Persona

Sticks and Stones Part 1

Chat Noir

I ended up sitting on Marinette's floor, my head pounding and burning from a headache.

I rubbed my temples and thought of how I was going to mention this to Marinette without scaring her.

I closed my eyes tight and tried to focus on getting rid of my headache, otherwise the news was going to sound so much worse.

"Are you okay?" Marinette asked after a long couple minutes of silence.

I opened my eyes and forced a nod and a smile, "Yeah, I just have a terrible headache."

She sat down next to me and put a hand on my shoulder, "That's not all, is it?"

I sighed, she always knew when something was up.

"No, it's not. Listen, everything I tell you tonight has to remain a secret; if word gets out, it could really hurt me and Ladybug," I tried to explain.

She nodded and looked at me with her curious blue eyes, and I knew telling her this was going to be extremely difficult.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice low and quiet.

I opened my mouth to begin explaining, but her phone buzzed from her bed.

She groaned and ran to go get it.

I looked across to her, "Who's calling you at this hour?"

"It's my friend Alya," she said as she swiped to answer.

"Hello? Alya? This isn't a good time."

"Uh huh..."

"Yeah...me too."

"Yes it is, I should've been there for you."

"Yeah okay..."

"You too."

After that, she hung up and rubbed her eyes.

"What was that about?" I asked, watching her sit down beside me once again.

She didn't say anything, and her eyes began to grow glassy.

"Marinette?" I asked, reaching out to her.

"I'm okay...just please..." she trailed off and put her face into her knees.

I watched her sit perfectly still for what felt like hours.

She just sat there and whispered things to herself that I couldn't make out.

My heart began to ache for her, and I scooted closer to her and put an arm around her.

I moved her head so she could cry into my shoulder,  and shushed her lightly.

I put my face next to hers as gently as I could, "You're okay."

I kept whispering that in her ear over and over again.

"You're okay."

It felt like a lie, for she obviously was not okay.

But I tried anything I could to get my friend to stop crying.

After another minute of this, my miraculous beeped.

As soon as it did, Marinette's head jolted up and she backed away from me.

I looked down at my ring and saw I had about a minute left before I had to transform again.

"Anywhere I could change?" I asked with a soft smile.

She wiped her eyes and pointed to her balcony.

"I'll close the curtains, just tap whenever you're ready again," she said, her voice scratchy and tired.

"I could always come back tomorrow-"

"No, please stay," she interrupted, making me step closer to her for one second.

I looked at her in a way I had never seen her before, and I realized something strange about the way she looked at me.

Then my miraculous beeped again.

"Hurry Chat," she said, practically pushing me to her window.

I jumped outside, and watched her close her curtains.

When she did, I transformed back into Adrien.

I looked at Plagg, who looked as tired as I felt.

 "Are you really going to tell her what happened?" he asked, sitting in the palm of my hand.

"There's no way I could, not after al of this," I said, hating myself for it.

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to have to make up something...just for now until I can figure this mess out and make sure Marinette's okay."

"You're going to lie?"

"For now, it's the only thing I can do to make sure she's safe from an akuma."

To be continued...