I even get close enough, I panic and lower the air conditioning.

It's so strange to see him like this. Before I wouldn't have even hesitated to tell him to pull over so I can pull him into a hug. And now I can't even touch his hand without feeling weird about it. It's crazy how time can change so much between people.

He wipes his eyes as we pull into the bakery. He parks the car but doesn't turn it off. I turn to him and give him a confused look, but he's not looking at me.

"I think we should take some time away from the case today." I nod my head. "Okay. That sounds fine with me." I take off my seatbelt and when he doesn't do the same I turn to him and ask, "You're not getting off?"

"No it's fine. You go ahead. I'll see you tomorrow." "You don't want a croissant?" He shakes his head. "Are you sure?" He nods. "You haven't eaten yet Adrien." "I'm not hungry."

"Come on. You know my parents will kill me if I go in without-" He unlocks the car and coldly says, "Marinette I want to be alone." "Adrien-" "Get out! Get out of my car!"

"Okay. You don't have to be a dick about it." I say and get out of his car. I make sure to slam the door. The second I'm out he drives off. "What an ass." I mumble to myself.

I walk inside and my parents pull me into a hug. They guide me to a seat and place croissants, cookies, and coffee in front of me. One thing about my family is that they don't waste any time.

"Where's Adrien?" "Who knows?" I say as I take a bite from the croissant. "You haven't talked to him today?" I shake my head. "Nope." I say dryly. They sigh and nod. "Tom don't forget we have to call him today."

I don't even bother asking why. I just grab my food and carry it up to my old room. It's still exactly the same. I place my food down before laying on my bed. A little nap won't hurt me.

~~

I wake up from a call from Alya. "Hey Al." "Hey M. How's everything going with the case?" "We were working on it all night and we found nothing." "Okay. Is Adrien with you?"

"No." "Where is he at?" "I don't know. I'm not some Adrien tracker. I don't know where he is. If you want to find him then you can call him yourself."

"M-" "No. You know how I feel about talking about him. Nothing between us has changed and you won't believe how big of a jerk he was. He's been a real pain in my ass lately, but I swear today I've never been more tempted to hit him." "M stop. I'm serious. This is important."

"Is it about Adrien?" She hesitates to answer. "No." "You hesitated." "Okay, but that's only because I know you'll hang up before I even get a chance to tell you." "Then maybe that shows you how little I want to hear about him." "M. Please? For me." I sigh. "I'll give you 60 seconds. Time starts now."

I can sense her smile through the phone. "I only need 30." "50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45-" "Todays the day Emilie went missing." I immediately stop counting. "That's today?" I stand up from my bed and walk over to the calendar. It's been 10 years. I can't believe it. I remember that day like it was yesterday.

"Yes." "Okay. So, why are you calling me then?" I take a seat on my bed. "Because you and Adrien started talking again." I nod even though she can't see. "You always had a way to comfort Adrien. And when you were out of his life for 6 years, Nino and I took over, but we were never able to comfort him the way you were able to."

She takes a breath and I rub my temple. I know exactly where she's going with this. "We never know the right things to say to him, but you do. You were there with him when she went missing. You were the one to comfort him." "Al-"

"Look I know what you're going to say. I know you don't want to do it, I know you don't like spending time with him, but the both of you went through this together. Please just go to him. He won't admit it, but he needs you M and I know somewhere deep inside you, you need him too."

"I wouldn't even know what to say to him. It's been so long Al. Things aren't the same." "Just for one day Marinette. Be there for him. That's all I'm asking." "I don't know." "Don't you think you owe it to him? After everything you've been through at least give him this." "Okay." "Okay?" "Okay fine. I'll go to him." She squeals on the other side of the phone.

"I told you I'd be able to convince her Nino!" I roll my eyes and hang up.

____________________________________
A/N: I was finally able to come up with a proper time line to this story!

Okay so if anyone is wondering how old they are, they're 28! I originally wanted them to be around 24 or 26 but in order to make more time to pass without Adrien and Marinette talking I had to make them older!