-Goodnight, Moon.- (Chat Noir)

Andromeda, The Doormat

~-~-~-~-~-~

Andromeda was eager. More eager than the previous night, because now she knew what she had to look forward to, or at least-- she thought she did.

"Uh, Lune?" The blue headed heroine whipped her head around with a smile when she heard Chat's voice, but was surprised when she noticed Ladybug beside him.

This couldn't be happening.

"Could we, maybe, just talk tonight? Alone?" Ladybug whispers, shyly rubbing the back of her neck. "I kind of, really need an intermediary right now..."

Andromeda inspected the heroine, who walked with a bit of a slouch in her step today. Her eyes were puffy, and a bit watery. It was pretty apparent to everyone that she had been crying.

Perhaps it was finally time Andromeda fulfilled her role as a miraculous user.

"Yeah," Andromeda rose up from the grass and approached the girl, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, of course." Her emerald eyes glance over to Chat Noir. "Another night, then, Chat."

"Yeah." He reaches a gloved hand up to stroke the cheek of the girl he had spent the previous night entangled with. "Goodnight, Moon." And then he left the two girl in the field, a mere hour before the rain would begin to pour, to hold a discussion that the fate of the world could depend on.

"Are you two..." Ladybug asks.

"Uh," How would she answer that? "It's kind of been a thought, but nothing out of it. You two are kind of... supposed to be a team, y'know? Like, romantically too?" It made Andromeda uncomfortable to actually say out loud, but it was the truth. It was a harsh truth that she had to face.

"Not interested." She replied, taking a seat in the grass. "And besides, that's kind of what I'm here to talk about."

Andromeda felt her stomach drop as she took a seat beside the depressed heroine. "What do you mean?" Her voice nearly cracks.

"Have you met Master Fu yet?" Ladybug picks at some grass by her feet.

"Can't say I've had the pleasure, why?" Ladybug raises an eyebrow.

"Wait, really? You haven't needed to heal your miraculous or anything? Or just gone in to ask questions?" The confused look of the red hero just made Andromeda even more curious.

"I honestly have no idea who this guy is or why I should have met him by now." She replies, holding her hands up defensively.

"He's the guy who assigns the miraculous. He owns a healing clinic in the 7th arrondissement. He's the only one with actual answers!"

"Wait-- wait. Old Asian guy, short beard, mostly no hair, Hawaiian shirt?"

"Yeah, that one."

"OH MY GOD." Andromeda lets out a huff. The man, whom she so kindly tried to return the choker to when she found it, decided to leave it with Andromeda and make her take on these responsibilities?

She could practically slap him.

"The point here was-- I went to see him today. I was hoping he could give me some kind of healing to pick up my mood, but he just told me that I should speak with the intermediary. That you could do more for me than he could."

"But," Andromeda furrows her brow, trying to recall the story. "You still haven't told me what's wrong. How does he know I can help when I don't even know if I can help?"

"Because you're the only person that can know our true identities." Ladybug finished.

Andromeda felt the winds pick up and sway her hair against the sides of her face. Her brain couldn't process that statement fast enough.

"What?" She whispered, not very audible over the leaves shaking and turning in the wind.

"I don't know who else I can go to right now, both sides of me aren't confident because one side of me has a broken heart.. I need you to help me, and I need to feel like I can be a hero again." The deep blue eyes of the broken girl in front of Andromeda made her heart ache. The bravest, strongest, most independent hero the world had ever seen-- was by her side, begging her for help.

"I.. I can try my best." Andromeda responds, with enough fake confidence to put the smallest glimmer of hope in Ladybug's eyes.

"Right, so I guess.. I should start from a few days ago." Ladybug takes a deep breath. "I feel horrible saying it now, but... I sort of asked a brand new friend of mine if she could... refrain from becoming close with the guy I liked. It was... stupidly selfish, and childish. It was even more childish that I stayed kind of angry with her afterwards, I didn't really talk to her because she still continued to talk to this guy... And then today, on what was possibly the worst day of my life, I saw the way he looks at her." Ladybug brings her knees up to her chest. "He lifter her up and spun her around like a princess, and asked her on a date and complimented her a lot-- and it hurt, but... I haven't seen him that happy in the years I've known him."

Andromeda was going to puke. She couldn't possibly mean...

"Adrien never looks at me like that." She finishes.

Andromeda's world was collapsing around her.

"And that's why I know I need to let go." Ladybug lifts a gloved finger to her eye and wipes a tear away. "But letting go is becoming the hardest part. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel like I can get out of bed, let alone go to drama practice and see them again." Ladybug takes a shaky breath, "I don't know how to apologize to Andromeda either, for ever asking something of her when we were just barely becoming friends. I ruined a great potential friendship."

Ladybug brought her hands up to cover her face, finally letting out a choked sob. Andromeda didn't know how to react. It was obviously her job to console, to fix, to soothe... but how could she fix a problem that she caused?

How could she make Adrien stop liking her when she never knew he did in the first place?

"Hey," Andromeda finally whispers, pulling the heroine into her arms and patting the back of her head. She wanted desperately for this to just be another bad dream, just an anxiety attack coming to terrorize her and not at all the harsh reality she was facing. "That. Just tell her all that." Andromeda felt her own eyes water up a bit. This had never happened before. No one had ever cried for her before. "The only thing you can do is be honest and sincere, and I'm sure people will see that shine through you and forgive you. Just don't lose confidence over that. You're still a hero, even if you don't really feel like one now."

"But I took out my feelings on her." Ladybug whispered back.

"That's not an unforgivable curse, Ladybug. That's human." Andromeda keeps her hands on the shoulders of the teen as she pulls herself together in front of her.

"You really think she'll forgive me?" Her small pout made Andromeda tear up just a bit.

"I know she will," She stands up, offering a hand to Ladybug. "And when she does, getting out of bed in the morning will be easier."

Ladybug takes her hand, a hopeful smile on her lips.

"You're a pretty good intermediary." Ladybug gives her counterpart a bug, before hurrying off into the night.

"And a pretty shitty friend." Andromeda whispers, watching her friend's silhouette fade in the distance.

How could she go to the beach with Adrien tomorrow knowing how much it beats Marinette up?

The answer was, really, she couldn't. It wasn't in her nature to hurt her friends, or rather, pretty-much-almost friends. That's just who Andromeda was. The doormat.

~-~-~-~-~-~